Design brief #3- Technical prototype
MFA DT Parsons Thesis 1 Yu Ting Huang [email protected]
I. Design Question(s)
What are language learners afraid of in speaking English? What kind of situations result in the condition of speaking English uncomfortably in public? What do language learners think about when they are struggling to decide to express their opinion in English? These questions I have mentioned in my previous prototypes again and again. For my first prototype, a documentary film based on interviews with people who have broken through the language barrier, I came to the conclusion that environment, relations of power between 2nd language learners and targeted
language speakers, and the limitation language learners predicted they will face all affect the aspiration of speaking English for language learners. However, I didn’t point out how exactly the thoughts they have contribute to this situation. In order to make the relative connection between and film and my target audience-‐ the language learners, I decided to visualize this struggling process inside their minds to people who are interested in this topic.
II. Research
The book Possible Selves and Performance1 explores the idea that “Possible
selves are elements of the self-‐concept that represent what individuals could become, would like to become, and are afraid of becoming". Most of the time, one of the common reasons contributing to not speaking English is that language learners are frightened by imagining failing communicating with others. In order to
1 Ann Patrice Ruvolo and Hazel Rose Markus (1992). Possible Selves and Performance: The Power of Self-‐Relevant Imagery. Social Cognition: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 95-‐124
visualize these struggling feelings and thoughts from language learners, I decided to do video research on movies that depict scenes of characters’ imagination and study the shots they created.
Pic 1. Pic 2. Pic 3.
Three movies I chose for my references were 500 days of summer (2009)2[pic1], Requiem for a dream (2000)3 [pic2], Run Lola run (1998)4 [pic3]. The reasons why I chose
them were that all of them featured scenes from a character’s imagination. 500 days of
summer (2009) depicts the scenes of imagination of Tom’s expectation, which might be a
good reference for my next prototype. Requiem for a Dream (2000) depicts the
imaginations of three addicts. In the end, I chose one scene in the film Run Lola run
(1998) as my best footage since the scene describes exactly how the character is struggling inside her mind and what thoughts and images pop up which influence her next decision. This scene is what I want to iterate and convert into my version.
2 (500) days of Summer. Dir. Marc Webb. Perf. Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-‐Levitt, Geoffrey
Arend. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2009. HD-‐DVD.
3 Requiem for a dream. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Perf. Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly.
Artisan Home Entertainment, 2000. DVD.
4 Run Lola run. Dir. Tom Tykwer. Perf. Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup. Columbia
I analyzed the scene of Run Lola run (1998) about the ways of shooting and the factors the director embedded into the scene to create meaning for the audience.
Pic 4.
Pic 5.
The director, Tom Tykwer5, inserted some struggling images of Lola at the
beginning of the scene [pic4], and then showing the images of people who she
thinks of later which explain how the character is struggling by herself first and how these people she thinks of influence her following decision[pic5]. I converted
this technique way using images of my character who is struggling inside her mind about whether she should speak or not, and the situations she thinks of during the process show up in my recreated scenes later part.
III. Project Concept
5 "Tom Tykwer." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Tykwer>
The goal for this prototype is to develop a connection between my targeted audience and my short video. In addition, my stakeholder such as people who work in the ESL education field and other researchers and experts can also understand better why international language learners would feel uncomfortable speaking English. In my previous research, I found out that most theories stating this problem are expressed in print or through hilarious videos. However, textual theories sometimes are hard to draw people’s attention and let them immediately understand the problem that I expect to point out. Therefore, I draw my focus on how to bring the struggling feeling inside out from language learners and visualize this struggling process.
There are several factors contributing to the situation of speaking English uncomfortably. It might be the environment around them, it might be people who language learners talk to, and the other common reason contributing to not speaking English is that language learners are frightened by their imagined failures to communicate with others.
“They might have met several failures resulting in this condition” stated my professor Scott Pobiner, who also inspired me a bit before I narrowed down my direction into the topic I shot my video. Therefore, I decided to visualize these frightened imaginations which contributed language learners not to speak English in public in this technique module. I adopted the process of the scene describing inside struggling process from the movie Run Lola Run(1998) and iterated these processes in my video.
IV. Methodology
The most anxious part for this project was deciding which part of the movie Run Lora Run I should extract and iterate it into my version. Another challenge
for me was searching my actor within a limited time since I only have myself as a regular crew for directing, shooting, and doing post- production work. Fortunately, I got a favor from my classmate Zhou Yun who did the huge favor for being my actor this time. I met another problem while shooting a 360 degree spinning shot for my character.[pic 6] My shadow was projected on my character’s face while shooting the spinning shot since the lighting source was Pic .6 fixed in a certain location. After trying several ways to relocate my lighting kit, Yixin Chen, who is one of my classmates decided to help me to carry the lighting kit while I was shooting the spinning shot. However, we also tried several ways to avoid Yixin be caught in my lens. Even though there are other small problems such as the camera kept losing focus while shooting spinning shot since the dark environment and shifted distance between my movement and my character, I replaced these imperfect shots by editing them during post- production.
User tests
After distributing my video to my target audience and stakeholder who also had been through the struggle of adjusting to a language barrier, the result was positive overall. One of my target users and another stakeholder expressed their feelings that they connected to the emotions in my video which depicts the feeling of struggling inside because of too many failures they have been through before about unsuccessful communication with others in English. The character in the film covers her eyes and ears by her hands
because she cannot understand what people are talking about in English and feels embarrassed about having failed to communication with others.
V. Findings & Next Steps
Mimicking a successful scene from a movie and replicating its cinematographic style to transfer it into my version worked pretty well for this prototype. I might keep adapting this method to recreate the scenes from movies I appreciate and then insert my content and my concept. This prototype has successfully gotten the sympathy of my audience and it has showed how language learners struggle inside by themselves before speaking English. I will keep producing different content with different focus but same topic for my future films.