Conceptual

Introduction

For our conceptual project, we juniors are able to learn and develop skills to communicate through many forms.

“How can I use unconventional forms to express myself”

Through creative risk-taking, experimental film, poetry, art, animation, web production, and much more We students are challenged and pushed out of our comfort zone through experimenting with new distinct aesthetics. We begin developing these techniques of communication through learning a lot of modern and professional skills such as how to use DSLR cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps

Freestyle for me personally has been a really amazing experience and opportunity. I think it’s awesome that we students can have an opportunity to be treated as adults and learn real-world skills. Freestyle has taken a lot of stress out of my life and has given me a way to express my creativity through outlets such as digital media and English.
“Show Don’t Tell”

Haiku

One of the ways we learn to express ourselves is through poetry. In our English class a big part of the poetry we practiced where Haikus. Haikus force us to really dive deep into the meaning of words seeing as they are very short and abstract consisting of a total of 17 syllables.

Behind The Scenes

Throughout this process, I have really learned to appreciate the big meaning small words can have. With haikus, you can read it a million times and somehow continue to find new meaning to the same words. I feel like as I get older and the more I learn to express myself the more meaning I will derive from words and the more I will continue to grow as a person.

Poetry

In freestyle our poetry unit allowed us to take the knowledge we gained from haikus and have creative freedom with it. Throughout this unit, we read and went in-depth to many poems learning different styles and applying them to our own work. With this, we were able to really create some cool work of our own such as our free verse poems.

Fragmented Cities By Milo Rathbun
Click to image to see poem

Fragmented Is an ekphrastic free verse poem about searching for greater meaning in a town that is filled with identical-looking houses and surrounded by nothing but mountains and rocks. I imagine the speaker in this poem to be one of the many people living in this society who feel they are not getting true meaning out of life and that they are realizing more and more that they live in this seemingly meaningless society. In the first stanza, I use imagery and alliteration to make the reader feel the repetition and dullness that the everyday occurrences have in this society. I use words such as “warm sunlight” and “cold moonlight” to make the picture as though they themselves were feeling it. Additionally, I used a lot of end stops to really draw meaning to these occurrences and cause the reader to pause and think about it. In the third stanza, I then ask one of the repeating questions “what does this fragment mean”. Throughout the poem, I start by asking what this “fragment” means, and then I ask bigger and bigger questions like what does this “society” and “world” mean. While asking these questions there’s a slight shift in tone due to the reader being able to see how the speaker’s search for meaning is getting bigger and bigger. In the fourth stanza the speaker is describing how the houses vary in color yet they are still so dull like the color grey that surrounds the city. In the fifth stanza, I repeated the same type of alliteration used in the first by giving more imagery of what’s in the picture and further developing that feeling of repeated dullness. The same end stops are also used in order to again, make the reader pause and look at the features and dullness that’s present. In the sixth stanza, I was describing more of the image and how every house is the same. These houses are all topped by identical water units (cisterns) and feel like one of the only stand-out things are the telephone poles which vary in position and size. In the last line of the world, I use the term “rhetoric world” to kind of show how the speaker views this world as one in which we are told a purpose and persuaded to just believe in it without searching for our own deeper meaning. In the eighth stanza I give a bigger picture perspective by not talking about specific features of the image but, still implying the meaning of how all the houses may be different colors but they are in such an order, shape, and pattern that they are still given this identical look. I do this because as the speaker is asking bigger and bigger questions his perspective is getting bigger therefore he isn’t talking specifically about his city rather how the whole world is similar to his city. Finally the speaker ends of the poem by asking an abstract question leaving the reader thinking deeper and deeper. “What does this mean” In a way is a combination of all the questions and shows how the speaker has developed such a greater view of meaning throughout the poem. I got a lot of good feedback throughout making this poem and most of it was to focus more on the content of the image rather than just having the image and talking about something abstract. As I revised it I went in a direction where I more focused on the image and towards the end the image to still give the audience a more abstract view.

Looking back on this project I really am grateful that we have such a cool opportunity to turn our poetic work into something we can listen to and engage with on a whole new level. Being able to use applications such as pro tools to mix our audio and add sound effects are super awesome and makes the poem much more engaging.

Audio Production

Visual Production

In this Image, I used the picture that the poem is based on and warped the text around it so that it created an effect of deeper meaning to certain verses and words.

Photoshop: Blend Modes

During our Photoshop unit in digital media, we learned how to use blend modes in order to adjust our images and make them look better. Through the use of certain overlays, we were able to take over or underexposed pictures and make them much more visible further improving the overall look and color.

Personally, I was really intrigued by this unit because it gave me a way bigger perspective on all the amazing things you can do in photoshop. Now I feel like whatever picture I take or have I can use photoshop and make the colors exactly how I want them to look. Knowing I can have such an ability I am also way more inspired to take photos.

Film production

For our conceptual film unit, we started off by getting amazing DSLR cameras and learning how to use them to our own abilities. After learning about the different shots and trying them all out ourselves we jumped right into learning how to edit and put those shots into a production.

Film Is all about communicating a 3-dimensional Idea through a 2-dimensional screen and making your audience feel the emotion you desire. Throughout this unit, we learned about “Film Language” Something we all know by heart but don’t truly understand until we are taught about it. This unit changed my whole perspective on film and gave me a far deeper appreciation for the process and thought behind creating movies.

“I am exploring the feeling of tranquility through teaching”

My experimental film Starts off with a tranquil guitar and music, that I composed myself. As the music gets faster and faster the visuals of the guitar get more and more chaotic. Throughout the film, the chaos will slowly disappear as the guitar plays notes. Additionally to convey the message of teaching I am going to use echoes Or repeated sounds. In my perspective when you put something out into the world (teach) it is reciprocated in some way. This way is taking the form of an echo through sound. Using these echoes the chaos will fade every note and then we will be left with a blank image, a guitar, and a soft melody that echoes. Thus representing the tranquility that teaching(echos) brings.
So far I think that the constant noise can be static and that the chaos could be just a whole mix of colors that are unsettling and make the viewer feel a way of chaos.

The Work Behind It

Chase-Scene

One of the Big projects of our film unit was the Jr.Chase scene. Throughout the process of creating our chase scene, we used skills such as Griffiths Pattern and the 180-degree rule that lead to much more challenging criteria for the chase. Additionally, I decided to make mine driving so we had to find creative ways to get shots by hanging out of windows trunks and more.
As our teacher Mr.Taylor says, sometimes you have to risk it for the shot!

Scavenger Hunt Video

Our Scavenger hunt video was the first assignment we did and it challenged us to try and get the biggest variety of shots we could. In order to do this, we decided to also have some fun with it and turn it into a music video…