Design brief #3- Technical prototype

MFA DT Parsons Thesis 1 Yu Ting Huang

huany098@newschool.edu 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  TriStar  Home  Video,  1998.  DVD.  

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.  

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.