Space Inspiration

This piece is inspired by an indoor swimming pool that I used to visit frequently in Taiwan. The swimming pool is located inside a fitness center called World Gym and the gym is located inside a shopping mall. What is interesting about most World Gym fitness centers in Taiwan is that visually they look more like nightclubs than spaces for exercising. As exciting as the gym wants the space to seem, the contrast between the lack of members and the loud music and complex interior design really makes the space seem even more empty and lifeless. In this piece, the narrator enters the changing room from the gym, enters the swimming pool from the changing room, and leaves the same way.

Compositional Strategy and Objective

My strategy for this project is simply to create a visual that will match the audio I made for the previous project. Since this project is more about the creative use of the audio and visual, I decided to actually make an animation using cardboard and Play-Doh to depict that literal space. The end goal and the overall objective for the combination of my audio and visual is to have both elements that are fake or not directly from a swimming pool to depict a swimming pool. I thought this idea of how both elements are completely fake and never involved the use of an actual swimming pool whatsoever is very interesting to me. Since my audio uses the first person point of view to depict the space, I decided to incorporate the same viewpoint for the visual. Therefore, during the process of creating the setting and visual elements, a lot of thought went into how these small spaces can be arranged and constructed in a way that my camera can actually fit inside these spaces and take the shots in first person point of view.

Working Process

My working process involves three stages. The first stage is to actually create these animation figures and the setting. This process alone took approximately 10 hours to develop. This process begins with brainstorming how to represent the space in a specific scale, measuring the cardboards, cutting the cardboard, making the structures, painting the structures, and creating the figures with Play-Doh. The second stage of the project is to actually film the project. During this stage, it was difficult to get some of the first person shots because the structures I developed were too small to fit my camera. Therefore, I had to tare apart and remake of the structures just so I can keep the visual first person. What ended up happening was I couldn’t take the shots sequentially in order, but instead have to take certain shots first and demolish some parts to take other shots later at certain angles. The final stage of my project was rather easily because during the process of filming I kept replaying the audio so the visual and sound have the same timing. Therefore, editing was just a matter of choosing the more suitable ones and connect these individual clips together.

My Assessment

Personally, I think the visual can be even more detailed if I had started the project earlier and not have as much work from other classes. If I had known that Play-Doh isn’t as easy as it seems for making animation, I would have picked a different material. My original intention was to take the images frame by frame so that minor details such as water movement and the movement of the people are also present. However, I soon realized that it is really difficult for Play-Doh to simply stand and not fall, let alone attempting to take many shots of all the different actions. Another improvement I think I can make if I can make would be the overall aesthetics. Even though it is obvious that the structures I made are what they are supposed to be, I still think by using other materials such as wooden boards and wires to create more details will make the experience more visually pleasing. Lastly, if I had the materials and time to repaint the structures again, I think that will improve this project by a lot.