Artist STatement
My ultimate goal is for my art to be playful and absurd, while also staying professional and polished. A part of balancing out absurdity and logic is creating works with a high level of shape language and playing with color palettes. I feel that a compelling color palette and shape language can elevate a simple design into something fun and grand. As much as I love my sense of whimsy, my obsessiveness with polish and professionalism sometimes hinders my creation.
Working with physical materials in printmaking has been a vital break from this obsession and has helped me let go of trying to be perfect. Printmaking gives me a much-needed respite from staring at a screen and has forced me to let go of trying to have control over every aspect of my work. There is more room for error, and it is even highly encouraged, as with error can something new and exciting!
For my senior thesis Music & Motion, I wanted to create something that combined my love for printmaking with my passion for motion graphics. I wanted to encourage myself to make mistakes, like in my practice with print. Motion graphics can sometimes be rigid, so incorporating my own flair with live footage that looks like paper cutouts, weird characters, and a whimsical soundtrack helped to broaden those ideas into a project that felt like me.
Style frames
For the overall look of my film, I chose to have a vector-based style to achieve the classic motion graphic look, but wanted to change it up with the inclusion of live footage manipulated to look like paper cut outs. The purpose of these style frames was to use them to establish a visual identity.
Color Script
Before I started developing this project, I knew I wanted to make a color script. Color was going to be one of the most vital visual aspects of my film, so I needed to be meticulous about it.
During the production phase of this project, I constantly referenced this sheet, which saved me a lot of time in the animation phase, as I didn't need to contemplate what colors to use where.
Production schedule
Now that my animatic and color script were complete at this point, I could complete my shot list. This became my most important asset, only second to my color script.
My shot list outlined and described each shot and was divided by Acts. In total, I had 4 separate acts that reflected 4 distinct moments in the music. My shot list greatly increased my production speed, as it made things much easier to visualize my progress and keep track of things.
The final stretch of completing my thesis project for my submission deadline was one of the most intense and rewarding experiences I’ve had.
From the beginning of production to the all-nighter weekend I spent in the studio, it was a whirlwind of exhaustion, laughter, and support from my peers and mentors.
Even in the most stressful moments, there was a sense of shared camaraderie and friendship that made it feel worthwhile. In hindsight, there are plenty of small moments in my animation that I would love to go back and tighten up, but in the end, I’m incredibly proud to have completed this journey, and even more grateful to have shared it with all of you!
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Thank you!
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