Introduction
This unit explores creative liberty through various art forms such as music, photoshop, Experimental Film and web production. This project challenges students to express themselves in a more conceptual way. Students begin by building their digital media skills by using a variety of professional equipment and applications. These include, DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Pro Tools, WordPress, and many adobe apps.
Photo Haiku
I appreciated doing the Photo Haiku Video because I got me to use key framing creatively for the first time. While doing this project I was able to learn how to transition between various images and audio smoothly. After this project I have used many of the techniques that I learned in this project in various videos that I created. A challenge that I faced during this project was that it was very difficult to decide what fit the tone of the story I was trying to convey. The music had to sound a certain way and the transitions couldn’t be too harsh because it would upset the continuity of the story. Overall this project taught me a lot about transition techniques and how they fit the tone of a story.
Poetry
The Free Verse Poem project was introduced first in English class when the teacher said that we would be writing a poem about whatever we wanted. What we were supposed to focus on was “showing” not “telling.” A few weeks after we finished our Free Verse Poems it was brought to our attention that in Digital Media we would also be doing a project with our poems to create an image based off of the poems.
Intention Statement: “I Understand it Now” is a free verse poem about reflecting on a past experience that was a big sign that I had some form of OCD. The speaker of this poem is myself and how I remember the events of what happened in the poem after a psychiatrist told me that I most likely have OCD. They are reflecting on experiences that at the time that they happened didn’t make sense but when looking back on it, their actions in that experience connect very well with OCD. In the first stanza I use alliteration to emphasize the beginning of the experience because it was important to me that the reader’s brain would be focused early on in the poem. In the second stanza I decided to use some repetition so that the reader would know that what I was talking about was important and it would stick in their brain that something like this experience has happened before in a prior experience that they don’t know. In the second stanza I also used the metaphor, “eating me alive,” which expresses very well how overwhelmed I was at the time. While the first and second stanzas discuss the introduction of the problem, the third stanza starts talking about one specific instance that was worse than all of the other times this feeling occurred. This stanza is the climax of the story I wanted to get across through this poem. During the last stanza I wanted to get across the message that you shouldn’t mess with people, even as a joke because you never know what they are going through and how it could affect them. When looking back on this experience I didn’t truly realize how much this affected me because I blocked it out of my memory for a while. However, when writing this poem I felt like what the people in my table group did to me was not right and it made me very afraid to show any signs of OCD for a while. The fear of having others judge me for something I can not control was very prominent in my subconscious mind for a long time without me realizing it. Something that has always been important to me is that you should always treat people like you don’t know their background and what might affect them, because chances are, you don’t know. I wanted to send that message by sharing one of my stories because it demonstrates how people don’t think about what another person is going through and their actions affect them more than they could’ve imagined.
Reflection: During this project I got to explore a memory that I forgot about but greatly impacted my life. By doing a lot of various forms of media made my reflect on this experience in various ways. While writing this poem it brought upon a different feeling than when I was making the photo for it because I had to think of the experience in a different way to be able to make an image about it.
Photoshop Blend Mode Editing
The Blend Modes project was introduced in Digital Media to teach us how to blend photos together creatively. We used photoshop to learn how blend various photos together.
I liked learning how to properly edit photos to make certain things stick out more.
I learned that I can use photoshop when I am taking photos to make the message come across more and emphasize the focus of the photo.
Film
In Film we started the year with the Experimental Film unit where we explored how to make the audience feel a certain emotion. My experience in Film so far has been fantastic, the people are very nice and since Film is a very collaborative art-form I have been able to form connections with them that I wouldn’t have otherwise made. Something I really value about Film is the ability to make people feel certain emotions. Learning how to make people feel a certain way in a creative way has been so fun to do this year.
Experimental Film Synopsis (Original Idea): Someone with bright colorful clothing is at the center of a room with a palette. The room represents the brain. As the person is looking around, a dark figure appears that runs by her. She looks confused and starts drawing the running person. As she looks up from her canvas she sees someone curled in a ball looking like they are hiding from something. As she continues to draw the people she sees a mother person frozen. She looks a little closer and realizes that these are all versions of herself.
Leading up to the final cut, I experimented with a lot of different ideas. At first I did what my synopsis says, but then I decided that I would remove the people and make use balloon animals instead. After getting feedback from my peers I decided to go more abstract and just use regular balloons filled with paint.
This is a photo of what my Premiere Pro interface looked like after editing it. On the right there is the panel for color grading and you can see what effects I used. On the top left. you can see the “key framing” panel. In this specific clip I didn’t need to use any key framing but in other sections it was used more. On the bottom is my timeline and you can see what the audio and clip editing looked like.