Introduction
For the Conceptual Project, Juniors at Freestyle Academy develop their abstract thinking and communication skills to answer the question, “How can I use unconventional forms to express myself?”
This project emphasizes creative risk-taking through poetry, music, art, animations, experimental film and web production, challenging students to express their unique opinions. Students begin developing their technical communication skills by learning a variety of modern professional equipment and applications such as DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps.
What I value most about being a English and Digital Media student at Freestyle is my ability for creative freedom and access to amazing resources to help me learn. Throughout my first semester here I have been able to do expand my education in a variety of ways and do amazing things.
Haiku
For the Haiku assignment, I worked to create a haiku poem in English and then made it into a video in Digital Media. A haiku poem consists of following a pattern of syllables ( 5-7-5) in it’s three lines. It also includes a kigo which is a seasonal reference. Once I finished writing my haiku in English class, I took a picture to fit the mood and produced a video in Digital Media that included my poem, picture, and voice recording of me reading it.
Here is a screenshot I took once I finished making my Haiku video in Adobe Premier Pro.
What I valued about the Haiku Video Production was that I was able to connect what I had done in English to my Digital Media Class. This was a unique poem style and by turning it into a video I am able to always look back on it.
“Why Art?” Essay
In English, we were assigned to write an essay answering the prompt “Why Art?”. In preparation, we read the playbook “Red” as a class which taught us about the artist Mark Rothko who was an American painter during the Abstract-Expressionist movement. Later, I chose an article from the New York Times series called “The Big Ideas: Why Does Art Matter?”. After I chose an article, I found an artist to connect with. In the end, my “Why Art?” essay talks about the artist Remedios Varo and her belief of the great power art holds.
You can also listen to an audio version of my essay by clicking on the image below.
For my “Why Art?” presentation I made a slideshow and presented my essay to the class. Along with sharing the ideas of my essay, I also did more research on my artist for the presentation. Providing context and background knowledge was key to helping my audience better understand the connection between my artist and the NYT article I chose. My main goal of this presentation was to analyze the three artworks I chose in my essay.
Reflection:
What I value most about “Why Art Matters” in English was the amount of artists I was exposed to. Mr. Greco taught us about different artists like Mark Rothko and Nam June Paik and I was also able to learn from my classmates’ presentations. Overall, my appreciation for art has grown because of this unit.
Photoshop Blend Mode Editing
For the Photoshop Blend Mode Assignment in Digital Media, I learned photograph editing styles to enhance pictures. This included using screen, multiply, and overlay features to darken and/or brighten my photos. I value that I was able to apply my new Photoshop blend mode skills on my photos which enhanced them and made them overall look better. see myself using my new Photoshop skills on my creative projects by editing my photos to make them look better.
Film
For the conceptual unit in film class, I learned the basic skills of using a camera, tripod, and editing. Over the course of this semester I have learned how to use a green screen, understand and create an experimental film, color grading, and more. All of these skills have helped me bring my creative visions to life and I now have a new way to express myself to the world.
For the experimental film unit I learned how to express abstract ideas and emotions visually. I was given the concept statement of “I am exploring the feeling of hatred through confessing a secret”. Rather than show this through a linear story of a person telling a secret, I focused on the aspect of ears and sounds of whispers. To show hatred I filmed red hot fire. After filming, I edited the video in Premier Pro and had to create crop masks to have cut out ears, paper in the background, and overlay different shots.
This is a screenshot I took when I was editing my experimental film on Adobe Premier Pro.
This was one of the first things we did in film class and we went around campus trying to get lots of different shot types.
For this in class assignment, I filmed Jessie playing rock-paper-sciscors two times in two different spots then edited them together in Adobe Premier to make it look like she is playing the game with herself.
This is a short video I made in class in the new green screen room!