Freestyle Academy proudly presents
2016 Innovator Project by KayliB

The purpose of the Senior Innovator Project is use your own passion to innovate, create, and develop your own project.

Project Proposal

I will be designing a videogame, making concept art, and a trailer for the game

I love video games, animation, and film. I’ve always wanted to experiment more with effects and animation, have already taught myself somethings, but I need to learn a lot more.

Trailer of game =side scroller probably. film real life environments and use the things in the film able to have characters interact with. Using not just animation but effects for certain abilities and aspects. Animation for characters and certain aspects.

Concept art in illustrator or poster

Goal is to make people think critically about social issues while also having a grand ol’ time

Making a videogame that makes people think about social issues may be a struggle. could be backlash in people thinking the wrong way or taking what I show and say in the wrong way if i’m not careful enough

designing a set of video game aspects may be quite difficult

I am teaching myself how to animate

Project Productions

Read my research paper

Project Reflection

I have always had a great love of the visual arts and the stories that they can tell, whether they are a static image or a thousand images that show movement. I am passionate about playing video games, watching movies, and being a patron of the arts. I am equally as passionate about creating those things myself. That is why I centered my innovator project around, video games, film, and animation. I love to create stories and the visual representation of the characters and world they live in. My project integrates illustration as the design for my characters, film as the world they live in, and video games as the format that the story presents itself.

I also chose to have this project be a format of making change and spreading awareness about minority representation in games. In my research about this topic I discovered that what I already knew was a problem was much more complex than I had imagined. My research showed that in terms of race the racial group that is represented the most as the main character is white, other races are rarely portrayed within the main character and often other races are heavily stereotyped. In terms of gender, females are not typically portrayed as the main character, but more so as the sidekick, the damsel in distress, or a nagging annoying tour guide and are almost always portrayed in a way that is to be sexually appealing to straight ment. Luckily over the years the portrayal of women in games has risen with the number of women playing games, and the format of their portrayal is changing to be more realistic in some games. In terms of sexuality, very few games have LGBT+ characters and in most of those that do the characters are portrayed as either a sexual fantasy, an evil villain, or something related and almost always heavily stereotyped. Also in many games where you can create your character the majority do not have an option to chose your sexuality. And lastly and most tragically the portrayal and treatment of transgendered characters and players. Unfortunately, the majority of trans characters are villains that are heavily stereotyped and there are very few trans characters in games in general. But the truly tragic thing is the amount of cyber bullying and verbal abuse trans players receive in game communities or online games and the amount of trans game designers who are poorly treated in the workplace or can’t find jobs. Because of this abuse, many transgendered people have committed suicide or tuned to self harm. With applying the knowledge I gained from my research I learned many new ways to go about solving this issue and bringing awareness to it. Thus, I decided to make my main character a multiracial, pansexual, transgendered, woman with a body type that is more realistic for being a very cartoony styled game.

In my project I worked alongside Jared so that we could help with each others projects because we were better at each other's field of interest, he helped me teach myself how to animate and I helped him with creating a visual design for his project. I also had a lot of help from the other film seniors who were teaching themselves t animate, Eva and Peter. We would often ask each other for help or to see if what we were doing looked right.

If I could do the project over I would have tried to prepare myself for the animating bit more efficiently. I would have created a design for my character that wasn't as complex so I could finish my animation in time and have it look nice. During the project I had become too concerned with getting my character to move exactly how I wanted, but my character has so many parts that it was taking too long.

I think the 21st century skill I improved on the most was both tech literacy and risk taking. In teaching myself how to animate in adobe after effects I feel that I have broadened my skills and willingness to teach myself. I had always been nervous about teaching myself how to anything adobe related, kind of afraid I would mess up or lose all my work, but this experience has shown me that I can. This project was a big risk for me knowing that I did not know for sure how long this process would take or how hard it would end up being, and the fact that I was teaching myself.

I plan to major in animation and will most likely be using the skills I learned teaching myself how to animate in after effects. I also believe that this experience has taught me how to manage my time when working in animation.

I innovated my education this semester by educating myself on animating and the process of making concept art and conceptual concepts for video games. I watched al ot of videos explaining how to animate in after effects and took notes on those. I also gained some advice from Mr. Taylor on how to animate and incorporate film.

I valued this project a lot. I feel that it has prepared me for my college experience and career in life. This project has helped me to find my passions and how I can integrate them. I feel that it is also an excellent way to wrap up our freestyle experience, while being able to grasp what freestyle is all about.