Conceptual

Introduction

The conceptual project is about expressing yourself in an abstract way and about learning how to use some of the equipment that Freestyle offers. In digital media learn how to use a lot of modern professional equipment to create art. I really value these skills I have learned because they allow me to create things I couldn’t have without them. Digital Media also teaches me skills I can use to get jobs. Many of our conceptual projects were based off of a randomly generated concept statement. The concept statement requires you to think creativity to make something that fits within the limitation of the statement. My concept statement (below) was a challenging one that seemed very abstract at first but after deconstructing it through the many projects I used it for I really ended up liking it.

I am experiencing the feeling of greed through finding a new food

my concept statement

ENGlish/Digital Media

Haiku Project

The Haiku project was fun to do because it was a medium I had not really done before. Fitting a lot of meaning into a small amount of text was difficult. We also were given a concept statement that we had to base our Haiku on which was difficult to do. All in all I did enjoy working on this even though it was a challenge and I like what I’ve made.

Why Art Project

The why art project was a deep dive into the value of art to a person and society. We had to read an article from the New York Times series on why art matters. We connected an artist of our choice to the article we chose. We analyzed paintings using the elements of art and design and used that analysis to find our own meaning of art which is connected to the article. In my essay I connected an article by Brian Greene to the artist Anselm Kiefer.

For my presentation I tried to summarize my essay and make sure it got the main points across without being to long.

Photoshop Blend Mode

For the photoshop blend mode project we learned the basics of photoshop and how to use the different blend modes to edit photos. It was really fun to be creative with each part of the assignment.

In my reflection for this project I wrote:

1. I valued learning how to combine two photos creatively which allowed for cool art.

2. I really liked being able to brighten and darken photos easily using blend modes which is something I will use for future photography.

These are the photos I created

FILM

Film So Far

Film has been really fun so far. Our first few projects were learning how to use a DSLR camera and the basics of editing through really small films like the double mint project and the green screen project. We learned about how to use the editing software premiere pro effectively for basic cutting and assembly and also more complicated things such as the double mint effect where we had two of the same character talking to themselves or the green screen project where we learned how to hide a green screen. We also learned how to use the DSLR camera which required learning the basics of using f-stop, shutter speed and ISO effectively to create scenes that look professional. We used all of those skills in the experimental project.

Experimental Process

The first big project we did was the experimental film project. We had to use a concept statement (above) that was randomly generated to create an experimental film. The experimental film project was really interesting because we had to create emotions visually without the use of characters or a story. It was a super abstract way of thinking and not something I had done before. Coming up with an idea for this project was really hard and required a lot of creativity. We also were tasked with making a film without knowing the rules of film. We specifically not told rules because experimental filmmakers were usually artists from another medium and were using film as another way to express themselves so they didn’t know the rules as well. Not knowing really anything about film and having to make a movie was a difficult task but really allowed creativity. I really enjoyed making this project. For my idea I decided to represent greed (concept statement above) with colors. I kept adding colors into a bowl until the colors turned black. It was difficult to come up with an abstract way without characters or a story to represent greed. I decided to go with my idea because it was abstract enough and got the point across. I experimented with a bunch of paints and food coloring to get the effect I was looking for. I ended up with a mixture of water and paint that looked good enough. I also used oil near the end of the film when the water got more black. I spend a lot of time setting up the background and put a lot of safety measures for my camera. I also messed around with different bowls and distances from the camera. I really liked the weird yellow coloring I got from color grading and a lamp I used for lighting. I shot this mostly in the dark to keep the light only from the lamp which gave it an eerie feel.