50 years from now (final project)

Sadly, I wouldn't have much to say to my future self 50 years from now - other than don't be a dried up old prune and to always remain a kid at heart. The song for this piece I created using GarageBand and it took me a while to make it sound half way decent.  Most of the video came from around 6-8 different public videos off Vimeo. I wanted to focus more on the video game theme seeing as how I love to play video games. I also wanted to include the whole Saturday morning cartoons and eating cereal bit in there as well. Gotta love being a kid!

Live Performance Piece

I had an awesome idea for this project initially but quickly realized it would be almost impossible to do considering the time frame, equipment needed, and amount of help needed so I had to revisit the canvas more than once. I went from the concept of people being able to paint on my body to acting as a doomsayer and prophesying the apocalypse to destroying a representation of the world in the sand by letting people walk all over it.

The symbolism is pretty obvious in this piece. Rapid technology and the progress of man shaping the face of the planet. Natural, non-renewable resources being consumed and eventually the destruction of the earth... all dried up, nothing left but sand. The video and concept are both essentially minimalistic in approach. The project had to relate to both technology and the end of the world.. the end of the world aspect is obvious, but I'll let you guess the technology aspect in this piece. Okay, I'll give you a hint: Space Odyssey 2001.

Terry and the Pirates

The originally comic strip series Terry and the Pirates first aired on the radio in November of 1937.  Similar to any show, it was developed to fill a popular need, was dramatized and possessed the familiar crackling and hissing of radio at the time. The shows popularity, at first, didn't catch on and was cancelled in 1939. However, after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Terry and the Pirates found its niche back on the radio and became quite popular as a way for people to hear about what was going on in the far east.

It's difficult to imagine the time when people would come home after a hard day's work and wait patiently for the next show to come on the radio.. although I'm sure it was just like how people are eager to watch their favorite TV shows today. There are several similarities between radio and television including broadcasting formats and schedules for shows or programs, mass production and consumption (availability), audience-specific commercials, and more.

Its not hard to agree that radio takes a great degree of imagination when listening, similar to reading a book and hearing/seeing the words turn into visually imagined scenes in your mind. Television leaves little left for the imagination, showing us someone else's view in full picture.

I find myself listening to the radio shows on NPR rather than the music and commercials on every other channel it seems. I'd rather listen to a radio show or story telling (even in a vocally dramatized way) than tune into many of the music played on the radio today. It's unfortunate the only time I really listen to radio is in the car or occasionally while cooking in the kitchen... something I doubt hardly anyone else does today.

Flip Book Animation Project

Erin - Good use of color and lots of white space.. very minimalistic approach given the amount of space on each page of the book but that could be intentional.

Christopher - The story is a bit abstract (on purpose?); very clean animation

Maria - I enjoyed the green swirl of grass, good usage of color

Brian - Halloween aspect was neat, and the Radio coming to life was creative

Juan - Coolest part for me was the football morphing into an eyeball

Sabrina - I especially enjoyed the water bucket animation near the end (or was that the beginning?)

Cody - I thought it pretty inventive/smart to place your animation sketches on the edges of the pages to make it easier for flipping, I also liked how the animation was telling the story of the book it was drawn on

Kimberly - Similar to Maria's green grass swirl; abstract storyline?

Arielle - I saw lots of heart animations for the project but yours seemed to stick out .. very minimalistic

Michelle - Love the whale, good storytelling

Megan - Enjoyed the lego block movement, animation was very clean and well timed, lines lined up well from one page to another; would recommend using a pen or something fast to draw with so you don't kill yourself :)

Nakota - Another colorful one, good storytelling

Myself - I had a difficult time focusing on a concept long enough to make it an animation that worked... mine was more like a collection of quick, morphing sketches.. although I did attempt to fill the pages, making use of the dimensions at times it proved a daunting process and one I rather did not enjoy mainly due to the level of personal stress I was experiencing simultaneously.. I suppose that isn't a valid excuse but I know I could have produced better results for this project. I also tried to break out of my designer shell so to speak and draw in a style I normally wouldn't (I'm usually much too focused on realism and achieving "perfection").

Edison's The Great Train Robbery

Thomas Edison's 1903 short silent film The Great Train Robbery was one of the earliest films to utilize several various special effects and techniques birthing at the time.. such as cameras being placed on top of trains, cross cutting and double exposures. Even though the piece wasn't original to any of its effects, its assumed to be the earliest film that combined several of these techniques into a 12 minute long film.

Although hard to imagine now, its said that viewers/audiences of the time would find themselves in fear of being ran over by the train or horses because of the camera angle or perspective, as if the objects were coming straight toward them... imagine their reaction if they had 3D glasses on and personal headphones!

Stop-Motion Interactive Graffiti

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
If you haven't already seen examples of the stop-motion graffiti trend which seems to have spread like wild fire (especially on youboob) then you're in for a treat (that is, if you enjoy graphic representations of odd figures eating heads, disfigured body parts, insects devouring a man's head and so forth).

Artist Blu's "MUTO", a stop-motion animation of graffiti coming to life includes some very interesting aspects of interactivity in that the graffiti, or rather the art, itself becomes alive and affects (or effects? always get those two confused..) the surrounding environment by eating the papers on the wall, hanging from a hook on the wall, bricks being pushed around or out of the wall, etc. Add some relatively convincing sound effects and you've got yourself a degree of realism you normally wouldn't find in your average painting.

I can't imagine the amount of time, patience and planning this project took.

The Birth of Jazz

Around the 1890s in New Orleans a diverse mixture of musical styles including ragtime, blues, gospel music, and "plantation songs", merged to form what we know as Jazz. Probably the key characteristic of Jazz is the improvisation involved when performing this style of music.

Jazz is still considered to be one of the most important (and truly indigenous to America) forms of music, or even art, which affected music globally. A piece of real American culture of which to be proud of.. and a great example/symbol of unity between various cultures and diversity.

Jazz was considered immoral by older generations yet started to spread quickly especially in the 1920's and 30's during the Prohibition Alcohol ban which ultimately encouraged the consumption of alcohol along with wild parties, dancing, illicit "speakeasies" and "improper"  music... a time when being bad was a good thing and consequently when one of the most influential styles of music had emerged.