Freestyle Academy proudly presents
The message behind this project was the comical but also true desire of slacking off on work or on an assignment. In high school especially, the tendency to put work aside for later is extremely prevalent. The song, Animal I Have Become, is a song I have listened to when I wanted to exert such frustrations in myself, so it felt fitting to riff off it for this project. I grew artistically and technically with this project by learning about various ways to use audio to tell a story. I learned about how using audio tools like Adobe Audition can not only enhance my creative projects but also open a path to new potential projects I might pursue in the future. The main struggles I encountered throughout this project was mixing. Though I’ve messed with audio software before, mixing and mastering is an area of great weakness for me. However, this project not only helped me practice, but helped clarify areas of discomfort I had in the practice. Learning to normalize and compress audio, for example, was extremely helpful for me. If I could change anything, I’d add more to my project.
There are moments I wish I could’ve add more lyrics or more personal spins to make the parody more of my own, but chose not to in order to have it completed on time. The thing I’m most proud of with this project is the end section with the audio effects. I thought it was a cute touch that helped tie everything together and also added to the comical aspects of the song. The ideas I learned on this project will be useful for any music production or sound production projects I have in the future. Given I’m in animation, it will become incredibly useful once we start intermixing our work with audio and I will not need extra support in those areas with this project’s help. This project changed the way I see and appreciate other people’s art because it inherently made me reflect and appreciate the art of inspiration and parody. For a lot of people, parody projects are viewed as stupid or even unoriginal, but it takes a lot to not only do a new spin on a project, but to also do it well. I will not take what I’ve learned from this for granted and will use it with me throughout my years at Freestyle and even beyond.