This website is the final product of the Conceptual Project at Freestyle Academy. The conceptual project is assignment created to put together many different assignments. Throughout all of my classes at Freestyle, I was given many assignments in both English and Design that were the base for projects in Digital Media, that would finally add to the Conceptual Website. First, we had the poetry unit in English, where we wrote the Haiku, Free Verse, and Spoken Word Poems. Then in Design, we edited photos for our Haiku and created a photo based on the theme we chose to explore for the poetry unit. Finally, in Digital Media each of these poems became videos that we worked on and edited in Digital Media using Pro Tools and Adobe Premiere Pro.

   In this website, there are different sections that contain different projects that I have worked on from all of my classes. The first section is the poem section, which contains the Ekphrastic and Spoken Word poem including detailed descriptions of the process of creating each poem. The second section is the Haiku section, which includes my Haiku video and a detailed description of the writing process and how I created the video in Digital Media. The third section is the art section, which contains all of the design projects including the Transport Project and the Conceptual Project and artist statements for each. The fourth section is the music section, which includes my parody song and my Experimental Music project and descriptions of the process of creating each piece of music.

   I have learned many important things both artistically and technically in all of my classes at Freestyle throughout this unit. In English, I learned about the many different forms of poetry and how to express myself and different emotions through writing. In Design, I learned the importance of metaphor, the many different parts of photography and how to edit with Adobe Photoshop. In Digital Media, I learned how to use many different programs including Adobe Premier Pro, Pro Tools, and Adobe Dreamweaver. When making my Conceptual Website, I enjoyed being able to use many different programs to create music, make videos, and create the website itself because it allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and be more open to new things to learn.

   The poetry unit of my english class at freestyle was one of my favorite units so far. In the poetry unit, we worked on many different poems including haiku, free verse, ekphrastic, and spoken word. The free verse poem, much like the haiku, was based off of my concept statement “I am exploring the feeling of shock/surprise through the act of stargazing”. The goal of this poem was to add more detail than the haiku, and use the same concept statement. Next, I created an ekphrastic poem. The definition of an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a work of art through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the piece through poetry. To create the ekphrastic poem, I had to find a piece of art that stood out to me during the field trip to SF MOMA . The goal of this poem was to think of my interpretation of the piece, as well as the artist's process in creating the piece and use both to help create the poem. The last poem I created was the spoken word poem. Spoken word poetry has always been my favorite form of poetry because of how powerful it can be, and I was really excited to try writing my own. My slam poem that I wrote is on a topic that is really close to me, and being able to write the poem helped me process some emotions that I had been feeling. The goal of the slam poem was to evoke emotion in the listener through the performance of the poem.

My Ekphrastic Poem is titled A Song In Paint, and is based off of an abstract acrylic painting by Sam Francis called Untitled. During the field trip to SF MOMA, I saw this piece and I immediately became completely captivated by the bright colors and splatters of paint. The piece itself made me think of music, which then became the base of my poem. The piece reminded me of music because although it may seem like the many parts create a chaotic mess of sound or color, they each work in harmony to create a beautiful piece.

Deep indigos, dark crimson
Music echoes throughout an empty hall
Colors intertwining
The midnight darkness, a continuous bass
Constant and rich
Dark wine joins with a melody
The recurring tune resonating familiarity
Daffodil adds a harmony, complimenting others
The emerald tempo can be heard,
a constant rhythm, building structure
A leading pulse, not confining nor defiant.
Each voice significant and essential
Created by the composer
His baton guiding the colors
Arranging the voices
Creating the piece
Completing the balance
So what once was just sound,
became a symphony

    The following poem is my Free Verse Poem. This poem, just like the Haiku is based of my concept statement "exploring the feeling of shock/surprise through the act of stargazing". Throughout this poem, I was able to use more describing words to really express emotion and describe the image to the listener, along with displaying several images throughout the video to show the progression of night and using effects on the image with Adobe Premier Pro to submerse the viewer in the poem.

    Personally, I believe that I have had a lot of growth through the study of poetry and creating the photo/audio productions because not only have I learned so much more on the different types of poems and poem structure, but I have also been able to create different photo/audio productions using Adobe Premier Pro and Pro Tools to animate images, create music pieces and record the poem itself. I enjoyed many parts of the poem production, however one of my favorites was for focusing on the image animations for the free verse poem and adding a “Ken Burns effect” by adding effects to create the illusion that the images were moving.

My spoken word poem discusses the topic of embarrassing parents, more specifically covering the relationship I had with my mother, and how life can make you appreciate small moments. Much like the other poem productions, I really enjoyed the process of putting together the video. Once again using Adobe Premier Pro, I placed the audio of the performed poem into a video and animated different words from the poem on screen to make it come to life and emphasise certain words and phrases. I valued this assignment because not only was I able to use my writing as an outlet, that is very close to me, but I was also able to share my message with my classmates.

 During my first few weeks of english at Freestyle, we were told to write a haiku based on a concept statement we were given. A haiku is a type of poem originating from Japan containing a total of seventeen syllables in three lines of five, seven, and five. The concept statement is a phrase that is to be used as the base of the poem, containing two random describing words put within the given sentence frame (I am exploring the feeling of ____ through the act of ___.). For this assignment, my concept statement was “I am exploring the feeling of shock/surprise through the act of stargazing.

 I personally love the process of writing the haiku because it requires you to think about the words you choose to use, because you get so few. In digital media, we enhanced our work through creating a small piece of music and creating a video to present the music and haiku together. I really enjoyed the process of editing the music in pro tools, because there was so much freedom to explore different genres and finally choosing and putting together a piece of music that would connect with the haiku.

This is a screenshot of Premiere Pro, which I used to produce the haiku video. This program allowed me to put together and animate my image and text with the music I created in Pro Tools.

   This section includes the Transport Project that I worked on in Design class. The purpose of this project was to take a picture of a non-motorized vehicle with wheels, using all of the components we learned in in order to take a quality picture, and then editing the final image on Adobe Photoshop.

   The object in my photograph is the front wheel of my longboard. I chose my longboard as my transport object because of the unique green color of the wheels which contrast well with the pavement background. Additionally, I chose to take this photo in the street and at ground level because I wanted to create an image that looked like it was from the perspective of the back wheel looking at the front wheel of the longboard.

   Along with learning the actual process of taking the photos, we also learned how to edit them through Adobe Photoshop. When using Photoshop, we learned about many different tools available in the program to edit our images. For example, when editing my transport photo, I used the cropping tool to cut the photo and focus more on the Rule of Thirds. I also used the content-aware fill to hide and blend bigger rocks in the street, and anything in the background that could have possibly taken the viewer's attention away from the main focus of the image, the wheel.

Conceptual Diptych

My Concept Statement is I am exploring the feeling of shock/surprise through stargazing.

For this conceptual photo assignment, I chose to take a photo of a marble on a blue blanket in a dark room, with only a flashlight as the main source of light, and camera angle level to the marble. The main reasons why I chose the placement of the marble, the lighting, and angle in this photo was because I wanted to represent stargazing, while also being able to convey shock in the photo. I used the angle of the photo and the placement of the lone marble with a dark background to demonstrate space, and utilized the lighting to create a large shadow which worked together to add to the feeling of shock.
This photo exemplifies my concept statement in many different ways. The marble in my photo represents both stargazing and shock because it resembles a planet, however the surprising bright orange color of the marble and angle of the photo shows how something as large as a planet, is still so small compared to space. Additionally, the bright light and dramatic shadows in this photo helps portray shock and resembles a professional photo of an actual planet and truly depicts my concept statement.
After taking the photo, I edited using Adobe Photoshop to create my final product. For this assignment, I learned a lot about Photoshop including how much the cropping tool can help change the focus of a photo, and though there are many different options for editing, it is important to get the best shot possible in camera first. Applying this knowledge helped my final composition because I focused on taking a quality photo, which resulted in minimal editing overall. Additionally, my understanding helped benefit and enhance my image overall because when I cropped the photo, I was able to focus more on the Rule of Thirds and get rid of any unnecessary space that could distract from the subject.

   One of the very first small projects we did in digital media was creating a parody song. For this assignment, the song I chose to parody was Attention by Charlie Puth and my inspiration for my lyrics was my dog. In order to create this parody, I first used Pro Tools to delete most of the vocal parts of the song. To delete the vocals of a song, I needed to create a split version of the track and try to delete most of the vocals and then edited it slightly to make it sound more normal. After editing the song, I recorded the lyrics I had wrote and placed it into the verse and edited it to fit together with the other parts of the song.

   The Experimental Music was one of my favorite assignments in Digital Media because of the freedom I had to make music and express myself. My inspiration for this music was an epic sound, much like the soundtrack of a movie. When creating this music, I started by thinking of confidence and inspiration, and the possible sounds to express and possibly spark these emotions in the listener. To create this sound, I used Pro Tools and different virtual instruments and plugins in Pro Tools including the Mini Grand Piano, Structure Free, and Xpand!2 to add different parts to the piece such as trumpets, drums, strings and vocals. The process of producing the Experimental Music was very interesting to me because I learned so much about creating music digitally, and I got to experience firsthand how much work goes into creating an original piece of music.