Storm Cloud - ‘View The World Through Our Eyes’.

From my second Storm Cloud project ‘In Search Of The Prismatic Cloud’, I gained some helpful feedback to create my final piece for this module! For my final project to Ruskin’s brief, I chose to team up with my peer Libby, as we both had similar ideas that bounced off each other!

To workshop our ideas, we firstly created a mood board with images from Pinterest – discussing what we like about them, the colour scheme and wake we can take from them. As our chosen brief from Ruskin was number 17 – ‘When The Colour Is Transparent’, we aimed to film to specifically illuminate on the detailed description of colours such as “Byzantine purple” and Tyrian crimson”. Forming a mood board together was crucial for us to collaborate and build our ideas together, is it included imaginative ideas for camera shots and angles as well as working on our piece’s colour theory.

Moving forward, we built a storyboard together, using my piece of feedback to create three clear sections in our project. The first section would be the two characters stuck in their dull and colourless world – one character, myself, would have an optimistic mind to search for the colours in their world and wanting a change. The other character, my peer Libby, to be stubborn to the possibility of change and wanting to remain inside.

The second section is my character’s journey to envelop myself in what the world could be like, whilst Libby’s character would stay inside.

The last section of the film would be both of us finally embracing the colours, being outside and open to a new atmosphere of strong and diverse colours around us.

Following the idea of Ruskin teaching his viewers about the environmental issue of climate change, we already knew the moral behind our piece: To cherish the world and the beauty of it will reveal what the world could be. With showing our audience the change from washed out greys and little colour to vibrant and intricate colours, this evokes the moral clearly to our viewers.

In terms of location, I thought my bedroom as the first location to make the characters seem closed in and almost isolated to the outside world, hidden away inside and away from bright light. The challenge for filming was choosing where the camera could be placed to get us both in shot. To overcome this, I used a camera holder and clipped it onto shelves and against mirrors to create imaginative shots. Another location I thought about for the last section was an open stretch of field paired with a wide shot to reflect on my character’s open and optimistic mind.

I took on the main role of editing, producing music behind the shots and timing the shots with the change of mood effectively. I used a group of string chords and multiple synthesisers towards the ending to evoke an accomplished feeling for both characters.

Recording dreamy vocals with heavy reverb in the middle section helped the idea of my character explaining their dreams and thoughts on what the world could turn out if they escaped the current dullness that they live in. Applying a ‘blast’ filter on iMovie to most shots that were filled with gradients of colours made them be highlighted and stand out more. In terms of the voice over, I recorded myself and Libby speaking out our own developing Haiku, starting off with a 5,7,5 pattern and adding two syllables on afterwards; adding in colours that Ruskin used in his 17th passage to bring back the importance of our moral in our piece – describing the beauty when the world is treated correctly.

Overall, I have really enjoyed working alongside Ruskin’s brief and would love to experiment with working on more expressive and imaginative briefs in the future!

Reference: Storm Cloud Website: https://www.storm-cloud.online/?ref=be69e2a6-9847-4e93-ab35-0327bd9d59dc