Our project is an animated short film featuring two young adults, Charlotte and Valerie, who ride a cable car up Mount Faber in search of mountains in Singapore. This project explores an unorthodox approach to filmmaking, combining traditional and digital techniques to create a rich visual style which serves the lyrical poeticism of the story. The filmmaking process involved experimentation and exploration of different mediums and the integration of such mediums with digital animation.
An act of Poiesis is an expression made to provide a glimpse of understanding into a complex form of human condition. It aims to explore the nature of traumatic experience and its ability in affecting an individual’s perception of our sensible world. The process of attending to suffering and letting it find its form could potentially reveal a deeper truth of existence. In the context of a personal experience of tragedy, this project is an attempt to restore psychological sense of order and do justice to the nature of a chaotic being. By withdrawing from the brute reality of the world and exist in a therapeutic space in painting, a significance of the situation that previously lay hidden and unformed is then revealed.
Studying in a University is a crucial stage of many students’ lives. As they enter into tertiary learning and coping with adulthood, many will find themselves facing different stress on a daily basis. Cumulation of stress can lead to health issues and unhealthy symptoms that affects the wellbeing of students and learning experiences of students. NTU’s Student Wellbeing Centre (SWC) is thus set up for students to pick up resources or seek counselling to cope with everyday life issues. The SWC have however reported that students are not reaching out to them due to stigmatisation associated with mental health. ‘The Friendly Muse’ is thus proposed as a concept branch service from SWC that focuses specifically on ADM students. Drawing from personal experience and that of fellow peers, the project investigates how to create a more relatable, approachable and contextualized experience for ADM students.
