Conceptual

Introduction

Throughout the conceptual unit, we as freestyle students have been attempting to make creative decisions through mediums like poetry, music, animation, and more. This unit has challenged us to express ourselves and ideas through personal aesthetic and style alone. This unit has also been a thorough introduction to many important tools such as a dslr camera, audio recorders, adobe applications, as well as WordPress.

Art Reflection

One of our first projects in both english and digital media was the SFMOMA art reflection. For this project we got to go on a field trip to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts, otherwise known as the SFMOMA. After this trip, we would write a reflection on an art piece that made us feel awe. We would then create a video in which we recorded our reflection and used pictures of the piece for our background

I valued the creative freedom and expression we were allowed in this project. It was really fun to learn how to use premier pro and the abilities I learned from this project would end up being very useful for future projects. Additionally, the script writing in english class was initially very difficult for me because there was so much I wanted to say about it, but I needed to find a way to say it all using less words in order to fit he time the video was supposed to be. This helped me convey my ideas in a much more concise and clear way.

Parody Song Introduction

This project was overall really fun to do. It involved finding a song you wanted to make a parody of. After we would write the lyrics and finally record ourselves signing them to a karaoke backing track.

Parody Lyrics

click here for lyrics

Oh, whoa, whoa, oh

I feel so unsure

As I make a guess, and continue to make more

As the time depletes, there’s something that I need

Just one thing, to be right, and all else will be fine

I’m never gonna guess again

But this time I’m in a rhythm  

Though it’s seems easy to solve

I know its a b c or d

I should have known better not cheating again

And waste the grade that i’d been given

So I’m never gonna guess again

The way I did on this test, oh

Time can never mend

The careless predictors on a hard test

To the pencil and paper, guessing is just a favor

There’s no comfort in what’s right, just guess and sleep well tonight

I’m never gonna guess again

But this time I’m in a rhythm 

Though it’s seems easy to solve

I know its a b c or d

I should have known better not cheating again

And waste the grade that i’d been given

So I’m never gonna guess again

The way I did on this test, oh

Never without a guess

Today, the questions make no sense

I wish that I could be in bed

Maybe it’s better this way

I’ve gotta learn to study or find some pay

I could’ve done so much better

I could have just slept till never

But now, who’s gonna accept me?

(it’s just a c??)

I’m never gonna guess again

But this time I’m in a rhythm 

Though it’s seems easy to solve

I know its a b c or d

I should have known better not cheating again

And waste the grade that i’d been given

So I’m never gonna guess again

The way I did on this test, oh

Now that you’re done

(Now that you’re done)

Photoshop Blend Modes

This project involved learning how to use photoshop tools in general, but really focused in on the many blend modes available to use in photoshop, such as using multiply layers to add shading or using screen layers to lighten an image. This project really helped me understand photo editing and was also a lot of fun

My response to what I most valued about this project: I value the knowledge that now allows me to add more of my own creative touch to photos that would normally feel a little boring or lacking in something. Additionally, these blend modes allow me to make up for some mistakes I may have made while shooting so that I if really like a picture I can still be able to salvage it. 
 
I see myself using the many blending tools to make photos or videos more interesting, I also see myself using the tools I got in the process of making the poster to make other similar posters or concept designs.

DSLR Practice Photos

Animation

Introduction

Animation has so far been an incredibly fun class. Starting out in this concepual unit, we’ve mostly been doing traditional animation. Using things like praxinoscopes, phenakistoscopes, and more to create the illusion of animation. This unit has let me be creative in a way that I’m a little more used to and overall has been a great way to learn the basics of animation.

History of animation

This short project was done at the very beginning of the year and was a very effective introduction to the principles of animation. This project started out with our class watching videos on the history of animation, which went over many early forms of animation including some of our future projects. After watching videos on the history of animation we would write a short one page summary about all the things we learned and what we found useful about this knowledge. Next, we watched a few videos on the main principles of animation. After understanding the principles we would choose a scene from an animated show or movie and take frames from it, describing which principles of animation were used in the frame. This project was a very useful introduction to animation and helped me understand it more as we were starting out.

Praxinoscope Zoetrope

This was our first project involving actual animation. It involved drawing framed onto a strip of paper that we would then spin in a praxinoscope or zoetrope. These devices create the illusion of movement from the strips.

Phenakistoscope Wheel

For my phenakistoscope project I was greatly inspired by a music video from one of my favorite artists, Zutomayo. It was the music video Nouri Ue no Cracker which features the spinning umbrella at the beginning and jumping fish and vines in the chorus of the music video. I really love this song and the music video had spinning things so I thought it would be cool to make my phenakisoscope about it.

While I had started my phenkistoscope intending to only have the umbrella spin, Mr Cho suggested that I make it open as well for more motion and I think that made my phenakistoscope turn out much better. Additionally, even though in the original music video the fish look like they’re jumping because they’re spinning on sticks of different length, I found it hard to replicate and even though I initially included the sticks the fish would be attached to I didn’t really like how it looked so opted to remove them in the end. Trying to represent the original music video as well as create something that looked good was the most difficult part of this project.

Flip books

This was our first of two flipbook projects with this one being very freeform, pretty much allowing us to draw whatever we wanted to draw. However, I honestly found a lot of difficulty in this because I couldn’t figure exactly what I wanted this flipbook to be about. Because of this I feel that the final flipbook feels a little disjointed and confusing. overall, what the flipbook ended up being in a story where aliens take over and you have to beat one of them in a game of rock paper scissors

This second flipbook, while being similar to the first in the fact that it was well, a flipbook, had a lot of differences to the first. First of all, this flipbook was shorter, but more importantly this flipbook would be a bunch of transitions between each of the animation students flipbook, we did this by drawing a starting shape on our first frame and then our ending frame would be the starting shape of the next person. Overall this one gave less freedom but for me it was actually more helpful because I had a better idea of what I wanted to do.

Paper Stop Motion

This next one was the paper stop motion project, our introduction to stop motion. While being a lot of fun, I ended up having a good amount of difficulty with this one. This time, I was sure that I wanted to do a fight scene between two paper figures and knew what I would need to do. The hard part of it was getting the paper limbs of the figures to be as close as possible to the pose I wanted which was really frustrating because the pieces were really tiny and each time I would try to move only one piece I would end up moving more of them on accident.

Object/Clay Stop Motion

The final animation project of the conceptual unit was the object stop motion project, this one was probably the most fun and easiest to do. From the start of this project I knew I wanted to do something with a fish and a pond so I came up with the idea to first feed the fish and have it be satisfied, and then remove the fish’s pond. However, after his pond would be removed he would still be there and out for revenge against those who destroyed his home. Overall I’m very happy with the product of this project and had a lot of fun making it.