Conceptual

Introduction

In the Conceptual Project, Juniors needed to develop their abstract thinking abilities and to answer the question below through effective communication:

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

This page will list the various risk-taking and new ways I expressed myself through art, music, poetry, web production, and animation with the touch of my personality and aesthetic. We also learned how to develop out communication skills through learning modern day, professional applications and equipment from home. This includes DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps.

As a Freestyle Academy student, the opportunities I’ve been able top find so far and the expansion in my abilities is something I’m deeply grateful for. I’ve learned to be more versatile and how to overcome challenges that may not have obvious solutions. In Freestyle Academy, the creativity and effort students put into their work is deeply valued and I respect that. I’m proud of the skills Freestyle English, Digital Media and Animation and this page will reflect what I’ve learned.

Haiku

A voice recording of the haiku I wrote for English and edited to have visuals and additional sound effects.

In my Freestyle English class, we studied the structure and inspirations for writing a haiku. In this project, we were given a two worded prompts and mine was “Amazement through Perfectionism”. In Digital Media, we used Premier Pro to compose a video and to record ourselves with Tascam Audio Recorders reading the poem.

I used audio effects and zoom ins to help immerse the viewer into the video, as well as to emphasize the theme of the poem. I wanted the grandiose and regel nature of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Sue from the Chicago Field Museum, to truly shine. This assignment helped me familiarize myself more with Premier Pro, as well as express my love and admiration of Sue the T-Rex. Learning how to subtly and effectively describe a story and imagery for our Haikus in English helped me

Poetry

After learning about the various forms of poetry, such as ekphrasis and free verse poetry, we were able to create our own using poetic devices. In Digital Media, we took the poem to create a visual image of it in Photoshop, record our intention statement and the poem itself with Tascam Audio Recorders, as well as edit the audio to include sound effects and music. We also took advantage of Adobe’s Dream Weaver to do some HTML coding to have the the icon of the poem and when it’s clicked, to enlarge itself and play the audio.

Click on image to see poem.
Listen to my Free Verse Poem Intention Statement.

“Haina Blana” is a free verse poem about the innocence of children and how their imagination can transform situations. That imagination can be halted at the discouragement from older figures. The title, “Haina Blana”, is in Romanian and means “Fur Coat”. The poem was based on the time I spotted an inspector at my English-speaking kindergarten in Romania. The narrator is a toddler who finds a lady with a coat, and after growing convinced it’s made of a canine, they ask the lady for confirmation. Her glare stops any further comments and wild thoughts about the coat.

I used repetition of the first lines, “Wolf, oh, wolf”, for some of the stanzas to make it feel like a nursery rhyme. This helps put the reader through the perspective of a child and sets up a playful tone. Creating that sense of innocence early on helps make the shift in tone later even more dramatic. 

I also implemented sound, particularly assonance, to help with making it feel innocent. The line “Your husky howl hobbles hollowly out” uses the “o” sound in words like “howl”. There’s also alliteration, such as the husky “h-” sound. “A bush of a tail brushes boredly behind” has alliteration with the “b” sound. There is also rhyme scattered throughout the poem, such as “cleft” and “left”, ”eaten” and “in”, and ”gnaw” and “jaw”.

I used allusion with the mention of Cruella DeVil because her fur coat is an iconic piece. The fur coat is a vital piece in my poem, representing how a simple object can be very easily swept up in a child’s imagination. The coat becomes an object correlative and feelings of intimidation, curiosity, and wonder get intertwined with it. I also made sure to use imagery when the coat was getting described. “Your fur is as pale as the minks you’ve eaten. It must be as soft as the snow you’ve sleeped in” helps the reader imagine the texture and color of the coat. Personification makes the coat into its own, entirely new character.

Stanzas also follow a syllable pattern. The opening has 5 syllables per line. It changes to 3 syllables, 5 syllables, 6 syllables, 5 syllables, 6 syllables and repeats that for the following stanzas until the shift of tone begins. These syllables add to the musicality of the poem and enforce the idea of a nursery rhyme.

There’s a tone shift when the narrator asks the inspector if the coat is dog fur. It goes from the innocent tone quickly to vulnerability and judgment. The syllable pattern is absent. The ideas about the wolf have left. Now, the narrator is faced with just the lady’s disapproval of the question and uncomfortable silence.

The techniques I used in the poem helped make the contrast before and after the tone shift more extreme. The lack of a syllable pattern, rhyme, repetition, and vivid description makes it seem as if the child’s imagination has been grounded down to reality.

My poem went through major changes. Initially, I was inspired by the poem “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman because of the descriptions and clear emotions. When I was rewriting my poem, I used the idea of repeating a line throughout the poem. I later took inspiration from Romanian nursery rhymes, particularly “Vulpe tu mi-ai furat gâsca” (Fox, You’ve Stolen the Goose). There was a lot of repetition in the poem and it was very straightforward. Some of the major changes my poem went through were using less academic language, having short lines, emphasizing sound devices, and a clearer shift in tone. Although my readers did enjoy the previous descriptions, I had to cut and remake them. Asking Mr. Greco for critique has greatly helped me adjust the poem to fit the tone of a child much more. I also turned the coat into its own character and had it become a wolf instead of just being a symbol of prestige.

This poem was challenging for me. I had to find solutions from the ground up, and sometimes that meant deleting the entire poem and starting again. I loved writing the vivid descriptions and thinking of creative ways to show the audience a story. I felt like basing the poem off of an experience I had made it feel even more real and exaggerating ideas, such as the coat never properly being called a coat. I learned a lot from this experience and look forward to creating more poems in the future.

The Pro Tools set up of my Free Verse poem reading and intention statement.
The Photoshop file of the Free Verse Poem

From this assignment, I learned about the value of putting more extensive thought about the minor details in a poem as well as sharing a story through a more abstract and metaphorical genre.

Elements and Principles of Art

After learning about the Elements and Principles of Art and Design, we created our own Google Slides with traditional art, photo, and modern art examples of the various principles and elements in Digital Media.

Elements and Principles of Art Title Page

Animation

In the Freestyle Academy Animation Course, we experimented with various forms of animation to express story telling and ourselves. Not only did I learn more about applying the twelve principles of animation to my work, but I learned that I’m capable of true resilience and patience with the work I’m creating. Learning a new program from the ground up isn’t the easiest experience, but with practice and guidance, different applications and mediums can greatly expand your abilities and creativity. I love to express not only myself, but the characters I animate through the movement and acting.

Zoetrope Animation

Zoetrope animations are strips of photographs or drawings that create the illusion of motion when spun. We made two colored strips with one being larger than the other. I created a bouncing ball animation to practice squash and stretch. On my other strip, I animated a stylized painted dog yawning. I created a design for the dog that would contain clear shapes as well as have areas of different contrast so it’d be easier to recognize when in motion.

Photo of the animation strips for my Zoetrope animations.
Photo of the animation strips for my Zoetrope animations.
Video of a bouncing ball animation for my Zoetrope project.
Video of a painted dog yawning animation for my Zoetrope project.

Phenakistoscope Wheel

A Phenakistoscope Wheel is divided into sections, like a sliced pie, with each slice being a frame of animation. When spun and reflected in the mirror, the viewer can peek through the slits to see the wheel’s animation in motion. I animated a goose waddling and opening its wings, a blue frame, and the moon phases spiraling down to the center. I used a blend of color pencil, micron pens, and marker. Photoshop was used to put the frames together and create GIFS and PNGs of the wheel. Through this assignment, I was able to practice and learn more about the Adobe App, Photoshop.

Around the time I made the project, I had recently gone kayaking at a lake where there were a lot of geese. Charmed by the creatures, I learned how to draw them and realized their design can be broken up into simple shapes. I practiced this knowledge when the opportunity came to animate a goose for my Freestyle Academy Animation class assignment. I drafted a goose walk cycle on a separate piece of paper before using a lightbox to trace my final frames on the Phenakistoscope Wheel. I added the wing flap to help add personality and flare to the animation loop. If I were to animate the goose again, I’d make sure it is walking on the same ground level throughout as well as keep track of minor details better, such as the nostril and where the neck connects to the body.

The moon phases spiraling down at the center were the easiest to animate because I just had to follow the moon cycles and make a ball grow smaller. I animated the moon because the waves we see on water are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon and thought it’d be a subtle way to connect to the goose. The fire was challenging since I couldn’t easily test the animation of fire to see if it’d flow well. I want to keep the flame’s movements spontaneous. I’d like to try animating a flame again in the future with the knowledge I now know about animation and applying the principles more, such as arcs for the flame. This project had shown me just how time consuming and rewarding traditional animation can be.

Photoshop layout of how the animated GIF of my phenakistoscope wheel was made.
Photoshop layout of how the animated GIF of my Phenakistoscope Wheel was made.
An image of my Phenakistoscope Wheel Animation.
An image of my Phenakistoscope Wheel Animation.
A GIF of my Phenakistoscope Wheel Animation.
A GIF of my Phenakistoscope Wheel Animation.

FlipBook Animation

A FlipBook Animation consists of a booklet with each page representing a frame, and when flipped, it reveals an animation. We were tasked with creating a 90 frame, colored animation utilizing the twelve principles of animation. I wanted to also take it a step further and show a story and character experiencing a challenge. I created a raccoon design and took inspiration from that week when I cracked my phone. I used up all the available frames in my FlipBook to create this and it is animated at 11 frames per second.

Stop Motion Studio screenshot of my FlipBook Animation.
Stop Motion Studio screenshot of my FlipBook Animation.
A video of my FlipBook Animation.

Direct Technique Animations 1 : Stop Motion Paper Cutout Animation

We created a stop motion animation through paper cut outs. In my animation, I had the Pokémon, Ditto, transform and multiply. I wanted to experiment with having different pieces to one character and relying more on the acting of the character to convey a story, even if there’s only a few papers I can choose from. We used Stop Motion Studios on our phones to photograph the frames and then added sound effects in After Effects.

Stop Motion Studio screenshot of my Stop Motion Paper Animation.
Stop Motion Studio screenshot of my Stop Motion Paper Animation.
After Effects screenshot of my Stop Motion Paper Animation.
After Effects screenshot of my Stop Motion Paper Animation.
Paper Stop Motion video of my animation.

Direct Technique Animations 2 : Stop Motion Object Animation

We did stop motion animation with objects for this project. Much like the Direct Technique Animations 1 : Stop Motion Paper Cutout Animation project, I had to rely more on the acting of the characters to show the story. In my video, it’s a Dog Talent Show and after the experienced dogs perform, the puppy runs through the obstacle course. I used Stop Motion Studios here for taking pictures of the frames and After Effects to edit audio into the video.

Stop Motion Studio screenshot of my Stop Motion Object Animation.
Stop Motion Studio screenshot of my Stop Motion Object Animation.
After Effects screenshot of my Stop Motion Object Animation.
After Effects screenshot of my Stop Motion Object Animation.
Object Stop Motion video of my animation