Explorations

Overview

For my Explorations project, I chose to do animation/ an animatic. But first, I had to do research on how to animate. I looked up simple animation exercises as well as the 12 rules of animation. I practiced the animation warm ups before brainstorming my animatic. The animatic was created about my own and a friend’s original Characters. An animatic is like a really rough plan of an animation.

My aim for this project was to learn to create animatics. I’ve always wanted to try and create one ever since I’ve been watching YouTube animatics. Ever since I made OCs with a friend, I’ve wanted to create animatics for the characters’ stories and dive deeper into their somewhat complex relationship.

The 21st century skill I learned was Visual Literacy, which is to interpret and create images using 21st century media like Premiere Pro. And I chose this skill because I wanted to learn how to tell stories and make it fun to try interpret whatever was being shown.

Process

I first did a really rough draft that Only I could really know what I was trying to do. Then, I added the line art and added onto the animatic as a whole. And I did all drawing on Procreate, a drawing app on my I Pad using an Apple pencil.

Below, is the planning out each individual frame, the initial sketch, the line art, then the coloring of one of the frames in the animatic. Although there were frames added later on and I changed other frames to match the audio that I had chosen to fit better.

After I had drawn everything together, the animatic was ready to be edited. So what I did was go into premiere pro and exported all the separate frames into the application then adding the audio as well. Then, I sorted the frames to match the audio that I had chosen. I chose the audio from Isle of Dogs because I thought it really fit my character, Leander and his struggle with his own identity and trying to find somewhere he belonged with a background as a beggar and a gigolo at a young age.

I really actually enjoyed this project specifically because I’ve always wanted to create an animatic. Not saying that I’ve not tried, but this was my first one that I’ve actually moved around on the screen and it was not just a single frame that changes to the next right after. It gave me an opportunity to share my stores that I’ve usually kept to myself and I was actually quite anxious about it because I was being a perfectionist at the time and want it to look perfect- which I know it never will be for real.

I benefited as an artist because I got to explore a new territory I was afraid to wade into it. I also got to learn new skills from friends and even get closer to them because I’ve been at freestyle with them this whole year. Explorations was probably my favorite project this year since it really pushed me out of my comfort zone with my drawing and challenged me to grain feedback and improve- which is something I sometimes fear doing.

Final Product

Music Recording

For our digital Media Explorations, we were tasked to do a music recording between the months April and May. We would chose partner to sing with or not then schedule a time to record in the recording studio with Mr. Flo. I did it with my friend Blanki and her partner Darian and we sang “Take Me to War” by the Crane Wives. We all liked that band and we collectively agreed on the song even if I personally didn’t know it as well as the others.

We did the recording on the 28 of May at the end of the day. Mr. Flo gave us a debrief on what his part was before teaching us about the equipment so that when we do our senior recording project, we’ll know what to do when that time comes. The recording process was easy, though all of us were nervous at first because we had never really sang to each other and didn’t know each other’s voices well. As well as we had to sing the whole song as a solo then in the editing process, mushed it all together and used the best parts of each of our voices.

Overall, it was a fun experience, but next year, I don’t want to be the one editing and recording whoever would be singing. I’d rather be singing to be honest!

The cover art was drawn by me and the audio is below!

Here was our collective Artist Atatement too

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Our inspiration for this project was the song Take Me to War by The Crane Wives. The reason we picked to record this song was because it was from a band all of us knew and enjoyed, it was a song that would be easy enough for all of us to sing, and it was the most realistic choice given our limited time frame. The song is unique because of the sweetness of some of the singing, it is an inherently angry and defiant song.

We grew artistically and technically with this project by learning how to utilize the recording studio. We had very bare bones knowledge of the studio before, but this project taught us the in’s and out’s about recording in the recording studio. It also taught us all how to interpret recorded audio into Pro Tools. Overall, we confirmed that we all now had the ability and comfort to be recorded in the recording studio and now we have more confidence in recording ourselves for the future Senior music recording project. Some struggles we encountered throughout this project was the scheduling and picking of the song. It was only when we added Katie to our group that we finally figured out what we were going to do. Additionally, a lot of us were a bit anxious about being recorded in the recording studio but quickly loosened up the moment we started actually using it.

If we could change anything about this project, we would’ve given us more time. This is mostly because we would’ve loved to keep recording in the recording studio, and we likely won’t have time until next year to do so since the end of junior year is approaching. However, that isn’t this project’s fault and more just a consequence of the crunching deadlines junior’s face at the end of the year. We are all honestly proud of our performances in general, it isn’t perfect but it showed we were happy and having fun and that’s the most important part.

Poetry

For the last project of this year, we were tasked to create a poem. During this unit, we had a poet-in residence help us out. And how she helped me out specifically was that she allowed me to be more open to different types of poems and not just the standard ones I’ve seen. For how the process of creating a poem started was that we looked through many different poem s by different authors, reading them out loud and dissecting the hidden or deeper meanings of each one so that we can explain or figure out the story behind it.

We practiced the types of poetry the poet we had a Freeestyle taught us, giving it a shot ourselves. I had never realized that there were so many types of poems. After trying different styles, we were tasked to make our own by building off ones we had already done with the poet or create a new one completely.

For my Explorations poem, I chose to create a completely new one and I called it “Finding Hope” This poem was specifically about my original Character, Leander. The reason my poem ties so closely with my charater is because I basically wrote about him and his childhood, trying to find a place or someone who wanted him as for who he was and not just some entertainment.

My poem is Below!