The portrait of identity that I've created is based off of several things that to me, make me who I am as a person. The first thing to note is that the background is the Ireland flag. This is because I have Irish ancestry (as my mum is from Ireland originally, and also that my name is an Irish name). So having the Ireland flag as part of my identity poster was necessary because it relates to my history of ancestors. Alongside being part of my identity, I had a brilliant idea of using the flag to portray my different types of identity, where I use the different colours to represent different personality types I have. That way, I have a reason to include the flag in the first place.
Moving onto the other parts I've included that make up my identity. In the top middle, you see a rainbow infinite symbol, which represents autism. I am autistic myself, having been diagnosed at the age of 3. While it has impacted my life in terms of the way I learn, autism has also had some benefits, specifically to who I am as a person. Some traits include being friendly, having special interests in some topics, being open to learning more about something that piques some slight interest, etc. The reason the symbol is in the middle under a blank expression photo of me is that I believe that autism is like the middle part that holds my identity together, in terms of how I want to express myself, whether that be quirky or mellow.
The next part of what I've included that makes my identity is the left side of the portrait, where you see a film reel above a photo of me thinking. As I've mentioned above, people with autism may have special interests in something, and for me, it's film. Ever since I was a kid, films have been something near and dear to me, and I can't think of a specific reason as to why, my best reason as to why is they bring a form of catharsis where I can not care about what's going on and just enjoy something for an hour and a half, and sometimes, a movie can pull you in way's you don't expect, where you anticipate what happens as the film goes on and eventually how they conclude the story.
The final part of what I've included that makes up part of the identity is at the right side of the portrait, as I'm seen with a devious expression with only half my face being shown, alongside a derpy expression above the photo of me. This is about my actual personality around my friends. I am someone who usually acts eccentric around most people because I always have a mentality of making the most out of something that I'll get to experience once. I started this around 2 years and I've not stopped once, mostly because I wanted to both appreciate the past and the future. Having this personality helps me forget about my potential problems and have a good time for myself and potentially others around me, though sometimes it may impact perceptions of me and maybe even work, I try to balance them out by reminding myself when it's time to drop this act and go back to normal.
While the final product turned out slightly weirder compared to what I had in mind, I can say that the execution turned out a lot better than expected, and a lot better than all my other projects turned out in execution. How I managed to insert all my different types of identity was executed perfectly, especially how I used my country of origin to both uses as the background and using the three different colours to define what I am as a person, where green is portrayed as the most interesting, white being in the middle and what holds my identity together, and the orange is what I consider the least interesting. The way I used the different colours to string together what I am as a person was certainly unique, to say the least, and I believe the end result states my identity clearly as crystal, I am autistic, I like films, and I'm eccentric/quirky.
Graphic Designed Inspired Picture
The inspiration from these graphic artists comes from structure from Tanaka and also a design choice similar to Huber. The structure part was relating the image to a part of our identity and what makes us different, but in my case, I'm relating it towards a disorder instead of nationality. One thing that could be compared with Tanaka is that in his work, he uses Japanese culture such as the different-coloured shape meant to resemble what can be considered an average Asian wife in his skin colour's heritage, while I use is the infinite symbol, which is a famous symbol for Autism, it is meant to represent it as a spectrum, as autism is different in most cases, and also the unlimited amount of abilities one can achieve with autism. The similarity is that I use something that makes up most of my identity as the main subject for the image.
The inspiration from Huber comes from the design choice of the background contrasted with the symbol. As you can see, both meet on opposite ends, with the purple on the left being red on the symbol, and vice versa. The reference towards Huber comes from how he takes a simple image and makes it something visually unique, such as the golf picture, where he adds extra clubs to replicate the swinging. In my case, I decided to have the colours be on opposite ends to not only view the symbol clearer, but also make the image more interesting to look at. What I like about images is the little attention to detail that not many people catch when they first look at it, and when you catch that detail, it makes you appreciate the creativity of the artist more, knowing he carefully planned this out in order to keep you more focused on the images he's made.
As for the image I created, aside from the contrast between the symbol and background, another design choice I made was to have the ring symbols contain an image that relates to my autism and what it does to make up my identity. As you can see, the first one relates to ambiversion (someone who falls inbetween introversion and extroversion together), and special interests. The reason I chose these is because autism is part of how outgoing I am, a common disorder autism is labeled as is a social disorder, where it impacts a way people interact in society, some like to be friendly and out-going, while others like to be alone and peaceful. I fall into both categories as while I like talking to others, there are times where I prefer being alone by myself. This is what I consider a symptom of autism that is most prevalent on making up my identity, so I believed it was important to include it.
The right side of the image relates to Special Interests, where it refers to something someone has a high interest in. people with autism usually get so attached to something that it may revolve around their daily lives. As for me, I do have a special interest in film, which was pretty much why I enrolled here, to further my career into film. There are some other interests I've had over the years, but film has been one that has been near to dear to me my whole life. My interest in film can be considered part of my identity, as I'm usually considered knowledgeable about film and can maybe spend hours talking about a film without ever catching a break.
As for the image, I'd say I'm definitely proud of it. What I'm definitely proud of is the contrast between the symbol and the colour background, it's a simple detail that I think makes the photo more interesting than it looks at first, since the symbol can be seen more clearer, and that the vice versa colours are also present, it simply makes the image more visually unique and appealing. One detail that I think is obvious to me, but not to others is the contrast between the symbol rings, where one side can be seen as a negative, while the other one can be seen as a positive. This is because social anxiety can be linked to autism, and most do struggle with social rules, so it can be seen as a burden to autistic people. The special interests part is seen as a positive because some special interests can lead to future careers and maybe introduce you to other people who you never would've known you'd be friend with, it helps them be more social without having to confine social rules and therefore may lead them to a better future.
Final Edited FMP
This section of my FMP will take you through how I edited the final product, on how I arranged shots to convey the story I wanted to tell, alongside other additional aspects I used to make it feel more authentic, such as including background sound effects and music to strengthen both the story and the audience's feelings when watching the product.
This will be in chronological order to the finished project, starting from the very beginning and to the very end of it.
The very first part I will take you through are the opening and closing credits, because these weren't actually done in Premiere Pro, but instead done on a software called CapCut, which I've had on my phone for almost 3 years at this point.
I hurriedly created them in under 30 minutes and quickly exported them to the PC, where I integrated them onto the project and finished it as a result.
The font used for the credits was Montserrat.
I do like the choice of font for the opening credits and can say I'm proud of what I did at the time, but if I were to do this again, I would try to use text on Premiere Pro so that it can help improve my skill in using Premiere Pro and help better edit my projects.
The next part would have to be adding the clips into the timeline to create the finished project.
Generally when you watch a video, you sometimes wonder to yourself how did they achieve what the finished product looks like, and when looking into editing, it would be no different.
In the case of my film, there are 2 sequences where it goes back and forth between the 2 actors
This method was more easier to do and less time consuming if it was shot separately.
How this method was pulled off in a single take was by integrating a 3 step system, where the actor would pull off 3 different emotions that would then be edited in order to depict the characters and how they feel towards each other right now, even though on set, the other actor was not near them, mostly having the camera being the stand-by, with the camera angles being adjusted in order to keep consistent with the heights of the actors present.
This part in the project is one I am the most proud of in general, not only does it showcase my editing vision and potential skills, but also shows people an easier method of creating a shot like this between two people. This is usually because this is the main norm of filming conversation scenes where only one is present and the other isn't, because usually it's shot in one take with one actor, and vice versa for the other. It makes it easier to film and more easier for the editor to edit it all in. Knowing this skillset, I can use it for my later projects where shots can be filmed singularly and then edited together to strengthen the story altogether.
There are only 2 sound effects present, the first of a stock sound effect of people chatting, something you would hear in a room with lots of people, and the final one was a music played when the Other Character holds the hand of the Main Character, signifying the Other Character's affection for the Main Character, to which they warm up to one another. The song's name is Eternity by Leva.
I found the people chatting sound effect on YouTube, where I screen-recorded it, then exported it to OneDrive and then integrated it into the timeline, where I toned down the volume in order to not make it uncomfortable to hear.
The song was found on a free music website listed in the credits, it was the third option at the time of searching for music and I felt the opening to it was something I was looking for.
This part in editing made me learn about audio mixing, specifically the basics of integrating a sound into the film without it being unfitting to the final product. It taught me how it should be necessary to either increase or decrease audio or video in order to make it audible, but also blend seamlessly with the rest of the video.
Rough Cuts
The first Rough Cut, with raw and unedited footage, and almost no sound.
The second Rough Cut, with edited footage closer to the final cut, but with none of the sound effects present in the final cut.
Poster Design
For my FMP, I had two posters in mind that I thought were not only unique and interesting, but also helped convey what the FMP is about.
I will go through what the poster depicts and what it means, alongside going through the process of how I created the posters to what is the final design.
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The black and white background was something that initially didn't have a meaning behind it while it was created. I created it because I thought it would look visually cool, specifically where I framed the text, which you can kinda see when you look at the final poster.
But you can interpret it like the blackness refers to the character's solidarity, and the white can represent faith and hope, as this links to the end when they warm up to one another.
The first poster is one that I'm not too fond of, while I like how I utilise the text on the poster, especially with the film title and credit, I think it has a lot of emptiness that almost makes it somewhat unappealing, especially at the bottom.
What didn't help was that the decision to make the title and credits more visible by changing the colours from where I put it like in black it was white and vice versa. While it looked cool, it came with an issue, because if I tried moving it anywhere, I would end up moving the background poster, so it was necessary to finalise the position of the text in order to make the poster the best it could be.
The second poster involves the main characters on a plain white background with one half being represented by a plain stick figure, with a new tagline that says "A film about friendship... ....Through the unlikeliest of people", this references the main point of the film, which is the two characters forming a friendship with one another despite their traits that would usually put something off from them, such as their posture and motor-mouth respectively.
The reason I decided to use stick figures for the poster was that it was another parallel to the tagline, where the two characters could be considered nobodies to society due to their flaws, which is evident as they seem to be far away from where all the other people are, so the stick figure represents their self-worth according to society.
Another key detail is on the poster that the two character's actual self are close together than the stick figure self, this alludes to the ending scene when they warm up and become friends, which can once again link to the tagline, because even though they don't have a clear understanding of social rules, that doesn't stop them from becoming friends with new people and finding new purpose in life.
As for how I created the stick figure mixed with human design for the poster, I cropped the pictures to only have it on a white background, then I digitally removed the background to make it a PNG, and I then used Adobe Illustrator to create the design you see on the poster. I tried my best to have the stick figure mimic the human body as perfectly as I could, this meant I examined the length of each body part, sometimes painstakingly down to the last detail. After I created the stick figure anatomy, I then cut the image in half alongside the part of the stick figure where the human body was, though there were times I had to move around some parts in order to make it match up with the body, which was a bit time-consuming. Then after all was said and done, I imported the design to Photoshop and completed the poster from there.
In my opinion, I like the second poster a lot more than the first one. Why I think this is because the second poster has an subtly intricate way of linking to the actual video, where the stick figures represents their importance to other people, which is sometimes none, and how the human part are closer to one another, which links to the end when they warm up o one another. Something to appreciate with media the more you look at it is spotting hidden details that not only reward you for liking it, but it helps with having a much more appreciative mindset to the person who created it, specifically in how they carefully considered how to integrate the detail without it being too open.
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