The purpose of the Senior Innovator Project is use your own passion to innovate, create, and develop your own project.
For my project, I want to explore dreams - my own dreams, lucid dreams, their meaning and impact on us and our lives. This particular project is a passion for me because I have always been interested in dreams, particularly my own and often find that my dreams have an effect on me. Through learning more about them, I want to document them in some way - through experimental film/a documentary or surrealist photography. I was inspired by the Dali and Disney animation and I actually got this idea when watching it. Along with creating my own film or photos, I want to watch more surrealist and experimental films along with the research process.
This is a risk because it is a very broad topic to explore, there is a lot to learn and research, and not a lot of structure. Much of it I think will be based upon how much I want to explore and learn, and being self motivated. It could also be challenging because it is a heavy and quite personal topic.
When the Innovator project was presented, I knew that I wanted to do something artistic and experimental. After watching a surrealist animation by Salvador Dali and Walt Disney in design, I had the idea of making a film about dreams, something abstract and experimental. I have always had a fascination with dreams, particularly my own and the impact they leave on me, and what significance they could possibly carry. I then thought to make a film about my own dreams, something that was more personal and unique. I have also always had an interest in experimental film, and it seemed like the perfect thing for me to explore more for this project. So I decided to make an experimental film exploring the idea of dreams, my own dreams, and the absurdity and abstractness they can have.
The research process was significant in the making of my project. For me to understand dreams and the dreams that I have, I had to learn more about them. Throughout my research, I learned about the various lenses of dream interpretation from purely scientific to extremely spiritual, and how these theories have developed over time. And what it means to dream. There was a quote from Freud that resonated with me which I ended up using in my film as well as my paper: “The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter (Freud).” The more I researched the more I found myself attaching onto the idea that dreams have the potential to carry meaning, and can act as outlets for internal expression, desires, and thoughts. It was hard for me to accept the idea that a dream can be purely a scientific reaction that occurs in the brain while sleeping. Although this is true to a certain extent, dreams in my perspective have much more dimension than this. The more I started to actively research, write, and think about dreams the more I found myself dreaming or remembering my dreams persay. And upon analyzing my dreams, I was often able to make connections from my dreams to my daily life and thoughts. My research helped me become more in touch and aware of this side of myself.
In regards to my experimental film, I got the original idea from a dream I had. It was eerie and creepy, and I found myself in a parking garage wearing a white mask. It was short and the only thing I could remember. I pried my memory to remember more but all I could find was the image of a parking garage and a white mask. It left a weird impact on me. It felt so abstract and strange. From this, I tried to imagine myself walking inside the dream and expanding it. I decided to play with the concept of mirrors, specifically reflections. In my film, as it progresses, my character keeps on finding more and more mirrors and they continue to grow in size. She continues to chase her own reflection, that is already masked. It’s like a paradox. I wanted to create the frantic and absurd feeling that dreams can have, like you’re chasing something, looking for something more.
In regards to collaboration, I wish I had worked with others more. However this was difficult to do because my project was very personal. I worked with one actor when shooting but all the ideas and editing was down on my own. Although, I did collaborate with my family friend when shooting the drone footage which was the last touch in finishing up my final cut. But overall, my collaboration with others was not as successful as I had envisioned. If I were to do the project all over again, I would extend my film to have multiple dream series; this was my original vision. I would film a creepy and eerie dream (like the mask and the mirrors), but also film 2 other dreams with 2 different actors that were drastically different from each other to express the diversity of dreams and how they can differ. I would put all three dreams together into one whole film, similar to a documentary style to convey the various emotions and feelings dreams can have.
Overall, in accordance to 21st C. Skills I improved and excelled the most in my creativity and visual literacy. I feel that my film was unique and thought provoking, and expressive. And in regards to visual literacy, my shots were artistic, different, and outside the box.. However, I think I was lacking teaming and collaboration as I mentioned above. I did not reach out as much as I wished I had did.
I learned a lot about creative expression and personal growth throughout this project. And that it is okay to be weird and unique. I think that this will help me in the future especially at art school, and that I should give myself complete freedom to explore creativity and artistic forms of expression. And in regards to innovation, I took charge of my own education and made a project for myself that was in touch with my interests specifically dreams and experimental film. I chose something that was right up my alley and completed it on time, so overall I would say my innovation for this project was a success. I would also say that I valued this project highly because it was very personal to me and exactly what I wanted to explore, and I did so successfully.