How can I use unconventional forms to express myself?
During the Conceptual unit this semester, I utilized tools and equipment such as a DSLR Camera, a portable Tascam recorder, Photoshop, Audition, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and WordPress. Using these tools, I explored my creativity through poetry, animation, web production, photography, and many more forms of art. I learned how to use my develop my skills to produce meaningful works of art, all centered around my own personal aesthetic.
The value of this unit is in its exploration of technical and communication skills– building a foundation of technical knowledge that can be applied to nearly any project I do further down the line. The Conceptual unit helped me build a foundation of applicable know-how, that I can take with me into whatever endeavors I take on next.
Photo Haiku
My very first project at Freestyle was the Photo Haiku project, a project that spanned both poetry and digital media. In English, we examined various examples of haiku poetry, learning how to write a haiku that could effectively convey motion and spark thought in the reader’s mind. Then, we were given a prompt, containing and emotion and a scenario through which the emotion should be conveyed.
“I am exploring the feeling of scorn through becoming an adult.”
Reflection
In my opinion, the highlight of the production of my haiku video was the arrangement– that is, taking each of the individual edited parts of the video (the text, the music, the recording, etc.) and putting them all together to get my final product.
I also really value how creating a haiku that had an actual, deep meaning, was genuinely quite difficult. Often, people see how simple and short haiku poems are, yet never stop to think about how challenging it is to make a meaningful poem with so little space to work with.
Why Art?
My second project at Freestyle challenged me to come up with a meaningful answer to a simple question,
“Why does art matter?”
Throughout my time working on this project, I was tasked with researching the works of an artist from centuries past, and using said works to come up with an answer to that question. I analyzed three works from the renowned video artist Nam June Paik. Through examining Paik’s eccentric personality and avant-garde art style, I explored what art means to us– as users of technology, enjoyers of art, and members of an ever-progressing society.
Attached are my essay, a video of my presentation, and an audio recording of said essay.
Photoshop Blend Modes
While not exactly a project, I spent a considerable amount of time learning how to utilize blend modes inside of Adobe Photoshop, with the idea being that I would go on to use said knowledge to improve the pictures I take while doing photography. This included the use of basic effects like Screen and Multiply blending, as well as more advanced techniques using Overlay blending and opacity manipulation.
Reflection
– I really valued getting to see my own photos improve and look better as I applied my blend mode skills to them. It’s really satisfying to watch my photos start to look pretty and aesthetically pleasing through using said blend modes.
– I can use Photoshop blend modes not only to make stills of my work look pretty, but also to “save” photos that might have certain issues like a lack of exposure/brightness or a poor color profile.
ANIMATION
Praxinoscope
The first project in my animation class this year was a short 16-frame praxinoscope animation. This was a neat little opener project for me– it helped me get acquainted to the facilities available at Freestyle, as well as the general animation workflow. I drew a simple animation of a bow firing, applying animation fundamentals such as squash + stretch and follow-through.
Phenakistoscope
The second project in my animation class this year was also short 16-frame animation, this time on a phenakistoscope wheel. This time, I chose to create a more abstract animation instead of basing it on a real set of objects like I had done in my praxinoscope. Just like the praxinoscope, this was a short and simple project that acted as a nice opener to Freestyle for me.
(GIF will be here)
Flipbook 1
The third project in animation was a 90-frame flipbook animation. This was undoubtedly the first project in my animation class that involved a serious time commitment and real effort. For this first flipbook, I chose to recreate a cut-down version of a casino-style poker shuffle, based on some reference videos I found online. Long story short, drawing hands is HARD. REALLY HARD. I would not wish the mental anguish I experienced trying to draw a pair of hands ~70 times upon anyone.
Flipbook 2
The second flipbook I made was part of the Exquisite Corpse project, a project participated in by all Animation 1 students. The gimmick of the project was that every flipbook can be chained together in a perfect loop, as the starting and ending frame of each flipbook flows perfectly into the next. This was a lot easier of a flipbook to make than the first one, as I stuck to more abstract shapes and just threw ideas at the paper as they came up in my mind.
Cutout Stop Motion
The fourth project in my animation class at Freestyle was to create a stop motion animation using a collage of paper, felt, foam, and other paper-adjacent materials. For this project, we learned how to use the stop motion software Dragonframe with our cameras, and how to stage our stop motion environment. Unfortunately for this specific project I was experiencing a bad mental block and I struggled to come up with ideas for my cutout. I ended up making a short animation based on the vintage video game Pong, although I can’t quite say I’m proud of it.
Clay Stop Motion
The second stop motion project I engaged in used a mixture of modeling clay and play-doh. For this animation, I was fresh out of my mental block and had no problem coming up from ideas. I knew I wanted to center the animation around a blob-like character, somewhat inspired by a scene from the anime Bocchi The Rock. I AM proud of this animation, as opposed to my cutout stop motion. I absolutely flew through this project, and ended up making about 40 more frames than were required by the rubric.