Intro
In the conceptual unit, we focused on new technological skills that we will continue to use throughout our time at Freestyle, while creating new videos, stories, and a website. I began to understand how influential art is in our every day lives, while exploring the possibilities of our DSLR camera, Speedlite Flash, Premiere Pro, Audition, Photoshop, and WordPress. It’s been a lot of hard but fun work to understand different perspectives of art and challenging myself with my experimental film and website.
SFMOMA Art Reflection
Our videos were produced with Adobe Premiere Pro, and our voiceovers were produced with Adobe Audition. Before this project, I wasn’t a big fan of artwork and looking around museums at pieces of art for hours. However, my mind has been completely changed since I went to the SFMOMA, and it was one of my best memories so far in Freestyle, let alone high school. Check out my video above, about the piece of art that stood out to me the most.
Above is my Premiere Pro timeline of my SFMOMA Art Reflection
Here is the piece of artwork I chose to make my video about – Steppenwolf’s Santana Row concert poster.
Parody song
After a brief introduction to Adobe Audition from our SFMOMA video, we dove deeper into the effects and possibilities of audio editing through our parody songs.
My first thought for a parody was to remake “Tequila”, but then I realized I’d only get to rewrite one word, and add sound effects to make it more interesting. I needed another idea for a song – one that would be fun to make, but also had a personal connection. I ultimately decided to rewrite the Caillou theme song, as my dad and I would make parodies of the song when I was little. It was also funny to remake the main character, turning Caillou, an annoying 4 year old, into Saillou, a student at Freestyle Academy, that does nothing more but complain about school. It was a cool experience that took a lot of creative thinking and digging deep into my childhood memories to remember how the song should go, and what lyrics to add. I’m also not a good singer, so I figured, “why not just say the words in a bored, out of sync tone, kind of like Saillou?”. Overall, this portion of the unit was not easy, but it was certainly satisfying to hear the final result.
Parody + Lyrics
I always act like I’m four
Each day I bug you more
My life is boring, I’m Saillou
Not very much to do
Each day I sit and stew
I’ll share it with you, I’m Saillou
At Freestyle I’m learning nothing each day
I wish my teachers would just go away
Growing up is really rough
I think I’ve had enough
I am a menace, I’m Saillou
Saillou
Saillou
I’m Saillou
…
I’m him!
Conceptual through Film
The conceptual unit extended to our Film class, as it introduced us to the steps of making a film, step by step. Film in my opinion has been extremely fun, and although challenging, I have enjoyed every minute of it. Film has taught me quite a bit, but most of all, I have developed a “thick skin”, in terms of criticism and feedback. The class really pushes me to do things the right way, not the easy way. I’ve always been a fan of special effects rather than a story teller, but Film has really helped me grow in terms of telling a story, from start to finish, in ways that most would not expect.
pre-experimental exercises
We had a few different exercises that allowed us to dive deeper and *experiment* with our filming and editing skills. We started off with a scavenger hunt, where we were given a list of things to record and turn into a montage. I still believe the song I chose is a Disney song, although some say otherwise…
Next, we were taught how to have two of yourself in the same shot. We call it a “Doublemint”. As William Wrigley once said, “Double the pleasure, double the fun”.
Lastly, we were taught how to “key out” certain colors from a shot, in which we keyed out a green screen. This was a fun but simple one, as I got to take the Emperor’s throne in the throne room of the Death Star.
Experimental
At the start of the Experimental unit, we were told again and again, to show and not tell in our films. We were also told to be as abstract as possible when it comes to an experimental film, because the point is to experiment and see what does and doesn’t work. Everyone in the class – all six of us – were given a unique statement that our film should revolve around. My statement: I am experiencing the feeling of frustration through drowning.
Above is my original idea for my experimental film. It didn’t turn out to be a river, but I did use as many annoying and overwhelming sounds as possible to try and exaggerate the frustration. Check out my final product below, as well as an overview of my Premiere timeline.
