My Culminating Project - Pugnacious

                                   
For my culminating project I had chosen the word pugnacious. This word means inclined to quarrel or fight readily. This word really appealed to me because this word made a lot of ideas come to mind. This word is also really easy to understand and being pugnacious is what happens to people a lot. My original intent for my still image was to take a picture of a punching bag and boxing gloves, or a picture of boiling water. The punching bag and gloves would be a picture of it, in slight darkness. While the boiling pot picture would be in pure sight and just brimming with water. After some more thought I had decided to change my idea from those to a person boxing. Although the boxing picture will just be of their shadow. After I will Photoshop some of the picture to make it seem slightly different. Like adding some more darkness to the picture, and making a border of black around it. The concept of the still image was to show that everyone is always a bit ready to fight. The intent for the video was to have a person getting really mad. Although after a little thinking I had decided to change my idea from just a person getting mad to a more complex idea. This idea was something that is affecting people all over the world; cyber bullying. Since cyber bullying is such a big is such a big conflict now, it would be fun and really good to make a video of. The concept of the video is to show how even the littlest of insults will keep adding up and making the victims anger “boil” more and more. Until the end where the person is totally pugnacious, since they are up to fight anything that will come in their way now. This is how the video will end, with the person ready to fight.

       For the design elements I had used to tie the sill and video pieces together is that the still image is going to express what the video is about. Since there is shadow boxing in the video the image will also have shadow boxing interpreted into it. Also the way it will be shown will be the somewhat same as the video. My design choices for the still image was to just have pictures from the video, this was the original idea of just objects from the video. Then it had changed to a scene from the video, and to use Photoshop to add more details and fix up the picture. The imagery choices I had chosen for the still image are supposed to have a strong connection to the word because the word means ready to fight so you would easily think of armour. Like boxing gloves, helmets, mouth guards, anything really that can protect you from getting hurt. But I had decided to grow on that to something that shows more than that. The image will have a person fighting because you can see the person getting ready to fight. This person is training so you know that they are now ready to fight. My video in terms of imagery is full of images that show anger, and things that make you angry. When you see the mean insults it would make you angry and get mad and want to fight someone. When you see the boiling pot you think of anger. When people are mad they are like boiling pots, because they are just ready to erupt in ways. Lastly when you see the person boxing you just know the person is really mad, and is up to fight. The order I had put my video in was to always have the insults come first. Since the insults are the source for the anger. Then have either the boiling of the pot or the boxing. But it must always be the little insults, tiny bubbles then shadow boxing. After that it must be meaner insults, boxing in the dark, bigger bubbles. Lastly it must be boiling water, and full out boxing. Although for any of these the water and boxing can be reversed, but the insults MUST always go first. That way you will always know the source of the anger and it will not confuse people. The shots I had were wide shots of the boxing to get the whole image. Close-ups of the water to get it really intense, and close up of the insults to add to the suspense.  The transitions of this video are really just mostly getting straight to it. Not dilly- dallying. Although the effects I had put into the boxing clips were making it a little but more detailed, like adding a bit of an earthquake effect, and soft touch effect. Also the music I had added to it was to add to the suspense building. This way you would just know that in the end the person is going to do something really big, and the music just keeps building he further you get into the video. I had tried to put a lot more sounds into it. Also I had really experimented with how loud the sound would go, and the way it would be. This is also the same for the transitions and effects. I made some of them rougher than others, or toned down the way it was, or made the speed slower/ faster.
          

       Overall I think I did really well on this. I think I did really well because I had put a lot of effort into this, and it took me a really long time to make. The end product just went together and I am just really happy with it. Conceptually I think I hit the target I was going for, because everything I had wanted to do turned out exceptionally well. Mostly all of the clips I had made turned out even better than I had expected them to. I had expected them to not be as clear in thought, but they are all very clear once put together and it’s really good. Technically I think I could have maybe added some more effects to the video, and still.  Just to make things more interesting, I would have done this if I had more time. I could have made little improvements to both the still and video. But overall I think I did a really good job, especially with the effort I put into this. I just hope that you like it as much as I did, Enjoy!!

Fork Animation- Grocery Store

  

         This is my fork animation. For this animation my fork was hungry so it decided to go to the grocery store. While the fork is there he spots a 50% OFF sign. So he decided to go get an orange. But while he was bending down to pick up the orange, he slips on the water and falls over. Which then causes everything else to topple over on top of my fork.
I hope you enjoyed my stop-motion animation of my fork!! :)

Phoenix Animation

               This is our class's phoenix animation, for the animation we had to make a stop-motion animation to make this phoenix.  This was a really fun project we did as a whole class. It was also a good learning experience for all of us. Enjoy!!!

Chick

Chick

The "Chick" was an assignment I had to do, this assignment was printmaking. For this assignment we were supposed to make a picture with a bird on it. Also the print had to have about 70% carved away. We made 10 prints of the same picture, and pick our best three. This was my absolute best one, and thought it would be great to share!

Digital Surrealism- Help The Environment!

For my digital surrealism project I decided to do a problem that is affecting us more and more every day. The environment. The environment is very important to us, and this is what gave me this idea.

            My idea for the digital surrealism project was to raise awareness for the environment, specifically trees. My topic was environmental issues about trees. How we ‘play’ with trees. All we really do is just cut them down, and not even care that without trees we will die too. It shows that trees can have feelings, and the hands show how we are playing with them. Taking them from their natural habitats for having good furniture.  Do we not care about the environment anymore? This is also how we shouldn’t play with them; they belong in their natural habitats, not in our homes.

My picture symbolizes the message because looking at it you can see normal everyday trees. Then you see that they are in a stage. So you can already tell that there is that feeling that the trees aren’t treated properly. Then you see the hands and the sky above it. From these two images you can already tell that the hands are way more superior to the trees. Also the hands represent us humans. The sky is showing that we are higher than the trees; just like saying we have more power. But the fact is that trees are the real ones that are helping us live. They are the ones that are providing us with oxygen, and life. So we shouldn’t think too much of ourselves because the trees are the real ones with the power.

First I will talk about my design process. The first thing I had done to get this project started was to make a stage. So I made the stage and then used the tripod and lights to take the picture. For the trees I had gone and taken actual pictures of trees. Then for the sky I had found it on the internet, and cropped it so it would be in the background. For the faces inside of the trees, and the hands I had used the cove and green screen to take the pictures. This would help me take out the background easily. So to get started on Photoshop I had made a few layers. Then taken each picture cropped it, and then moved it into the file. I had first put the stage and sky. For both the stage and sky I had used the transform tool, to pick out the perfect sizes to use. Then I had added the hands which were fairly easy to do. I had just took the color range tool selected all the green and then took it out. All the excess green I just erased, or used the lasso tool to get rid of. Especially for the strings it was very helpful to just use the lasso tool. Since it would make perfectly straight lines, and was easy to control. Then for the face had turned down the opacity so it would blend better into the background. Also for the background trees I had turned down the opacity took away all the excess of the picture. Then put the stage layer on top of it, so the rest could not be seen. The just for the end I had just blended everything together to make it seem more realistic.  So overall the most helpful tools for me were the lasso tool, transform tool, eraser tool, blur tool, color range tool, and the brightness and contrast tool.

My project has turned out pretty good. I think it had turned out pretty good, since I did not have so much time to do it, also because I had worked really hard on this so it did turn out good. I feel really satisfied with the way the hands did turn out. Since I had used a green screen it took a long time to take the entire green screen out. Where I became really frustrated was the trees, the ones that the puppeteer plays with. It was really hard to get the background out of it. But I had somewhat managed to do it. I think next time I would like to learn how to really blend things together. The thing I enjoyed doing for this project was making the stage and taking all the pictures for it. The part I found frustrating was using Photoshop. But this was a very good learning experience, and it was pretty fun to do and I had enjoyed it.