Reflective Summary

On the Colourful Quilt (2019)

The Colourful Quilt is a photo story to depict one of the ordinary challenges in the everyday life of an aged person. The photo story is narrated through a series of photographs. It explores the themes of endeavour, helplessness, assistance, compassion, and success. Abai, the main character, suffers a moderate level of visual impairment and she cannot thread a needle to sew a quilt. Her efforts fail repeatedly until her granddaughter helps her by crossing the yarn through the needle's eye and let the grandmother get the job done successfully.

To narrate this, a variety of technical skills of screen media production are applied in a strategic creative approach and with reference to terms and theories of screen media. In particular, the techniques such as camera angle, staging the action properly within the frame, creating a meaningful composition by making a relation between elements, creating a contrast to highlighting specific objects and emphasise its importance, and proper using of foreground and background are used in this photo story. 

The photo story starts with some high angle shots, which creates the impression that the subject of the camera is not big or powerful. The first image invites curiosity because it shows an aged lady's hand positioned at the edge of a drawer and she tends to open the drawer. The next three shots create a sequence, consisting of the movements of the hand that has just opened the drawer and took out the colourful fabrics. This sequence gradually advances further to initiate the action that the story revolves around it. Furthermore, the fourth shot is from the point of view (POV) of the character. In this photo, the character looks down from her own point of view, which signifies that she possesses a good mastery of her sewing tool.

Close-up shots are taken to show when the character is opening the small ball clasp handbag and searching inside for hand stitching materials. The focus on the sewing equipment such as scissors, thread spools, and needle on the pincushion is deliberate to emphasise on content details and build anticipation and tell the audience about what is happening. Likewise, in photo number 20, the extreme close-up highlights the four yarns that have gone through the needle hole. It is zoomed in to emphasise the importance of the action.

Each photo is the building block of the narration in this photo story. A sequence of continuing images illustrates a particular concept or action. The three failed attempts to thread the needle are demonstrated in the pictures 15 to 17. Particularly, in image number 17, while the foreground shows a clear image of the needle with yarn at the hands of the aged person, due to lack of success a state of discontent has reflected in the facial expression of the character at the background. As a narrative structure, in this photo story, the frequent failure leads to the climax of the narrative. However, this climax is followed by falling action, which is the assistance of the second character who gives a hand to thread the needle and leads to resolution.

To direct the climax of the story towards a happy ending and develop the narrative with the further compelling denouement, the smiling character has shown as the background of the newly made quilt. With its eye-level shot and the composition that created the appearance of depth with high contrast between the elements, the last photograph concludes the story effectively.