iMovie Artist Statement

Alexandria Murphy

Shawn Wasser

Ryan Jewell

Seongmin Cheon

Digital Creativity

4/19/16

iMovie Artistic Statement

            In this film we wanted to capture the essence of the classic Cinderella story, while putting a modern day twist on it. Everyone knows the original tale of the poor girl, mistreated by her step family, who gets one magical night at the ball, only to lose her shoe, which is eventually returned to her by the prince. But we decided to take the ending in a different direction by having Cindy search desperately for her work shoe while Henry, her math tutor, is trying to get the shoe back to her. But they just cannot seem to be in the same place at the same time. Until finally, once Henry has turned to drinking due to his stress over the problem and Cindy has gone to decompress at the bar, Cindy notices… her shoe! Just sitting up on the bar counter. She then proceeds to just grab it off the counter and walk away, leaving Henry just sitting there looking confused.

            We also wanted to make the bartender the Fairy Godmother type character. So we had him be the one suggest that Cindy get those specific shoes for her new job and we had him right at the center of the whole search for the shoe.

            We decided to take the stereotypes out from the original and make it into something that college students would be more likely to relate to. While we were not expecting a “deep and personal” connection with any of the characters by any means, we would like to think that people can relate in the sense that we all know what it is like to get caught up in one specific task and you can’t move on until you complete what you have been working so hard to accomplish. I think that anyone in college can understand the type of stress this kind of scenario can bring about in our lives, whether it is studying, homework, or just social situations in general.

            There were some editing strategies that we employed to help the plot along as well. For example, during the scene where Henry and Cindy are running up and down the stairs searching for one another, we decided to speed up the scene and replace the background noise with some music from the original Scooby Doo series, to give it that feeling like when you were watching Scooby Doo as a kid and the “chase scene” came on and as Scooby and the gang would run away from the monster, entering and exiting through various doors, somehow always seeming to just miss each other during the whole encounter.

            While we did take the frame from this family favorite, we believe that we were able to transform the story and make it our own. Enough so that, when you are watching it, you can feel the presence of Cinderella, but the presence and ideas of Alex, Shawn, Ryan, and Seongmin as well.

Presentation Activity

iMovie Project

Ryan Jewell

Sawn Wasser

Alex Murphy

Seongmin Cheon

iMovie Project

Theme:

We decided to go with a modern day/ humorous version of Cinderella.

 

Basic Plot Line/ Characters:

-Girl (Cindy) works at campus dining, loses her shoe

-Her tutor (Henry) (prince) tries to track her down

-Bartender = fairy god mother

-Evil Step Family= person that the girl got the campus dining job over

 

Actors:

Cindy= Alex

Henry= Ryan

Bartender= Seongmin

Jealous person= Shawn

 

Roles/ Jobs:

We’ve decided that our group would work best if we all did a little bit of everything. So we will all be co camera people, directors, etc.

 

**We are going to begin filming next Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

My movie would be about....

If I were a film maker I would either like to make a serious film that is attempting to bring a topic to light and give people more information on it or some sort of a comedy.
I realize these are two very different things, but I feel these are the two topics I work best with.

Flash Animation Project Artist Statement

Alex Murphy & Michael Pierce

ART 335

Flash Animation Project

Artist Statement

3/29/16

     

For this project, we wanted to convey the seriousness of the topic of underage drinking, while still appealing to the targeted audience. We felt that, too often, teens see public service announcements and facts about drinking and brush it off. Which is why we attempted to incorporate a bit of humor with the facts and statistics. We did our best to be sure the humor was tasteful, appropriate, and got the point across.

We chose to stick to a simpler animation style, again, to better relate to our intended audience. While we were discussing the different approaches to the topic at hand, we discovered that whenever someone had attempted to warn us about the dangers of underage drinking we were always shown one of two videos. Either a “super serious” one with facts popping up on the screen intermittently with pictures of kids being peer pressured into drinking or an overly cheesy cartoon. Either way, it always had us rolling our eyes and just waiting until the program was over. We felt that our simple, hand drawn, animation paired with the light, casual nature of the video may actually draw in the viewer(s) and encourage them to hear the message we were trying to convey.

And finally, our choice in music. During our animation, you will hear the soundtrack from “The Last of the Mohicans” playing. During the beginning of our feature, the ominous music almost adds to the humor of the whole thing. You have a talking bottle of alcohol tempting young children with glasses of liquor that appear out of no where with this dark, orchestra music making the whole thing seem “dangerous”. But once we begin talking about the effects alcohol has on kids ages 12-20, the music allows the reality of how dark underage drinking can actually be.

Group 6 Ethics Question

In my experience, I believe that ethics and morals can definitely be shaped by the environment in which we are raised. Whether it is politics, school, or just everyday life, the morals that we grew up around tend to rub off on us.
However, I also know that this is not always the case. For example, my best friend's parent are devout Christians and very conservative, while my best friend is far more liberal minded, despite having been home schooled for the first 13 years of his life, and then being transferred into a Christian school for two years after that.

Spider Demo

Presentation Activity

Responses to Presentation Questions

1. I do believe my creativity has been enhanced after taking this class. It has allowed me to think outside the box, but also to work with the creativity I already had that I didn't know how to utilize.

2. I would have to say that I am personally creative. I use my experiences from the things around me to guide my creativity and how I view things that are conceptually "creative".

Cat Soup Q&A

1.    What is it about? Themes?

I felt that a lot of this movie had to do with the concept of life and death. Several times through out the movie we watched a character die and come back to life, or in the case of the sister, someone who got sick and was brought back to health.  Overall, the movie was about the brother’s quest to find a way to get his sister to be healthy again.

2.    Name three creative strategies from the film.

-The artist’s use of color in this film really helped the movie along. The use of vibrant colors versus when the movie was in black and white or had very dull colors helps to further the viewers understanding of when a scene is supposed to be positive, negative, or important.

-       Another creative strategy was the artist’s use of cats as the main characters, but still having humans in the film as characters as well. It gives the audience a different view of the world around us and how animals can also have thoughts and feelings.

-       Finally, I felt the creators made very good use of the concept of time.  Several times during the animation, the cats were travelling through time (weather or not it was all in their heads is a different story). But this interesting concept  allows for the viewer to really consider the fabric of time and maybe even to wonder how we can lose track of time so quickly.

3.    General reaction.

Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of this film. I’m more of a straightforward; need to understand what’s going on in a movie, kind of a person. And I felt this film was a rollercoaster from start to finish. To be honest, I felt that I didn’t understand what was going on 90% of the time. While I felt that the art was cool and interesting, this would not be my film of choice.

Spiderman Flash Demo

Flying Bird/ Camel demo

Group Discussion Question

I feel as though many of us use mimicry more often than we realize. We could be inspired to create something, and we aren't even aware that we are borrowing ideas from something we had a brief encounter with or even something we came across years ago. I know that has happened for me a lot, and I will come across the idea I mimicked later. It's always interesting.

These are some ideas for our short film project. I'm waiting for Michael so we can further confirm ideas.

Postcard #4

Postcard #4

Postcard #3

Postcard #3

Poscard #2

Postcard #2

Postcard #1

Postcard #1

Today we learned how to use the 3D conversion tool and how to place a 3D object we've created into another image.

Why blend in when you were born to stand out?

Today I learned how to blend words into an image without them sticking straight out in an obvious way.

Today I learned how to use the various pieces of the background eraser tool to put a person or object into a different setting, while making it look realistic. I also found different ways to work with my postcards.

The verification stage is one that I find myself dealing with the most. I'm constantly going back and reviewing my work to make sure that it is the best it can be. I often have my parents or best friend read or look over my work to check for mistakes and see where I can expand and evolve.

In today's class I learned how to add various filters onto my image, use the history brush tool, and reviewed various aspects of selecting, cropping, and changing the color of an image.

Today in class I learned how to use the cloning tool, how to create a realistic shadow for an object and how to work with the Content Aware Move Tool so that I can move objects around an image without distorting it.

With this project I learned how to use the cloning tool as well as how to apply one picture to another so that they are able to seamlessly appear as one image (as shown below).

"Now, bring me that horizon..." -Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl)

What are we really using libraries for these days?

 

Library

 

If my pet penguin is feeling rebellious....

If my pet penguin is feeling rebellious...