Conceptual

“How can I use unconventional forms to express myself?”
For our conceptual projects we were given the challenges of creating unique art through the mediums of poetry, music, art, and in my case, animation. I used a variety of modern professional equipment and applications provided to me here at Freestyle. This included DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps.

In my English/Digital Media classes, I was given the opportunity to express myself within the projects that I did throughout the semester.

Haikus

My Short Haiku Video

In my English class, I was given the intention statement of “exploring the feeling of loneliness though walking on the beach.” So, I created this poem. I was then tasked with adding emotion to the poem by narrating it and editing in audio to fit the needs of the poem. This video was the first video I had ever edited professionally. Although short, it was a really special experience for me as I had been wanting to learn how to edit videos like this for ages. I am proud of how it turned out.

Poetry

This poem I edited was a collaboration between my Digital Media and English class. Deciding to follow the theme of beaches, I wrote this poem with the intention of conveying a happier feel through the experiences one would feel through spending time at the beach. I spent my time in English drafting and revising this poem, and editing it in Digital Media. Unlike my previous poem, this one is much longer and the music is accompanied by sound effects. I am also very proud about how this turned out.

Sandy Serenity is a free verse poem about the sounds one would hear on the beach, and the way they can affect the listener. The speaker in this poem, an anonymous beach-goer, describes “The ceaseless sound of people/ Scuttling” to create the idea of an incessant sound created by the numerous people. The consonance in this line creates a hissing sound, suggesting that it might be unwelcomed. However, the remainder of the stanza says, “The clamor is somehow peaceful” suggesting that the “ceaseless sound” provides an ambient background noise.
In the second stanza, the wind is described as “humming bars,” creating a musical feel, and this musical mood is added to when the wind is said to inspire the “sands to dance.” The wind is depicted as playing bars of music, and the sand, brought to life by the wind, dances in response. And, the waves are said to be bubbling and frothing to suggest their excitement and movement because they too, must dance in the wind.
In the third stanza, movement is slowing down, signified by the line break and the time change, “As the sun sets down on the horizon.” the streaks of light created by the sun on the surface of the water are said to pave the surface of the ocean to provide the reader with an image of shimmering streets illuminating the surface of the water. When I say, “The wind hollows the air,” I am trying to produce a sound like a howl the wind might make as it grows thinner in the air. In the last line, “My thoughts wash away with the waves,” suggests that the speaker’s mind, seemingly filled with the sounds of the ocean, can find peace by allowing themself to let go and take in the world around.
Ultimately, the pattern of sound descriptions compel the reader to not only read the poem, but to hear it. When making my revisions, I added a lot more punctuation like my peer reviewers suggested I do. I also changed some of the lines such as “inspiring the sands to dance”, when it was originally “sifting the sands as it glazes through.”, and “The wind hollows the air.” when it was originally, “the wind, now hollow in the air.” I mainly drew inspiration from my previous concept statement where I had to “explore the feeling of loneliness through walking on the beach”, but this time, I wanted it to have a happier tone.

The Magic

Photoshop Blend Mode Editing Section

Here are some of the first things I did when figuring out photoshop! I thought that learning blend modes was really cool and trying to figure out things like changing the color of water. I valued that I could picture something in my head and create a rough photoshop project of it.

Animation

In Freestyle, we were given the choice to take one of three elective classes. Animation, Film, or Design. Ever since I was young I enjoyed watching cartoons and as I got older, some anime. I was really mesmerized by the amount of detail each and every frame had in some of the fight scenes I was watching. Each single frame felt like a piece of artwork on its own. To create art like that but them combine thousands of those pictures to make something that moves was super cool to me. That’s why I decided to take Animation as my elective. Although not yet on par with the animations I’ve seen, I hope to be on that level in the near future. In the meantime, here are some of my beginning works.

This was the first animation I had ever made. It was 16 frames depicting a sleeping character.

My second project was an Animated Phenakistoscope. I decided to draw a head at different angles because I wanted to be able to practice drawing heads at different angles. Although it does look a little weird, I think it gets the main point of the moving head across. To practice my basic skills, I had a bouncing ball in the middle.

These were my first two flipbooks! The first one is 76 frames of a character swinging a sword. We only had about a week to finish it and I bit off a bit more than I could chew. I ended up taking a couple weeks to finish and digitize it, and didn’t end up putting any color. However, I thought that the final product turned out pretty nice!

For my second flipbook, I recognized my time constraints a little more. As a class, our goal was to transform a shape into another shape within 75 frames. This is why my flipbook starts off as a circle and ends up as a star.

This was my Exquisite Corpse Art! Our class each drew one body part: A leg, body, and torso. We then jumbled all of them up in piles and picked randomly. What we got, we had to combine and take a picture of. It was a fun, quick little activity!

This was my stop motion paper animation. It was the first stop motion animation I made. Some of you may recognize where the characters are from the show Attack on Titan. I thought that Attack on Titan had some of the coolest fight scenes, and I thought it would be cool to make my stop motion animation based off of the show!

This was my second stop motion animation, but this time with 3D objects! I wanted to create that “blobby” feeling you get when you watch some youtuber created stop motion animations of things like water drops in a sink. Sadly, I do not think that this was my best work but I still think it was fun to make.