For this assignment, we were required to create and narrate our own Photo Roman (motion slide show) that included composed photography, written word, narration, and sound sound effects. We could choose to work on any theme, however the final piece had to be 1 – 3 minutes in length.
Process and Ideation
The process of working on this piece began with selecting a theme. I began working on this assignment around 9th November, and as Diwali (more commonly known as the festival of lights) was right around the corner on 14th November, I decided to use it as the subject matter for my film. I chose this festival as it is one that celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil. It is a time to be hopeful in anticipation of better days, and personally I believed that in such a dire socio-political climate further worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, the story of the festival of Diwali was an apt metaphor to inspire at least a modicum of optimism for the future in all those who would watch the film. Consequently, I prepared a short 6-frame storyboard as well as wrote up a draft of the narration to be used in the final photo roman.
Here is a link to the initial draft of the narration.
As can be seen from the above storyboard, the purpose of the photo roman was to depict the Southeast Asian festival of Diwali, and what it symbolises historically and to me personally. The photographs composing the film were intended to showcase how people prepare for the festival in modern times, juxtaposed with a narration that describes the ancient myth of how the festival came to be, underscoring the commonality between modernity and history. The very fact that the tradition of illuminating a home with diyas still lives on in the 21st century, although possibly the connotation of the festival has changed, emphasises that the desire to protect and nurture goodness, love, compassion, and happiness is an eternally human conquest, and that it will always live on. The end of the film, wherein my personal connection to the festival is highlighted, is intended to use familiar cultural contexts to provide a subtle message of hope, particularly for the current (at the time) socio-political climate, and the abundance of strife we collectively witness around us each day. Overall, the photo roman is structured such that it transitions from intimate moments within my own home, to imagery that depicts the broader, communal impact of the festival.
After working on this storyboard, on the day of Diwali, I captured the photographs that I would use in the photo roman. I gathered both personal photographs from within my own home, as well as images of communal celebrations that occurred near my home, of people sharing the pervasive sense of joy with one another (safely and distanced of course) by bursting firecrackers, as well as of the lights and decor they put up in their gardens and windows to signal that they were partaking in the festival (which in my country of Singapore is a national holiday).
Below is a screenshot of some of the varieties of photos I took:
After collecting all of my images, I began collating them on Premiere Pro. I put them in sequence to ensure that they created a cohesive narrative, as well as added sounds and transitions as I found appropriate. After compiling a preliminary draft, I revised the initial narration that I had written to fit it to the sequence of the photo roman. I then recorded myself reading out the script and adding it over my film.
Here is a link to the finalised narration.
Final Work
Below is my final photo roman.
Diwali – The Festival of Lights
November 2020
Digital film
2:06
Reflection + Connection to Creative Practice
I think a challenge I faced in this project was identifying how to put together the images that I had collected in order to construct a narrative out of them. While the most obvious way to go about resolving this was to place the images chronologically as I had captured them, I was hesitant to do so as it did not produce the most natural outcome that suited the narration. Instead, I spent a significant amount of time constructing the photo roman around key points in the narration and then finding ways to fill out the gaps in between, which despite being a little tricky, I believe resulted in an iteration that flowed more smoothly overall. What I was surprised by at the end of this project was how much information and emotion can be conveyed through images alone. After becoming conditioned to watching films with moving images and sound that exactly matches what is occurring on screen, I was unsure of how much I could really do with just images. But in the course of this project I realised that in removing the unnecessary sound and action, one is forced to contemplate what really adds to the overall meaning and atmosphere of the photo roman, which for me personally resulted in a short film that I am quite satisfied with. Overall, while film is not a medium I work with often, I believe this work connects to my creative practice most significantly as it is revolves around personal experience, culture, and community which are themes that I often foreground in my work.
Work from:
Time with Professor Mike Rader
