• Reflection from Art of the Microbudget, RESCUE- YIXUAN HUANG

This is a desktop movie. The so-called “desktop movie” is a screen within a screen, presenting the story in the closed space of the desktop of the computer or mobile phone, all the shots are screenshots, this is what I learned from the Art of Microbudget studio. The film is like a camera shooting the whole process of a computer screen. The audience watching the movie is like looking at their own computer screen. YIXUAN uses the perspective of surveillance shooting to convey the network security issues today. The current social network covers almost every corner of the world and has become a tool for people to communicate with each other and an important part of life. When it becomes a narrative element in a movie, the audience will naturally have a sense of intimacy and trust. In addition, due to the removal of the gorgeous lens language of other movies, the narration of the story relies entirely on the surveillance video recorded on the protagonist’s computer, and all the information is placed on the screen together. The audience can join the protagonist in the whole process of the dispute between the victim and his girlfriend, from passive acceptance when watching movies in the past. Information is transformed into an active exploration of information, which brings the audience an immersive movie-watching experience like being in the scene, and helps to deepen the audience’s understanding of the story. The original threat symptoms and fear shadows that always linger in the depths of the online world in desktop movies are also the deepest fears of all digital residents living in the virtual world-uncontrollable events and a world that is no longer real.

• Reflection from Art of the Microbudget, COME TO THE CHAT…- ANTONG LI

This also is a desktop movie, but what is different from YIXUAN HUANG is that ANTONG LI has added real-world shooting. The combination of the two brings the audience into the computer video and the real world to immerse and dissociate. The character image that appeared in the protagonist’s video dialogue only occupies the size of the window on the screen. Under the premise that the actor’s performance space is already limited, the character image constitutes a second “compression”. Relying on the advantages of unlimited magnification of performance details by movie scenes, the image of the protagonist in the desktop movie is condensed into intuitive and expressive facial expressions. Miniature performances largely enable viewers of desktop movies to explore their inner thoughts from the subtle changes on the protagonist’s face, which is a visual experience that is difficult to capture and watch in daily life. ANTONG LI’s films use the dual logic of immersion and dissociation to switch back and forth between the two states of maintaining the illusion and breaking the illusion. The audience’s temporal experience is designed as a structure of regular switching, which becomes a necessary condition for the audience to participate in the illusion.

• Reflection from Designing Drama Studio, EPISODE 2- JIABAO MO

When I watched this film, the first thing that caught my eye was his red and blue lighting. Because from the perspective of visual spectral distribution, red and blue are located at the two extremes of visible light, they have the clearest visual experience. These two colors that have the most profound impact on human memory, red and blue light are great for creating a psychedelic and rich atmosphere. Using colored light as the background or partial rendering of the body is a very effective way while using colored light to create the entire scene, the visual effect is more complete, and the portrayal of the character’s emotions and temperament is also stronger. Therefore, combined with the whole story, red and blue are the two colors that are most easily remembered and used to render the storyline in his film shoot. Then talk about the plot again. This video brought me into my personal experience, I was also very unsuccessful in terms of ‘lover’. Because of my family and childhood experiences, I was very insecure and needed emotional companionship, almost all my love has been cheated on and abandoned me. I have been depressed many times because of emotional bruises and even developed psychological barriers. But the good thing is that I have my friends, just like in the film, the boy had troubles with his girlfriend, and his brother took out two bottles of wine to accompany him without saying a word. My friends are the same way, I don’t need to say anything, they can understand my inner thoughts, accompany me to go out on a trip, and drink and sing at the beach all night, it is they who accompany me out of the blue mood.

Reference:

https://vimeo.com/830788953?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=23057876

Episode 2 – Jiabao Mo

The tone of my film <CALL> was set when I started studying ‘The Art of Microbudget’ course, it was where I started to get in touch with writing screenplays, scripts, and the film sector, basically starting from 0. The most difficult thing for me was that I’m not confident. I didn’t know how to conceive the content, or how to attract the audience, and I didn’t believe that I could write a good script. When I started to learn to write scripts, my script was often denied by myself, my thinking was always blocked, and I didn’t know where to start. But every time no matter how bad or outrageous my script is, my Tutor Tim will always encourage me, whether it is plain or not, I just need to write. Write about my life, work, family, experiences, feelings, and everything about me.

The reason why I wrote “CALL” is that Tim will give us different themes for us to brainstorm and write scripts to practice in class. As for me, writing a script is a process of bringing myself into the scene, I would imagine that I am the protagonist of the script and lose myself. Therefore, I would wonder if we were also actors in the script. Are we in the real world in the real world? The more scripts I write, the more I feel ignorant, and occasionally I wonder whether everything we are experiencing now is also written by others. Is what happened to us what “they” wanted to happen to us? I refer to the movie <Inception>–keep going deep into dreams within dreams to know existence. I have always been fascinated by the nature of dreams, that is, humans can create a world while dreaming, and at the same time perceive that it is a dream, but they are not aware that they are both creating and perceiving. The wandering of conscious thinking in chaos is a common technique used by many suspense movies because the confusion of subconsciousness and reality will cause the audience to have confusion in time and space logic, thus achieving the director’s so-called “brain burning” purpose. So, I boldly took the script as the blueprint and built a self-created “traversing reality” system, which is equivalent to creating a new universe, allowing the characters in the script to wake up and come to the real world to kill and replace the screenwriter who created and manipulated himself.

The creation of microbudget movies requires the wisdom and ability to “dance in shackles”. As a visual plastic art, film’s aesthetic structure is realized through the blending relationship of two dimensions: spatial modeling expression and time narrative expression. Large-scale production films rely on advanced technology platforms to produce breathtaking special effects spectacles and rely on a strong art team to create beautiful and prescribed situations, which is difficult for microbudget films to achieve. If I were going to continue working on this short film script, I would want to use more professional lighting and shooting locations, space, and color to form the visual language of the film. Characters, plots, and story backgrounds all need space and color to express visual elements, and among visual elements, light, and shadow effects are the most intuitive way of expression. The combination of light and shadow is also the most attractive one in the visual language of movies. In terms of story content, suspense movies often use suspense settings to arouse the audience’s curiosity and desire to explore. A successful suspense movie not only needs to rely on novel and unique drama structure, complex plot setting, ability to control details, and superb suspense presets, but also needs to deal with and process indoor and outdoor scene space art.

In the end, I would like to say that microbudget films can leverage the big market. The artistry and storytelling of microbudget films are their biggest advantages. In the future development process, from the core of the film’s story to the presentation of the form, the artistry will be the foothold. From the content level, a good story is the premise. Unlike big movies that can compete in stunts and scenes, microbudget movies must be made into “smart” movies, with creativity, subject matter, story, life, emotion, and sincerity. Under the condition of adhering to the theme and connotation of the film, it insists on being consumer-centered, starting from the audience’s point of view, telling stories that are closest to life in a way that the public likes to hear, opening audience channels, and meeting audience needs.

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