Michele and my final video project.
Tracks
If you click on the link, you don’t have to watch the entire video, you could just start off at 1:10 because that’s what I’m discussing.
Some of my favorite movies are the Transformers movies. Not because of the plot or because of the insane amounts of needless explosions but because of Michael Bay’s obsession with the aesthetics of the film. I love the amount of work that went into each of the transformations in the film, courtesy of Industrial Lights and Magic. The opening sequence of all three of the Transformers movies have some sort of transforming going on with the “Transformers” logo right before the movie starts and it is a very creative way to start off a film that is exactly about transforming. Not only does that kind of a title sequence show the intention of the film but it also finds an aesthetically pleasing way to illustrate it, using a custom font that could just as easily come out of a car as from an alien robot. The font is perfect (it has the same look as the metal on all of the robots) for its purpose and the sound effect strengthens the message of the initial title sequence, it’s powerful, has enough bass to rattle your seat in the theater, and it uses metal sounds which gives the font a texture, in a sense. The title appears before a black background and the transforming of the logo is all you get to see, as if this transformation is itself a part of the movie. The logo is in the center of the screen as it is clearly the center of attention and it’s all that is intended to be focused on, which is another reason why the background is black and contrasts so strongly with the shiny metallic gleaming of the “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”.
Who would have thought that the Loch Ness Monster also wanted to take a bite out of the Big Apple?
I found the picture of Nessie online and I used one of my all-time favorite photographs of Central Park - that I took back in ‘07 - to make this postcard-esque stamp.
The beauty of Thomas Hunter Hall’s stairwells in all of their eerie, creepy, and under-renovation glory.
Rigby and Mordecai from the Regular Show. I drew this but JG Quintel came up with them. He’s like the friend I have so much in common with but will never get to meet. Maybe.
"Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline" Urban Decay Photo Essay
I love urban decay. I don’t know what it is about it exactly, but maybe it has to do with the history of a place. I feel there’s no better way to see and fully understand something’s past than to see it in a state of ruin, contrasting with the future it got to see but never enjoy.
The messy and cheap set of our second claymation, the Andrew Jackson Story. The little green dude is supposed to be Bush on vacation after Andrew Jackson was interviewed by another clayperson on the national debt. The other picture is Cooperson Ander, our news reporter who covered our Andrew Jackson story.
Artist Statement
As a child my best friend and I would draw things for other students and eventually we began to sell them for a quarter or two each to students who would ask us to draw things for them. As I got older, I discovered many other different forms of making art, including claymation. The first time I decided to make a claymation was when my high school teacher asked us to present a specific part of Homer’s The Odyssey, so instead of going with a boring poster board, I decided to make a claymation with the same best friend I used to sell drawings with. Although time consuming, it became a passion, and that has to be my favorite form of art right now aside from animating my drawings and making comics.
My more current artwork is nothing short of imaginative, born from everyday conversations between my friends and myself and then built upon as our stories reach higher levels. Fundamentally they’re just inside jokes which I mold and master until we aren’t the only ones who either get it or laugh at it. Granted it may not be for everyone, and some may consider it stupid, some cute, and some may even be impressed by it. But it doesn’t matter, because as long as it entertains SOMEONE, then my job here is done. My primary weapon? Any digital camera I can get my hands on. My secondary weapon? My laptop and its attachment- my graphics tablet. Rather than conventional videos, I find myself more interested in stop motion animation and Flash animations, with a couple of comics on the sidelines just itching to be transferred from paper to computer.
