Make up & Effects

Given that our story revolves around domestic abuse and violence, it would only make sense for the characters, May and her mother to be more specific, to have bruises. Although I do not have experience with any form of make up, I do draw enough to understand color theory and how colors may look on the skin. So, for me at least, doing this part wasn’t necessarily hard.

Despite that, I still wanted to know exactly how to make fake bruises on skin, hence why I searched in Youtube and found this simple tutorial below.

In the video it said that we could use green colored eyeshadow to create bruises that have healed over time. However, in order to make it seem as though May has been dealing with physical abuse on a more regular basis, I decided it would be better to keep some wounds more fresh than others, meaning a bit more red and/or purple.

I asked my teammate Celline to send me a picture of her eyeshadow palette to see which colors would work best in theory as I could not meet her due to rising Covid cases.

The Sephora makeup palette we used\

The circled colors were the colors that I thought would look best. When Celline had shown me this, I did not expect for it to also have lip tints, however since it does, I think it would be a great edition to the fake bruises as dabbing on bits of red can emulate blood while light brushing with purples can make the bruise pop out a little more.

To ensure our actress’ and actor’s comfort, I am planning on applying Vaseline in areas where there will be makeup so as to make it easier to remove.

In addition to these bruises, all three characters (May, Mom and Dad) should also have eyebags in order to show the audience that they have not gotten a good night’s sleep in days. To do this, it wasn’t so difficult as all we could do to make these eyebags were to simply apply a dark ashy brown eyeshadow under their eyes. I decided it could also be more reasonable to make the Dad have heavier eyebags as it would reflect his exhaustion of fighting with May’s mom and the draining thought of having to find a job to keep his family on their already crumbling feet.

Bruise Location

I have drawn out the following pictures to show my group a visual presentation of where the bruises would go and how it should look like, making sure to not overdo them and to make them as natural and realistic as possible. I chose to do only a few as these are the only parts of May’s body that will be exposed and the audience can see clearly.

For the Dad and Mom, as they will be minor side characters, their bruise placement does not need to be as specific as May’s as a tiny bit of inconsistency is fine, considering their shots are mostly from far away. So for the Dad, I thought, because he is the abuser, it would only makes sense that he would have bruises around his knuckles to signify that he has been using his fist to physically assault both May and her Mom. For the Mom, I decided that she should only have simple bruises on the arms, so for this it would be up to either Celine’s, Tiffany’s or my decision on where to place these bruises.

Step-by-step Process

The following instructions will be used by both my group members on the 17th of December, the preparation day before we start the shooting, as a trial to see how my theory would apply on actual skin as I sadly could not come due to family reasons.

1. Be sure to apply an even coat of Vaseline onto the area where you want the bruises to be. To be safe, make the area of Vaseline wider than the actual bruise.
2. Let the Vaseline dry slightly before applying warm colors of eyeshadow on the skin (warm can consist of brown or red as long as it is similar to the color of skin). Make sure to dab on the colors lightly and then blending it out as soft as possible.
3. Now apply more of the warm colors so that it will pop out against the skin. For this step, you may make the blending uneven and blotchy. You may also add blue, green or purple eyeshadow in this step depending on how bruised you want the area to be (More purple, more bruised).
4. Finally, apply just a tiny dab of lip tint onto certain parts of the bruise and roughly blend it out till the color does not contrast too much against the skin.

Costume Fitting

After researching on the reference pictures for each character, today would be when we get to choose the options available from the actor/actress’ own clothing, as mentioned before it would save quite a bit of our budget. Surprisingly, throughout this process, I find it quite difficult to choose between the clothing options as some appear quite similar but with the help of making a list of all the advantageous and disadvantageous features of each outfit.

The following are the clothing options for each character (based on actor/actress’ available clothing):

Mom (Side Character) – Yuliani Agustine

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However, in the end, we decided to choose the dress on the third slide as it looks ragged and old enough to fit into the set whilst not being as plain as the purple one in the first slide. The picture on the left is our actress Yuliani wearing said dress.

Dad (Side Character) – Yuwono Halim .S

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In this case, the first clothes that our actor, Yuwono, has given us already suited our image of the Dad character perfectly, so there was no need for him to take pictures of his other clothing options.

May (Main Character) – Madeleine Tanoyo

In May’s case, since she will need 2 sets of clothes to wear (pajamas and normal clothes), there would be much more options to look through hence I had to ask her to take pictures of clothing that matched the description of the Costume Design post.

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For May’s normal clothes, I decided on the sweatpants in the last slide as well as the wide cut shirt on the 5th slide. For May’s pajamas, I decided to go with the 1st and 2nd slide as it fits the more casual clothing style I had written about in the Costume Design post while the other options seemed to be a bit too childish. The pictures on the left are our actress Madeleine wearing the 2 sets of clothing.

Meeting Casts & Setting Dates

In the beginning, before the Update #2 regarding one of our team members leaving, we had already set the date to start our Production stage to be on the 12th-18th of December. However, since the update was announced quite late, on the 6th of December to be more specific, we decided to push back our production stage to the 18th-23rd of December. Deciding this on such short notice wasn’t particularly hard as we had the help of our “zoom” meetings to help us discuss better as well as allowing us change the dates on our shared google docs.

In addition to that, we also set schedules for each character as some may not need to be on the scene as their screen time is much shorter.

Take May(Main character) for example, her time schedule goes as followed:

• Starting point: Tiffany Josephine’s apartment, Galaxy Mall 3
• Date: Saturday, December 18, 2021
• 7:00-7:20: Meet up(briefing)
• 7:20-8:00: Make up/Hair-do
• 8:00-10.30: Bedroom scene (In Tiffany Josephine’s apartment)
• 10:30-12:00: Break
• 12:00-14:30: Running scene (Jl. Cimanuk)
• 14:30-17:45: Break
• 17:45-19:00: Night car scene (Mundu park)

For the Mom/Dad’s time schedule, it would look a little different:

• Starting point: Tiffany Josephine’s apartment, Galaxy Mall 3
• Date: Saturday, December 18, 2021
• 7:00-7:20: Meet up(briefing)
• 7:20-8:00: Make up/Hair-do
• 8:00-10.30: Bedroom scene (In Tiffany Josephine’s apartment)
• 10:30-17:45: Break
• 17:45-19:00: Night car scene (Mundu park)

These time schedules are chosen to portray that time has past as according to our script(includes a graphic match cut scene that shows time passing hence the need for us to wait till the sun sets in order to make the scene).

With this new plan written down, we decided to make a group chat in Whatsapp with all the actors/actresses in it to announce this as well as invite the cast to properly meet each other and communicate regarding enquiries on their roles.

Costume Design Decisions

Choosing a costume design that would fit our film opening genre and its plot would not be that hard, or so I thought. For the costume design, my idea is to ask for the actors/actresses to take pictures of their house clothes. This was because the film opening revolves around a poor family, and we assume that it isn’t hard to find generic plain clothing that we could then fix in order to make it look more dirty and used. Additionally, it would save our budget by a great amount as we still have to buy the filming equipment.

The main idea for the costumes of each character in the film opening goes as followed:

Mom (Side Character):
– Unkept house dress (daster – Indonesian term)
– Sandals or barefoot
– Messy bun
– Littered with bruises, dry lips
Below is a reference picture I chose of what I think the Mom would wear. I chose the house dress specifically as it has quite a significance in Asian culture, specifically in Indonesian and Chinese culture which happens to be the culture I was raised with. I chose this as it perpetuates the elderly Asian housewife stereotype which can often be seen in Chinese media – usually shows 40-50 year old women with an average to low living standard. An example would be the character Qiu Yuen, the landlady from the 2004 comedy action movie titled “Kung Fu Hustle” who is usually seen walking around with a white house dress and hair curlers still in her hair.

https://shopee.co.id/Daster-Model-Susun-Daster-Busui-Batik-i.6717177.6301378160

Dad (Side Character):
– White t-shirt (with alcohol stains), casual knee-length pants
– Sandals or barefoot
– Messy hair
– Dirty face, scruffy, smaller amount of bruises
Below is the reference picture I chose of what I think the Dad would wear. A reason as to why I chose a white t-shirt is to better show the alcohol stains and any smudges that would better indicate the character’s habits as well as his living conditions. I also chose knee-length pants to keep the casualty of the character as most of the scenes the Dad is in are indoors and in his house. Additionally, it also helps shows the audience what kind of work ethic the Dad has as wearing clothes in scenes that depict it is working hours better shows his job status.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_67978993_white-t-shirt-and-black-shorts-on-a-young-man-template-on-grey-background-hands-in-pockets.html

May (Main Character):
– Short sleeved shirt with long baggy pants, preferably old looking ones (Pajama attire)
– Plain t-shirt and worn out jeans (Outfit of the day)
– Messy let down hair, preferably having strands that cover her face
– Littered with bruises, baggy eyes, dry lips
Below is the reference pictures I chose for what May would wear and because it is a reference picture it does not exactly show what is on the list above for May. For example, the lack of baggy pants will be changed later when we will do the fitting and the accessories around the model’s neck will be taken out. The second reference picture shows May’s “pajamas” which don’t necessarily fit the into what people traditionally call “pajamas”, however, this is exactly what I was going for. Making the audience think that May does not have proper pajamas can reflect on her family’s financial status and how she does not necessarily have the money to buy them, rather she just uses borrowed shirts and pants.

https://pin.it/3TvaKVE

https://www.muji.com/my/products/cmdty/detail/4550002965068

Set Design and Props

Although we were able to scout out all the locations, we still need to do some altercations and changes to it in order for it to fit into the storyline. As mentioned in the Research Film Opening Topic, the main place set for our film opening would be the main character, May’s, bedroom and house which happen to reflect her poor financial status. Hence, having known that fact already, here are some of the changes we will make to the locations that would be May’s house.

For May’s room, we decided that:
– Change the clean white bedsheets into that consisting of childish patterns to reflect her not having enough money to buy a new one as well as to remind the audience that May is still deep down a child inside.
– Include a small foldable table for her studies (add old worn out notebooks, papers, pens, table lamp)

For the dining room, we decided that:
– Make neat tables more disorganized by removing a few chairs on the fit the amount of family members in May’s household.
– Add empty alcohol bottles in a disorderly arrangement (e.g all over the floor, table, counter, etc) to reflect on the dad’s habits and to set a certain environment that allows the audience to see into May’s life and how it is.
– Add car keys on the table to foreshadow what will happen later on in the film opening.

Letters

Since a big portion of the film opening consists of a voice over of the various letters, I need to prepare letters according to the chronological order in the script. Since the letters also date back 1-3 years before the timeline of the film opening, it would only make sense to make them look just as old. So, the older letters would have more crumples, rips and stains accompanied with childish writing which then progresses to more eligible writing with a less worn texture on the paper of the more recent letters.

There will be 8 letters in total, and me and my teammates decided to split them according to how old May is when writing them as there are letters from when she is 10 to her current age which is 14. In order to keep the consistency and realism of the letters, we also decided to compare first our younger siblings’ handwriting before eventually using their handwriting, matching and/or fixing them so the letters would flow a lot better when shown in the superimposition shot in our film opening.

Letter(s) made by 10 year old May (1 letter):
Tiffany’s younger sibling, who is also around that age
Letter(s) made by 11 year old May (1 letter):
My own younger brother, who is coincidentally the same age
Letter(s) made by 12 year old May (1 letter):
Tiffany’s younger sibling, who is around the same age but is instructed to worsen the quality of the handwriting so the letters would look like one person wrote it.
Letter(s) made by 13-14 year old May (4 letters):
Celline’s own handwriting, which she matched according to the rest of the letters as well as according to how May was feeling when she had been writing it.
Letter made before May left:
Madeleine (May’s actress), written while we filmed her.

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As seen above, these are the letters in chronological order, from 10 year old May to present May. As described before, the older the letters the more the creases and crumples and the sloppier the handwriting.

1st Letter:
– 10 year old May
– More tears
– Most uneven handwriting
– A lot of smudges all around
– Most crumples

2nd Letter:
– 11 year old May
– No tears
– More even handwriting
– Smudges and pencil marks
– Less crumples

3rd Letter:
– 12 year old May
– Tea stains, signifies this letter was spilt on either on purpose or on accident. This variation also leaves the audience wandering why the letters are what they are
– More even handwriting
– Small amount of folds and creases

4th Letter:
– 13 year old May
– No tears
– More spacing in writing due to crossing out of certain words. This action can be interpreted as May being overwhelmed with emotion, so much so that she makes mistakes as she rushes her handwriting, especially since her mistakes are on words that are simple and do not describe emotion. If the crosses were on adjectives describing her emotions then that would mean that she is capable of understanding her situation enough to know better more precise adjectives that suit what she felt at that moment.
– Small amount of folds and creases

5th Letter:
– 13 year old May
– No tears
– Crossing out of only the phrase “Why??”. The added addition of question marks makes it sound like May is desperate but the replacement of the phrase into a simple “Why” can make the audience think that May does not want to seem like she’s overreacting and is trying to suppress her emotion. In this letter, we can also see that May is still in a phase where she does not realize that what her parents are doing is wrong, and instead blames herself, a common trait that victims of abuse have. This can be seen from the contents of the letters as well, where she apologizes even when she is not necessarily in the wrong in that situation.
– Little to no folds or creases

6th Letter:
– 14 year old May
– No tears
– Little to no folds or creases
– No smudges

7th Letter:
– 14 year old May
– No tears
– Handwriting is messy, big, all capitalized. This is purposely done to reflect May’s overwhelming sense of frustration and want for freedom as described in its contents. This also signifies to the audience that May has finally understood that it is not her fault and is finally expressing her well deserved anger towards her parents, essentially becomes the starting point of her contemplating on leaving the house.
– More folds and creases than 3rd – 6th letter
– A bit of smudges

8th Letter:
– Present day May
– No tears
– Handwriting is neat and back to normal, shows that she has finally let go the resentment at the moment and is instead focused on leaving.
– No smudges
– No folds or creases

When making these letters, my teammates made the mistake of making the older papers look too old by painting them with tea, which makes it look too yellow. When discussing about this, I took the initiative of changing and giving criticism on what a more realistic approach on aging paper may look like and hence became what the letters shown are now.

Selecting our casts

Due to the pandemic being prevalent in the time of our filming, most of the 25 candidates that we have gathered, that we believed fit the role of the characters in our film opening, were unable to agree due to health concerns. Another reason most candidates choose not to participate was because the time we would be filming would be on December which so happens to be the holidays. It would take a while for us to actually find candidates who looked the part and were available at the time of the shooting, so we went as far as personally contacting potential cast members through social media applications like Whatsapp and Instagram.

The criteria for the roles open are:

Mom:
– Looks: bitter looking, skinny, short (preferably ~150-160cm)
– Gender: Female
– Age:20-33

Dad:
– Looks: Tall (preferably above 170cm), threatening
– Gender: Male
– Age:35-45

Child (May):
– Looks: vulnerable, gloomy, skinny
– Gender: Female
– Age: 14-16

Luckily, we were able to find people who fit the criteria who are willing to participate. The following will the the actors/actresses and their roles:

May (Child, Main Character) – Madeleine Tanoyo (16)

Dad (Side character) – Yuwono Halim S. (37)

Mom (Side Character) – Yuliani Agustine (21)

Location Scouting

Within the span of a week, me and my team were able to scout and find places suitable to the storyboard and our expectations of the film opening. This is done by searching around and going on several trips to places around Surabaya. Since the storyboard features a fast forward hence the movement of place and time, we were able to find 3 locations we were able to film at that were convenient to travel to.

For the locations which the majority of the scenes will take place in (morning), we have chosen Tiffany Josephine Suprapto’s apartment:
– Location: Galaxy Mall 3
– Address: Jl. Dharmahusada Indah II, Mulyorejo, Kec. Mulyorejo, in the city of Surabaya
– Province: East Java

The following picture shows the main character, May’s, bedroom. However, in order to match the script, we will add and move around certain furniture:

The following picture will be the living room which will also be changed to fit the script:

The next location will be in Jl. Cimanuk, Surabaya, Indonesia and it will be filmed mostly in the side of the road.

The following picture is an example of what we are expecting (will update):

Finally, the last location we decided on was Mundu Park.
-Address: Jl. Juwet, Tambaksari, Kec. Tambaksari, in the city of Surabaya.
-Province: East Java
The following picture shows an example of what we expect (will update):

Update #2

In an unfortunate turn of events, a member of our group could not continue this Media Studies project alongside due to her leaving the country. However, the remainder of the members as well as myself decided it would be best to split the work evenly between 3 people. With this decision, I no longer have the role of camera person but instead have the responsibility of taking care of costume design and makeup on the actors. I do not have experience in neither fields but I am certain that I will be able to contribute more as I can now transform the actors into the characters of our film-opening.

Update #1

Previously, my group and I settled on the title “Parent(s)” to be our film opening. However, as it turns out, it does not fit into the film as smoothly as we had intended, hence the change to the new title: “Dear Parents”. There were multiple issues with the title “Parent(s)” as not only did it not fit, but the audience may not understand the point of the view and perspective in which the film may be made. This confusion can also stem from the title’s vagueness, hence the audience may perceive the film opening to have a comedy, romance and other genres that aren’t the one we chose, which would be family drama.

Storyline & Plot

This is the result of our group discussion on the plot and storyline of our film opening. First of the 3 excerpts with be the backstory and description of what will be in the film opening:

Main character= May Lim

May is an only child of the Lim family whose mother is a housewife and father an office worker. Though people may perceive them as an ordinary family, what goes behind the curtains tells a different story. Throughout May’s teenage years, her parents’ once loving marriage spiraled into a harmful and abusive one that detrimentally affected her mental health – evoking her impulse to run away from home. 

It all started when May’s dad got fired from his workplace and ran into financial problems. Not long after, he started developing a dependency on gambling and alcohol which resulted in him spending every dollar from his savings. He started borrowing money constantly from his friends to fulfill his desires using the erroneous excuse he came up with – excuses such as “my daughter is sick.” Bit by bit May’s mom became frustrated which in turn revealed the personality she had been concealing for a period of time –  both emotionally and physically abusive towards May. 

Ever since then, May has become reticent about every personal matter to the point where she locks herself up in her room and only goes out when needed. It has been going on for over a year now, to the point that May couldn’t deal with it anymore and decided to leave the family. The feelings that can’t be expressed verbally were written down in the form of letters that are later placed on the most visible part of the table so that her parents can see and understand her inner thoughts that are enshrouded in her heart for ages.
She then packed her belongings and left for good – not a doubt in her head. Day and night she runs, pants, sweats. Tears are all that were seen. A 24 hour break was all that she needed. While she was on the break, an unexpected occurrence of meeting her parents in the solitary curb was exceeded – no one, at least May, never had expected it. (this is where the film opening ends)

Next will be a short explanation on how the film would end (this is made in order to get a better grasp and understanding of the characters):

The thought of running faster rapidly blemished her train of thought – like an ink spreading over a white shirt. The ‘humble abode’ she had created in that wild mind of hers was sadly never reached. She meekly complies to her parents’ request of wanting her back in the house as she was dragged to the car.

Finally, this will be the summary of our film opening. This includes both the introduction (film opening) and the ending:

May Lim, a teen who has been struggling with letting go of her deep desire to run away from her abusive family, finally decides that it is time for her to make her seamless escape. Or so she thought. After a day of wandering in the streets, in desperate search to find a new “home”, the tenacious grasps of her parents did not loosen as they had tracked her down, violently asking that she come home with them. Exhausted, she eventually submits and allows herself to be dragged back home. However, when May involves herself in a minor accident at school that allows her to see into the heart of the school’s aloof janitor, Weng Zhao, everything seems to change. The once cold world lit a small, minuscule candle that would melt away the unbending clutches of her fear of calling for help. Meanwhile, Weng tries to find a way to encourage the teen in exposing her parents, even putting his only job on the line as he waits for the chance to catch them red handed. This chance soon reveals itself in the form of the annual parent-teacher meeting where he desperately tries to uncover the secrets of the Lim family. The unexpected outburst ultimately results in Weng losing his job. Despite that,  the commotion had stirred the hearts of the surrounding witnesses as the story was then made viral. Through its exposure, May is finally allowed to rest her case, proving her parents guilty and securing a better life in the arms of a new family.