>OCT 2025 - NOV 2025
(螞蟻 (maa ngai) / what sound does an ant make?)
Embodying vulnerability in print and audiovisual form
\Editorial,
Audiovisual
↳ Context
University Assignment
↳ Timeline
1 month
↳ Tools
Photoshop
Premiere Pro
After Effects
↳ Poem Author
Lii Wong
Overview
I took a poem about a daughter’s complicated relationship with her mother and made a 2 minute mixed media audiovisual and 17-page book to communicate it.
Creative writing student Lii Wong wrote an emotional poem describing her complicated feelings about her mother. Her mother doesn’t support her dreams and the poem feels like a push and pull between the daughter wanting to be heard and the mother refusing to do so. It’s harsh, messy and vulnerable.
Deliverables
Book
Audiovisual
Audiovisual Process
Decided to go with mixed media animation to communicate the poem, rather than pure film.
The telling of the poem was personal, raw and passionate, and also focused on a very internal experience. Film felt more like 3rd person, rather than 1st person.
I also wanted to communicate the physical and mental experience of questioning your worth, having your identity attacked, worsening relationships and the uncertainty of it all.
Research, ideation.
In the shots, I focused on capturing texture and contrast.
Texture and contrast were important for the overall execution as well as the internal, mixed feelings I wanted to show.
The content of the shots feature mismatched objects, interpersonal interactions and hand gestures to communicate how she feels towards her mother.
Plain shots -> adding effects -> capturing secondary shots with texture.
Using tracing paper and inkjet printing allowed me to make a gestures, and textures fitting for the poem.
When there was high emotion in the poem, I crumpled the tracing paper and when there was less, I left it uncrumpled.
Another aspect is layering. I layered the previous frames on top of the next ones except flipped them to portray the muddiness of her experience and the disconnect between her and her mother.
The physical and mental effects can include blurred vision, hearing your own heartbeat, shaky hands, etc. During the daughter’s entire life, her mother has been trying to mold her into someone she’s not. The materiality I chose connects with her mother’s attempts and the lasting effects its had on the daughter.
There’s a lot of noise in the poem itself, and the author mentioned seeing her mother as white noise so communicating through texture was a huge focus.
Footage printed on tracing paper, crumpled and uncrumpled.
Print Process
The book features an interview I held with the author of the poem and acts as a supporting work for the audiovisual.
Communicating the misalignment and creating a clear distinction between the mother and daughter was my main focus.
The mother is cold, dominating and withholding, while the daughter has less power and her emotions are spilling over.
The answers and questions in the interview are on different sides of the paper to further the fact that the two don’t understand or are aligned with each other.
Typographic choices.
Scatterplot Variable: The points reminded me of the ants included in the poem.
Powell: Representative of the mother’s character, that being logical, clear and distinctive.
Chandler 42: Representative of the daughter, connecting back to her passion for writing and vulnerability.
Materiality.
Size: The book itself is small since the poem comes from the daughter’s perspective and her mother is always trying to contain her.
Lined paper: The daughter’s passion and method of communicating her feelings to the audience is writing. Lined paper is also more personal and intimate since interacting with it requires the individual to physically write rather than simply typing.
Initial tests + making
Attempt 1
Attempt 2
Attempt 3
Cutting holes and adding circles represent the ants mentioned in the poem.
The ants are a metaphor for her support system and those who believe in her so the “ants” are able to disrupt/affect the interviewer’s (appearing as the mother’s) words.
The ants also appear as smaller dots done by photographing pieces of yarn.
Clay shapes make an appearance as well, serving as a reminder for the mother’s control and attempt to mould her daughter.
