Sarah Lu

FINAL ADAPTATION: THE BLING RING (2013)

A shot-for-shot remake of the opening sequence from Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, created by Viv Lun, Chris Ko and Sarah Lu.

With a total of 30+ shots, lengthy long-takes and multiple tracking sequences, the opening scene from The Bling Ring was a challenging one to recreate! After  spending two sweltering days filming and two more in the stuffy computer rooms on campus editing, we have finally completed our adaptation of The Bling Ring!! It was fun and memorable and I have learnt a lot from this experience. This project has also helped me further understand and appreciate just how much painstaking effort and detail goes into each stage of film production.

**For Assessment 3

Working with Light | The Bling Ring

To prepare for our final adaptation assessment, we experimented and familiarised ourselves with lighting equipment and the fundamental lighting technique of three-point lighting. 

This technique lights the subject from three different angles, and helps shape the subject and create contrast. The three-point lighting setup is comprised of: 

Key-light - most prominent light that illuminates the subject directly

Fill-light - light that balances the key by filling in the shadows

Back-light - light that shines on the subject from behind, differentiating the subject from the background and highlighting contours

We chose two short shots from our selected scene from The Bling Ring (shown in the top two corners) to recreate and light accordingly. To do this, we had to pinpoint the different light sources in each shot and determine what type of light they were. One of the key things I learnt in this lighting exercise was to deduce the lighting type by focusing on the shadow features on the subject. 

For shot #1:

Key-light - light from the top of the cabinet, illuminating the subject’s face

Back-light - behind the subject, slightly angled so that the cabinet door on the right side of the subject’s face and the back of her hair is lit up

For shot #2:

Key-light - on the right of the subject, coming from the wardrobe light/lamp

Fill-light - coming from the left of the subject, filling in the shadows created by the key-light and thus cancelling out any harsh shadows on her face

Working with BlackMagic Cameras | The Bling Ring 

For the adaptation assessment, we will be shooting our film with BlackMagic cameras. Therefore, this week’s tutorial was spent familiarising ourselves with cameras and different camera settings, including ISO, aperture, shutter speed and white balance. 

To better acquaint ourselves with the camera, we took turns filming as many shots as we could from the start of our chosen sequence. Through this process, we were able to begin analysing the opening scene from The Bling Ring in more detail, particularly the shot composition, duration, camera movement and angles. 

Finally, I edited the individual shots we filmed so far into a draft edit of the opening scene using Premiere Pro. By adding some spotlight effects, I tried to emulate the lighting in the original clip. 

The major assessment for the term will be to 'Adapt a Classic’ where I will work in a group to pre-produce and remake a scene from a movie by one of the following directors - Deepa Mehta, Bong Joon-ho, Sofia Coppola or Baz Luhrmann. Possible scenes I am thinking of recreating are:

Opening Scene from The Bling Ring (2013) dir. Sofia Coppola

End Scene from Memories of Murder (2003) dir. Bong Joon-ho

“Together in Death” Scene from Romeo and Juliet (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann

In Treetops (2020) by Sarah Lu

In Treetops is a reflection on my journey moving countries and how this experience shaped my perspective towards home. When I was younger, I failed to appreciate what I had and I constantly desired to move somewhere ‘better’. Now that I’m older, I’ve realised that perhaps in order for me to appreciate my home, I had to leave it. The title is a reference to both my street back home and the memories that stem from that place. The narration is written in the form of a personal letter to my city as letters are usually written to faraway loved ones to let them know you’re thinking of them. I end my narration with “Arohanui” which is Maori for ‘with deep affection’ and often used to close letters.

With this story, I also wanted to explore how certain things can evoke memories that we have deeply buried. To illustrate the remembrance of forgotten memories in my video, I transitioned between blurry and grainy versions of the same image and overlaid images to highlight similar aspects between the Sydney and Auckland suburbs I reside in. The gentle chirps of tuis can also be heard throughout - a familiar sound I connect with home and life amongst the treetops. Ultimately, In Treetops is an assurance to myself, and others, that although we may resent the places we come from at times, we grow and change, and we’ll always have that place to remember and claim as home.

Photo Essay Draft #1

~ What? ~

For my personal photo essay, I want to centre my story around my journey moving from Auckland to Sydney and how, ironically, leaving helped me gain a deeper appreciation of my home. Growing up, I thought my city was small and unexciting. The cityscape and everyday scenes became increasingly monotonous and lacklustre to me. As a child and teenager, I was greatly influenced by films, blogs and other media which predominantly portrayed romanticised images of places in the USA or Europe. I lived in a city which I could hardly ever see on the screen. With idealistic dreams and a longing to see these big and faraway cities, I took a leap and started a new chapter in Sydney.

Arriving in Sydney, I was mesmerised by the new opportunities and sights presented to me at every corner. It was refreshing yet daunting to live in a city where I didn't know anyone. However, when a few months had passed by, feelings of homesickness and loneliness began to creep into existence. After that, the feelings came and hit me in waves throughout the next 2 years.

If I were to pinpoint a specific moment in time when these waves of homesickness, loneliness and anxiety started to ebb away, it would be the period where I moved off-campus and into my friend’s house. Here, I was able to find solace in the comforts of suburbia. The daily walks home from the station served as an opportunity for me to explore my neighbourhood, and I soon came to notice common sights and happenings that reminded me of home. This sense of familiarity and connection to home has been my greatest consolation. It is interesting that some of the things I found so insignificant about my Auckland home are the very things that helped me appreciate what I had left behind.

~ Why? ~

I have chosen this story because:

I'm grateful for the unexpected but special lessons and realisations this experience has given me

Before, I failed to value and appreciate what I had and instead of acknowledging how lucky I was to live where I did, I desired to move somewhere "better". I would like this photo essay to be a homage of some sort to my home, to show my appreciation and fondness for it

I'm interested in exploring the concept of "home" as well as memories…and how certain things can suddenly evoke memories we had buried or forgotten for a long time; how inconsequential things can end up carrying so much weight and significance

~ How? ~

Some editing and creative decisions I could employ to convey my story:

Contrasting filters or saturation levels of photos to represent different times or distinguish between images taken in Auckland and images taken in Sydney

Match cuts

Split screen to highlight similarities

Music to carry feelings of nostalgia, longing, warmth and affection

Overlaying images on top of each other or onto specific, meaningful objects

**For Assessment 3

sarah’s room

In these unusual times, life has felt stagnant and small.

Each passing day brings a deeper yearning for a return to normalcy and a reminder of the once comforting mundanities of everyday life.

One of the things I miss the most is the tender solitude I found in my room.

With my postcard collections, movie posters, photographs, book stacks, desk paraphernalia and DIY projects, I created and decorated a world where I could be as lazy and messy as I desired, where I could be unabashedly myself.

Now, being forced to stay in a place I love, I feel somewhat trapped.

This world of mine has lost some of its lustre, and the smallness of my room has become evermore obtrusive.

It  has become my classroom, my restaurant, my library, my cinema.

Favorite Film: Her (2013) dir. Spike Jonze

Her is a perfect blend of some of my favourite genres - sci-fi, drama and romance. Everytime I watch it, I am overwhelmed by a wave of contrasting emotions - melancholy, comfort, loneliness and wholeness. It is an unconventional love story of Theodore Twombly, a lonely and introverted writer who falls in love with his sentient operating system, Samantha. Theodore is a soulful and sentimental individual, capable of crafting romantic, heartfelt letters for other people. However, when it comes to his own feelings, he is unable to convey them and succumbs to ennui and insecurity. He desperately longs for love and connection in an ever-increasingly disconnected society. Theodore finds himself emotionally distant, not only from those around him, but even himself. However, when Theodore is introduced to his OS, he develops a connection with ‘her’. She helps Theodore with his emotional and psychological needs, and their relationship helps Theodore to blossom and become more in touch with himself. The film poses some big technological questions central to the story, such as whether we as human beings can have a genuine relationship with an inhuman entity, and whether these inhuman AI entities can develop human emotions or become ‘human’. 

Unlike most sci-fi films which have harsh and cool tones, the futuristic world in Her is drenched with a colour palette free of blues and filled with raspberry reds, caramel browns, ecrus and creamy whites. With these warm and saturated colours, the characters and world in Her is more human and emotionally resonant. Theodore’s signature red shirt distinguishes him visually from the muted backgrounds and symbolically, may represent his passion, compassion and hopefulness. Coupled with Hoytema’s beautiful cinematography and Arcade Fire’s emotional synth-based score, Her is able to capture the complexities of love and the many ways that technology both isolates and connects us.