My First Project
ARH 301 Introduction to Visual Arts
I was assigned this project right when I was finished with my trainings and I’m so glad to have been chosen to work on this animated intro! I attended my first meeting to understand what the TAs and Professor Cushing wanted for the new animated intro. In this meeting we discussed the professors interests and what he might want to be included, but overall I was given full freedom to edit whatever I wanted based on a couple of requirements and Cushing’s interests. I had to do a 30 seconds visual arts intro in homage to the classic Masterclass Theater and with a bit of goofiness, but also have a scholarly vibe.
Given so much freedom, I was thinking of a variety of intros I could do. I eventually came up with 3 options that seemed fitting and I thought to bring it to Lila to help me ideate and finalize an idea. She liked the sound of 2 of the 3 options, so she suggested I storyboard the ideas and make some rough animations on After Effects so that she could understand the options better.
For both of the ideas, I wanted to frame the pieces Cushing goes over in the course in those intricate museum worthy golden frames, so I found a couple on Adobe Stock and began animating the first idea after downloading a good amount of the course pieces. The first Idea was basically just a spotlight revealing “ARH 301” and a zoom out to reveal the full course name + the professor on cover of an old looking brown book cover. In the “ARH 301” letters, I was going to place the course pieces in them moving in a carousel to give more movement to the intro overall. This intro would’ve accomplished being scholarly and the Masterclass Theater theme after I added some details. However I showed Lila and we were both a bit hesitant to more further with this idea before seeing what the second idea was. (The repetitive motion of going up and down the letter really threw us off..)
For the second idea, I wanted to emphasize the art pieces that the course will cover, so I did a gallery walk but with a small twist to give it the wacky Cushing desires. The art room’s wall is brown with wood floors giving a more traditional vibe. Most pieces are framed in the elegant gold frames with a couple more modern pieces in just a black frame with a white background behind the pieces. We start by “walking” into the room and seeing all 3 walls (left, middle, and right) filled with pieces with a statue in the middle of the room. I thought to put Michelangelo’s David statue in the middle as it’s a well-known work of art and is a great center piece. The camera then pans to the right wall, making its way from one piece to the next on the wall and continuing to middle then left wall. After seeing all of the pieces, the camera pans back to the middle and we see that statue once again, but this time, the statue has eyes and gives the audience a wink before zooming right passed the shoulder going into the “next room” symbolized through an arch. The wackiness in this isn’t just the statue having eyes, I made sure to use Professor Cushing’s eyes from a photo I found of him.
I posted the WIP video to basecamp looking for any feedback I could get and one of the PM/PA, Sam, loved what I had going so far! There was just one suggestion she shared: Could I change the David statue to another statue covered in the course due to the nude nature of the statue. This was not an issue to me at all, so pivoting to a different statue covered in the course was no problem at all! The statue went from David to Berlin Kore.
Of course, we landed on doing the gallery walk idea since this idea was able to hit every requirement and wants! Scholarly, in homage tho Masterclass Theater, clever, and wacky! The ideating, drafting, feedback, and revising loop was prevalent in the project, but I enjoyed hearing the critiques and feedbacks as I continued with the project. Having a fresh pair of eyes looking at the animation was much needed as everything just looked the same to me as a certain point!
Overall, this project being my first project just made me feel extremely excited for what else is to come in the future regarding STA projects, skills I’ll learn, and sense of confidence in the skills I have currently. ( ˶ˆ꒳ˆ˵ )