#5IMAG003

[katiaelizabethanderson-blog]

Ohayo ((オハヨウ) Satoshi Kon (2008) Film & Animation

scene 1 - 5

scene 6 - 11

scene 12 - 17

scene 18 - 23

scene 24 - 29

scene 30 - 35

The scene numbering is to make it easier to read the text as it might be hard to read in the screenshots, but the screen grabs of the scenes are still easily visible. Below is the corresponding notes (numbered) for each scene. 

Scene Notes

The first scene is a title page, written in japanese is the word ‘Ohayo’, which translates to goodmorning in english. 

This transitions with a close-up of some objects in the main characters room, a happy birthday flower bouquet. 

This is the close-up. It pans down slightly, and transitions (the same way, by fading in opacity) to another detailed close-up. 

Presumably a birthday present, and a birthday card. Some princess pink quilted handbag and basket (maybe lunchbox?) has flowers and the same ribbon as the bouquet. These items seem out of place in such a messy apartment with muted colours and old fashioned patterns as seen from the rest of the scene(s).

Cut to a close up of the main character who is trying to ignore her phone alarm. The outer edges of these close up shots  are out of focus, leaving only the features of the face in sharp clarity, so we remain focused on the subject.

She scrunches up her face, an honest expression, unable to ignore the alarm any longer. 

Wider shot of the room reveals a messy room, cluttered with things and posters all over the place. She lifts herself up heavily, slumped, and reaches out to grab her phone to shut off the alarm. 

The one half of her remaining in bed is noticeably more opaque than the one who gets up to turn the alarm off. 

Cut to her in the kitchen, where she bends down almost out of shot to get some orange juice out of the fridge. I like the portrayal of a woman here, as seen in the scrunched up face. It is an honest look at a real person, not an idealistic one, who is just finding it a bit hard to get up in the morning. It isn’t trying to make her look beautiful in every shot, and that’s relatable and real. 

She glugs down the orange juice, tilting her head all the way back and finishing the carton. We see through her ghostly figure. The rest of the room is very dark, so we can assume it’s early, as we see the blinds are drawn but it is still very dark. We see her glugging the juice down from the way her neck moves, indicating big gulps. Again, this is honest and truthful portrayal of how people look in real life, when aggressively downing orange juice for sustenance in the morning. 

A quick jump cut of her kicking the fridge door closed, we see more details, like piled  up rubbish bags. Her life is unbalanced, disorderly, she might be depressed or just too busy to take care of her flat properly and that’s why she’s drinking orange juice for breakfast and not cleaning the clutter and rubbish. 

More clutter. She is still visibly see-through. Reaching for the remote on a cluttered table, with old dishes and empty cans, even a half full wine glass. 

Interesting angle as we see her sit down in front of the old fashioned style tv, turning it on, we see the news in the next scene.

Over the shoulder shot, dynamic use of small space. Would be hard to do this in real life setting, without warping perspective with a lens that would give the same frame so closely behind the subject. 

Back to the same shot we saw before from what seems to be the viewpoint of on-top of the television – where we are now watching her. Her other ghostly counterpart wakes up and turns off the phone alarm, just as she did earlier. They are doing the same thing but out of sync, neither of them whole, or fully awake. Visible in sluggish body language, slumped shoulders, and transparent figures of the same person reveal a sense of emptiness. 

Other self passes through her body, for a moment she becomes less transparent when the two halves meet. This is a kind of visual metaphor, that when we are balanced (whole) we feel more ‘full’ – complete, happy, or able. Being transparent like a ghost is kind of weak, no? 

The other self goes about her morning routine, getting orange juice that the first half of her already drank. 

She drinks it just the same. We view both halves of the main character at the same time quite often. 

Close up of more transparent self (2nd awake). 

Body language shows tiredness

Opening the bathroom door, the sun has come up now, illuminating the other ghostly self. 

One half disappears into the bathroom, and the other self continues to brush her teeth, as their heads both disappear behind objects in the room. 

We move to a side view from the perspective of the kitchen, and see a light and dark lighting of both halves. Again showing this theme of balance, light and dark within one whole. This reminds me of the present (gifts in scene__) in the first opening scene which seemed out of place in a dark and messy apartment, something so pristine and new, seemingly gifts for a different person more suited to them. Neat and tidy, more posh, more expensive, more ‘girly’ personality that the room (the owner of the presents) disputes.

They pass through each other again. This is significant conceptually and aesthetically. I have done this in my own film, and it’s a great powerful effect. They cast shadows on each other, it’s interesting to watch how they interact without knowing the other is there. Opposites of orange and blue coloured lighting are viable, another nod to the theme of duality, imbalance or contrast in one thing.

The second self to wake up is becoming less opaque, as the first one who woke up is becoming much more transparent. These are all indicators of becoming whole again, feeling like herself again, waking up to real life. 

A moan escapes as we pan up from a shoulder height shot (close up) to her face looking up into the shower. The lighting is noticeable in the highlights and outlining of her side, and the water is very reflective on her skin. 

They are both in the shower, that’s why she is less opaque.

This becomes more obvious when we see them separate from each other again, as she gets out of the shower.

2nd half of her is still very transparent at this point, much more see-through than she was at the start. 

Steaming her face, close-up. Foliage in the foreground.

We see them separate again for a moment

Before they connect again, making a fully whole (not at all transparent) subject, signifying their merging and completion of the morning routine. Ready to start the day, I’m actually awake now. 

This shot is the only scene where I believe she is made to look very pretty. Only once she has combined the light and the dark halves, is she allowed by the artist to be celebrated and become the object of desire or attention. There is a brief moment where we see her in the shower, it is a nice shot, and she is drawn in a pretty way, but this is where she looks almost angelic – a contrast to her scrunched up face or gulping of orange juice in earlier parts of the video. 

She finally greets herself (and the viewers watching) in the mirror, and we see her in an over the shoulder shot again. The only non-diegetic sound other than the faint music in the beginning of the short, she speaks the title of the movie, Ohyao (good morning). And that’s the end of the short.

This last scene is no longer than 2 seconds. Is she greeting herself in the morning – or her other self? Is this just a confirmation that the combining of the two selves made her feel neutral again, ready to start her day, and that’s why she said it? I think it’s just a good morning, a sigh, a nod to encourage herself that she is ready for the day after reluctantly getting up.

General notes

·         stars dark (dark blue, grey) ends light (yellow/orange)

·         no speaking other than the title at the end by MC (the main character) at the end

·         still elements of blue in the scene at the end, but it’s light blue, signifying a release of sorts, a lighter scene or transition from that ‘dark’ place where the main character started off.

·         the only time where she looks happy is the last scene when she is ‘whole’, i.e. when the two ghostly halves meet up at this part of the morning routine. A glimpse of this happiness is caught in the shower scene in the way that she is portrayed to be pretty, as a sign of everything coming to a close or back to normal, imitating that feeling of ‘waking up’ when you have a shower in the morning and not really being fully awake until we do so, as most of us can relate to.

 Notes on the soundtrack

Calm chime music (non-diegetic, not heard by character), like a child’s ballerina box play as an introduction along with a title page, setting the tone of what’s to come. However, the sound is a bit sad. This works well as it transitions into background shots (close-ups of elements of the room) which further set the scene like the music does... Elements of this chime melody are quiet but still appear in some other parts of the film. The intro music is charming and peaceful, and fades out to a woman sleeping peacefully - then disturbed by her morning alarm which sounds very different to the intro music, and changes the atmosphere from calm to disturbed (also paired with her annoyed expression at the sound of the alarm). 

Disturbed by a telephone ringing (phone alarm). Sighing follows from the main character and some rustling of sheets, intro to some diegetic sound (what the character hears, we hear). She turns the alarm off and gets out of bed, her footsteps can’t be heard. The scene cuts straight to her standing in the kitchen opening the fridge, so there is no visual of the main character actually walking until much later, and therefore no need to replicate/add the noise of footsteps.

In terms of music, (non-diegetic), there is a changing of pace in the music once the character has woken up, and the music continues to speed up until the last scene when the MC greets herself in the bathroom mirror (scene 35). It particularly seems to change just as the tv is turned onto the morning news, and seems to imitate that sort of announcement music that you would hear from the news, except on a more ‘chimey’ and calmer toned (also paired with light piano melody as it transitions to be more smooth as the music then intensifies and changes tone slightly, leading to the climax of the whole morning routine, the end scene). 

Other sound like - brushing teeth, yawning, gulping, fridge door rattling, shower running, shower curtain moving, dripping water, and general noise from the tv can be heard. 

WATCH OHAYO HERE: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYUFBnAmK28&t=1s

[oliver-crown]

Let Me Grab A Camera, 2020

[blogemilyw1533016-blog]

[katiaelizabethanderson-blog]

Video Research

Why does anime inspire me so much?

intricate storytelling - which often blends between reality and dream worlds, which are really interesting to me and relatable to my work / personal life. They often touch upon the different lives we (normal, modern people) - online and offline, real and dreaming, onscreen and off screen. 

What shots are associated with anime? 

Long, still shots, as well as “pillow shots” which are random cutaways to objects in a scene such as a water bottle or a piece of litter. This gives the impression of the shot ‘breathing’ which feels so charismatic and charming about anime. 

In anime we are also able to like in live action to jump cut and match cut between scenes. For example in Paprika we see a lot of ‘matching screen’ transitions. This is when you would cut from one scene of blood dripping onto the floor, to another scene which is occurring in an entirely different time/place however the scene matches and so they cut together seamlessly. Here is the example from the film. 

Woman in alley way stumbles to find a wall she can lean against, wide shot, long shot

Blood drips from her onto the pipe she rests on, and we see this blood trickle down in a close up of the bottom of the pipe

Close up & matching scene cut to the blood dripping onto the floor, however this blood is not dripping from the pipe and the woman in the alleyway, but from a separate occasion which is clarified in the next shot

Where we see a character holding a knife covered in blood. 

The way that these scenes connect is really smooth and clever, and if you blink you would miss out on the next scene, or the information that we have now transitioned to another scene. Paprika was developed by Satoshi Kon, and he also directed Perfect blue (1997). His shots have been copied and used in big movie names such as Requiem for a Dream (2000), Inception (2010), examples below. 

This same technique is used in other cinema, for example it is used for visual comedy in the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World in the scene below. This movie is directed by Edgar Wright.

Kon has used this technique in multiple ways, exact graphic matches as shown before, as well as the two time periods which mirror each other. However he would take this idea and put it on steroids, and create really dense / intricate dream sequences (like in the intro to paprika) which are all connected by match cuts or graphic matches. You will recognise this in his work when you watch any of his works. He liked to link and stack transitions back to back, so the viewer would never be very comfortable with a scene before it would dramatically change to another one, and like I said earlier if you blink you might miss valuable information.

He does other stuff like jumping through scenes, for example doing a murder scene : he would show us the build up, skip the murder, and then show us the gore-ish aftermath. 

This use of intricate editing, has a immense effect on the viewer, our relationship between space and time is so warped we don’t even know what we are watching. I like his movies because you have to watch them a few times, or think really carefully about what you are seeing to gain information from the shot. His films also read super fast, and watching them over makes me uniquely experience his film differently every time. His style of film and sound tries to interpret his idea that people all interpret the world differently. Our experience of fantasy, space, time, reality, is different person to person, but also collective. The way he moves from scene to scene is something I don’t see often in live-action movies. There is a relatable and nostalgic feeling to the imagery and I always have goosebumps from the editing, story telling, and artistry. 

[katiaelizabethanderson-blog]

WPS

Idea Refinement 

Recently (last two months) I’ve been feeling really low, and to celebrate that I’ve refined my idea. Perhaps ‘celebrate’ is the wrong word for it. The concept is video capturing myself or a replacement ‘me’ (actress/stand in) in clips of certain mundane, however relatable and frequent circumstances. For example...

Taking a bath.

Smoking a cigarette. 

Sitting in my chair. 

Making a phone call. 

Waiting for a bus. 

These ‘mundane’ clips and scenes would then be edited using After Effects or other software like Photoshop which would allow me to draw some animation into the clips. The end result will be a ‘mundane’ scene, with an added drama which would be drawn. For example...

Taking a bath. A toaster drops from a height into the bath water.

Smoking a cigarette. An ember from the cigarette catches the curtain, and a big fire breaks out. 

Sitting in my chair. (Not sure about what animation to do for this one). Could just be animation over my face of drawn tears falling down my face, while the video captures an emotionless face. 

Making a phone call. Not sure for this one either.

Waiting for a bus. I step into the road and am run over. (flash of red and step into the road signifies this).

The concept,

either my bad habits are coming to get me, or that there is an overall sense of impending doom on my mind, and I’m not even sure why. This will be shown through the scenes I animate (similar to my mixing of media last semester with photography & painting, although this will be video and digital painting). This idea is taking inspiration not only from my inner troubling thoughts, but also from anime films such as Paprika, Perfect Blue, and Colourful. These films not only deal with animation but also express thoughts on depression and loneliness. 

I also thought making these clips and compiling them would be a good outlet, a kind of photo therapy. 

What I’ll need...

graphics tablet 

tripod for still video 

actress or remote to control the camera myself while recording/acting

canon camcorder (available at the tech store) 

some time for editing 

I’ll post my storyboard later with more detailed scene information. 

[oliver-crown]

Page to page flick through of the book created online (ignore the watermark)

[oliver-crown]

Sample of Polaroids

Colour iType Film / untitled

Colour 600 Film / Pride 2018

Colour iType Film / Cheers

Colour iType Film / David and Audrey

Colour Spectra Film / untitled

[oliver-crown]

COVID-19

London has been put under lockdown, and therefore I am not able to use the studios, library, access equipment, models, assistants or any other people. 

I will not let this stop me with producing work, it will only make me work harder. 

I have put my current project on pause, as I don’t want to complete it to a lower standard than I would if I could access all the resources available to me. 

I will find a new project to do whilst under quarantine, and realise it to its’ full potential. 

[oliver-crown]

Sketchbook Upload

Title Page

Inspiration Moodboard

Circled words and phrases are ones taken forwards into the project

Preliminary Aesthetic Page

Intention of this page is to introduce fetishism, and set the vibe for the project

Artists and Photographers

Four photographers whose work I like, and seems to fit in somehow to the work I want to produce

Artist Mindmaps

More information and keywords about their work. Further specific research will follow

Catherine Opie

Tim Walker

Set inspiration

One of the first things I knew was I wanted to create a set with a material like this. I saw it online around Halloween 2019, and have wanted to work with it since

Moodboard

As seen in digital form a couple of posts back

Confirmed Stylist

I was told by Chantel King (from my internship) that often, it’s the job of a stylist that can elevate a shoot from good to excellent, as they are able to make the models look polished and put together than if they are self styled. I know Diogo very well and we’ve wanted to work together for a long time

Confirmed MUA

Craig is a make up artist I have collaborated with on multiple projects. He is easy to get along with and I would trust his creative direction in any make up project

Confirmed Models

Both Jesse and Zak came to mind straight away for this project. Although my work often has roots in queer content, I didn’t want to highlight this too much in this project. I chose Jesse for his hyper-masculine body juxtaposed with feminine facial features, and Zak for their andryogyny

Visual Interest

Some masks taken from Fashion and Social Media that I thought show the aesathetic of the shoot well, and would work if I could access them or similar

Lens Test

The next four pages were a shoot whereby I borrowed a f4 8-15mm Fisheye lens from uni. The lens is full frame fisheye when at 15mm rather than squishing the frame into a circle in the centre with black space around it. The shoot was unplanned and impromptu, so just used available natural light and no flash kit. Model was Chloe Smith

[oliver-crown]

Moodboard

My main inspiration for this shoot comes from the image on the left. It was taken at a halloween party and posted onto Instagram by someone I don't know. I instantly loved the decor and use of clear wrapping plastic to create another layer to their apartment and wanted to do something similar in a shoot.

My intention is to create a box with the plastic and light it from the exterior with red gels to create this dark mysterious space that is similar to that of nightmares. 

Other elements of the shoot I want to include are the red satin material, similar to that of the polaroid and the backdrop on the right. I find red satin very sexual and erotic, so the use of this material should semiotically point towards the theme towards fetishism within fashion.

The black latex gloves in the bottom right corner I want to use to sell a garment like a bag or jewellery, have a relatively plain background but with this bold black shiny hand forcing itself across the page, asserting dominance.

Other props I want to use are Gimp Masks, chains, dead flowers and any antique-style silver decor, like candelabras, mirrors etc. 

[oliver-crown]

DAZED Spring 2020

The newest edition of Dazed features Selena Gomez on the cover, with an ‘Ask Her Anything’ as part of the feature. The cover is playful and colourful, with the tag-line ‘Carry me gently, I’m a superstar’. The artist has been selected because of their new album coming out at the turn of the decade, and she is a person of interest embracing what they used to be like, but changing with the times. 

Inside the issue features 22 editorials, ranging from short pairs of double page spreads like The Love Letter shot by David Moses, to much longer Fashion editorials. The issue was much anticipated by the brand, including a launch event during the week, pre-newsstand, where they gave out 300 free copies from their offices. 

The imagery taken from the cover is included in the feature editorial about Gomez, where she has multiple outfit changes and set changes.

[oliver-crown]

i-D Spring 2017

My all time favourite copy of any magazine has to be the first ever publication I bought. I naively bought i-D’s ‘The Creative Issue No. 348′ when I was 18 and it inspired me to do what I do today. The issue is centric around expressing yourself and being 100% authentic. All images shot for the magazine were taken by Tim Walker, where it took him over 6 months to shoot over 100 models. In an interview with leading model and activist Adwoa Aboah he explains how he started with an initial group of people, shot them and then asked who they were inspired by or people who are doing really cool work at that time. Below are a few spreads that I really enjoy from the issue. 

[oliver-crown]

InDesign Mini-Zines

8 Page Fold-and-Cut Layout

- Open Layout provided (or make your own)

- Number 1-8 anticlockwise starting in bottom right position

- Top row must be upside down

- Use guides to align text and images

- Remember to ‘Package’ save if you send to another device

- Images can’t be displayed more than 100% size of the original file

- Export as PDF

This project was inspired by some found slides I came across in Brighton. I noticed some patterns in the slides I was looking at, seeing that a lot of them were taken around the dinner table, around the same time or just in and around the house. This made me want to create my own narrative about the people in the images, even though they’re not all from the same family or group of people. I think I managed to do this relatively successfully as I chose a wide time range, basing the storyline around the photographers’ childhood home being sold.

10 Page Concertina Fold Layout

- Open Layout provided (or make your own)

- Number 1-10 anticlockwise starting in bottom right position

- Top row must be upside down

- Use guides to align text and images

- Remember to ‘Package’ save if you send to another device

- Images can’t be displayed more than 100% size of the original file

- Export as PDF

I struggled aligning the concertina file to the crop marks provided, as my images were significantly longer but thinner than the layout boxes on the template. This meant that I had to resize the rectangle frame boxes, and they therefore didn't line up with the crop marks. If I had more time I would have made my own frames rather than using the template, because I didn't want to change the cropping of my images. The context of the zine was based around 2 weeks of instagram stories all based around Mirror Balls, and without the information on the top and bottom of the frame then they don’t really make sense. 

[oliver-crown]

PAGE / Tate Modern Framing Exercise

Fashion and Style Magazine Stand, Tate Book Shop

Rather than focus on a photo book that was on show in the Tate, or something that I’m not particularly interested in, I wanted to explore the presentation of magazines in the Tate Book Shop. The layout of these magazines has been carefully selected rather than in a Newsagents where they are all overlapping and unorganised. They are still organised by thematics, such as fashion, travel and lifestyle, however each cover gets its own space to stand and there is minimal to no overlapping of copies. The signs saying ‘Fashion and Style’ or ‘Travel and Lifestyle’ are very small and do not distract from the publications themselves. This is because there is no sign that can sell a magazine more than a magazine can sell itself. A lot of effort goes into designing covers, so much that publications such as I-D and Love have multiple covers to attract the attention of many people. This is to maximise sales, where people will buy the edition which houses their favourite celebrity or model on the cover. For more analysis on current magazine covers, see my post ‘January Newsstand Covers Review’

[oliver-crown]

WALL / Tate Modern Framing Exercise

American Surfaces, Stephen Shore

Found in a large gallery in the Blavatnik building of the Tate, was a selection of prints from American Surfaces shot by Stephen Shore in the early 1970s. He dedicated time for a road trip across America to shoot snap-shot-like images, on colour paper. The piece takes up a lot of space on the wall, and doesn’t have a specific order to the viewing. Subject matter consists of portraiture, still life and location images, all shot in landscape orientation. This adds to the point and shoot’ style of the images as there has been little conscious effort about framing the images or if they would be better shot in portrait. Each print is individually framed, with a large window mount inside. This encourages viewers to really walk up and zoom in on one part of the installation, which is them looking at one snapshot of the road trip.

The information supplied about the work was small and to the right of the images. Printed in the classic Tate font for consistency, there were two sheets pasted on the wall behind clear plastic. The panel on the left explains who the artist is, when the work was shot, when it was printed, and the numbers of each print in order on the wall. The panel on the right talks a little about the project, explaining Shore’s intentions of going on the road trip to document the important stage of his career. 

[oliver-crown]

LOVE Chaos and Control

Something caught my eye whilst walking past the newsstand today, thats the new LOVE magazine covers. They each have what seems to be a strip of masking tape saying ‘Chaos and Control’ on, in a different position depending on the cover design. Images attached below. This I thought was a really cool idea, as it reminds me of the design process, where you may leave notes on post-it notes about what should move where and what needs changing. 

LOVE Chaos and Control - Rita

LOVE Chaos and Control - Bella

LOVE Chaos and Control - Raff