Digital Photography and Imaging · Final Project : Self-titled

21/11/2023 - 02/01/2023 / Week 9 - Week 14

YANG ZHI CHING / 0365154

Digital Photography and Imaging / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Final Project: Self-titled

---

FINAL PROJECT · SELF-TITLED

Part 1 · Idea Development · 

Self Biography

Intro

Chelsea, full name Yang Zhi Ching. I was born on February 25, 2004, Pisces. I am local from Johor, Malaysia. I graduated from the independent school Foon Yew High School in 2022. After high school, I enrolled at Taylor's University and major in Creative Media Design.

Paragraph 1

It is always difficult to describe ourselves, so I've chosen the Mbti personality as the starting point--I am an INFP. To encapsulate it in four words: introversion, intuition, emotion, and perception. Put simply, I cherish solitude. In many ways, I do things intuitively and do whatever comes to my mind.

Paragraph 2

My interests gravitate towards words and art, like reading novels and paintings, and collecting aesthetically pleasing and delicate things. The INFP is often associated with having a keen sense of aesthetics.

Summary

My strengths lie in high empathy and gentleness, yet I don't consider myself on overly enthusiastic person. I'm not accustomed to taking the initiative. Online, people label the INFP personality as follows: pessimistic, procrastination, lack of motivation, daydreamer, and timid. Despite they don’t seem to be good words, I think they fit me quite well.

Work Statement

Intro

As per self bio, I have INFP as my subject. INFP is called "little butterfly" in anthropomorphism, and butterflies have always been my favorite logo pattern, served as the theme of my work.

Paragraph 1

Butterflies are fragile and beautiful. I especially like the idiom "break out of a cocoon and become a butterfly". It gives me a sense of beauty of "rebirth, brilliance, blooming, and dreamland".

Paragraph 2

I chose my favorite pink blue with high saturation as the main colortone, I integrated the motion of flying butterflies as the rhythm of the entire animation. Midway through, a butterfly occupies the entire frame, and then my portrait begins to breathe and blink, indicating my ‘rebirth’. The font is rendered using a particle effect, which refers to the ‘fragility’ of the butterfly.

Summary

The central theme of my work revolves around butterflies. In my own words, "If I were to liken myself to a creature, I would choose to be a brave and romantic butterfly."

Mood Board (3 Poster Reference)

Fig 1.1 Moodboard, Week 10

Part 2 · Poster Progress · 

Sketches

Sketches Solfware : Procreate

Fig 1.2 Sketch and Basic Colour Tone, Week 10

Digital Poster Progress

Photography Materials: 

Camera (Pentax); Lighting equipment - mobile, computer, ipad; Flowers; White Scarf; Tape (for fixation).

Fig 2.1 Photoshooting Progress, Week 11

Photography Shooting Result:

Fig 2.2 Photoshooting Result, Week 11

Importing butterfly pictures into Adobe Photoshop, I cut out the butterflies and orchestrated a poster composition. I separated the different parts of the butterflies and incorporated meaningful words: 

Chelsea 

たくみ 

(Ta-ku-mi - My name pronounced in Japanese) 

Slogan: 

Look in my face, Hold my gaze. 

(My favorite sentence from the movie "Call Me by Your Name.")

Fig 2.3 Progress of cut out the butterflies, Week 12

 

Fig 2.4 Separated Layers, Week 12

After importing into After Effects, I crafted the motion of butterflies fluttering their wings using 3D layers and effects, creating a flight path. Utilizing the Liquefy Tool, I added a subtle blink effect to the eyes, and employed the Mesh Warp to simulate the breath of the portrait.
Additionally, I seamlessly integrated and edited a background music MP3 (BGM - Love Songs - Kaash Paige, covered by Rhianne). In the final stages, through meticulous editing and design, the project was exported as a finished piece.

Fig 2.5 Making motion using 3D Layer Effect, Week 13 

Fig 2.6 Making the flying path, Week 13 

Fig 2.7 Use Liquefy Tool to make the eyes blink effect, Week 13 

 

Fig 2.8 Use Mesh Warp to make the breath of portrait, adding audio., Week 13 

Fig 2.9 Export Final Video., Week 14

Part 3 · Final Poster and Video ·

Final Poster

Fig 3.1 Final Poster, Week 14

TITLE:  "To Kill That Butterfly"

ARTIST STATEMENT: 

The title tribute to the famous novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”.  I would like to share the sentence in the book to all my loved INFP:

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

Final Video

Fig 3.1 Final Video, Week 14

Youtube Video Link:

 Adobe After Effects - Self titled - To Kill That Butterfly

---

FEEDBACK

No feedback received in this project.

---

REFLECTION

Experience ·

Using the new software AE was the biggest difficulty for this project, so I searched for various needed tutorials from various social platform such as Google, TikTok and YouTube, and put them into practice in the project. During the whole process, I have made significant progress from not understanding the operation page of ae to being able to perform basic operations.

Observation ·

I like this project very much, especially the arrangement starting from "Writing a self biography". Young people of our age are often trapped in the whirlpool of ‘finding themselves’. Confusion and searching are adjectives for our age group. From this project, I learned more about myself. In the past, the concept of myself only existed in vague consciousness, but this project allows us to materialize this vague consciousness into visual works. Even though learning new software AE is difficult, I still enjoy it.

Findings ·

From shooting the portrait to post-production, this project requires a lot of mobility. By the way, I found that when I searched for copywriting and pictures suitable for INFP, I liked all the search results very much. Sure enough, I am a typical ‘INFP’.