Final Project

For my final project, I've decided to do a menu with a User Interface that would make certain parts of the animated menu clickable, which would open up separate videos that I have edited. The menu is an animated Reno Arch, that is segmented by seasons, winter, spring, fall, summer. The seasonal sections have unique animations (a snowman comes in the winter scene, leaves fall in autumn etc) These are all clickable. Upon being clicked, a new window opens showing a short montage (around 1 minute each) of events taking place in downtown Reno during that season. These videos were compiled and edited by myself using preexisting footage, and acquired footage from the internet.

To put this together, I edited the videos using Final Cut, with the text coming in from fonts I edited in Photoshop. The menu was made in After Effects using segmented transitions (linear wipes) to make each segment different. The UI was created in Adobe Flash Catalyst with selected areas being made buttons, and then those buttons triggering actions on other slates, which upon completion, would transition back to the original state.

My original goal was to make it more about the events surrounding the people, and not simply a video that looks like a promotional piece for the city of Reno. It ended up being a little bit of both. In the end though, my main goal was just to be able to expand my knowledge of new programs (After Effects, Catalyst) and that was my favorite part about it, I got a lot of experience with new editing programs and I really enjoyed putting this together.

Music 409 Final With Video

For my final MUS 409 project, I made a 4 minute long song using both traditional recording techniques as well as synth and instrumental noises. This was unlike anything I had done before and I wasn't really sure how exactly to make the video to go along with it. I decided to simply get on after effects and start playing around with different animations and filter effects, and I ended up with what I think is a really cool representation of the piece.

I used a lot of pop culture images from film, comics, video games and more to make this feel like a lot of crazy things happening at once. I started to try to make it sync with the audio (and it still does in some places) however I found that when I just kinda let it go its own way, the piece became much more effective.

The piece was long, so I had to repeat some things, but I think you'll notice the first 2 minutes or so is what I dedicated most of my time and effort to. Hope you enjoy it,

Coachella (exhibit)

Coachella was an amazing experience, both visually as well as musically. It was a 3 day escape filled with good people, good food, amazing art, and unparalleled musical talent. I had a blast and came back with a lot of experiences and things to discuss. The art that was there came from all over the country and there were a few installations that were really awesome. One of my favorites was probably a small robotic neon shark that was remote controlled, roaming around the festival grounds chomping at people’s ankles.

The music was amazing, with a sound system that was definitely one of the best I had ever heard. Coachella showcases some of the largest musical acts in nearly every genre, and this is undoubtedly one of the largest shows they will play all year. Because of this the production on these performances are huge. Fireworks, flames, amazing light shows, backdrops on stage, and dancers make every performance worth seeing.

During Justice’s performance (a french electronic duo) the stage was full of lights, and images, including showing dancers on both sides of the stage. Eventually the lights lit up along the entire front of the output speakers, giving the stage a grid like appearance that went really well with the performance.

Oh yeah, and Tupac was there.

Kiel Johnson

Kiel Johnson is an extremely interesting artist and much different than things we had seen before in this or any other art classes. He is a real grass roots artist who loves to create things traditionally with his hands, and his work comes off as having a lot of hard work and himself in each piece.
Johnson has an ability to use a lot of different mediums as well as materials to make something completely original. His illustrative ability was impressive enough, but the work he's done with cardboard and paper (specifically his reflex camera project) was really interesting and I love to see artists who can utilize their skills in so many different ways.

His lecture was really informative, and as a digital media student, it was interesting to see a viewpoint on art from someone who is involved in so many different aspects of the art world. I went with Dan Conroy, who was talking later about how he wanted to try a time lapse of making something (which would later become his project) so this goes to show the type of affect these lectures and these guest artists can have on us as working students and artists

Exhibition Review: Kevin Kremler

Postcards From the Grey Area was an exhibit we saw by Kevin Kremler in the Shepard Gallery in the Church Fine Arts building in early April. The exhibition had 4 pieces that were all somewhat connected, yet very different from one another. This made the exhibit really interesting. Kremler's work is largely interactive, which I loved because it definitely gave a new aspect to going to a gallery instead of just standing around looking, you actually got to be involved with how the piece worked. The first piece was a photobooth that was set to mimic a Norman Rockwell painting. This was really cool and our class definitely enjoyed playing around with this one. Next were the tvs set to brain scans on the floor, this wasn't interactive, but really fun to watch and walk around. Third, was a large postcard he had drawn of Van Gough in crayon. This was really original and Kremler said he uses these to mail out to friends and family which definitely made me look at it a bit more in a different way. Finally he had a cross of planks with buckets on the end suspended over the floor, each corner had a box of colored sand, and a small shovel. Putting the sand in the buckets would alter the angles of the beams, while dropping colored sand on the floor in a random pattern.

I enjoyed this work, the scale and interactivity of it was definitely impressive, and I'm interested to see his other work since I was impressed at his ability to do so many different types of pieces using different materials.

Music 409 Video

This is a video representation of my midterm piece for my Music 409 class.

The piece is titled hallway, a title which came after I have finished production on it, due to the echo noise constant throughout the piece and the ambient noise that I felt gave the listener a feeling of walking down an ominous hallway.

For the visual representation of the piece, I went with the film geek side of me and scoured some of my favorite films and other media to find the most memorable film uses of Hallways.

In the end the sound works great with the fast editing and the films I chose, giving it a very distinct and somewhat unique look at such a normal everyday thing such as a corridor connecting two rooms.

Media Used:

The Legend Of Zelda
The Shining
Star Wars: A New Hope
Fight Club (extra film nerd tidbit, I used this as a rapid subliminal shot of the Tyler Durden character in the hallway as a nod to director David Fincher, who put flashes of the Tyler Durden character within the film Fight Club)
The Princess Bride
Inception
Se7en
Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Progress 4/24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF70NkDy2IQ&context=C40f9b55ADvjVQa1PpcFO9voxB_c1LAdhoRgNdH9NS6IoajXsPMBk=


Over the past couple weeks I've continued to amass my video footage which is nearly all complete and in the editing stages.

Meanwhile I've been working on the front menu which is almost done. I'm still looking at ways to change the seasons to make them a bit more seamless, however I think for now its starting to come together nicely.

Upon completion of this menu I will bring it into Flash Catalyst where I will make it clickable with rigging the separate videos to play upon being clicked, with each quadrant representing a different seasonal video themes.