Blog 13 Production process

Our team:

Louis Zhou: Main Actor, Art director for composition, elements, and action.

Danny Liu (me): Actor, Art director for Make ups, props, composition.

Howard Lu: Camera Man, Editor, Director

February 15th DAY ONE:

1.Set up

The first consideration of our Mv is the accommodation, we find a factory owned by Louis's family. It contains a lot of abandoned objects, including industrial component, machines, and article of daily use. After cleaning up a space for Louis to act and sing, we set up the chair and direction of lights.

After looking around in the factory, we went on the step of preparing the make up and costume. Specificlly, the yellow isolation coverall and make up. I drew circles on the suit with acrylic paint and water colour. This pattern indicate a whimsical feeling, as well as disease, endless cycle of repetition. The facial make up directly alludes to the Joker face, that is hard to interpret. Using the clown paradox as a starting point to discuss the topic of 'mental health' in our song. I also dyed Louis's hair into an orange colour, fitting the bright colour scheme that is designed to hook young audience.

2. Costume and make up

By wearing one shoe cover on the right hand and the other on the left foot, this 'wrong configuration' amplifies the rebellious nature, while showing some off beat fashion that may attract young audience to follow. Warning tape are added to Louis's ankles to tight up the loose isolation suit, while addressing the main concept of the 'yellow cordon' - a dangerous individual that has a deceiving appearance. Apart from the unconventional costume, we still can see a black leather shoe on the character's right foot, this indicates another layer hidden under the isolation suit, perhaps serious and 'normal', perhaps he was once a high class white collar worker. This juxtaposition of different clothing styles leaves spaces for audience's imagination. This facial identity - a colour palette of red, green, white, and blue references to the Arthur Fleck in the Joker (2019). Amplifying the unstableness and layers of emotions.

3.Singing for the whole song

As displayed in the photo below, we first filmed a part of Louis sing the whole song, this works as the base for our MV. We choose to include all the abandoned tables, boxes and clothes that build up a rough and wasteland feeling. This works in giving some mysterious vibe to the setting. The window on the right also provides nice shadows and additional lighting to the composition.

By using this one scene, we filmed Louis singing three times. Each time, we change the camera movement. First time is long and static shots, used to display calmness and the protagonist getting bored. The second time includes medium shots, dutch angle and a range of pan and tilt, used to decrease the distance between the artist and audience. The third try includes close ups, energetic camera movement to fit the climax of the song.

The shooting went smooth, but the while we are moving the camera angle, the light that we used the to shoot the first static long shot is exposed. It would be better for us to remove that and maintain the roughness and verisimilitude of the factory.

4. Additional photos

While thinking what things in the factory we can take advantage, we tried to take some photos using props: bible, earth model, umbrella. Which contribute to later production of social media post and digipak.

5. Window scene

As inspired by the beautiful old window, we wanted to film Louis standing beside the window - looking out seeking for something, echoing the central message of 'desiring changes', which is clearly presented in the line 'got nothing to do'. I thought it would be better to remove the scene window, and show the earth model Louis is holding in his hand, giving a symbolic meaning of he is unable to go out but still wanted to visit the world outside. However, Howard thought the scene window increase the depth of field, and present an overall mood of being segregated from others. It took a few tries to make the successful racking focus and really display Louis behind the dirty scene window, with the blurred focus that amplifies the theme of isolation.

6.Interlude

In our plan,the line 'Da da la da di da da' is a solo performance by Louis, so we went on to shoot that part. The story board includes Louis using a board to teach the audience how to sing this line, we changed it into Louis pulling stuff down a cupboard and using a magic wand in Harry Potter to perform actions parallel to the beat. Due to the static singing Louis did on the chair, we thought this sequence would provide more camera movement to show the mischievous characteristic.

After, we went on to shoot the line 'driving my car', we assemble the children bicycle. We thought about filming the shoot inside the chicken house, but Louis is too coward to go inside the chicken house. We then went on to a sheep and form this shot.

In the most ideal way, this shot should not shake and the racking focus should transit straightaway. The pan should correspond with the artist's head turning in the same direction. However, we filmed it inaccurately that Louis is not turning his head in this shot, causing a decrease in continuity.

At last, we filmed some clips of Louis trying to do a commercial for Durex condoms, this works as an actor reaction as well as sidelights for our social media. I was inspired by the phenomenon of Bilibili content creators (Chinese Youtubers) advertising for condoms due to a cut in their income. The same condition also appeared in Tencent sports - NBA channel, where Jissbon (condom brand) has its product being advertised.

February 18th DAY TWO:

We changed the make up and prepared MY costumes. Contrasting to Louis' outfit, the purple rain coat with silver and red squares. There are many way of interpreting the character of purple rain coat, it act as the other side of artist's psyche, a calm and dormant figure who cooperate the acting of his other side. The make up of Louis changed to a purple based composition that amplifies the nose, which brings more whimsical elements to his acting.

As in day two, I and Louis are both ready with our outfit, we can follow the initial story board and shoot the prelude. The first thing is to set up the scene of start of the song, where I and Louis look at each other on a table with various props. I added a lot of symbolism to the scene. The dirty fire extinguisher that represent potential danger and the edge of losing control. The squat toilet presented an out of context state of unreasonableness to alludes to Duchamp's conceptual artwork 'Fountain'. The empty flower pot that is empty, indication of filling and loss of life. The flat irons and plicated table cloth form binary opposition, while the pattern of plants brings an absonant feeling to the bizarre setting. On the table, the wok filled with shower water tube, and the stainless steel plate that is a symbol of middle and low class house tools, filled with industrial components implied at antihuman behavior, . This setting include elements of Chinese culture, the isolation suit juxtapose with the quirky tone also suggest at sarcasm toward the controversial policies of Chinese government during the pandemic.

The initial story board present a use of lemon as the catalyst for the prelude, but we changed it to a more symbolic approach by using old objects in the factory, this gives a surprising effect as the yellow and purple stand out from the gray tone of the background. On the other hand, the editing is the same as we designed in the story board, there will be medium close up with straight cut to show the communication between I and Louis, and medium long shot to display the complexity of the setting. In the practical, we tried a range of angles to make sure the editing has high continuity. There are face to face reverse shot to show the make up and costume, and give a slow start for the prelude of the song. Achieving something like Wes Anderson did in his films. We included the a ground level shot to show the asian squat, enhancing the identity of asian culture based.

Inspiration:

This sequence of shots alludes to the opening of Pulp Fiction (1994). It is a long conversation between the couple about a discussion of robbing the restaurant. This portray of daily life, juxtaposes with indicated violent induces audience's engagement. Similarly, our MV uses the trope of building up a dangerous character that constantly changes his idea. We also applied f reverse shots of people looking at each other, over the shoulder shot , and close ups of faces.

Although the overall structure has elements from 'Pulp Fiction', our positioning of props and decisions on including abstract representations give more of an art film vibe. I took several composition examples from the film 'Colour of pomegranate'. For example, this scene of him holding a book, which I replicate by using a table cloth and a Bible.

As there is a space in the factory, we decided to use this space for acting and long shot. This high stacks of water packages set up a central meaning of unable to escape. Add the dancing moves, giving more humor and a bored state that matches with the theme. We made Louis to do a series of dancing moves, and throwing and smashing actions. Across these few minutes, we picked out a few iconic shots: a mixture of internet meme dances, Micheal Jackson moonwalk, and typical bored behavior.

These shots form a sequence of energetic jump cut to display the naughty and whimsical side of the character, building up for further jokes in the MV.

For the line 'Isolation, it's not good for me', we did something that abandoned the story board. The original story board show Louis‘s face being smooshed by paint. We made Louis climb out the boxes of water, and created an extreme close up. This shoot is out of focus, which could be improved.

As the emotion in the song begins to heat up, we insert a sequence of shots of Louis blowing a condom. This whimsical scene represent an internal loneliness, unable to find companionship and fulfill his desperate heart. The hardest part for this shot is actually not to laugh, and stay the same expression all way long. This design amplifies Louis's facial expression and make audience to focus on the protagonist, and the individuality.

We followed the first half of my story board, taking a symbolic approach. We changed for the latter part where it became horror and creepy, even more dark and explicit. The use of fake blood drives in with a toy axe. In this part, we filmed most of the clips only once, and successfully portray a process of decay and reveal. We started from dripping blooding on the rain coat, and gradually smoothing it out. The problem with this step up is that maybe we can make the camera closer to the actors, or use zoom to fully show the details of the blood.

We also filmed some shots in a dark lighting, using a toy foam axe to create a sense of fictional vibe. This dark fantasy plus horror like the 'axe murder' feeling, create a unique artistic style that fits the characteristic of the yellow cordon. It could have been better if we shoot a few more shots, and build up the story line. Currently, the twist from 'dark comedy' to 'horror' is quite drastic.

This scene alludes to the similar structure in the film American Psycho (2000), where Patrick Bateman kills his college with an axe while wearing a rain coat. The idea of satirical psychological horror film is also applied on our MV, as the abstract narrative implied that the fragmented events are just LuZhou's illusion.