Conceptual

“How can I use unconventional forms to express myself?”

For this Unit, my peers and I strived to take risks with different modes of expression such as art, poetry, music, and experimental film. We were also able to continue growing our technical aspects in art by learning through equipment and applications which include: DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps.

With Freestyle, I have been able to grow with the ways I am able to express my creativity, as well as enhance the ones I already can do with ease. In addition Freestyle has influenced me to better express myself in school, as well as out. I have been able to meet people in class who share interests with mine, and even with quarantine, create relationships with people I have never met before.

Photo Haiku

For our first English and Digital Media project, we created Haiku’s using concept statements as well as taking a photo to match the overall idea of the piece. With these different pieces we used Premiere Pro to add them all together and create a photo Haiku, with text and audio. Here is both the final creation as well as a behind the scenes picture.

Premiere Pro from the Haiku video

For this project, I used it as a way to practice the skills I had learned previously in Film class as well as a way to practice skills I am learning in photography. Both in film editing as well as photography, I am learning techniques and abilities which I have never known before or practiced. So, by incorporating a writing style I enjoy (poetry) as well as learning new things, this experience greatly improved and widened the opportunities I have as an artist.

Free Verse Poetry

Another project in English and Digital Media was to create a free verse poem with the prompt of our choosing along with creating an intention statement to tell the reader the concept we were aiming for. Once this was complete and revised by ourselves as well as peers, we used Pro Tools, for audio recording and editing as well as Photoshop, for photo editing. After these steps were completed, and a bit of coding, this was the final result.

Click here to view poem
Listen to my Free Verse Poem Intention Statement

This poem which I named “Faded Bud of Spring” is meant to show the concept of loss of innocence and also the struggles of meeting society’s expectations. I throughout my life have experienced many people telling me to be less or more of the person I already was: smile more, talk less, be more entertaining, be skinnier, eat more. For loss of innocence, in the past I have experienced uncomfortable and not safe situations which have led me to be more mature now. However, they were things that still impact me negatively to this day. One of the notes I got about this topic was to go more into the loss of innocence. I chose not to do this since even as I am writing about this now it is relatively anxiety inducing since I try not to talk about those parts of my past with others, at least not in specific detail. One of the notes which I did work with was that the ending needed some tweaking. Before it was written: Remembering those dry hands which took the innocence of my dreams. It felt too obvious to the readers, so I changed the ending to what it is now. Hoping that it continues the mystery in the poetry and allows the reader to continue the thought process of the poem. The narrator, the flower, is telling the story of her life before and after she was taken from her home and molded to perfection by her captor. For this poem I took inspiration from “I Remember the Carrots” by Ada Limon as well as “A Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. In both of the poems, they describe an impactful and deepening experience which is what I wanted to aim for as well. In the first stanza I used symbolism and imagery by making the narrator a “dainty” flower which represents innocence and youth. When the imagery of the poem changes from light to dark imagery the speaker’s view of the world she lives in changes from merriment to corruption. Ultimately the pattern of imagery and symbolism in this poem shows the journey and story this narrator/character experiences.

Behind the scenes of Photoshop editing of my final photo
Behind the scenes of Pro Tools audio editing for the Free Verse Poem

Elements & Principles of Art

When making creative pieces, it is important to understand the different pieces of art which make it captivating to the audience. For Digital Media, we focused on learning the different elements and principles of art by creating a slide show.

Elements and Principles of Art Title Page

Experimental Film

Continuing with the concept statement we were given at the beginning of the year for our photo Haiku’s, Film students created unique experimental films. This type of film is based off abstract, unusual visuals and concepts which make the viewer try to have a deeper understanding or emotion of the film being created. To begin this project pitched ideas and got comments from our peers along with watching other experimental films to get a better concept of how to create our films. So far in this class, it has been a great learning experience. Many of my fellow peers have been involved in some type of film before this, while for me these lessons are a completely new concept. Yet most of these lessons in film I have grown up with watching movies with my family. So although these ideas we are learning are new, they are still familiar.

For my experimental film, my concept was “I am exploring the feeling of confidence through keeping a secret“. To try to show this idea I created a (poorly) animated film showing cups of colored fire (secrets) which this unknown figure carefully pours into a box which they lock in the end. I thought this process in the film could be seen as someone carefully keeping secrets locked away from the world. To create this film, I wrote out the different scenes and shots I thought were required for the film to make sense to the viewer. After I had planned the film, I took to an animating app and began drawing each frame for the film. Once I had finished drawing out each frame I downloaded my animation, added it to Premiere Pro, and added sound and cuts when needed. This was the final product

Experimental Film
Behind the scenes of film editing