Okay on to assignment 3. The gist? Make a story with a twist at the end with just 10 pictures. It does indeed sound simple enough. Though there wasn't any lecture cause of e-learning week, it was still easy to understand. There were however, lots of things they wanted us to take note of, mainly the different literary elements of a story; from exposition, inciting force, foreshadowing to resolution.
Initial thoughts:
I honestly did not, and still do not exactly know what the aforementioned elements mean, but I didn't really care. I mean come on, make a story, make a twist, that's it, just do it. This is also the first time an assignment forces us to take pictures, which I thought was pretty cool. Also, given my character and natural charisma, I knew even without trying that my story would end up being funny. I was looking forward to see what others had in mind too, since people today like to camwhore. Also, as per Alden, I sought not to aim for awesome plots of awesome looking pictures. I just aimed to make people understand my story from one glance.
Okay without further ado, here's my story. Commentary is at the end so as to not spoil the flow.
So what do you all think?? Pretty cool right? Okay well the story is definitely not original. A friend already told me some girl in her class did the same thing, only difference is mine features ME!! yeah!!and porn
Here is the breakdown:
Picture1: Calender, with exam date(exposition!! urgency has been set!)
Picture2: Me looking serious like "Mmm yeah exam coming, I gotta work hard yo!"(inciting force, foreshadowing?)
Picture3:Me going to Kinokuniya(Rising action. haha I just thought of this. RISING?? Playboy?? get it???haha woo! And it was ensured that the sign of Kinokuniya could be seen).
Picture4:Searching for the book/solution
Picture5:SAT/the answer to the story's problem found
Picture6: Getting it all.
Picture7-9:Bring them home, putting them down, stepping on them.
Picture10:Yes!! We have found the porn!! In your face!(Resolution, climax! It was taken such that the shelf could be seen. I hope that's obvious enough).
Work and effort:
I actually got the inspiration from a comic. A strip from Foxtrot. If any of you read it the strip is about Andy(the mom) telling Roger(the dad) about how happy she was with Paige(the daughter) for finally becoming a studious girl by borrowing a bunch of thick encyclopedia books, when actually she merely wanted to use them as a platform of support to change a lightbulb. SOOOO, I merely used that idea and did the same thing to reach for porn. Yeah, porn. I'd would go all the way to Kinokuniya for porn!!!!!!!!! Nah. Why bother when there's Mikesapartment, or Hankshoneys(Friends told me about these websites, I NEVER went to them before).
Anyway I got a friend to help me take the pictures at Kinokuniya. It was I must say, a rather daunting experience. Why? It was like damn paiseh la go to Kinokuniya and take pictures. Oh I was also very chagrined to find out that Orchard Library has been closed forever. That was my initial idea at first, I mean library seems to exude more education, at least to me. Anyhoo we had to make do with Kinokuniya. We sneakily took pics here and there. The picture of me walking in was the toughest, had to take it twice, plus I was afraid of getting caught at such a suspcious pose. The picture of me carrying the pile of books did us in, we got caught and got chased out. Oh well. Seriously, it's not as easy as it looks. It was like Mission Impossible, featuring me doing spywork with my camera. The rest of the pictures at home were taken with the help of my girlfriend. I got the Playboy and Penthouse magazines from the States last year. I could have easily used some old vcds but nah, that seemed so sleazy even by my own standards, plus I loaned them out long ago.
Here are my initial ideas and sketches of the storyboard. Below is the first sketch of my storyboard, which looks retarded.
If you can't see it clearly, the sentences say "characters looking serious and ready to fight but actually something mild" and "Hero ready to fight".
Well, these ideas seemed pretty alright, but I merely wrote them down mindlessly. It just didn't feel great, until I thought of the final one. (My girlfriend suggested taking pics of us looking as if we are doing it, and the twist is that we are not :P).
This is the final draft of the storyboard, "final" being a stretch since it looks so retarded still.
Classsmate comments:
Like my previous assignments, I hardly had any comments. My story was easy to understand. Siti was amused I would go through so much just to get porn when I could actually get the magazines at Kino itself(not true, they don't sell em here in Singapore). Take note however, I went for the class late so I was the second last to present my piece. By then others had to leave for classes and the rest were like half-dead by then.
And below are my newly added photos which I have rejected. I stated why I rejected them.
Top left: I am not using this cause I look fat and stupid.
Bottem left: My expression isn't as serious it doesn't really say "exams...gotta study!NUS rocks!" like the one above.
Top right: The Kinokuniya sign can't really be seen.
Bottem right: I thought this seem okay, but it doesn't portray me searching for the book. It insteads shows that I already found it.
Top left: I felt the final one had a better view of me searching.
Bottem left and Top right: Wanted to add more books, but due to lack of space, I rejected them. They were uneccessary anyway in the grand scheme of things.
Bottem right: This just shows me carrying the books, as compared to the final one where I chose, THEN carried my books, hence looking as if I put in more effort. This one here doesn't accentuate the effort and triumph I am feeling from searching for the books.
And finally, I rejected this one here cause I felt the final one I chose had better effect, specifically the first-person-view effect, which I thought was cooler.
Also, you can't really see the title of the magazine here. And it only has Penthouse here, the final one has Playboy too! So double the goodness!
Final thoughts:
I kinda had fun with this assignment. It did not require me to use Photoshop at all, so that's cool. I didn't think I needed to play with the colours to add effects. They seem alright this way right? Like I said, I aimed to my make my story clear, compelling and funny. I did not aim to have an amazingly awesome plot, I mean how great can it be with just 10 pictures? I found some of the others' stories to be good, but it took me quite a while to decipher them. The best plot I saw was my friend's one, Yong Teck. It involved time travel. But it took me quite awhile to figure it out hah. I mean why suddenly got dinosaur one?? Also, good plots aside, I felt it was kinda cheap to take pictures of toys and what not to make a story.
This is the first time I created a story out of pictures with no speech bubbles invovled. It was cool and satisfying. Amen.
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