For the explorations project, we were tasked with answering the question: “How can you find, explore, and/or expand your passion?” Originally, I had no idea what I wanted to do because there were so many options. I genuinely could make whatever I wanted, because the purpose was to explore. I ended up choosing to do a stop motion animation with clay because I am a film student and haven’t done a lot of animation. I was also really excited to do this because I watch a lot of claymations and I think they’re really funny.
To start, I made my bunny character out of playdoh, and mixed colors together to get a shade I liked. I wanted to do a bunny because I have two bunnies and I think they’re really cute. I was also inspired by the characters in claymations like Wallace and Gromit or Shaun the Sheep. So I think my character is kind of comical.
This is the final production of my explorations project. Overall, I was happy with it but I think I could’ve developed a stronger storyline if I had more time. Additionally, I underestimated how many photos a stop motion actually needs to look really smooth. Which I didn’t know until I was editing my photos together. If I could re-do the project, I would spend more time making a story and taking more photos with smaller movements. One thing I valued was being able to learn about animation because I haven’t done a lot of animation before. It was also cool to make my own character and shape him.
For the poetry project, we got to write poems and workshop them in class. A Poet-in-Residence came to help teach us about poems and we made a lot of drafts from her workshop. In fact, my final poem was based off of one of my drafts from her excersizes. We made cento poems, which is basically making a poem from other people’s poems, a poem based off of a newspaper article, and then a poem talking about how we feel about poetry.
And Still I Scroll
Daphne Heatherly
Scroll.
My thumb flicks at the screen
Like the video before I even watch it
Something funny, yet something forgettable
Filling my head with noise
My brother walks past
I don’t look up
My face glows from the screen
While he stands waiting
hoping to be noticed
For a second, he lingers
Then he disappears when he realizes
I am somewhere else entirely.
My mom speaks to me
While I nod at a screen instead of her face
“Yeah.” “Okay.” “Mhm.”
Words tossed over my shoulder.
Later, guilt arrives quietly
But in the moment
the screen feels magnetic
A pull stronger than eye contact.
I write this poem knowing
that tonight
I will probably reach
for my phone again.
I will unlock it without thinking
Scroll without remembering
And while the screen keeps feeding me
real life will keep happening
Moments disappearing faster than I notice them
The cruelest part is this:
I can see it happening
while it happens
and still I scroll.
I think my production conveyed the meaning of my poem pretty well, especially because I put in a typing font, which helps connect it to the technology aspect of my poem. A creative freedom I valued in my poem production was being able to animate the text, especially because it was my poem so it got to be my own thing. An artistic choice I made was using the typewriter animation which made it feel like a story but also like typing which I felt represented the technology.