Introduction
This semester’s Conceptual project highlights our individuality and creativeness through different forms of art. From poems, to photography, to abstract films, to music, We have put ourselves out there and vulnerably expressed ourselves. We have found new ways to tell others how we feel! We have been very lucky to use numerous professional resources such as DSLR Cameras, recorders and most of what Adobe has to offer! I have had the pleasure of taking part in this experience and I am so happy that I have. I have now learned so many skills that I would have never learned and that I plan on using in the future. From these classes I have found myself more independently able to use technology and write.
Haiku
One of our first assignments of the year in English was to write a Haiku. I loved this unit because even though Haiku’s are short they hold so much emotion. We were given a concept statement and we had to write a haiku about it and find a picture that matched the tone of our poem. In Digital Media, we made a video out of our Haiku by recording or Haiku and matching it up to the photo.
I really valued this project because I further learned how to use Premiere Pro and how to make a full video during this unit. I also really liked writing this poem because it was a reflection of an amazing experience so it brought me joy making this and bringing this memory to life!
Poetry
During the Poem Assignment, we could write a free verse poem about anything we wanted. I loved the freedom we got with this. In Digital Media we made another video putting our Audio to our Poetry and a photo we thought matched the vibe of our Poem.
“Don’t turn my room into a gym” is a free verse poem about a girl who is struggling with growing up and leaving home. In this poem the speaker is experiencing moving on with her life. Her parents turning her room into a gym serves as a symbol for her leaving home and moving out of adolescence. The speaker is sad and nostalgic but she also knows that there is more out there for her. By changing her room the speaker’s parents were bringing up all the emotions, nostalgia and anxiety the speaker has about moving on with her life. I separated the first stanza where it was separated because I was trying to show different emotions the speaker was feeling. I wanted the first stanza to represent her original anger and grief. This is evident in the lines “I’m moving into a new time without you” and “You’re moving the elliptical into my room”. In the next couple stanzas I used the feeling of nostalgia and what feels nostalgic to me (the author) to show her relationship with the place she grew up. This is evident in the quotes “The hum of the treadmill will replace the crickets” and “Your lifting will replace my dancing.” I used lineation in the nostalgic parts of the poem to play into the feeling that all these things she is feeling nostalgic about are things that she is leaving behind and her parents were replacing. I initially had my speaker talking very literally how she wanted to move to New York and do all the things that she couldn’t do before, to show how hard leaving her home is even if the speaker wants her independence. But my peer told me that I should be a little less literal about her wanting her independence and that I should instead have it be more clear that her sadness and wanting for independence coincide. So I decided to change the section of my poem from “I wanna live in a clean studio by myself in New York City, Buy my own groceries, Make my own money, Buy what I want, Live like I want to, But I don’t want it to be over” to “Walking down a crowded urban street alone seems nice But staying with tree covered sunset roads does too.” In Clint Smith’s poem “something you should know” I was very inspired by the way he made his metaphors not too under the surface that it was hard to understand but still had a deep meaning and I wanted my poem to be like that too.
I valued this project very much, I really liked making the Poetry photo. I love making pictures and graphics match with writing and so I loved making the Poetry photo and I really liked editing the sounds to make it match the tone of my Poem. I am very excited to write more Poems in the future.
Photoshop Blend Mode Editing
During Photoshop Blend Modes editing we learned how to edit our photos. Blend Modes are a variety of different filters and touchups you can do to your photo to fix it or make it more appealing. We spent multiple days in Digital Media learning how to use Blend Modes and editing our own photos. I really liked learning how to overlay and how to make a photo darker and lighter because a lot of times when you take photos they are either to dark or too light and now I have the skills to fix that! I think that it is a very valuable skill that I will definitely use in the future.
Film
Film has been an incredibly eye-opening and interesting experience and I can’t wait to learn more about how to produce films and learn about the industry.
Our first project of the year was an Experimental Film. I had no idea what an experimental film was. When Mr. Taylor introduced it to us he said that this project was going to require us to stretch our brains and make us think about ways we could portray an idea in a non-conventional way. I was very intimidated by this, I tend to think in a very linear and narrative driven fashion and what we were being shown were films that defied the boundaries that I had set for films. Experimental films became very cool for me when we started to dissect them. I was very impressed on how these Filmmakers could use mundane things like pencil in there to address hard topics such as pedophilia or make a feast portray the 2008 financial crisis. They made me want to try and make one too.
Here we have my experimental synopsis. Before make any film Mr. Taylor has us do a synopsis. Basically, it is our film on paper. We write down exactly what we want to do and how we want to do it. My synopsis did not turn out to be the film I made but her it is!
Experimental film synopsis
Concept Statement: I am experiencing the feeling of faith through accepting myself
I have decided to make my film about my personal faith and how I have learned to accept myself and the way I practice my faith. In my journey as a jew after years of Jewish learning, meeting lots of different types of jews, and having Jewish experiences; I have decided that I do not believe in god. I decided that I am Jewish for the community. My experimental film will be about my religious journey and how I came to this decision. This film will be set at my synagogue. In the beginning I will be walking in my synagogue and I will have a very young toddler playing on the playground and then running inside to a classroom where I will be doing some sort of typical preschooler thing like playing with blocks. Then I will have the preschooler walk out and walk past something like through a hallway where you can’t see her and then she walks out the end of the hallway and be older. I will then have the girl walk and do a ceremony that signifies the start of your actual jewish learning. To show that you are starting your Jewish learning journey, On the first day of Sunday school they give you a mini Torah (the jewish scripture) and it is a gift from the community. I will have a slightly older girl go up and get the torah and walk out. I think I am going to get this shot at an actual Sunday school service because starting Sunday school means you are a part of the bigger congregation so I want to show a typical service. During this service I want her to look up and look bored or look like she doesn’t relate or connect to the service. She will then walk out and you will see her grow into someone bigger and she will start studying Hebrew to signify training for a bat mitzvah. During the short scene where the girl starts learning Hebrew I am going to have the scene fade out into the sky. During both of these clips I am going to have the sky be a symbol of god and I will have all my actors before the end be looking up at the sky and having people gesturing to the sky to symbolize god or looking for god. After the hebrew scene I will have a scene of me taking off my tallit which is a prayer shawl that you use when you are getting bar mitzvahed and I am going to sit down when everyone is gone I am going to have a revelation and realize that I find my connection to being jewish through the community. I am going to walk away and most likely use the following shot. After this the following shot is going to turn into me walking at camp and going to a group program. Throughout all of this growing everytime it changes it is going to cut to the camp scene or in someone’s yard celebrating a holiday to signify the community aspect because I am really trying to make the audience understand that this is the part I really connect with. I want this film to be a mix of all the significant jewish things I have done that have made me the person I am today. My film is going to be cutting between my journey of growing up in Judaism and my journey accepting myself. To do this I am going to use different audio in between the cuts. In the very end, the camp scene is going to fade into the sky to show that this is what I always have been looking for. This is the way I have learned to accept myself in my faith. In the parts where it is jewish learning I am going to have small peaceful tones and then when I get into the community parts I am going to have the peaceful tones come together into something more triumphant.
We were given a topic for our experimental film and it was a concept statement. Mine was “I am experiencing the feeling of faith through accepting myself.” The first thing we did was pitch an idea for our topic. After we pitched, our original ideas would get taken apart and at the end we would have a completely new and thought out idea. After this, we would go out, get footage of our ideas, show them to the class and get feedback. This process is called dailies. We did that twice. After that we were set off to shoot our film, edit it and present it! I decided to make my film about a girl who was insecure. She needed to have faith in this ladder to find confidence and as she climbed up steps of the ladder she would gain confidence and when she took a step down she would lose it. I wanted to show that when she decided to trust she would find her confidence.
Here you will see, a picture of Premiere Pro when I was in the editing phase of my experimental film. We use Premiere Pro to put add special effects, put our film together, and do touch ups. This film was very fun to edit because I used a green screen for it and that is why you see that the background is blue. I had such a fun time editing this film and I have come to learn that editing is one of my favorite parts of making a film!
Other fun assignments!
The Video Scavenger Hunt:
The Scavenger Hunt was an assignment means to familiarize us with the different shots used in films! We had a list of shots we needed to do some serious like a pan and some silly like a dance battle!
The Green Screen Video:
The green screen was an exercise to help us learn how to use a green screen. Mr. Taylor took a video of these guys against a green screen and then told us to use the green screen to put them somewhere else!
The Double Effect Video:
The Double Effect Video Assignment was an exercise that was assigned to us so that we could learn how to make a double of a person in a shot. I thought that it would be really hard but with instruction, it was not too difficult!
The Chase Scene:
The notorious chase scene was a project Mr. Taylor gave us, to practice continuity and the 180-degree rule, which means you have to stick with one side of the character when you are filming them, you either have to choose to film them on their right or on their left.