Assignment: Visual Metaphor

During last week's class, we were asked to come up with visual metaphors for our issue. These are the ones I've come up with.

Assignment: Screen Design

TITLE

Youth Suicide – A long term solution for a short term problem

ABSTRACT

This report provides a brief research and literature review on youth suicides issue specifically among higher education institutions students aged 19 to 24 years old.Youth suicide is when a young person, generally categorized as someone below the age of 24, deliberately ends their own life. Recent studies shows that there are more than 4,600 youth from the age of 10 to 24 committed suicide annually in the U.S.

Thus, based on these problems the objectives of the project are to create awareness especially among teenagers aged 18 to 21 on the issue of youth suicide

ISSUE

Youth suicide is when a young person, generally categorized as someone below age 24, deliberately ends their own life.

Suicides among young people continue to be a serious problem. Each year in the U.S., thousands of teenagers commit suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for 15-to-24-year-olds, and the sixth leading cause of death for 5-to-14-year-olds.

Teenagers experience strong feelings of stress, confusion, self-doubt, pressure to succeed, financial uncertainty, and other fears while growing up. For some teenagers, divorce, the formation of a new family with step-parents and step-siblings, or moving to a new community can be very unsettling and can intensify self-doubts. For some teens, suicide may appear to be a solution to their problems and stress.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “In teenagers, depression is considered the leading – if not the leading – the cause of teen suicides”. Youth attempt suicide at an alarmingly high rate: among 15-24 year olds, there is one suicide for every 100-200 attempts.

Statistics for youth suicide in the U.S

Also, according to research carried out by the Commission for Children and Young People and Child Guardian in 2007, 39% of all youth suicides are completed by young people who have lost someone of influence or significance to them to suicide.

 Picture of the late Alviss Kong who died by suicide at the age of 22, back in 2010

Alviss Kong last Facebook message before committing suicide

In Malaysia, a suicide attempt is categorised under Section 309 under the Penal Code but it hasn’t stop our highly pressurized youth. Suicide has become the 3rd leading cause of death among Malaysians aged 15-25.
A study has been done and published in 1995 which involves 295 lay persons and 10 forensic pathologists that rated the lethality, time and agony of 28 different suicide methods for 4,117 cases of completed suicides in Los Angeles County.


Therefore, this issue is crucial to be addressed as the number of youth suicides has been increasing at an alarming rate throughout the years and continue on to climb. Awareness should be done in order to inform the youth that there are other ways to solve a problem besides suicide.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Teenagers are more vulnerable to indulge in the suicidal thoughts 

• Teenagers (13-19 years old)
• Young adults (20-24 years old)
Reasons: It is due to the fact that this age group falls under the jurisdiction of youth suicides.

GOAL

To create awareness specifically towards youth on the topic of youth suicide.

OBJECTIVE

• To engage user about youth suicide using visual and audio elements
• To stimulate awareness on youth suicide using visual and audio elements
• To trigger audience’s action and reaction: To think twice before contemplating suicidal thoughts.

BENCHMARK

Soon to come

REFERENCES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_suicide
http://www.suicide.org/teen-suicide-and-youth-suicide.html
http://lostallhope.com/suicide-methods/statistics-most-lethal-methods
http://www.psychiatry-malaysia.org/article.php?aid=802
http://www.ipedr.com/vol20/7-ICHSC2011-M00018.pdf
http://www.statisticbrain.com/teen-suicide-statistics/

Ideation process: Final Project

For my video, before I can do the visuals, I first need the audio. For the audio, I decided to use Bonnie Bleacher's "Come Wander With Me". This old song has a creepiness to it, that makes it great with the theme, not to mention it was used for the famous show, Twilight Zone.

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lVdIf8BJME8" width="459"></iframe>


As for how I want to do my video, I have decided to do a simple shot by shot video as if the advertisement of National Geographic's "I wouldn't go in there"

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CkScE1ZLpGc" width="480"></iframe>


As for the scenes, I would do first a Hallway scene where the lights will start to flicker, and at one of the flicks, you'll see a little girl just for a brief moment.

Then I would add a swings scene, where one of he swings will start swinging by itself.

Then I would add a doll scene, where the doll will suddenly move or turn to face you.

And I would also add a scene where a TV screen or monitor would suddenly turn on in the dark, but nothing is on the screen, only static..

Idea Research: Final Project

I tried to research a few ideas for the video. Fear is almost always associated with ghost, so I decided to do a video about ghost. So I have watched a few ghost stories such as:

The Ring

Ju-on

Kuchisake-onna

And also, I have watched a compilation of ghost video caught on camera.

Unbelivable Ghost video of Spring 2012:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVEgc6l57Sk

Horror Night Radio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSeBTD8lFj4

From all these videos, I tried to summarized the parts that makes us scared. I found out that the most scariest part is when you cannot really see the ghost but you know the ghost is somewhere there. So I have decided to compile some of the scariest scene into one video.

Final Project: e-Motion

For my final project, I decided to do the emotion of fear, specifically fear of ghost. So, in order to do this, I first need to research what is fear.

This is fear as defined as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. It states that fear is to be afraid of. 

And this is fear as described in Frank Herbert's Dune. It says that fear is a mind-killer, it is the little death that brings total obliteration.

These are examples of visualized fear:

"Child Scared at Nighttime" by D Sharon Pruitt

"The Pursuer" by Matthew Reed

Assignment 3: Extreme Emotions

Name: Nur Sharain binti Mohd Sharil

ID: 1112700885

Title: In The Corner

Artist Statement: In this artwork, I am trying to portray the feeling of loneliness. I chose a kid as my subject because in the modern society, whatever a kid does, gives more impact to us. Also, kids are known to never get lonely since they are always running around and making new friends. However, a kid can get lonely when they lack attention and love mostly from their parents or siblings. I chose dark colors in this artwork to portray the sad and lonely emotions. As for the typography, I chose the font "Impact" because the font is easy to read and when bolded, it gives a much better impact.

Artist Treatment:  Digital painting mounted on a board.

Work in progress: Assignment 3

As shown below is my work in progress for my final artwork.

First, I copied my sketch into the Photoshop application.

Then, I re-sketched the artwork, repairing the a few flaws here and there.

After that, I removed the original image, and add in some other details.

In this step, I scaled down the picture, changed the perspective slightly and added in the backgroud color.

And in here, I added in the shadows, and a layer of gray gradient with minimal opacity to give it a gloom feeling/mood/atmosphere.

Later, I added in the color of the skin and pants.

And I continued on with the color of the shirt and the hair. Also I added in some highlights to the hair and skin.

After that, I added in more multiple layers of gray gradient with medium opacity, to give more of a dark, sad and abandoned feeling.

And lastly, I added in the typography for this artwork, choosing bright colours, but not that bright, as a contrast to the gloomy background

Ideation process: Assignment 3

I tried to come up with a few sketches to show the idea of loneliness. Below are some of the sketches I did.

This was my first idea. I drew this to represent loneliness because as the meaning suggest, loneliness is to be cut off from society.

This was my second sketch. I drew this to show loneliness because I remembered reading in a book titled "Torment" by Lauren Kate, it quoted there,

"Loneliness in a crowd of people was the worst kind of loneliness, but she couldn't help it"

For more information on the book, click here and here.

And lastly, I sketched this to show loneliness, mainly because of a kid as the main subject. Usually kids are the type to socialize with whoever they meet. And usually whatever happens to a kid, the mass always ended up making a big deal out of it, thus dramatizing that factor to give more impact.

Idea Research: Assignment 3

For Assignment 3, we are asked to do  Extreme Emotions in A2 size. The emotion that I am going to choose for this assignment is LONELINESS.

But first of all, what is loneliness?

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary

Loneliness is taken from the word "Lonely" and according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, lonely means "being without company" or "cut off from others"

However, Wikipedia explains that loneliness is a  complex and usually unpleasant emotional reponse to isolation and lack of companionship. For more information on loneliness, go to the page HERE. 

These are example of loneliness as visualized by some people:

"Solitude" by Jean-Jacques Henner

"Loneliness" by Javier Ideami

"Unknown" by Riki Shah

"Uncovering Loneliness" by Thomas Benkendorff

Ideation Process

Motivation

The motivation I used for this artwork is as follows:

Kana Uemura- Toire no Kamisama


shou san no koro kara nazedaka
o baachan to kurashi te ta
jikka no tonari datta kedo
o baachan to kurashi te ta
mainichi otetsudai o shi te
gomokunarabe mo shi ta
demo toire souji dake nigate na watashi ni
o baachan ga kou itta

toire ni wa sore wa sore wa kirei na
megami sama ga iru n ya de
dakara mainichi kirei ni shi tara megami sama mitai ni
beppin san ni nareru n ya de

sono hi kara watashi wa toire o
pikapika ni shi hajime ta
beppin san ni zettai nari taku te
mainichi migai te ta
kaimono ni dekake ta toki ni wa
futari de kamo nanba tabe ta
shin kigeki rokuga shi sokone ta o baachan o
nai te seme tari mo shi ta

toire ni wa sore wa sore wa kirei na
megami sama ga iru n ya de
dakara mainichi kirei ni shi tara megami sama mitai ni
beppin san ni nareru n ya de

sukoshi otona ni natta watashi wa
o baachan to butsukatta
kazoku tomo umaku yare naku te
ibasho ga nakunatta
yasumi no hi mo ie ni kaera zu
kareshi to ason dari shi ta
gomokunarabe mo kamo nanba mo
futari no ma kara kie te tta

doushite daro u hito wa hito o kizutsuke
taisetsu na mono o nakushi te ku
itsumo mikata o shi te kure te ta o baachan nokoshi te
hitori kiri ka hanare ta

joukyou shi te ni nen ga sugi te
o baachan ga nyuuin shi ta
yase te hosoku natte shimatta
o baachan ni ai ni itta
' o baachan, tadaima ?!' tte wazato
mukashi mitai ni itte mi ta kedo
chotto hanashi ta dake datta noni
' mou kaeri? ' tte byoushitsu o dasa re ta

tsugi no hi no asa o baachan wa
shizuka ni nemuri ni tsui ta
marude marude watashi ga kuru no o
matte i te kure ta you ni
chanto sodate te kure ta noni
ongaeshi mo shi te nai noni
ii mago ja nakatta noni
konna watashi o matte te kure ta n ya ne

toire ni wa sore wa sore wa kirei na
megami sama ga iru n ya de
o baachan ga kure ta kotoba wa kyou no watashi o
beppin san ni shi te kure teru ka na
toire ni wa sore ha sore ha kirei na
megami sama ga iru n ya de
dakara mainichi kirei ni shi tara megami sama mitai ni
beppin san ni nareru n ya de

kidate no yoi o yomesan ni naru no ga
yume datta watashi wa
kyou mo setsu se de toire o
pikapika ni suru

o baachan
o baachan
arigatou
o baachan
honmani
arigatou

Good Charlotte-Chronicles of Life and Death


You come in cold
You're covered in blood
They're all so happy you've arrived
The doctor cuts your cord
He hands you to your mom
She sets you free into this life
And where do you go?
With no destination, no map to guide you
Wouldn’t you know
That it doesn’t matter, we all end up the same

These are the chronicles of life and death
And everything between
These are the stories of our lives as fictional as they may seem
You come in this world
And you go out just the same
Today could be the best day of your life

And money talks, in this world, that's what idiots will say
But you'll find out, that this world
Is just an idiot's parade
Before you go
You've got some questions, and you want answers
But now you're old, cold, covered in blood
Right back to where you started from

These are the chronicles of life and death
And everything between
These are the stories of our lives as fictional as they may seem
You come in this world
And you go out just the same
Today could be the worst day of your life

But these are the chronicles of life and death
And everything between
These are the stories of our lives as fictional as they may seem
You come in this world
And you go out just the same
Today could be the best day of
Today could be the worst day of
Today could be the last day of
Your life
It’s your life
Your life

Assignment 2: Typography Expression

Name: Nur Sharain Mohd Sharil

Id: 1112700885

Title: A Breath Deeper

Artist Statement:
This artwork represents about Life and Death. The artwork emulates the heart monitoring machine that is usually found in hospitals. I chose Black to represent Death and Green to represent Life. The typography element in this artwork is the letter "M" which in this artwork represents Miracle. This artwork is basically about a tense situation in the hospital where a person is in a life and death situation. Suddenly the heart monitor line goes flat. Doctors are trying to revive the person, and the family members watching are praying for a miracle. When they think all hope is lost, a heart beat was seen on the monitor. The prayers were answered and they had their miracle. Just then the family members and doctors can take a breath deeper knowing that the patient is still alive.

Artist Treatment:
Digital Artwork mounted on a board.

Idea research: Assignment 2

For assignment 2, which is Typography Expression, I am going to do an artwork that represents Life and Death.

What is LIFE?

According to Wikipedia,
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate. Biology is the science concerned with the study of life.

Newborn Baby's Hand that signifies new life

What is DEATH?

Also according to Wikipedia,
Death is the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a particular living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include biological aging (senescence), predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, murder and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death. There is no evidence that consciousness survives the death of an organism.

A human skull widely used as the symbol of death

Color Studies

The colors that I am going to use for my artwork is basically Black and Green. Why Black and Green?

The explanation of The colors Black and Green.

Work in Progress 02

Work in Progress 01

These are my work in progress in doing the finalized artwork.