How I could be a “disruptor” in my field/what unique perspectives do I have to bring to the table?
I had a lot of time growing up. And.I filled that time with creating. And not just school art projects – art was my school. My education was pretty… unconventional. With a mother who didn’t have the capacity to homeschool me beyond 5th grade, I was left with more time than other kids my age had. I had never even set foot in a public school until I went for my GED testing this June. I have fond memories of frolicking around the playroom in the wee hours of the night (sometimes until the sun came peeking over the mountains) making videos with my older brother on our little Canon point and shoot camera – we told comedies and dramas, all with our action figures and Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.
And it wasn’t just film! In fact, I did more drawing than anything else, covering page after page of computer paper with doodles with my brother for hours on end. Comics flowed naturally from that format of filling the page with little pockets of stories. I really liked making people laugh with those comics – it was rare for me to make anything serious. And I painted! I painted, I sculpted – and I animated! I’ve been so excited to bring those skills into my assignments, like doing stop motion for the AR module and my experience with comics for storyboarding in the Visual Media class. It almost feels like everything I’ve been doing just for fun my whole life now has its place and purpose. It’s like the pieces of my rather scattered life are all falling into place.
I also taught. I taught myself how to read music when I was 12, first with the recorder and then the guitar. This practice with self-tutoring was unintentionally wonderful practice for when I finally decided to take my education into my own hands when I was 13 and tore through grades 6 to 12 in 2 years. I think that was a very valuable lesson in helping me understand what standards I would hold myself up to. I was the only one evaluating my “grades”. It was a practice of testing and reviewing and redoing. I think that practice has really helped me with both my time management and my criteria on what work to submit.
It’s certainly strange to be in a school system for the first time in my life. To go from all the free time in the world to such a full schedule has had its challenges. My work/life balance has been pretty heavy on the work side and it’s been eating away at my sleep schedule for sure, sometimes leaving crumbs of only three hours of sleep in its wake.
I feel my perspective is different because I’ve been creating in essentially a vacuum for most of my life. My family didn’t watch TV or YouTube or anything on the internet really for a large majority of my childhood, and I used art to fill in the time. I created in a vacuum and also lived in one. My older brother was my best friend growing up and I could count the number of childhood friends I had on one hand. It was ok though! But also made for a strange leap into social life, the first one I’ve ever had.
I’ve also been doing it alone for so long. Both in my education and creating, doing it alone has been the norm for me. I really enjoy working solo since it’s a familiar space, just me and whatever I’m making. But I also want to explore working with others, a completely new territory to uncover. I hope to hold on to the me who creates late at night just for me, no intention of showing the results, of getting a reaction or feedback. I was a lone creator first and I think that self-sufficiency will really help me in this program.
Assignment: Make panels about a Point of Interest the group decided on
My group’s POI: Cat Cafes
We wanted to bring awareness to the common theme these cafes have: the mission to provide cats with well-deserved homes
We decided to focus on that aspect of the cafes and made panels to show the cats and explain their personalities in the hope to (in an imaginary situation) that the viewer would want to adopt one.
I also thought we couldn’t go wrong with animals since they’re so cute and almost always appealing to the viewer so it seemed like a great idea!
I chose Seattle Meowtropolitan
I created mine in 4 different editing softwares: Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Stop Motion Studio and Capcut.
First, I made the quick stop motion of the cat – featuring once again the cup, it might become my signature haha! But very fitting for this I felt since it’s a cafe.
Stop Motion Studio
Capcut was where I added the sound and PNG logo since I’m more used to the software and Premiere scares me haha
I then exported it to Premiere Pro to try to mask the video into a circle, which I was able to do after almost an hour of trial and error and a few life-saving YouTube tutorials. I eventually found success exporting it as a PNG sequence, which I suppose I could’ve also done by exporting it as a GIF, which I also did later.
Premiere Pro
Then I used Photoshop to make the backgrounds for the panels as well as the text above the video. I started out with rounded edges but I changed it to a normal rectangle since they had to be PNGS and were too large – I also wanted to match Kate’s panels more to create more connection between our projects,
Unfortunately the panels were having trouble loading so I left them out.
Panels on Eyejack
Stop Motion Animation
And that’s it! I’m loving incorporating stop motion into these AR projects!
What is it you may ask? Sky Guide is a stargazing app which shows what celestial objects are in the sky and where they are in real time. It uses AR to place figures of constellations on the sky in real time!
It has several other features like allowing you to zoom into the constellations to see stars closer as well as the option to click on the constellations to see information like when they’ll rise, set, and be at their peak. It also gives a very in depth history for each constellation explaining the history behind them
What they did well
Easy to use!
It’s very intuitive and I was able to understand and use it with no problems. All you do is point your phone in the sky and you’re going to see something cool!
Mood
I like the mood they created through the music, it’s clear that they wanted to make an immersive experience for the user, one which is calming and kinda magical/mystical.
I also liked this feature where you can search up a specific object and the app will literally point you in the right direction!
What they could have done better
The AR was kinda buggy
It was difficult to turn the AR mode on and off – wasn’t able to turn it on and off without closing and reopening the app first, and that got old pretty quickly.
But, I did like this feature where it was a simplified horizon instead of the AR and I like that there’s an option to choose between the two!
Overall Verdict:
It’s simple but effective, and it’s fun! I don’t think of constellations or stars very often but I could see myself getting into it through this app – maybe without that one particular AR feature, but overall I would recommend this to anyone interested in learning more about the heavens!
This was a fun one! I definitely want to explore more ideas with EyeJack in the future, there’s so much that could be done with it, particularly in advertising – in case I ever need to promote something in the future (photography business, social media, who knows!)
The Results!
My process
Brainstorming…
My first step in coming up with the idea for my poster was deciding what media to use. My classmate Oliver was using stop motion for his own poster and it inspired me to use that for mine as well. I wanted to use claymation since I’ve made several projects with that medium and it’s just fun to do!
So I have the idea – but what to do with it?
My next step was to figure out what would happen in the video. Almost immediately I thought of a little coffee monster in a cup, and I liked that idea because a blob is very easy to animate since there’s no necessary shape I have to adhere to and no frame to deal with which is awesome. XD And it was pretty easy actually, taking the frames for the animation probably took 45 minutes total, it was the editing that was the real beast, which I’ll get into more later.
Title/Theme:
The title and theme actually came to me when I was editing the animation – I liked the title of “Take a Break…” because I felt it would grab people’s attention. I intended for it to be a sort of invitation to the viewer. And the “Or you might spill your cup” was a natural ending to the sequence in my mind, both because it’s a little pun to fit in with the coffee theme and to tie up the reason I encouraged the viewer to take a break in the first place. The theme is literally just that – the little monster is poured into the situation, looks like maybe he’s got a hand on things, but quickly spills over. It’s something relatable to me since I can get so wrapped up in school and assignments and schedules etc etc that sometimes I forget to sip out a bit of all that coffee/stress/pressure and it just spills over – I can feel overwhelmed! I hope to channel more of this little guy XD. Even 5 minutes outside in silence can feel like I’m formatting my brain – it’s nice to clear out the mental chatter!
So how did I make it?
To create the animation, I used an app I’ve been using for my other stop motion projects called Stop Motion Studio.
Stop Motion Studio
It’s so simple to use and very versatile – I used it with a camera tethered to it for the first time and it worked brilliantly!
Before erasing
I was able to erase my hand which was in the frame to hold up the stream of coffee in the beginning very quickly within the program with the erase tool, as well as duplicating frames to make it longer.
The process and the aftermath XD
Challenges – they did happen XD
Issue #1
The first issue I ran into was the frame rate on EyeJack. I hadn’t checked beforehand what the frame rate was and had my animation set to 8fps in the Stop Motion Studio app, but when I uploaded it to EyeJack it was way too fast.
My solution to that was to duplicate each frame twice to make it longer, and went from 70 frames total to around 200 frames total. And after that it looked much closer to my original vision!
But as I later realized, I was stressing over the wrong issue…
Issue #2
For whatever reason, I thought that I could only use individual images to make a sequence in EyeJack, but Oliver pointed out that we could also upload mp4s. This solved my second issue, which was the looming prospect of resizing 235 individual images! Relieved, I realized I could resize the images by making them into a video and changing the dimensions of the entire video. Oliver once again came in clutch and knocked out the editing in about 10 minutes – many thanks to him, I would’ve overcomplicated it for sure! XD
Last thoughts…
I really do believe in this poster’s message! I hope it can be a fun reminder to whoever watches it to step back and empty that cup/brain a bit!
Reminder of the task at hand: international destination you’ like to work in in the future, include costs of living, quality of life, etc.
Solution: CPH Film Industry job in Denmark. I’ve always been a little in awe of European countries, they just seem so clean and organized! So I knew I wanted to check around there.
I can already say, the quality of life there is 👌 The only issue is the cost of life there – it’s a lot. But you also get paid well, so does that balance it out lol?
I was unfortunately not able to find how much I would make on this job, but I would hope it would be enough because Copenhagen is apparently one of the more expensive cities there. The rent for a student apartment is around 800 – 900 EUR in Copenhagen, which is about 850-950 for us Americans.
Despite that though, it would be really cool to work here both for the location and the fact that it’s a smaller business drew me in, since I’d be less likely to feel like just a cog in a wheel.
And here is the job description, sounds pretty nice to me! : )
You are a filmmaker with heaps of creativity who isn’t afraid to take risks. If this is you, we’d love to chat. We’re a small creative agency that is preparing our marketing for next year. We need help with the filming, editing, and brainstorming. You’ll work closely with our founder. For your time we’ll give you a crash course on corporate filmmaking, what clients expect, and what the processes look like. You’ll assist on corporate shoots at some of Denmark’s largest companies and help with our SoMe content. We’re flexible with your time as well, you can work from our studio in Copenhagen or from home (although you’ll get a lot more out of it at the studio). For the right person we are also open to hire after the internship, for a start next year.
This was pretty interesting to look over, I’m glad I was honest with myself about the times even when I wasn’t proud of them, such as spending 6 hours total one day just watching YouTube. 🙈 It’s always been my way to take a break from it all and just zone out, but I think there’s a fine line between relaxing and avoiding. I think I tend to do a lot of the second one lol.
I definitely wasn’t very consistent with the level of details in my records, it’s easy to tell when the weekend was since there’s way more detail on those days. XD I also unfortunately didn’t record the first 2 days of the week since I didn’t see the blog assignment post until the 21st, my bad!
I liked this project though! I’ve actually gotten a much better idea of what to expect day to day – who knew making something as simple as a pb&j could take 20 minutes to make and eat? I’ll analyze what I gathered sometime for sure to get a deeper look into what I’m actually doing with my time each day. But for now, I think it’s time to sleep! (1:40am as I write this lol)
Behold, the schedule of someone who is definitely an expert at time management:
10/20/2023
Storyboarding – 10PM to 11:40PM – finished 6 frames out of 12.
10/21/2023
9am Woke up.
9am – 10:38am watched IG and Yt on phone.
10:40am-11:20am made and ate breakfast, watched a bit of Netflix.
11:20am- 12:30PM – finished storyboarding the rest of the frames.
12:30PM – 1:00PM gathered supplies for video, charged batteries, applied makeup for film.
1:00PM-1:28PM shot 3rd frame of film, took 6 takes.
1:28pm-1:32pm sorted through takes and selected one, recorded times.
1:32PM-1:49PM scouted out places to film the scenes involving pavement
1:49pm-2:02pm filmed shot 4 of video, took 5 takes
2:03pm – 3:08 filmed 5th shot, took 29 takes
3:08pm-3:52pm filmed 8th shot, took 20 takes
3:52-4:17 filmed 6th shot, took around 12 takes
4:17-4:32 filmed 9th shot, took around
4:32-4:43 filmed 7th shot, took 3 takes
4:50-7:43 ate snacks and then watched YouTube.
Watched Loki and talked with my brother for 3 hours.
1:40 went to sleep
10/22/2023
9:20am – 10am woke up and laid in bed for 20 mins, no phone just dozing.
10am – 10:34am got out of bed and made breakfast, more steps involved bc it was quesadilla, salsa, and eggs, all from scratch.
10:34am-11 ate lunch
11-11;48, watched YouTube
12-2 went to Walgreens on stone way and then to Glazers in Bellevue to get an SD card reader – also stopped by mochinut for a doughnut, 12 mins out of the way
2-3 ate a snack and watched YouTube
3-3:53 gathered film supplies, researched filmmakers in Seattle for midterm.
3:53-4:10 completed restarting computer and transferred footage from SD card to external hard drive
4:10-4:47 set up lighting and camera and filmed 2nd shot of weather vid, took 8 takes
4:47-5:10 – set up camera and shot 5 takes for shot 1 of weather vid.
5:10-5:29 set up hose and camera for shot 9, took 2 takes
5:29-5:55 packed up equipment, brainstormed with my sister of filming locations and just reassurance and reassurance
6-7:02 set up camera and arrange set for shot 12, took 4 takes
7:05-7:20 showered
7:20-7:38 – made pb&j and chatted with fellow tenant
7:38-7:48 ate sandwich and watched Netflix
7:48-9:32 selected the footage I wanted to use for the weather video, ended up with 15 total
9:32-10:40 pieced together the footage in Premiere pro, minimal editing to get to the length I wanted
10:40-12:23am added music and transitions, rearranged and replaced some clips
12:23-12:30 Went to the bathroom and stretched
12:30-2:24 finished editing, adjusted saturation, lighting, synced clips with music, added more sound effects and exported. Submitted to Vimeo, re-uploaded 3 times since I didn’t like the first versions.
2;24-3:14 uploaded storyboards, went to bed
3;24- 3:57 edited video to have copyright free music
3:58 finally went to bed 😭
10/23/23
7:30 woke up
7:30-7:50 made breakfast and lunch
7:50-8 ate breakfast and left the house at 8:05
8:30 – arrived at station, took 1 line.
8:40-9 Arrived at school, chatted with classmates and wrote draft for interview email.
9-10:30 listened to lecture about camera movement in VME 150, got the info about the Halloween video.
10:30-11:15 brainstormed with my group for idea of what the video what be, came up with a plot, discussed roles for each person.
11:15-12:05 watched two groups’ weather videos and critiqued.
12:05-12:50 ate lunch and did some more writing for my email to possible person to interview.
12:50-2 practiced more editing on premiere pro.
2-3:30 shot formal portrait and 3 lighting temp portraits with Lu.
3:30-4:30 shot informal portraits outside with Lu.
4:30-5 rode train home. Wrote more of email while on the train.
5-18 talked with parents and got on bus.
5:30 arrived home.
5:30-7 watched YouTube.
7-7:30 showered and wrote down times from today so far.
7:30-8:46 watched YuTube
8:46-9 FaceTimed with family
9-10:30 finished writing resume, cover letter and sent all plus email, both assignment and interview emails.
10:30-1:00 watched YouTube. Ate a snack and brushed teeth
1-1:30 watched YouTube in bed
1:34 went to bed
10/24/23
7:30 woke up
7:34-7:49 made breakfast
7:49-7:56 ate breakfast
7:57-8:07 watched Netflix
8:10- 8:30 walked to train station
8:30-8:40 arrived at capital hill
8:45 arrived at class
8:45 – 9:40 professional practices – listened to lecture about presentation expectations and then business licenses and taxes
12-2 rewrote resume and cover letter and submitted it
2-2:40 checked out camera and tripod at cage, chatted with classmates
2:40-:2:50 took train to u district
2:55-3:03 stopped at a cafe for tiramisu
3:19 boarded bus
3:30 arrived home
3:30-3:43 took shower
3:43-4:32 watched YouTube
4:42-7 wrote reply to Anna mastro’s email of her agreeing to do the interview
Also researched her while waiting for bonus mom to reply about what to put in email.
7-9:43 sorted through photos for informal vs formal and white balance portrait assignments. Submitted both.
9:43-11:24 watched some of Anna mastro’s work, wrote about 15 potential questions, watched 3 mins of interview Ted talk and then some YouTube
11:25-12:27 watched more YouTube and folded and put away clothes
12:32 went to sleep
10/25/2023
7:30 woke up
7:36- got out of bed
7:36-8:08 made and ate breakfast, 10 mins each
8:24 left house
8:38 arrived at train station, took train
8:48 – arrived at Capitol Hill
8:55 entered class
9-11 critiqued Digital Imaging Informal vs Formal photos.
11-11:45 took lunch break
11:51-2 lecture for photoshop skills, and practice on photoshop.
2:10-2:34- wrote and sent email to Anna to suggest Google Meet for interview bc of technical issues.
2:36-3:06 traveled by train back home
3:07-3:37 watched YouTube
3:38-7:09 wrote interview questions for Anna, and sent them at 7:09 Had to wait for about 20 minutes in between to get feedback from the questions from bonus mom.
7:10-8 made and ate dinner.
8-11:30 researched more about Anna, watched her episode of Runaways and Secret Society of Second Born Royals.
11:30-12:48 got ready for bed, watched some YouTube, and went to sleep.
10/26/2023
7:15 woke up
7:15-30 dressed and went to bathroom
7:30-7:46 made breakfast
7:46-8:11 ate breakfast, gathered school supplies, left house
8:33 Boarded train
8:39 arrived at Capitol Hill
9-11:10 critique of Lighting VME 120 WB portraits.
11:10-11;35 Lecture of different lighting techniques and over view of mid term.
11:35-12:20 Lunch. Trouble shot with google meet camera, reviewed interview questions, ate lunch, ran downstairs for a cliff bar, listened to Anna interview podcast for 6 mins while getting bar.
12:20-1:10 studio demo of different lighting techniques for mid term.
1:20-2 went over interview questions, refreshed memory for Anna’s career, listened to the rest of the podcast.
2-2:15 set up things in side room for interview
2:20 – 3:13 Did interview with Anna.
3:13-3:30 waited for computer to load interview recording. Called Hayley in the meantime.
3:30-4 wrote and sent thank you email to Anna with gift card
4:30 left school, went to coffee shop macrina 17 mins from school.
5:34-6 worked on figma presentation for Friday
6-6:30 went home
6:35-8:30 watched YouTube
8:30-12:50 edited Figma document presentation
12:50-1 recorded times
1:1:23-scrolled through IG and YT
1:23-1:48 finished recording times, wrote blog post and sent it!
I just discovered the crop tool on the app, but a little too late after editing lol – I’ll keep it in mind for next time. I’ve been using this little toy dog, which I found in my backyard, for a couple other projects and I think it’s starting to build some lore now. XD
This was a fun project to try, I really think we’re going to see more of this kind of technology used in projects in the future and it’s pretty exciting to be living during its infancy. Shout out to Proofntheplay for being my cameraman! 🫶
I was given the task to make a fictitious poster for the band Louis the Child, a band which I hadn’t heard of until getting this assignment. However, I’m glad I was introduced to them as I like EDM, which is their main musical focus.
While their greatest hit is “Better Not” featuring Wafia, with the music video garnering 10M (!) views on YouTube, I was drawn to their song “Free” because of the song itself but especially because of the visuals in its music video. The journey from dull and drab grays to an explosion of color drew me into the story, and the spiraling movements of the camera emphasized that sort of “drawing in”, like the pull of a whirlpool.
The Look
What caught my eye first when I looked up the band to begin figuring out their general aesthetic was the color pink. When I saw the logo on the left, I was excited since it would be an easy element to incorporate in the poster.
I was also drawn to the bright colors the artists Robby Hauldren and Frederic J. Kennet were wearing and wanted to be sure to use plenty of color in my poster. And the cloud background seen in their second picture reminded me of the now-nostalgic Windows wallpaper from the early 2000s. I was aiming for a poster which was obviously pieced together and a little messy, almost like a collage since the band seems to shy away from formality.
I used the one tool on Photoshop I know how to use, the object selection tool, to create transparent images of the photo of the duo on the left below, which I chose partly because of the flowers and butterflies, which I thought would be perfect for the playful look of the poster, and because of the punch of color from their clothes.
I also chose to incorporate the artificial grass as a nod to their hit “Better Not”. I added an additional butterfly to fill in the empty space between them, while the crowns were both a way to add in their logo and to add a touch of humor since they are so obviously “placed” on their heads. The font I used was inspired by an official poster of theirs, and I tried to match the bubbly look of the text, but was unfortunately limited with what I could find for free in photoshop (there’s probably a way to get that look somewhere, I just don’t know how to do it lol – yet).
The Result
On of my teachers recommended resisting the temptation of prefacing work as he pointed out it’s usually the creator’s way of excusing what they don’t like about their creation without giving the viewer a chance to form their own ideas about it, so I’m going to only say that while I’m no graphic designer (couldn’t help putting in just a lil prefacing haha), I actually had fun making this and wouldn’t have thought of doing a project like this without it being an assignment so I’m happy we were given it! I’m looking forward to seeing the posters everyone else created to see their creative processes and results!
