So the guidelines for this project are to make a video with footage from life that exemplifies an emotion. I chose fear, as I am a horror fan and with the weather being so dreary, I had plenty of inspiration within a few blocks’ radius of my home. So I did what any aspiring filmmaker would, took an hour walk through a local park and took footage of anything that caught my eye, as well as some planned ideas that I thought would work nicely. I also benefit from living near the Richardson Complex, now the Hotel Henry, a beautiful and haunting historical building that looks like it came from Shtter Island. (And yes, Dr. Dunkle did display the project with fear as a choice of emotion, but I love the horror genre too much to turn this opportunity down.) If I were to pick another emotion, I would’ve wanted to use joy, but for that I would have wanted a snowy environment, and winter has yet to hit.

So the video is a slow burn, with rainy nature scenes interspersed with metallic fences and monstrous sculptures. I think it benefits from having little evidence of human existence in the scenery, implying that mankind has disappeared. (This is a story that revealed itself to me as I was editing the video, and I believe it woks incredibly as a trailer.) The video begins very slowly and with many long takes, which I was inspired to do from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, but then as the video continues, the editing becomes more rapid and the clips more intensive. The clips themselves go from being very passive and faraway to more up close, as though the subjects are looking to grab the viewer and pull them in. I was most proud of two clips that I captured: the first was a fsteamy pipe that emitted from the Richardson, which I used as the video’s rising action because of how visually halting it was. The second was using a large sculpture from the exterior of the Albright Knox Museum, which has a spidery appearance. This monstrous presence is a building source of tension and shock for the video, and is a subtle connection to my first project in this class!

Now as John Carpenter said, horror is not scary without music. His score for Halloween is an iconic piece of music, so I tried to channel that feeling of anxiety and suspense in my own score. So the Garage-Band application served as a tool to bring my piece to lie. I’m not strongly musical, meaning I can’t read music notes or play an instrument, but I have been told that I have a good ear, and so relied on instinct to make the piece. And for my apparent disadvantages, I am most proud of the music that accompanies the video, more than the visuals even! The music is very rhythmic, based with orchestral piano, but I included synthesizer music (another reference to carpenter) with increasing chaotic energy.

The last shot of the video is a sped up long take of the viewer racing toward a bridge, then colliding with the brick walls. This was an idea I had from the very beginning, no doubt derived from Evil Dead. Sequencing the clips of footage relied on my plan to build tension for this shocking emotional release. While we’re discussing editing, the amount of times I had to begin this project again as I moved across computers was the most upsetting, but I think it ws alos worth while. I don’t think I lost any quality across my tries at perfecting the project, and if anything was inspired to add something else. nce I added the song, which I intentionally saved for last so I could plan when the song should change in intensity down to the second a clip appears. For the past project I felt as though I hadn’t been as original in execution, but here I feel that my creativity and passion is so obvious it hurts. Watching the finished prodcut is one of the most rewarding parts of being in this class, as under no other circumstances would I have ever been able to make such a product, even if I dreamt of doing so.

Aftr all this raving, I’m sorry to say that I don’t not have any links to the product. It is submitted directly to d2l for grading, and then I had to save it on my flash drive. I don’t have any outlets to post my film, so I suppose it shall have to remain in my hands. (Maybe it’s better off in my memory than being able to see it over and over, judging the nitpicks my work.)

Do I think this is a path I would take as a career? Probably not. Filmmaking is primarily digital nowadays, leading some outlets and Hollywood mainstays to believe that film will die out because of television or online content, which I always feel is overtly ridiculous. But this experience has done one wonder for me: validate the strength of my creative ideas. On a more personal note, I have been brought down over whether I thought I’m a genuine idea- person. Application is a matter of work ethic, but creativity is difficult to nurture. From doing this project, I felt that I supported the idea of myself as a creative person who can create interesting works of art, even if they only please myself. The sky is the limit for this project, and I think that is a strength that has been consistent with other assignments: that my input and ideas improve the overall product.

If there are any important takeaways from this class that I want to carry with me into the professional world, it would be the following: the first is that being detail oriented and goal focussed can get you far, but noody is born knowing how to do everything. Any new process does not have to be scary, as there are real steps one can take to better themselves in a subject and become proficient in it themselves. I found this with almost every program we used, as having the directions made my process far easier. The second sentiment is one that I finally made with this project, that my ideas are what makes a project strong. Originality is what makes a piece of art stand out, and drawing from yourself and your inspirations is one of the ways a person can make art that strikes others. It is not an easy process, as opening up is difficult, but the result is satisfying for the mind and soul.

Naturally, Professor Dunkle would not leave anyone hanging and gave a clear explanation for what would be done for this assignment, as well as many displays of how to work the progrsm that this project would be made on: Maya. I’m certain I’ll be a broken record with this sentiment, but I felt that this program was mildly easy to understand, and that made the process far more enjoyable. So the game itself is a first person adventure, where the player must navigate through a maze in order to win. The maze was constructed with mountains to prevent the player from cheating by looking over walls, or worse, walking through them to the finish line. I’m not much of a puzzle aficionado, but making the paths for the maze was one of the most fun aspects of this project. It felt as though I was reverse engineering the solution, knowing where to connect the start and end points with a winding, complex solution, and then adding other options to confuse the players.

Now I must admit, I wish I could’ve done better with this assignment. While I don’t think the product is by any means terrible, I do wish that I couldve done a better spin on the idea of the maze. The layout is already very simple, but perhaps it is too similar to the design from the lecture. I even utilized pink ground to differentiate the start and end points, just as the video from class does. But I did use trees to show that the player is on the correct path, just as a little framing device.

While the purpose of these assignments is to display understanding and application, the creative in me cannot help but to strive for uniqueness. Some part of me (the idealist no doubt) imagined that the location of this game could’ve been an underground labyrinthine setting, in clear reference to the Greek myth. Yet even with that inspiration, I don’t think I would have ever been able to acheive that sequence with my beginner’s game designer status. But to any future DMA 201 student that is advanced enough to make that dream a reality, I give you the clearance to use it for your own project.

I would without any hesitation say the toughest element to incorporate was the winner script. The accomplishment of successfully completeing the game is supposed to be rewarded with a magenta coin that produces a chime, and for such a simple piece, it is the most crucial. Therefore, trying to work this aspect was the most difficult. This part left me tearing my hair out the most, making sure the script was in the correct places and working as it should was too infuriating for this assignment, and it definitely took me a substantial portion of time. Perhaps not in comparison to planning a maze, but certainly up there. Although, that may just be the nature of the beast.

But I do not mourn the loss of the underground maze game that never was, as it is always in the cards. One video online called How to Make Your Idea HAPPEN (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8he7nM4W1vw) discussed exactly how great ideas can be brought off the ground by having prototypes take the fall to learn from mistakes. It may not hold much material advice to this, or any other project in the near future, but it does give the sense that all work you do is worthwhile. Every failure leads you closer to your desired outcome because one learns what not to do, like the age old phrase about the 99 ways to not make a lightbulb. While I can do better with practice, I did manage to get the game working in the way I wanted, although having the map sketched in my notebook may have helped. So maybe there are 99 more ways to make this project, but at least the one way I tried succeeded.

I’m getting far ahead of myself, let me bring it back a little. So project 2 for DMA 201 is to create an online resume for future employers to peruse, which is very useful for after graduation (or maybe next semester while I’m internship hunting!). But the way to go about it had me petrified. Coding is not completely unfamiliar to me, I’ve seen it one on television and I know friends who like to design things for the web, but God bless them because I look over my shoulder and wonder how anyone can make sense of that jumble of words. To few, its a careful complex of building blocks, to me its a game of Boggle that involves numbers and punctuation as well as letters. Needless to say, I was paying VERY close attention to the instructions this time around, otherwise I would get caught in the web and not know where I am. I was so afraid to even begin and lose track. When my page got pulled up during class for a “spot check” and nothing came up because I was still figuring it out…never more have I been so embarrassed. And that lovely memory was recorded on lecture.

But the process proved itself (mercifully) easier than what I anticipated when I had the layout in front of me. Ultimately the project was to replace the “laurem ipsem”s with information from my (already-made) resume, change the colors to something my liking (I went with a classic navy blue), changed the font to one I like, this time the serif type “Lora”, and then add my relevant information where it applies, like education and work experience. But most importantly, or impressivly depending on your persepective, is to include your personal monogram from Lab 4. I was very proud of the design of my monogram, and having it on display for my webpage made the work soar for me. And Brackets has the excellent feature of showing the page on display as you are changing details, which allowed me to track my progress. At the end of the day, I’m very happy wth the work I put on the page (and that was before someone walked by and said it looked impressive!).

So what empowered me to get my feet wet and code like a professional DMA major during this process? Well, that would be the words of another professional who had some choice words on coding. On Joshua Seiden’s blog, he provides an entry that is titled “Coding is the Right Answer to the Wrong Question”. The entry, written by someone who knows how to code inside and out professionally, let me know that it wasnt imperative to know that process in order to design for the web. after all, there are so many stes available today that make the process easier than ever for someone to make a webpage or a resume and have it looking professional in a few simple steps. This process was obviously more intensive than that, but I also think the product is higher in quality because of it. Above that, however, my heart and hard work is in that page, and I don’t know any site that can guarantee that.

How could this process be improved for the future of this class? Well, I think for cases like me, assurance that coding is a practice that can be taught step by step, even for beginners, will erase early fear in student’s hearts. I think this project was actually very straightforward once a full session of the instructions was completed, with something I can look back on. But from there it isn’t just copying what Dr. Dunkle does, you begin to notice the headers and featres for yourself, and suddenly you just want to play with them and truly make that page a representative of oneself.

As for my own submission? I’m very proud to have it stand for me. (Although having it work on Safari over chrome might have saved me some panic.)

So what did I learn from this project? Honestly every step of the way required new information that I needed to use, as well as some experimentation I played with and stumbled upon. For example, no part of the instructions ever required tools that dulled the quality of an image, but it was one feature that came in good use. 

For a couple classes I would become flustered because I struggled with the processes of getting the finished product, but I can thank the video recordings of each class because being able to look back at the steps at my own pace and digest that information helped me develop an understanding of what methods I can use to succeed in my goals. But I must admit that while I’m currently proud of my card as a finished product, I did originally wish to create a card from scratch with drawings and illustrations in the vein of one of my inspirations, Edward Gorey, I did need to be realistic and use available pictures to craft my card. But I still used this as an exercise to create a more personal card, so many elements are created based on my own likings and some fears. For instance, my dislike of spiders was a definite aspect that I played up for this card, having insects caught in a spiders web on the front cover, saving the trick of the spider waiting inside for the viewer to open. (It was disgusting looking through images of houseflies and spiders trying to find what could work best, and then zooming in to utilize those pictures, but the trick in the end was well worth it.) Additionally, the trick or treater on the back of the card is both a tie to the card’s joke, but is most recognizably a nod to the Peanuts Halloween special which I love.

So if I had the chance to improve my submission, I would wish I had the capability to make the elements on the cover look like it is from one complete image. While I do like how the color on the individual flies pop in the dark background, I think that they stand out too much and are far too clear to sit on the blurring strings of the web. While I tried my best to blur the insects so they match the environment and don’t appear so clearly placed onto another picture, I think more could have been done. While I’m on this nitpicking streak, I also think the location of the type should also be adjusted, as the inside left panel of the card stretches to close to the center crease, and the card’s joke is off center on the inner right panel.

I wholeheartedly believe that the skills I’ve learned from this project will be beneficial in the future of both this class, but any professional responsibilities I may have in the workforce. Even a shock to me, I felt confident enough to answer any questions that classmates next to me were having in how to do something specialized to their own card. As I continued to work on this project, I was surprised to see that began to use shortcuts when accessing the tools like paintbrush or lasso to eliminate backgrounds.

A specific reading that benefited me in the course of this project was the Mashable article 1850s to 1950s: Photoshop Before Photoshop (https://mashable.com/2015/02/19/before-photoshop/#vQwH_WOZEkqQ). The reason for my interest in this is because first of all it is fascinating to see photographs that have been doctored to create impossible images long before modern technology made this a more accessible possibility. But when looking at these pictures in the article, there are some that, when observing as a modern viewer, I can not believe in the picture’s validity. For instance there was the photograph Man on Rooftop with 11 Men on his Shoulders, which the foreground and background images have an unequal quality that makes me disbelieve in the photo beyond the natural oddity of eleven men balanced on the edge of a high-rise building, although I do appreciate the faint shadow on the man standing on the ledge corner. But other pictures look so fantastic, like Henry Peach Robinson’s Fading Away, in which five different pieces are coordinated into one somber photo. This picture made me feel more accepting of the limitation that I wasn’t able to use hand drawn illustration, as simply by using pictures in a certain manner the image I wanted to produce could be made in a striking way. 

But I must confess that I would still be lost if it were not for the recorded session as provided by Professor Dunkle, who helpfully broke down the project into simplified steps and displayed what tools and methods could be used to get the desired outcome. Observing the process at a real time pace was incredibly helpful and relieved many of my irrational nerves that I could never create a presentable enough card. Although now that I have some foundational knowledge I feel that going forward I will be able to keep up in class adequately and not feel impeded by any insecurities. As a matter of fact, I felt such a rush of joy and pride when using effects and completing my project, and I hope that joy continues in the process of learning more from DMA 201.