The Reflections Unit was about reflecting on who we are and thinking about the past and our core values. In English we wrote a personal essay, which was also a essay we could submit to colleges. In Digital Media we made a Mandala, with a partial requirement to put your core values into the artwork. Then in film we made a 2-minute film that was meant to show in a variety of way, how we think.
That is a great idea for a unit, have a bunch of high school seniors reflect on their lives so far. An opportunity for retrospection and processing of what has happened.
The issue is, I don’t want my reflections to be permanently implanted in the internet. So instead of actually reflecting deeply in these projects I did barely minimum to technically fill the requirements. Starting out with my fake core values!
Core Values Video Artist Statement:
The fonts are similar because I wanted to show how all the different core values all fit with my brain. The animations are different because I wanted there to be variety in how the values are presented to avoid repetition. The speaking and music are similar as they are both short and concise. Although the intro text and outro text have some similar font and position, they have different emotion tones and text. The majority of core values are shown in one group in the middle, while the intro and outro are shown at the beginning and end. While most of the core values are in the same color, attentiveness is in blue and green, this is to create visual variety. The blue represents the background, the green represents a color different from the background. The intro and end’s position significantly differ, the intro is at the start, while the outro is at the end.
Mandala
The Mandala project involved making a artwork which is symmetrical in a circular pattern. Doing this involved more practice using Illustrator, and learning how to do more complicated layer transformations.
There was also a factor to put your core values into it, I didn’t do that. Instead I drew some a silly machine with a silly rat.
Here is the orginal and colored version of the Mandala.
Here are the artist statements of the 2 Mandala variants.
Rat Factory:
I started this artwork thinking about what would work well in the format of a Mandala. And the way it circles around made me think of conveyor belts. And that built to the overall theming of a machine factory thing. I was originally planning to have like a fire in the middle powering it, but then I thought of having a rat power it, which is much funnier. I just like the idea that there’s a funny rat inside of every computer. It’s like the real reason they tell you to not take apart power sources, isn’t due to 1000s of volts that can stop your heart, but it’s because there’s secretly a rat in there. During this project I also got used to drawing with a drawing tablet. As in the past I have just been a mouse drawer, but now that I can effectively use the tablet it’s definitely better for drawing. Also because I was just learning I didn’t use the pressure sensitivity for anything, but now I got some skill I want to try that in the future.
Remastered HD Rat Factory in Color:
This artwork is a colored version of my Mandala that was lasered onto a physical surface, so you should look at that artist’s statement for more details. I chose the color by what I felt would fit the vibe the factory the best, that being dark gray and red. The dark gray is from it being a factory, and I choose the red as it is a powerful color that I feel fits the powerful energy of a factory. Also Adobe Illustrator live paint tool wasn’t super helpful for this as it requires a path to fully encircle an area to be colored, which the paths don’t always do. So only about 60% of the artwork was able to be easily colored, while the rest had to be done manually. In the future I want to find a better way to color in illustrator, as chances are there is some 100% effective technique out there.
The making of this mandala started with drawing all the separate lines, which are be shown here.
This video was created by manually enabling the visibility of every line in the artwork. Here you can see the after effects file where the different clips where stitched together.
Then after drawing the Mandala it was printed.
Once printed there is now a version of this artwork in the real world.
Mandala Photo Artist Statement:
When taking this photo I wanted to enhance the artwork. So I found a background that was similarly industrial like the Mandala. And I made sure to use a low f-stop so the background did not distract from the Mandala. About the mandala itself, I choose the white plastic as it creates alot of contrast which keeps the details of the artwork visible. And the notches at the edge make the physical artwork feel like a gear.
College Personal Essay
The Personal College essay was also about reflecting, but also making a essay to give to colleges to show why you should be let in. Which resulted in being encouraged to attempt to connect life experiences with a future career. When being real, don’t make your life story about your job, make your life story about your life.
I did write a essay thought that basically tries to appease the college system, I didn’t do any real new reflecting in it. And I don’t share it as this project is still a Personal Essay, so im not gonna share it with the internet
Film
Finally onto some real stuff. In film we did a reflections film, but also did a lot of side projects to teach specific things. Like we covered Suround Sound, Teamwork, The Monomyth story structure, and more.
The main big reflections film had a different prompt then the other classes. This wasn’t a film thinking about the things we have done, but a film thinking about the way we think. The idea being the things you have done aren’t what make you unique, the main characteristics you have don’t make you unique, but the way you think is what makes you unique. Then in the film you would talk about some experience you have had, but the real focus isn’t the event, but instead the way you thought about it.
This prompt was a lot more interesting then the other ones, so I actually tried a little.
This next project was insane. It started on Monday where Mr.T simply told us to get into groups and make a storyboard for a film idea, and we all guessed we would spend the rest of the week (Wendesday, and Friday) to film and edit those stories. But oh how wrong we were, because after we make the storyboards. We were told that yes we would be making these storyboards, But not the one from your group. So, we had to go film the story board from a different group. Then after that we had to edit the footage from a different group Aswell.
Here is the edit me, Aahan and Isaiah put together. There is one very important shot in here that we obviously had to make up because the previous group forgot to film it.
This video is from the very first assignment we got this year. Go making a film in the class period. And this is the strange mess that was produced in 2 hours with a severe lack of editing time.
One of the skills we learned was using surround sound. Which is basically setting up audio files which can be played from speakers all around a listener, instead of just to the left and right. So in order to experience the key part of these videos you need a surround sound audio setup which most people don’t have. I decided to make a short fake tutorial.
This unit was a fun one. Either through the assignments being fun, or me finding a way to make them fun. But in general, a lot of fun.
