Understanding the project
The gift is essentially empowered by a perceptive understanding of your partner while trying to form connections.
Who is Yue (Jocelyn)?
While interacting with her over a brief period of time, I sensed a very peaceful yet adventurous vibe from her. She travels, she takes serene photographs. She meditates every day first thing in the morning to put her thoughts in place for the day, which helps her stay productive, she uses an app called inside timer which has some really peaceful, natural chimes and white noise to add to her meditation session.
She’s not just a dedicated designer but also attentive towards herself as a person with different activities that keeps her productive and healthy and calm.
Possibilities were endless but tricky – the hunt
Just as zen she seemed to me, it wasn’t too difficult to come up with an idea. However, a little tricky to make it good and serve the purpose. There is a botanical research space nearby that I’ve been going to, now and then since my childhood to find peace away from the city noise. It’s a beautiful garden with a lot of flora and fauna.
Reflecting on her aura, it was a perfect location that I scouted during this exercise.
The original thought, that came with its complications
I decided to share a piece of the natural space with her by trying to create an interactive 360 street view. However, that came with a lot of hiccups, retrofitting a non-360 camera sometimes faces difficulty in stitching things together.
This was successfully captured after a few attempts but remained unshareable due to certain of Google’s legacy features being discontinued.
Improvisation – capture the essence (ASMR)
The gift was translated into a mobile-friendly ASMR video, mixed together with raw audio pieces of the place that captures the ambience of the botanical garden. Birds chirping, walking on grass and mud, winds blowing, etc.
Technical Specifications
- Shot on Samsung Galaxy S10 in 1080p portrait view @30FPS
- Audio snippets recorded separately
- Compilation and editing on After Effects CC2021
Ritual of gifting – showcase & feedback
The task was accomplished with the act of gifting, in this case – virtually showcasing the video & taking the class through its creative process & limitations.
It was well-received by Yue (my partner) and successfully connected with her personality.
Medium of outputs varied across different gifts, given and received that also triggered conversations around the perception of things – the thingness of things and the way we portray them to the world.