This virtual space is an extension of AEAH 3770 Computer Art Applications and will be used to record class discussions and ongoing conservations relating to the course.
i really haven't thought about the transformation into an artist, before this assignment. before college, i had not had any formal training on how to be an artist. i had planned to be a psychology major, but that vision became unclear and i joined the art group when it was called while i was attending UNT orientation. completely random decision that has changed my life. i have unlocked a creative side i never knew i had. my personality and preferences have done nothing but benefit me. i enjoy creating ceramics.
having to choose how my ideas are displayed and have them make sense to someone else became a little challenging. the white board technique was very difficult for me. i resorted to drawing on construction paper and magnets. also, having to depend on someone to help take photos for me was a little difficult. having others help you achieve your vision is always difficult with you not just doing it yourself.
I loved making this project but honestly worried a little too much about it. I asked my roommate to critique it s an artist and also as a friend. At first she told me it was cool but didn't make sense. I therefore got extremely frustrated with it (not her.) the sad part is it then fueled an argument between us as we grew tired and stressed from the work we have in our other classes piling on top of this. After resolving the problem, I reworked my project and then came up with an idea that really tied it all together. It was strange because one second the music was in all the wrong places and the next everything fit together perfectly and actually made sense. I stressed to much and should have stayed a little more calm then I did but I am very satisfied with how it turned out and so are my Facebook friends! ;)
I was surprised by how much fun I had with this project. I'm interested to see how people react to my video as something that was an important moment in my life will not necessarily have a huge impact on other people. I hope that anyone who is like me and feels like they always have to have all the answers will learn that everything is not instantaneous and not having the answers in the beginning is not the end of the world. I struggled a lot in my six year hiatus from school and I hope my story will be helpful to anyone else who is not sure of their future. A lot of times I feel like I'm spinning my wheels doing what my teachers want me to do so I had fun being able to choose which elements I used in my video. I hope I am able to remember once I begin teaching to give my students the same liberties.
Knowing other people in class allowed me to be more comfortable with showing the class a part of my life story. Having people you know will be supportive and comforting allows you more freedom in expressing yourself.
my animation is based on my boyfriend and our 5 year relationship together, the moment i met him and those feelings you have when you first fall in love, and then when he moved out of state for school 2 years ago and how devastating it was. i've never used imovie before and i was excited to make my first animation. my best friend was a rtvf major and she always made really beautiful short films on imovie and i had always wanted to use it but never really had the time or reason. some obstacles i faced with this project was shooting pictures and situations that would correlate with my feelings... i tried to capture beautiful images in the beginning of the animation to pair with those feelings that you have with first love, and as it progresses i used images from the airport and images that are not as light hearted to go along with him leaving state. i also had a specific song stuck in my head to use with this animation so therefore i was struggling with garage band. i couldn't make the two mesh together well and when i tried i felt like it hurt the piece rather than making it better. so i just didn't use garage band and instead converted a song from youtube into an mp3. i'm actually really pleased with how it turned out, and i'm satisfied. i am a perfectionist and so it means a lot to me when i feel good about a project that i turn in. also since the subject matter is so important to me, the fact that i feel like i did a good job representing it through images and editing speaks volume. i think that in the future, as a teacher, this will be great to use with my kids in the classroom. i think that this was a great first project for us to do as a class because it really got us up close and personal with our computers and it showed me the tip of the iceberg of what i can do with a little laptop.
also there's a lot of me walking with my arm sticking out and it's supposed to be me walking with him but he's not really there... instead it kind of looks like i'm hitch hiking
I think that sharing something so personal with your classmates, especially at the beginning of the semester, really breaks a barrier. When you share something so personal with a group of people you barely know, you're automatically opening doors to let them get to know you better without having to go through the long process of making a close friend. We may not think of each other as best friends at this point, but we did get a look into a personal window that otherwise would have probably never been offered.
This is definitely something I've been contending with since I pretty much started the education classes for Art Ed. Difficulty existed not so much in the content I explored in the creation of my video, but in how I could go about it in an appropriate way. In my other major, drawing and painting, my work is controversial, sometimes vulgar, and charged with products of my anxiety. Anything goes in D&P, and being in the advanced courses finally, I am able to completely express without censorship or inhibition.
I think I hit something of a road block with this project in that I didn't want to be as absurd as I am in my traditional work, especially considering my animation was directly about how trauma experienced in life caused me to lose faith in anything. Every step of the way in this project I was trying to decide what would be acceptable to portray. I have a hard time regulating how intense I am in my attitude and opinions from studio classes to education classes, and this hindered me quite a bit. It had still been an enjoyable experience, but I got myself worked up trying to do something involving paintings that are highly controversial in a non-entirely art setting.
Not to mention, I chose an original song from a recent album that really pushes the "off-ness" of everything I did, I would think.
I ended up really liking my project, despite being uncomfortable with expressing a personal story. I'm glad I chose to do a more symbolic representation of the story rather than going about it literally. That helped me get out of my comfort zone without feeling vulnerable or like I was saying too much. I found that my stop motion drawings took a very long time, but saved myself some grief by duplicating images instead of drawing every single frame. I was a little nervous about using i-movie and it had its frustrations at times, but I think it turned out pretty good!
This video helped me remove some of the extra emotional layers of my childhood that I should have shed years ago. Getting friends involved and having fun with it helped. As for the project itself, I think it could and SHOULD be done in any classroom setting. It's a nice escape from drawing pottery and engages those kids who "just need an art credit" and helps students delve into media and computer programs they wouldn't otherwise have used. It's also pretty easy unless you put more requirements on it.
While making the project I just kept thinking to myself "Man this is so stupid. People are going to think I am so lame." I just felt really anxious to display not only such a personal part of my life, but really one of the toughest times I've been through. I got sick a lot, I was broke (I'm still broke), I missed my Mom soo much, and a lot more. I was just really vulnerable. But after having it complete I realize that that is my story and if it's lame then it's lame. My boyfriend and I struggled through the pregnancy but we made it out stronger and Jude (my son) saved us. I also feel like the majority of the class may misunderstand (because they don't have kids) what I was trying to say...so I feel anxious about putting that out there. I tried to convey a message that being a mom (or dad), whether you feel it the instant you give birth, during pregnancy, or a few weeks after you bring your cild home, is what matters. All the fights, money issues, etc are irrelevant. Because you will figure out a way to take care of your kid and you'll make it happen no matter what. But yeah I hope that message was translated at least a little. Also, I put a picture of myself in the video right after my son was born and I'm like a whale and I feel really anxious about that too.
Animation is awesome, and almost other worldly to me once the technological aspects come into play. I was excited to do animation but intimidated by the subject matter. My choice of abstinence is obviously very personal and it is not the norm to broadcast it to one's peers. However, I was also excited to make my statement. My lifestyle is in almost direct contradiction with what society's expectations are. There were many ways that I could portray this relationship; so many that I overwhelmed myself with the possibilities. That is one of the difficulties I had to overcome but I feel that I did not resolve it in time. I spent so much time mulling over what I could do and what all the problems would be that I didn't actually just try it. I had many worries of how to portray my lifestyle and values without seeming to be "holier than thou". I ended up making my animation using whiteboard, claymation, and pixilation like I had originally planned; but not nearly enough pixilation as I hoped. Also, I still feel like iMovie and Garagenband and beasts yet to be tamed. While I did struggle and push through some barriers, I now feel like there is so much more I could've done to push myself. That being said, I'm proud of what I made. It was difficult for me to decide to illustrate this aspect of my life. I am so happy to have the opportunity to incorporate this part of me into an artwork of my making. And I did forms of animation that were unfamiliar and new to me. I feel that I got a lot out of this and that there is so much more that I can reflect upon. I hope that this shows in the future of the class and my life as a whole. I would love to revisit this video and remake into something much better and that pushes more boundaries.
This was my second time working in stop motion, and I'm really falling in love with the nostalgic feel of it. There's a lot of "live-action" parts in my video, I tried to speed them up a little so that it would have that same sort of choppy look that stop motion has. When I started planning it out, I was worried that I'd get so wrapped up in the animation process that the film wouldn't make sense to the viewer. As I was working on it, the opposite kinda happened. I got so caught up in trying to make the concept clear that I think I may have missed out on some opportunities to experiment more with the animation. But I do feel the segments I animated turned out pretty successful. All of the objects I animated hold incredible significance to the culture I tend to identify myself with (boardgames, comics/graphic novels, video games, literature, bears...). Animating Settlers of Catan was by far the most fun part of the entire project :) The video also turned out a little bit longer than I expected, but I couldn't really make myself edit anymore out of it. Those who have had to take care of a loved one who is terminally ill might be able to identify with it. You don't want to see them go, but you hate seeing them in pain. After my grandpa's death I tried so hard to convince myself it was for the best, I should be in a good mood, and just move on. The problem was that everyone could clearly tell I wasn't alright, and the only way I could move forward was to take my time to remember why he was so important to me, and why he still is. Hopefully my video doesn't bum people out. That totally wasn't my intention but I get the feeling that's what it will do -.-
This project was definitely a learning experience. I had to keep asking people questions on how to edit my animation. But towards the end of the project I found myself helping others with this project which was awesome because now I feel more confidant with being able to teach this in the future. I really enjoyed watching my pictures turn into a short film. This is definitely something I want to teach my class one day.
At first, I was really having trouble figuring out how to portray anxiety through stop motion....I literally could not come up with anything! I knew I wanted to incorporate how anxiety normally sets in when I go to bed....so that's why I started out using white board to illustrate that.
A few days later, I was still stumped about what to do for the rest of my video. I walked around outside and saw all of these old, random objects that I have collected for my wedding....and it just hit me. I started rummaging through all of these random things and they each took on a life or a specific anxiety of their own. Each thing I chose in the video represents some aspect of my anxiety and the "attacks" that I sometimes have. I chose to highlight the irony of the whole situation by using somewhat comical objects to display the irrationality of most of my "bad" anxiety. From anyone else's perspective, it may seem like the things that cause me to freak out are childish or dumb....but to me, in that moment, they are very real and serious.
Another thing I really focused on at the end is how my fiance [my best friend =) ] is always right there beside me, helping me out and ultimately "rescuing me from myself" during these times. Even though I may not be able to "see" him during these times of irrationality, he has always been there for me. This is something that means so much to me considering in the past, I have dealt with the anxiety on my own. I found it very interesting that as I kept going with it, the ideas just started pouring out and it was actually pretty fun to portray the anxiety struggles I face using goofy objects.
The title comes from the idea that "putting a name to something" allows you to identify specifically what you are "fighting", which allows for specific elimination of say...well....anxiety! And all of the dumb things that cause it.
Overall, I'm glad that I was able to have a more positive ending to something that can be so dark to me at times. It's all about perspective!
The movie is about the difficult time I had as a student when I came to the USA. My English was very limited as I just arrived from Vietnam not very long before I started school. The first thing I would say about this project is that it is definitely not like how I imagined it to me. It is so much more simplified that it was planned. However, honestly, I did not even know exactly how I was going to do it. All I knew was I had two dolls, and I wanted to use one to represent me. It took me about 4 days or so to finish everything since I was pretty much working alone. The only help I had was from my boyfriend when he played the role of the teacher. I guess one of the biggest problems I encountered was how to incorporate the human actions to the brunette doll's movements to make it look like the doll was actually doing all the actions. Next, I chose to capture a lot of the doll's face since I wanted to show when she was thinking, and hopefully I was successful. I was not able to get access to a classroom to photograph, so I figured I would just give the scenes a white background then add words and drawings on the white board to explain where the place was and what was happening. I was a little bit frustrated at first due to not knowing what to do and how to do it. However, I love how it all turned out to be.
When doing this project it just made remember all of the things that I went through during this time. I would love to have done more detail to show how everything went down but then we would have a long video to watch. The religious problem I had with my Christian background and having to deal with my family and telling them the news, it hurt and I felt horrible. I was depressed and really thought about getting an abortion at one point. I am glad that the boy, my current husband today, stayed with me and actually took his responsibility to be a dad and take care of us. It was nice to think about everything again and how it's completely different today.
I think that it was nice to see something personal about everyone because it allowed me to think differently about people, in a good way. It made the classroom seem more friendly since everyone shared with each other. For me though, it didn't change too much because I still sit in the same spot and talk to the same people, and besides knowing one more thing about the other people, it hasn't changed much.
When we were given this assignment to do a stop motion animation i knew exactly what moment in my life that i wanted to portray. The only problem i had with this was that i did not know how i was going to make this animation. I did not know what scenes i wanted or if i wanted to do claymation or do a white board animation. I ended up making up the scenes of my animation as i went along. Another challenge i had to overcome was that as i was making my animation i quickly realized that i could not do it alone. So i asked my sister to pull the invisible strings and to take pictures while i was in the animation. I also had to direct her by telling her from what angle i wanted the pictures to be taken from and how close i wanted to camera to zoom in on a scene. Another challenge i faced was that i had a hard time taking pictures of my white board because the flash from my camera kept creating glares into the lens. So i had to take more then one picture. The last problem i had with my animation was trying to create my own music because i don't do it everyday so i had a hard time trying to balance the different sound effects. Even though i encountered a lot of problems while making my animation i had fun throughout the whole process. This will definitely be an assignment that i will give to my kids once i become a teacher.
Doing a video about an impacting moment in my life was really difficult to do in three minutes. It was incredibly limiting, but it also challenged my creative side. Overcoming the time limit forced me to show the passage of time. Shooting the short film also gave me perspective on a lot of things about video. I learned how artistic directing can be, and I also learned how much collaboration it takes to make a film. Without other actors and a camera man, there would be almost no way for me to make my AA about myself actually include myself in the pixilation scenes. Aside from the actual process and technical work behind my film, I learned much more about myself and the cultures that I'm a part of. I managed to take eight months of my life and transform it into a success story, overcoming obstacles that although many people go through, not all overcome and continue to be functional persons. I learned much about the different techniques. Pixilation was easy to incorporate into my video because it was easy to use to tell a story, but the other two types were a bit tougher to include. I actually shot the last scene the morning before class because I wasn't satisfied with my film and did not think it was tied off. The last scene really pulls the film together and makes it an even more personal story. I believe that stop motion could be a wonderful tool to teach students collaboration in a nontraditional artistic medium. It was a very exciting experience and could be just as engaging to high school students as it was to me.
This project was especially hard for me because I had to pull something from deep within myself that I have shared with very few people. This aspect of myself was also very dark and to a degree, embarrassing. Combing that with zero knowledge or experience with animation made it quite a challenge. The process was very difficult and time-consuming for me, but overall I was pleased with what I learned and how far I came with the project. There are certain things I would like to do differently if I had time. I think my video was a little whimsical and cheesy, especially combined with something as harrowing as mental illness. It was also very difficult for me to develop it artistically and I struggled with creativity and fitting me personal experience into an artistic experience.
For this project, it really forced me to revisit a time in my life that was very confusing and very dark... and an issue that has replayed in my life since then. For the longest time I blamed other people for the faults when it was me that was at fault. It was my insecurities that pushed me to the point where I found myself. It's very ironic that we did this project at the time that we did because I was finding myself in a dark space again and revisiting old memories made me really think about the mindset I was in. I wanted this project to not be completely dark because I am tired of playing the victim, so I added some humor, but it still makes me uneasy when I watch it...mainly because it's not great. I'm not completely satisfied with the result, since it's a bit different than what played in my head, but it is a good start.
This was an insanely difficult assignment for me. To go from telling no one what happened, to putting my past in the spotlight for everyone to see, was excruciating. And I can never convey what I was feeling or the experience I had, but I can let everyone know that I survived. The hardest part was taking pictures behind a dumpster. It put me in a place I haven't been in 13 years. I had to fight not to cry. I hope it can inspire.
I struggled a lot with translating the concept I came up with for my AA to a cohesive video. I wanted to depict the happiness I felt in my relationship, but I had a hard time visualizing what that would look like in the animation. I had to abandon my original idea of focusing only on my happiness and instead focused on the personal transformation that got me there. Once I settled on this theme the animation came very naturally. The animation shows a paraphrased version of how I got my boyfriend. Despite the fact that its 2012 people still seem surprised that I asked him out on the first date. And the second date. And all the dates after that until he agreed to be my boyfriend. I believe more people need to take charge of their lives, their happiness.
This project in and of itself was a mystery to me because I could not conceptualize the idea of being in a coma and making it into a stop motion film and have it make sense to people. The fact that I was in a coma was more like Vanilla sky where it was so confusing what was reality and what was not, it was like a silent nightmare. So I asked my professor what could I do to make this work as a animation? I was told by Jeremy to thing of things as simple and minimalist kind of way and with that try to recreate the sensation of how you felt. So with that I created a character that represented me in the emptiness of being lost and alone. http://youtu.be/4blWp75ykCk
When doing this project, I was really able to explore the digital art world, and learn many different techniques that has got me intrested in digital art. I enjoyed manipulating objects, being able to bring them to life and to actually get to be a star in one of my own pieces. Although, the biggest challenge for me was trying to find a topic that would really catch my audience attention. Growing up I had never lost anyone close, or have had any big struggles that I have had to over come, so picking a topic was very hard. The topic I chose is very unique and for the lack of better words weird as hell, but I do believe that my obsession with my blow dryer has been a major problem consdering the possible damage that I am not only doing to my body but possibly the damage I could do to my apartment complex! If any of yall want to take a second watch of my weird ass video....here it is.
After this project, I did not really see or feel a difference in the way I was treated or the way I treated others. I feel that my video may have shocked or impacted people, but if they thought differently of me, no one conveyed their feelings to in a way I was able to notice.
Its been an entire semester since we have done our project and I have, to an extent, felt differently about each student in my class. I see them -now- based on major events that changed their lives and it changed my understanding and level of respect for each of them individually.
I think this project was the best project in the entire semester. It took a lot of thinking and was very time consuming, but I believe it was worth it. After this project, I did not feel anything different towards my classmates nor did they treat me differently. I think it instead helps me to be a little more understanding by knowing a little portion of other people's lives. And I think that's what art is strongly about. It helps us relate and connect to each other.
I think people definitely treated me differently (not negatively or anything) after the video (or just finding out that I have a kid). I don't know. I guess babies scare people and maybe they felt like they couldn't relate to me? But I think that happened with me as well. I appreciated the honesty of the AAs but in a sense it distanced me further from some of my classmates because I felt like I couldn't relate to some of their stories. Hope that made sense.
i really haven't thought about the transformation into an artist, before this assignment. before college, i had not had any formal training on how to be an artist. i had planned to be a psychology major, but that vision became unclear and i joined the art group when it was called while i was attending UNT orientation. completely random decision that has changed my life. i have unlocked a creative side i never knew i had. my personality and preferences have done nothing but benefit me. i enjoy creating ceramics.
ReplyDeletehaving to choose how my ideas are displayed and have them make sense to someone else became a little challenging. the white board technique was very difficult for me. i resorted to drawing on construction paper and magnets. also, having to depend on someone to help take photos for me was a little difficult. having others help you achieve your vision is always difficult with you not just doing it yourself.
I loved making this project but honestly worried a little too much about it. I asked my roommate to critique it s an artist and also as a friend. At first she told me it was cool but didn't make sense. I therefore got extremely frustrated with it (not her.) the sad part is it then fueled an argument between us as we grew tired and stressed from the work we have in our other classes piling on top of this. After resolving the problem, I reworked my project and then came up with an idea that really tied it all together. It was strange because one second the music was in all the wrong places and the next everything fit together perfectly and actually made sense. I stressed to much and should have stayed a little more calm then I did but I am very satisfied with how it turned out and so are my Facebook friends! ;)
ReplyDeleteI was surprised by how much fun I had with this project. I'm interested to see how people react to my video as something that was an important moment in my life will not necessarily have a huge impact on other people. I hope that anyone who is like me and feels like they always have to have all the answers will learn that everything is not instantaneous and not having the answers in the beginning is not the end of the world. I struggled a lot in my six year hiatus from school and I hope my story will be helpful to anyone else who is not sure of their future.
ReplyDeleteA lot of times I feel like I'm spinning my wheels doing what my teachers want me to do so I had fun being able to choose which elements I used in my video. I hope I am able to remember once I begin teaching to give my students the same liberties.
Knowing other people in class allowed me to be more comfortable with showing the class a part of my life story. Having people you know will be supportive and comforting allows you more freedom in expressing yourself.
Deletemy animation is based on my boyfriend and our 5 year relationship together, the moment i met him and those feelings you have when you first fall in love, and then when he moved out of state for school 2 years ago and how devastating it was.
ReplyDeletei've never used imovie before and i was excited to make my first animation. my best friend was a rtvf major and she always made really beautiful short films on imovie and i had always wanted to use it but never really had the time or reason. some obstacles i faced with this project was shooting pictures and situations that would correlate with my feelings... i tried to capture beautiful images in the beginning of the animation to pair with those feelings that you have with first love, and as it progresses i used images from the airport and images that are not as light hearted to go along with him leaving state.
i also had a specific song stuck in my head to use with this animation so therefore i was struggling with garage band. i couldn't make the two mesh together well and when i tried i felt like it hurt the piece rather than making it better. so i just didn't use garage band and instead converted a song from youtube into an mp3.
i'm actually really pleased with how it turned out, and i'm satisfied. i am a perfectionist and so it means a lot to me when i feel good about a project that i turn in. also since the subject matter is so important to me, the fact that i feel like i did a good job representing it through images and editing speaks volume.
i think that in the future, as a teacher, this will be great to use with my kids in the classroom. i think that this was a great first project for us to do as a class because it really got us up close and personal with our computers and it showed me the tip of the iceberg of what i can do with a little laptop.
also there's a lot of me walking with my arm sticking out and it's supposed to be me walking with him but he's not really there... instead it kind of looks like i'm hitch hiking
DeleteI think that sharing something so personal with your classmates, especially at the beginning of the semester, really breaks a barrier. When you share something so personal with a group of people you barely know, you're automatically opening doors to let them get to know you better without having to go through the long process of making a close friend. We may not think of each other as best friends at this point, but we did get a look into a personal window that otherwise would have probably never been offered.
DeleteThis is definitely something I've been contending with since I pretty much started the education classes for Art Ed. Difficulty existed not so much in the content I explored in the creation of my video, but in how I could go about it in an appropriate way. In my other major, drawing and painting, my work is controversial, sometimes vulgar, and charged with products of my anxiety. Anything goes in D&P, and being in the advanced courses finally, I am able to completely express without censorship or inhibition.
ReplyDeleteI think I hit something of a road block with this project in that I didn't want to be as absurd as I am in my traditional work, especially considering my animation was directly about how trauma experienced in life caused me to lose faith in anything. Every step of the way in this project I was trying to decide what would be acceptable to portray. I have a hard time regulating how intense I am in my attitude and opinions from studio classes to education classes, and this hindered me quite a bit. It had still been an enjoyable experience, but I got myself worked up trying to do something involving paintings that are highly controversial in a non-entirely art setting.
Not to mention, I chose an original song from a recent album that really pushes the "off-ness" of everything I did, I would think.
Lots of anxiety everywhere.
I ended up really liking my project, despite being uncomfortable with expressing a personal story. I'm glad I chose to do a more symbolic representation of the story rather than going about it literally. That helped me get out of my comfort zone without feeling vulnerable or like I was saying too much. I found that my stop motion drawings took a very long time, but saved myself some grief by duplicating images instead of drawing every single frame. I was a little nervous about using i-movie and it had its frustrations at times, but I think it turned out pretty good!
ReplyDeleteThis video helped me remove some of the extra emotional layers of my childhood that I should have shed years ago. Getting friends involved and having fun with it helped. As for the project itself, I think it could and SHOULD be done in any classroom setting. It's a nice escape from drawing pottery and engages those kids who "just need an art credit" and helps students delve into media and computer programs they wouldn't otherwise have used. It's also pretty easy unless you put more requirements on it.
ReplyDeleteWhile making the project I just kept thinking to myself "Man this is so stupid. People are going to think I am so lame." I just felt really anxious to display not only such a personal part of my life, but really one of the toughest times I've been through. I got sick a lot, I was broke (I'm still broke), I missed my Mom soo much, and a lot more. I was just really vulnerable. But after having it complete I realize that that is my story and if it's lame then it's lame. My boyfriend and I struggled through the pregnancy but we made it out stronger and Jude (my son) saved us. I also feel like the majority of the class may misunderstand (because they don't have kids) what I was trying to say...so I feel anxious about putting that out there. I tried to convey a message that being a mom (or dad), whether you feel it the instant you give birth, during pregnancy, or a few weeks after you bring your cild home, is what matters. All the fights, money issues, etc are irrelevant. Because you will figure out a way to take care of your kid and you'll make it happen no matter what. But yeah I hope that message was translated at least a little. Also, I put a picture of myself in the video right after my son was born and I'm like a whale and I feel really anxious about that too.
ReplyDeleteAnimation is awesome, and almost other worldly to me once the technological aspects come into play.
ReplyDeleteI was excited to do animation but intimidated by the subject matter. My choice of abstinence is obviously very personal and it is not the norm to broadcast it to one's peers. However, I was also excited to make my statement. My lifestyle is in almost direct contradiction with what society's expectations are. There were many ways that I could portray this relationship; so many that I overwhelmed myself with the possibilities. That is one of the difficulties I had to overcome but I feel that I did not resolve it in time. I spent so much time mulling over what I could do and what all the problems would be that I didn't actually just try it. I had many worries of how to portray my lifestyle and values without seeming to be "holier than thou". I ended up making my animation using whiteboard, claymation, and pixilation like I had originally planned; but not nearly enough pixilation as I hoped. Also, I still feel like iMovie and Garagenband and beasts yet to be tamed. While I did struggle and push through some barriers, I now feel like there is so much more I could've done to push myself.
That being said, I'm proud of what I made. It was difficult for me to decide to illustrate this aspect of my life. I am so happy to have the opportunity to incorporate this part of me into an artwork of my making. And I did forms of animation that were unfamiliar and new to me. I feel that I got a lot out of this and that there is so much more that I can reflect upon. I hope that this shows in the future of the class and my life as a whole. I would love to revisit this video and remake into something much better and that pushes more boundaries.
This was my second time working in stop motion, and I'm really falling in love with the nostalgic feel of it. There's a lot of "live-action" parts in my video, I tried to speed them up a little so that it would have that same sort of choppy look that stop motion has. When I started planning it out, I was worried that I'd get so wrapped up in the animation process that the film wouldn't make sense to the viewer. As I was working on it, the opposite kinda happened. I got so caught up in trying to make the concept clear that I think I may have missed out on some opportunities to experiment more with the animation. But I do feel the segments I animated turned out pretty successful. All of the objects I animated hold incredible significance to the culture I tend to identify myself with (boardgames, comics/graphic novels, video games, literature, bears...). Animating Settlers of Catan was by far the most fun part of the entire project :) The video also turned out a little bit longer than I expected, but I couldn't really make myself edit anymore out of it.
ReplyDeleteThose who have had to take care of a loved one who is terminally ill might be able to identify with it. You don't want to see them go, but you hate seeing them in pain. After my grandpa's death I tried so hard to convince myself it was for the best, I should be in a good mood, and just move on. The problem was that everyone could clearly tell I wasn't alright, and the only way I could move forward was to take my time to remember why he was so important to me, and why he still is.
Hopefully my video doesn't bum people out. That totally wasn't my intention but I get the feeling that's what it will do -.-
This project was definitely a learning experience. I had to keep asking people questions on how to edit my animation. But towards the end of the project I found myself helping others with this project which was awesome because now I feel more confidant with being able to teach this in the future. I really enjoyed watching my pictures turn into a short film. This is definitely something I want to teach my class one day.
ReplyDeleteAt first, I was really having trouble figuring out how to portray anxiety through stop motion....I literally could not come up with anything! I knew I wanted to incorporate how anxiety normally sets in when I go to bed....so that's why I started out using white board to illustrate that.
ReplyDeleteA few days later, I was still stumped about what to do for the rest of my video. I walked around outside and saw all of these old, random objects that I have collected for my wedding....and it just hit me. I started rummaging through all of these random things and they each took on a life or a specific anxiety of their own. Each thing I chose in the video represents some aspect of my anxiety and the "attacks" that I sometimes have. I chose to highlight the irony of the whole situation by using somewhat comical objects to display the irrationality of most of my "bad" anxiety. From anyone else's perspective, it may seem like the things that cause me to freak out are childish or dumb....but to me, in that moment, they are very real and serious.
Another thing I really focused on at the end is how my fiance [my best friend =) ] is always right there beside me, helping me out and ultimately "rescuing me from myself" during these times. Even though I may not be able to "see" him during these times of irrationality, he has always been there for me. This is something that means so much to me considering in the past, I have dealt with the anxiety on my own. I found it very interesting that as I kept going with it, the ideas just started pouring out and it was actually pretty fun to portray the anxiety struggles I face using goofy objects.
The title comes from the idea that "putting a name to something" allows you to identify specifically what you are "fighting", which allows for specific elimination of say...well....anxiety! And all of the dumb things that cause it.
Overall, I'm glad that I was able to have a more positive ending to something that can be so dark to me at times. It's all about perspective!
The movie is about the difficult time I had as a student when I came to the USA. My English was very limited as I just arrived from Vietnam not very long before I started school.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I would say about this project is that it is definitely not like how I imagined it to me. It is so much more simplified that it was planned. However, honestly, I did not even know exactly how I was going to do it. All I knew was I had two dolls, and I wanted to use one to represent me. It took me about 4 days or so to finish everything since I was pretty much working alone. The only help I had was from my boyfriend when he played the role of the teacher.
I guess one of the biggest problems I encountered was how to incorporate the human actions to the brunette doll's movements to make it look like the doll was actually doing all the actions. Next, I chose to capture a lot of the doll's face since I wanted to show when she was thinking, and hopefully I was successful.
I was not able to get access to a classroom to photograph, so I figured I would just give the scenes a white background then add words and drawings on the white board to explain where the place was and what was happening.
I was a little bit frustrated at first due to not knowing what to do and how to do it. However, I love how it all turned out to be.
When doing this project it just made remember all of the things that I went through during this time. I would love to have done more detail to show how everything went down but then we would have a long video to watch. The religious problem I had with my Christian background and having to deal with my family and telling them the news, it hurt and I felt horrible. I was depressed and really thought about getting an abortion at one point. I am glad that the boy, my current husband today, stayed with me and actually took his responsibility to be a dad and take care of us. It was nice to think about everything again and how it's completely different today.
ReplyDeleteI think that it was nice to see something personal about everyone because it allowed me to think differently about people, in a good way. It made the classroom seem more friendly since everyone shared with each other. For me though, it didn't change too much because I still sit in the same spot and talk to the same people, and besides knowing one more thing about the other people, it hasn't changed much.
DeleteWhen we were given this assignment to do a stop motion animation i knew exactly what moment in my life that i wanted to portray. The only problem i had with this was that i did not know how i was going to make this animation. I did not know what scenes i wanted or if i wanted to do claymation or do a white board animation. I ended up making up the scenes of my animation as i went along.
ReplyDeleteAnother challenge i had to overcome was that as i was making my animation i quickly realized that i could not do it alone. So i asked my sister to pull the invisible strings and to take pictures while i was in the animation. I also had to direct her by telling her from what angle i wanted the pictures to be taken from and how close i wanted to camera to zoom in on a scene. Another challenge i faced was that i had a hard time taking pictures of my white board because the flash from my camera kept creating glares into the lens. So i had to take more then one picture. The last problem i had with my animation was trying to create my own music because i don't do it everyday so i had a hard time trying to balance the different sound effects.
Even though i encountered a lot of problems while making my animation i had fun throughout the whole process. This will definitely be an assignment that i will give to my kids once i become a teacher.
Doing a video about an impacting moment in my life was really difficult to do in three minutes. It was incredibly limiting, but it also challenged my creative side. Overcoming the time limit forced me to show the passage of time.
ReplyDeleteShooting the short film also gave me perspective on a lot of things about video. I learned how artistic directing can be, and I also learned how much collaboration it takes to make a film. Without other actors and a camera man, there would be almost no way for me to make my AA about myself actually include myself in the pixilation scenes.
Aside from the actual process and technical work behind my film, I learned much more about myself and the cultures that I'm a part of. I managed to take eight months of my life and transform it into a success story, overcoming obstacles that although many people go through, not all overcome and continue to be functional persons.
I learned much about the different techniques. Pixilation was easy to incorporate into my video because it was easy to use to tell a story, but the other two types were a bit tougher to include. I actually shot the last scene the morning before class because I wasn't satisfied with my film and did not think it was tied off. The last scene really pulls the film together and makes it an even more personal story.
I believe that stop motion could be a wonderful tool to teach students collaboration in a nontraditional artistic medium. It was a very exciting experience and could be just as engaging to high school students as it was to me.
This project was especially hard for me because I had to pull something from deep within myself that I have shared with very few people. This aspect of myself was also very dark and to a degree, embarrassing. Combing that with zero knowledge or experience with animation made it quite a challenge.
ReplyDeleteThe process was very difficult and time-consuming for me, but overall I was pleased with what I learned and how far I came with the project. There are certain things I would like to do differently if I had time. I think my video was a little whimsical and cheesy, especially combined with something as harrowing as mental illness. It was also very difficult for me to develop it artistically and I struggled with creativity and fitting me personal experience into an artistic experience.
For this project, it really forced me to revisit a time in my life that was very confusing and very dark... and an issue that has replayed in my life since then. For the longest time I blamed other people for the faults when it was me that was at fault. It was my insecurities that pushed me to the point where I found myself. It's very ironic that we did this project at the time that we did because I was finding myself in a dark space again and revisiting old memories made me really think about the mindset I was in.
ReplyDeleteI wanted this project to not be completely dark because I am tired of playing the victim, so I added some humor, but it still makes me uneasy when I watch it...mainly because it's not great. I'm not completely satisfied with the result, since it's a bit different than what played in my head, but it is a good start.
This was an insanely difficult assignment for me. To go from telling no one what happened, to putting my past in the spotlight for everyone to see, was excruciating. And I can never convey what I was feeling or the experience I had, but I can let everyone know that I survived. The hardest part was taking pictures behind a dumpster. It put me in a place I haven't been in 13 years. I had to fight not to cry. I hope it can inspire.
ReplyDeleteI struggled a lot with translating the concept I came up with for my AA to a cohesive video. I wanted to depict the happiness I felt in my relationship, but I had a hard time visualizing what that would look like in the animation. I had to abandon my original idea of focusing only on my happiness and instead focused on the personal transformation that got me there. Once I settled on this theme the animation came very naturally.
ReplyDeleteThe animation shows a paraphrased version of how I got my boyfriend. Despite the fact that its 2012 people still seem surprised that I asked him out on the first date. And the second date. And all the dates after that until he agreed to be my boyfriend. I believe more people need to take charge of their lives, their happiness.
This project in and of itself was a mystery to me because I could not conceptualize the idea of being in a coma and making it into a stop motion film and have it make sense to people. The fact that I was in a coma was more like Vanilla sky where it was so confusing what was reality and what was not, it was like a silent nightmare. So I asked my professor what could I do to make this work as a animation? I was told by Jeremy to thing of things as simple and minimalist kind of way and with that try to recreate the sensation of how you felt. So with that I created a character that represented me in the emptiness of being lost and alone. http://youtu.be/4blWp75ykCk
ReplyDeleteWhen doing this project, I was really able to explore the digital art world, and learn many different techniques that has got me intrested in digital art. I enjoyed manipulating objects, being able to bring them to life and to actually get to be a star in one of my own pieces. Although, the biggest challenge for me was trying to find a topic that would really catch my audience attention. Growing up I had never lost anyone close, or have had any big struggles that I have had to over come, so picking a topic was very hard. The topic I chose is very unique and for the lack of better words weird as hell, but I do believe that my obsession with my blow dryer has been a major problem consdering the possible damage that I am not only doing to my body but possibly the damage I could do to my apartment complex! If any of yall want to take a second watch of my weird ass video....here it is.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/-q30xY0HK3E
After this project, I did not really see or feel a difference in the way I was treated or the way I treated others. I feel that my video may have shocked or impacted people, but if they thought differently of me, no one conveyed their feelings to in a way I was able to notice.
ReplyDeleteIts been an entire semester since we have done our project and I have, to an extent, felt differently about each student in my class. I see them -now- based on major events that changed their lives and it changed my understanding and level of respect for each of them individually.
ReplyDeleteI think this project was the best project in the entire semester. It took a lot of thinking and was very time consuming, but I believe it was worth it. After this project, I did not feel anything different towards my classmates nor did they treat me differently. I think it instead helps me to be a little more understanding by knowing a little portion of other people's lives. And I think that's what art is strongly about. It helps us relate and connect to each other.
ReplyDeleteI think people definitely treated me differently (not negatively or anything) after the video (or just finding out that I have a kid). I don't know. I guess babies scare people and maybe they felt like they couldn't relate to me? But I think that happened with me as well. I appreciated the honesty of the AAs but in a sense it distanced me further from some of my classmates because I felt like I couldn't relate to some of their stories. Hope that made sense.
ReplyDelete