Introduction
The goal of the conceptual project is to drive risk taking creatively among us as students. Prior to Freestyle Academy, I never had experience in almost everything that we have learned during this unit. We have done lots of exploration in the fields of poetry, music, art, animation, experimental films and web production, which has forced me to use my creative mind and apply my own unique style to everything. Throughout this unit, I have also done a lot of learning and mastering of tools like DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps. What I value the most about this unit as a Freestyle student is that I am being taught so many different platforms and really professional tools that will not only help my own production be better, but also could help me in the future. Throughout my two years at Freestyle, I will continue to master each piece of equipment hopefully even to the point that I can even do jobs for people in one certain platform, like editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. I’m super grateful for being given this equipment and testing your creative mind is super fun, which is what this project is about. Speaking of creative mind, we are also given the power to make all of our own artistic choices. As students we are given the creative freedom to come up with an idea and develop things exactly how we want it which is incredible.
Haiku Photo
For the haiku project, we were assigned a concept statement that was to be used in both Digital Media & English. My concept statement was: I am exploring the feeling of determination through admiring architecture. For this statement, I decided to go out and take a picture a unique piece of architecture, Hoover Tower. I then developed the words in poem to emulate the feeling of determination one would feel when building Hoover Tower. My Haiku then ended off with the feeling of one having a sense of admiration for this piece of architecture from all of the hard work and determination that was put into it being made.
I really valued the time working with Abobe Premiere Pro and editing. I have been using Adobe Premiere Pro for a couple years now, but I was still able to learn a couple more tips and tricks throughout this production. The more practice that I have messing around with the software and practicing it, the better I will be at it, and the quicker I will be able to get things done. Aside from editing, I really enjoyed the struggle writing the Haiku. My concept statement was pretty wild in my opinion and took a lot of brainstorming and trying different things out for me to finally come upon my favorite version. Lastly, I really enjoyed the journey of going out and taking the photo. I got to go on a drive to Stanford campus and find different unique angles to take photos of Hoover Tower. Overall, it was a really fun and great project.
Poetry
For the poetry unit, we were assigned to write a free verse poem that we would then submit for English class and then produce a recording of our poem using Pro Tools, for Digital Media. For my project poem, I decided to produce a free verse ekphrastic poem. An ekphrastic poem is a poem that is based off a photograph. My poem is about life being so uncertain and that it can end at any moment. Use every minute, day, and hour, exactly how you want it. The next day isn’t guaranteed.
Intention Statement: In “Any Moment,” a free verse ekphrastic poem, I responded to Jeremy Gwa’s “Heart skips a beat.” When I initially came across the painting I was quick to notice the drop of the heart rate into a flat line; death. Over the past couple years I have seen quite a few videos and learned from my elders that life is a lot shorter than one can expect. With that being said, this painting matched that theme perfectly. The poem is written from a third-person perspective but intended directly towards the reader. In the first stanza I used an end stop to really put emphasis on the word privilege: “Life, a privilege.” To further back up the statement that life is a privilege, I inserted the fact that being born is a one in 400 trillion chance and is only 2 billion seconds long, which doesn’t seem like a lot. As we entered the third stanza, I switched from a more informational and somewhat optimistic tone towards a much darker tone using imagery. Through the words, “…don’t let them lurk deep into your soul,” I really wanted the reader to imagine and think about the feeling of darkness within their body and how overwhelming it can be. When one comes across such a strong feeling, they often spend a lot of time pondering about it. But considering that the next second, the next minute, and the next hour is so uncertain, don’t spend your life overstressing it. Move onto the next thing and try to experience as much as you can. Moving onto the fifth stanza I input sensory details to once again fit into the pattern of making the reader truly feel and imagine what it’s like to have everything come to an end. One of the best ways for one to understand something is by visualizing it and from there you often come to multiple realizations. And throughout my poem, I am using different poetic techniques to allow the reader to realize how short life can be. During my peer review, my classmates really liked the imagery I used and how I strongly put emphasis on certain words and phrases. The most helpful feedback they suggested was that I make some additional lineation choices that would further develop the poem, so, I made those changes in the places I felt would be most effective. For this poem, I also drew a lot of inspiration from the poet C.P. Cavafy and his poem “Ithaka.” Throughout his poem, you can really see his effective use of end-stops and the way he displays imagery to the reader. Both are considerably my favorite poetic techniques to use when writing and are a great way to emphasize the theme to the intended audience.
What I really valued about this project, was that I was able to try out various new applications and learn them. When you first open them up, they look really complex and difficult and I know that they would’ve been extremely hard to navigate on my own. With that being said, I really value the tutorials that Mr. Florendo provided us with for each part of the production. They were extremely helpful and I greatly appreciate him for doing that. And although I faced some challenges along the way, in the end, everything came out pretty successful and close to how I wanted it.
Elements & Principles of Art
The point of this assignment was to expose us to all the different style and techniques used in art. There are so many different angles and ways to organize your photo to make it a lot better, which is what makes art so unique. But also, the elements and principles of art can be used as something not to do. Sometimes, some of the best art pieces are made when the artist uses their own creative mind and doesn’t follow the principles, hence, making it super abstract and unlike anything else.
Experimental Film
In film class, for the conceptual unit, we made an experimental film. An experimental film, otherwise referred to as an avant-garde film, is a type of filmmaking that rips apart the conventional values and aspects present in a narrative film for example. In short, it is meant to be super abstract. For my experimental film, I was assigned to use the same concept statement given in Digital Media and English: I am exploring the feeling of determination through admiring architecture. What I really enjoyed about this project in particular and my time in film class as a whole, is that it really challenged me to think. None of the projects we’ve done have been allowed to have dialogue in them. With that being said, it really challenges you to think and come up with very unique and more interesting film ideas because dialogue is kind of an easy way out when making a film, it’s really simple and quite honestly, overused. Ultimately, I’ve really come to value everything that Mr. Taylor has taught us and challenged us to do and it is really going to help me in the future as I continue to create and be apart of so many more films.
Before we actually went out and started shooting our experimental film, we created a synopsis, which essentially is a brief summary of your story. Here is my experimental synopsis, which is the first one I’ve ever done!
Synopsis
Concept Statement:
- I am exploring the feeling of determination through admiring architecture.
I am intending to symbolize architecture through a creation from multiple objects in nature. In the opening scene, I am going to have a close up clip of one of the objects (undecided), which will be the base of the structure, be placed on the ground in the middle of the forest. My goal is to try to not reveal what is being built until the very end of the film. Gradually, clip by clip, the audience is going to be able to see the piece being created. One object is going to be stacked upon the other. Then another object is going to be used as another base for the structure. Some objects will come from multiple sides and attach from the middle. But as the piece starts to come together, it will break apart. The piece will repeatedly be re-built but every-time it is destroyed, it will be from a different cause than the last. It is basically a never ending sequence of problems, but the audience will be able to see the determination through the person never giving up on building it. They will go through frustration, pain, sadness, and so many more harsh conditions, but they won’t stop (shows determination). All emotions will be displayed through the music and sound effects of the motion picture. To display the emotions I am going to utilize different camera angles. I will have some extreme close-ups of the face, to show them crying for example. In others, I will have zoomed-out clips as the person is taking out their anger. I’m planning on having the person knock down the piece because of the lack of patience they have. In another situation, I am planning on displaying the person breaking objects surrounding them. Essentially, each emotion is going to be displayed as differently as possible. Eventually, the piece is going to be fully built without being destroyed. The audience will have a feeling of admiration for the piece after seeing all the ups and downs emotionally that both the person and the piece went through. So, theoretically, I will be able to hit every spot of the concept statement by the end of the film. Once people are starting to think it’s over, to add an unusual extra aspect to the film, I am going to have the camera pull out and reveal that the piece was being built within another object, like a container potentially. In order for this to be effective, it is largely going to rely on post-production editing. Theoretically, I will be able to scale it down and correctly frame it only using Premiere Pro, but that might change depending on a few other factors. After the camera pulls out from the mini-environment that most of the film resided, it will track the person carrying the piece and they will then place it on the counter. The last shot of the film will be a still shot of the container in the middle of the frame. It will then fade to black, credits will roll…the end!
Despite, what I originally came up with in my synopsis, my final experimental film actually ended up being quite a bit different. Instead of shooting it in the forest as I first pictured, I shot the film in my garage. In order to stay with the idea of not revealing what is built, I set up a white sheet in my garage and a huge light that I would then project onto the objects, hence, creating a shadow. It was definitely challenging to say the least but in the end I think it came out really unique and better than I expected!
Using the same application as I did for my Haiku Video, I edited and put together my experimental film. All of my clips and audio are collected on the bottom left portion of the screen and I actually do the importing and cutting of everything in the sequence that has the various video and audio levels. Adobe Premiere Pro is definitely a little difficult for those that have never used it before, but I’ve been using it for a while and I definitely recommend it to all!