#arts2065

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.

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

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.

Ferris Bueller Scene Recreation:

I underestimated the scale of this recreation. I didn’t consider sound at all. But we soldiered on. We recorded sound by having one of our team members holding a recording device between and below the actors. So she was crouched in a very funny position. We used a tripod at very high angles to recreate the scene which made the camera wobble even more since we were shooting on a lawn. You can see the focus shifting a little throughout the video.

Lighting test:

We used my Spongebob model for the film noir lighting tests. The toy was hollow and because of that the light made it look like it glowed. Even though it looked cool, it messed up the silhouettes we were trying to achieve. We shot the lighting tests in a dark room inside a cabinet to make it as dark as possible. At first, the light was very harsh. Thus, we used paper to soften it a little and it helped us achieve some good lighting.

Week Three’s Excercise:

I took a back seat on this project and didn't direct. Our group had differing ideas on what should be shot. Instead of lounging around and wasting the precious time we had, we got on and just started shooting. Xiao Xuan wanted to replicate a shot from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. Thus, we found a stairwell and did a homage to it.