MJ x Art Box

To begin with, we were suggested by Mr Choy to think of our own individual ideas first and sketch it out for out IDJ. Without further ado, I went and listened to the sound clip and let me say that, my mind went blank when I first listened to it. When I thought of an idea, some random voice bugged it and I had to think of other options. It took me quite some time to figure my perfect script and I was proud of my own creation. Sound clip 2 and 3 are the most interesting ones for me and thus I got to produce my own ideas of the stage performance.

My group consisting of Yevon, Jess, Cherly, Aus, Shu Jin, Justin, Joseph, Angeline, Fion and I then settled upon a date to do a final discussion on the idea and we all agreed on sound clip 3. I’m glad that I could share a part of my ideas which was being considered as a part of the performance. Definitely, it was not exactly the same as what I came up with as we did some changes to make it more interesting, but I am more than glad to have contributed in choreographing for the performance. We wanted to make sure our ideas were lay out well so it took us almost 2 hours to discuss on the overall moves. Tiring, but that was what we have to do if we want to achieve the best outcome!

After confirming on the dance move, we stated listing out what kind of props we need. Eventually, our next meet up were focused more on preparing props while our leader drew out a more detailed maps of our performance. We got to use some leftovers materials that we have to do the props, but still, some of the materials were bought because we were short of it. We managed to finish up some simple props on our first meet up as everyone was busy with their classes and we could not stay long, but during our second and third meet up, we actually finished most of the props, and even got to learn the parts for the performance. I remembered that it was a Friday, after our class we head to D’ Latour as there were ample of space for us to practice, without having to struggle on whether will we be disturbing other students.

I am in charge of being the “number” for the safe box and also the “dinosaur”. Being the number, I just had to squat down and scroll the papers and stop it during the allocated time. As for the dinosaur, I just had to move from side to side so that I would become the target of the “aeroplane”. Seems like something simple, but it was tough. Our team leader was really strict and stern on our performance. She wanted us to do our best so that the outcome can be on top notch. At the end of the day, being only that 2 characters had drained all my energy away, I couldn’t even imagine for those who took a bigger role in the performance, their soul must have left their body when they were done practicing. Nonetheless, we knew the motif of our choreographer, which was to be the best, so we throw in 200% hard work too (though I still remember going back to my hostel having a really bad headache because I was literally out of energy).

As my part was done, during our next meet up, we just went ahead and practiced our part while the others continue with theirs because there was one last scene before the finale of our performance. I thought I was done with it but eventually I was told that there was a scene that we would appear. And so, my journey of torturing appeared once again :’). Our meet up days were not many, but the time was long, so it felt like decades when practicing, as we had to make sure we perfect our moves every time. Gladly, some other friends came to help to record our performance so we could revise back on our mistakes. Extra thankful for their help!

I remembered clearly our last meet up was the day before the performance day. This time, we gathered at campus, so that we could use the lecture hall to determine whether the audience can actually see our performance. And it was at that moment when we noticed that there was a huge table that cannot be moved on the stage, and it covered a bit of our performance. Within the very last minute, we managed to just change a bit of our position to make sure everyone had a great view of us. One of the problems I faced was the backstage. The place was crowded with props and stuff and I only had a small path to walk across the other side. It really challenged me to jump all over the obstacles to reach to the other side within a short time while getting my props on HAHA. I did stumble once and everyone was really worried for me but luckily I did not hurt myself so it was all good. With a few more practices, we ended our practice and head back to our respective home.

We were all so glad that the day is finally coming, but deep inside everyone was nervous as to what the judges would say. Would they like it? Would they hate it? Would the people be entertained? Would we fail miserably? I threw away the thoughts because I did not want to burden myself. With the other members constantly giving motivation and encouragement in our group chat, it boosted me to achieve the best outcome.

And finally, the day has arrived. We wanted to make sure we were all in good condition so we met at 7 ish in the morning to check on our props and do our makeup. Since my role would not appear that much, I got minimal makeup while most of them had full blast of face painted with lipstick and eyeliner. The performances started at 8.30, a bit late but it finally happened. Our group was 7th in line so we had some time to chill before our turn. One by one, the other groups finished performing, and one by one, our heart started pounding even rapidly. It was at the 3rd group when we noticed the sound system was a bit off as the volume was not as loud as the first 2 groups. We did asked them about it but they mentioned that there was no problem which got us worried as we the thing we fear the most appeared – we can’t hear the music well.

As the 6th group was done with their performances, we walked down the stairs to get to the stage. Worried, we still proceed with our performance. The music started playing and let me tell you, we were all shocked by how the music became so soft because most of us could barely hear a thing, especially for us, “the numbers” who had to scroll the papers which will limit our hearing to the music as the papers created a particular sound when brushing around our head. Without panicking, I tried my best to pay attention to the music beat. Since I was the first “number”, I stopped at my allocated time and guided my members next to me on when to stop since I was able to hear the sound better than they do now (as I’d stop moving my papers).

Everything eventually went well after that and I was so sacred that I couldn’t make it on time to appear on certain scene but I did it! At that exact moment, I got to once again know the importance of practicing, as the saying goes, “practice makes perfect”. Tick tock tick tock, the minutes counting down for the music to end. Yes! We finally finished our performance, my heart kept pondering with excitement! We did it! We were done performing! I remembered how we hugged each other as the performance ended since the crowd love it so much.

There, it marks our last CTS assignment. As the lecturers went on the stage after the last performance and announced that we were finally done and we should leave the lecture hall since there are other classes, everyone left the lecture hall with smiles on their faces. It was a complicated feeling as class is finally dismissed for the last time! We did take bunch of photos, to save down the memories on the best performance we had, and how glad we were at the outcome.

Since this is another group work among the 4 assignments that we had, it is definitely a must to have great teamwork. This project has taught me that teamwork is an essential key to make sure everything gets to be achieved to what we want. Practice as well, without practicing, how can one get to make sure that their project will be in top shape? This “sound wizard” project had also opened up my imagination, not limiting me to only a certain answer. Since there are other groups that used the same sound clip we used, we found out more versatile choices in what a sound can actually mean. It was a fascinating experience.

For this assignment, we have a timetable set by Ms D and the requirements we have to prepare for our tutor to see. For our first tutorial, we have to eventually come up with ideas of a few objects we can use and also come up with at least 5 interesting storyline. I seriously thought it would not be hard cause I have watched videos and comic strips related to it. I was so wrong, I barely even get to come up with one storyline and it almost did not make it to the list because it might have contain the restricted items. I did not want to stress myself out so I just focus on the 5 objects a=I can use, just like what Mr Choy asked for. Coming up with objects was not the easiest but also not the hardest, because I have to take in account on whether are there possibility for a comic line to be inspired by the items. In the end, I tried focusing on stuff I actually have and it helped me a lot. I have chose an instant camera, balloon, candle, a dreamcatcher and also paint (more precisely white paint). I sketched it out and did some research on the details about it. As for the storyline part, I only came out with 2 at the moment so I decided to show it to Mr Choy the next week.

During our next tutorial, I showed Mr Choy my ideas and gotten really supportive words from him (Thanks Mr Choy! It really made my day!). I also got to show him the main 2 ideas for my comic line and we both agree on the candle one. The summary of the story goes like this: The story talks about a candle finding it’s purpose in life. As it moved to the new household, it expected to be the light source and make new friends but eventually got bashed by other appliances such as the ceiling lamp and the table lamp. Table lamp even tell it that they do not need it for decoration as they have the chandelier. But after the encouraging words from torchlight, it finally got back it’s confidence. One day during the blackout, candle finally got the chance to shine and bring light to the surrounding. But something it does not know is, it is sacrificing itself just so everyone can finally see the surrounding. Eventually, it burned out and sacrifices itself. I actually really like the storyline, not sure what the lecturers think but I wrote this storyline thinking of the issue in our society. A lot of us are constantly trying to rise but will always get negative feedbacks from people, saying how bad we are. But with a little confidence and sacrifices, we can get to shine. I also wanted to stress about the sacrificing part because I’ve seen a lot of successful people who actually sacrifices some part of themselves to really get to the top, and that is something we shouldn’t take for granted, as if they succeed without paying any price.

Finally having the ideas in my mind, I started to work on my IDJ as most of my materials were at home (was still in the dormitory cause holiday ain’t here yet). I do not know what has gotten to me but I eventually come up with 2 new ideas using the 2 other objects I have not used. I decided to sketch it out on my IDJ cause why not. This time around when doing the IDJ, I didn’t want to restrict myself on the questions like what the template has given to me. I do still use it as a guideline of what my IDJ should have, but I change a bit of the way it asked. Rather than doing the things that inspired me and how I can use it in the assignment, I did it as if it is a research on some example and label out what a comic should look like. For the final idea, I make it into a final storyboard so we can see clearly on what my comic will look like. Last part of the IDJ, I wrote a small brief of the whole comic and what I am trying to interpret to the world. Now all is left is the photos of my objects.

During the one week holiday, I utilize one of my day in taking photos of the objects in different perspective and different places. I have then settle down in the living room as most of the other objects fit in the place too. I jot down a bit of the conversation I hope the objects are talking and have that thing in mind when I’m taking photo of the objects. The whole process was not really tough, but it took me a whole day, until midnight to perfect the pictures, because I have this particular scene where everything is pitch black. Have to also light the candle and off all the possible light source with the fan off too so that the candle would not be blown. When I am done with the shoots, I am already drenched in sweats. This blood, sweat and tears better be worth it (exaggerating at it’s finest). I thought it would be easy to layout everything too on powerpoint cause sadly, I got no Photoshop or anything that seems profesional (even if I had it, I would probably not use it too cause it will be lot more works and Microsoft Powerpoint for life! HAHAA) but yet again I was slapped on the face, it took me a whole day, in front of the computer trying to figure out how to lay it out nicely. It was seriously not that easy because I wanted to cut a certain picture into a certain shape but Powerpoint just do not allow me to. I got fed up at a point I didn’t care about the shape and told myself I’ll just cut it out once I printed them. But still, I managed to make a rough layout on Powerpoint so I can at least see how the comic will look like, and check on whether did I miss out anything.

Once I am done, I printed my comic out and cut them to suit the shape I wanted to before pasting them on the A3 papers. It was so much fun, seeing the comic form together as I pasted them piece by pieces on the papers, it’s like seeing my first born child (LOL). As for the cover I designed, with the candle in the middle and the title “You Will Shine”, I did not want to print it out on A4 papers and paste it on because it would not look nice, so I have it printed at the stationary shop and it cost me RM3 :) (There goes my Grab car ride) I was also not that satisfied with how the cover got printed out, because I expected it to be fitted nicely on an A3 paper but eventually it was shrunk and there was a lot of white spaces as the border :/ I did not bother to care more cause at least I have it printed out right? After that, I clipped them together and took some photos of it before placing it in an A3 size envelope. And with that, I completed my assignment 3 yeahhhhhh.

As usual, attached are the pictures of how the comic look like and the scanned IDJ I made.

Let me make a simple brief of the assignment. We were asked to make an A5 size fantasy book, “talking” about ourselves. The reason why I place a quotation mark for the word ‘talking’ is because we cannot actually “talk” about it, since it is a non-verbal book, which means no words are allow to be written in the pages. It should talk about our personality or emotions or attitude or intuition, or even all of the! The book should contain around 3-5 pages, bound with a designed cover and a back cover with rings. Mr Choy gave us the initiative to use other materials to bound the book and even sew it to make it really look like a legit book. Same like our first assignment, we have to make an IDJ out again, challenging for me since I am really not the type to plan out everything nicely and just follow it, I am more to brainstorming while doing try and errors along the way. But you know, a homework must be done so :/

To be honest, before we got the briefing of the task, I have already known that we have to make a book out and I was really anticipating it, but I did not expect it to be the topic of about ourselves. At first, I thought it was easy, well, I mean, talk about ourselves, I am a girl, I am 18, I like to do this and that and bla bla bla, but it seems like I was wrong. Since this is a non-verbal book, we have to express ourselves through pictures, and it would not be just simply introducing ourselves, it is way beyond that, especially since we are talking about our aspects of personality, emotions, attitude and intuitions. I really have to sit down and think about myself, and it really triggered my creative mind in incorporating pictures with all my personality.

I first listed out all the possible meanings I can get from myself, a deeper aspect of myself. I actually got quite some ideas with me, but the hard part was trying to express it visually and without using any words to explain a certain picture. I also got inspiration from the internet, on how some people collage their photos, and by using that, I tried making up new ideas that I can make use of to explain about myself. Once I have a picture of how I want to interpret about myself, I immediately jot and sketch it down and chose the few ones that I really want to express to everyone. Some of them seem to be really hard to immediately get the meaning at once, but it is something that I hope everyone will know about me.

As I have finally come with some ideas I want, I compiled them into my IDJ, with pictures of inspiration and sketches of some ideas. I then started to prepare the book by using mounting board and cutting them into 3 pieces, with another 2 pieces as the cover. My first ideas for the first 2 pages are to show the 2 sides of myself, one is the “darker” side while the other is the more “genuine” side of me. The “darker” side of me is more to how I want to look like to the public, focusing on the pretty stuff and cosmetic so that I can fit in. But there is also a genuine side of me that stays true to myself, that still wants to keep the innocent side of myself.

The third picture is more to the attitude I have towards the world and my future. It is a bit hard to interpret if you only look on the picture, so I hope Mr Choy can read my IDJ (prays). The fourth idea is also about my personality, well a bit of emotion too. I got inspired by a story of Whalien 52 and immediately think that it is one of the best interpretations I can say about myself. Placing the lonely whale among the clouds while other whales’ are swimming in the ocean, I wanted to convey the message that there are times where I feel lonely as if people could not listen to what I say, and I would think that I do not fit in to their world. This picture means a lot to me though. My last idea is just one of the personalities I tried to incorporated, which is a scene of a door in the middle of the road, and the scene behind the door changes, meaning that I love to explore new content and try out new stuff. I am an introvert actually, but I guess I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, that is why I love to try out new things.

Once I am done with the content, I designed my cover, which is filled with splash of colours as I wish to show that my life is not as dull as it looks. Although the outside looks “pretty”, there are things on the “inside” that shows the true colours of myself. I think that is what I hope to let people know from this fantasy book. I also cut out a silhouette for the front cover and have the words “Inside Out” cut out too. Done with the cover and pages, I glued them together to look like real books. Was deciding to sew it but sewing those few pages inside was a torture for me and I did not want to suffer again, hahahahaha, that is why I improvise and just glue gun it instead of using the binder ring.

Overall, this assignment was really fun to make, not as stress as the first one since I did not have to make such a big thing out (phew). It also gave me a chance to reflect on myself, as well as letting me have the opportunity to show people more about me. :)

               During the “Play” day, we were given papers with picture of a shape on it. There were a few shapes, I could not recall how many but quite a number, around 8 I guess? Everyone eventually got different shapes and I got the star. I did not have a particular shape that I wanted in mind as I really do not mind exploring my capability in creativity. We were asked to just draw anything on it, like imagine what the shapes could turn into. I was turning the papers around to figure out what image or object I could come out with and my idea struck just like a lightning (hahahahhahahaha). I got a head of a fox and immediately sketch it down, adding in the body as well. I was happy with my drawings although no one really saw it (HAHAHA). Some people’s works were presented and they are all so talented! Especially the one that got a triangle shape, she drew a mountain out, with the reflection at the bottom, genius! After that, the lecturer and tutors gave us another blank piece of paper and asked us to write our name on it and then fold it into paper planes. I was really curious at first though in why we have to write the name but I just did as told and folded my plane. Ms D then showed a slide of a bull’s eye target thing on the screen. “We shall see whose plane gets to hit the bull’s eye!” she said and it still did not answer the part why we have to write our name (hahaha I was really curious). We all did as she told but I think no one really got it, well a few got a near missed. Once we all flew the plane and thought it was over, I finally know why we have to write our name on it. We have to clean up the mess and if Ms D catches that whoever left their planes on will get penalties for our assignments. SLY, I did not think about that, ahhahahaaaa. And there it ends our class for that day.

               On the other hand of the “Fuse” day, we learnt to fuse different objects into an outfit, with the appointed 2 items as an inspiration on the outfit. Our group got ice cream and gun, literally two different style of items from the two different polar of the world. Our group members were really clever in incorporating the ideas though! We designed a cone, clearly inspired by the cone of the ice cream as the hat. Our top part of the outfit is a re-enact of ice cream and for the bottom, we have cups clipping together to form into a rounder shape as the skirt. We also cut the colourful straws into pieces and stick them on the ice cream part, as the sprinkle of course! As for the gun part, we have designed it as if it looks like gloves for our model to wear. We even did an extra mile to have our newspaper rolled into balls and coloured on to look like ice cream balls, and when we presented our outfit, we will have the ice cream shooting out from the gun! And when we were done with our outfit, it was time for show time where every group will have their model doing the cat walk on stage. There was a model from a group that really gained everyone’s attention (Go Justin! Hahahahaha). Well, I have compiled some short clips together that I have recorded and you will see what I mean XD. Enjoy! (p/s video quality is not the best cause I edited via my phone, and that I was short with storage so I have to save it with a lower resolution, sorryyyy)

Mr Choy, our tutor, assigned us to be in groups of 5 to 6 people and I am blessed to join a group of teammates that are hardworking and accepted me whole heartedly although I joined in late (got change to another tutorial class that’s why). During tutorial classes, we got a quick briefing from Mr Choy in how we can create our cubes and also our IDJ. IDJ stands for Idea Journal and it is where we jot down our ideas, inspiration and anything related to the project, you will hear a lot of this throughout the blog. After briefing, Mr Choy picked a designated Disney movie to each group, I was not worried that much since, like I said, I love anything Disney, but still got a bit nervous upon what movie will we get. Some groups got really interesting movies like Frozen and Monster Inc, finger crossing we will get something similar, we ended up with Pinocchio, yes that Pinocchio that came out during the 1940s, well before all of us were born. I did not want to think that it is an impossible movie to interpret into a cube, and it really help cause I got an idea really fast on how I wanted the cube to look like.

After the classes, my teammates and I immediately started doing meet ups to discuss about how we want the cube to look like. Natasha was our group leader and I can say she did a great job in making sure all of our ideas are being used in the project and not just merely focusing on someone’s idea. This is something crucial as it is a team oriented project, teamwork is really important and I am glad she took all our idea in account. We finalized on how we wanted the cube to be, we wanted it to be a more story narration with interactive element for children to play around. It was a rough start since we were all clueless of how the cube will really look like as we bombarded a lot of different ideas on it, never thinking how limited we are actually if we were to create that certain element in the box. But making sure our ideas do not go to a waste, we have them written down to refer it back. I was beyond happy to do most of the sketches so we can see our model more vividly through the drawings. Without wasting a single second, we collected all sorts of materials we can use for the project, although I felt bad for not providing that much material because I just moved in to the university dorm and got insufficient material with me.

Since we have prepared our materials, every moment started becoming more precious to us as the time we were left to make the cube out with was getting lesser and lesser. To make sure we get to have our cube submitted on time, we gathered up almost every day after our classes to start building it up from scratch. Trust me, it was NOT easy, Natasha and Esther had to spend around 4 hours to just make the base shape of the cube (shout out to both of them!) because we wanted it to be a “exploding box” cube, which was inspired by the exploding box card where the flaps of the box will fall down to reveal a flat surface. I was in charge on most of the drawings and brainstorming I assume since I contributed some ideas that made it into the cube (YAY). Our main idea for how the box will work was that the lid will be removed so the flaps on the box will fall flat, appearing in the middle is another smaller box so we can paste the scenes on it. But what is more surprising for this part is, we will take away the middle box at the end of the presentation as the inside is the ending of the Pinocchio story, that Pinocchio turned into a real boy! We first started with the 4 main scenes, which is the puppet making scene, circus scene, pleasure island scene and last but not least the climax, the whale scene. Looking at the idea that was not as interesting, we came up with an idea of adding another scene in it, which was cooperating the circus scene with the prison scene, where Pinocchio were trapped in a bird cage. We wanted the circus scene to drop down and show out the prison scene at the back. We painted the box with base colours and have our pieces of printed background pasted on it. When everything was glued together, it was so satisfying because it felt like we are getting somewhere.

The scenes were done so we went on with making small elements. Since we wanted a story telling base interactive cube, we made small little elements to write story lines on it. And to make things interesting, we made the characters out into puppets as an interpretation of what Pinocchio is -a puppet! Well, more precisely, a marionette but we were short of time to figure out how we can manage to make a real marionette out, thus leading us to make the puppet cut outs. We also thought of explaining how the whole box is Pinocchio’s head and the inside is all his thoughts, and the characters are all puppets since he thought of so! (Shout out to Jolene for the fantastic idea!) Having to prepare al the small details was one of the toughest as we need to make sure that everything fits nicely in place as we need to close the box. Not only so, we have to make sure every elements are not boring, and from there we have to start up with more creative way to make the interactive parts more doable. Since we wanted to rush everything before the dateline, we have to stay over on Saturday to finish up most of the thing. We managed to finish up about 80% of the cube, having to make the miniature pool table, sticking on the miniature Pinocchio, pasted on the whale to the box, making sure all the mechanics work and just almost everything. It was a hectic day because we spent about 6 to 7 hours straight that day to complete most of the task. Glad that everyone took the effort to come to campus although they are busy that day.

We continued our project after classes and there was only a few days left before the due date. Lucky enough, we only have a few things to do before we completely end our interactive cube. We also manage to get our hands with some leftover Perspex to make a “display box” for our miniature Pinocchio. Since we are done with the inside of the box, we finally got to focus on the outside of it more. Having to already paint the head of Pinocchio, we were only left with his eyes and his hat, which will be a decoration for the lid. We have our ping pong ball cut into two to be the eyes of Pinocchio, and as for the hat, we rolled yellow cards together to form into a cone. We also painted a white colour feather that we have on hand into red to fit as the feather on his hat. As everything was assembled together, we finally got the chance to try it out. We were really happy at how the outcome turned out since we poured our hard work in, although we were also worried at the same time whether can we meet our lecturers and tutors expectation. But still, we were relieved as we did the cube on time.

In between the making of the cube, I also managed to do a few parts of my IDJ. At the end of the cube making, we all discussed on how we wanted to interpret the box for the last part of our IDJ. From there, everyone was busy working on their IDJ to make sure we can submit the PDF version on time. I had already printed out and pasted most of the pictures on the IDJ so I was only left with the writings and drawings. As I finally completed the IDJ, my first assignment finally came to an end, and there is left is the presentation. I had a lot of fun from this project, especially getting to meet all the nice teammates I have and letting me be a part of it. I am not the type that likes group works as I am always being neglected but I would love to work with them again if I had the chance to!