APD - Week 1 - Play and Self

By Yuxuan Hu (Estella)

Theme: Play & Self

Context：

When exploring this week’s theme, I firstly begin with a brief analysis of myself. Nandini (Self Analysis: Why it is Important?, 2018) supports that“Self Analysis is a process where a person attempts to know and understand oneself in order to explore possible changes which can be implied in one's character, personality, and motives.”

After class, I start with my friends around me to understand who I am in the eyes of others. The words of my friends are like pieces of a puzzle, putting together a familiar and unfamiliar me. At the same time, I am in the middle of Libra and Virgo and have a contradictory personality. To better reflect the inner tangles and contradictions, light and shadows are used to highlight the inner activities of the characters. The words used to describe me by a friend are expressed in the way the shadows interact. For example, one of my friends said that I was prone to trust and rely on others, so I added the character of "Right Hand" to the plot. The Right-Hand starts out helping me in adversity, making me very dependent on her and holding her all the time. The whole video consists of two parts: the outtakes and the final video.

Method:

For the backdrop, I experimented with different scenes. Ultimately, I chose to project on a brick-faced wall, where the grain of the red bricks can provide a unique texture very well.
For the lighting design, I used a low-angle point light source to highlight the individual projections. It gives the image an exaggerated perspective effect. There is also the advantage of avoiding having the subject figure in the frame.
In terms of the choice of subject matter, black and white light and shadow can give a depressing emotion. Therefore, I mainly depict parts of my character which do not end well, such as being overly dependent on others, not thinking things through, and so on. These are implicitly reflected in the video.
I was joined by two other friends (Kelly and Kevin), one to shoot and one to play the 'left hand' and 'right hand'. The three of us worked together and experimented to come up with the final product. In the process of trying, some of the footage was cut into the video.

Kara Elizabeth Walker (born November 26, 1969) is an American contemporary painter. She is best known for her room-size tableaux of black cut-paper silhouettes. She uses the silhouette lines in the silhouette to show the personality of the person in a very simple line. This is also reflected in my work. Previously my hair was draped, but in order to show the silhouette of a person better in the projection, I finally chose to take off my coat and tie it in a ponytail. Also, the movements of the performance are more exaggerated so that the overall effect is more prominent.

Response:

In creating this week's content, I felt like I was back in the old days when I was a child when the power went out at home when I took out a torch or candle and kept adjusting the angle and position to tell stories with my hands and the dark times became less frightening. When I have done the attempted training with my friends this week, I would often start over and over again because of the lack of cooperation. But it is this randomness that makes the whole process beautiful and fun with uncertainty.

Reflection:

After completing the whole video, I felt that I could use this in subsequent animations as well. For example, normal 3D animation is shot by moving the camera around the scene. If the scheduling of the camera can be fixed, the way the shadows are shot by changing and projecting light and shadow, the final presentation is a flat 2D animation. This differs from the normal 2D animation in that the shadows are more realistic and have a constant combination and variation.