Final Project- Transformation

 For my project, I definitely decided to go in the more literal route. I was inspired by a video, one that I will link below, to take on a whimsical craft project and document its making. My main goal was honestly to try and enjoy the process as much as possible, but I also wanted to try and include a variety of camera angles, as I felt like it wasn't something I had done much of prior. The various art sides of youtube have always fascinated me, and there are so many different mediums of which to express creativity. Originally, my other goal was to provide a commentary along with my video regarding the pressures of feeling like we need to be good at activities to participate in them. I have struggled with this my whole life for various reasons as I'm sure many of you have as well. There is also this idea or common phrase regarding being "too old" to learn or do something, and I think that can deter a lot of people from doing things that they might enjoy out of fear of judgment, whether internal or external. However, my audio did not come out very well, and as I edited my footage I decided to change and go the opposite route, which instead meant participating in the medium that inspired me as fully as possible. 

I obviously used a lot of materials in this video, most of the crafting variety. Everything I did use for  building were things that I actually already had from other projects as well as simple accumulation over many years. Other than those, I also found extreme value in my tripod, especially since most of my angles required a slight above angle (since my desk is very short). Moving onto the technical stuff, I for some reason ran into many issues this time around, probably even more just in this project than in the rest of the semester combined. Truthfully, my camera ate up batteries like crazy, and let's just say the amount of storage on my laptop is now little to none haha. Premiere also decided to uninstall after I cleared some of my software, which was a whole other fun beast to tackle in itself :). As far as editing, I didn't include the entirety of the process for a few reasons. The first one being that I wanted the end result to have at least a few unexpected or not seen elements from earlier, the second being that I would have had way more footage than I would be able to sift through (I already had about 8 hours worth just from these clips), as the entire building process probably took about 15 hours. Music-wise, I used three lo-fi versions of Studio Ghibli songs that I thought fit well with the timing of my edits as well as with the vibe of the subject matter. I chose Studio Ghibli because of the video that inspired me in the first place, because they are some of my favorite movies, and because the lo-fi style of background music is very popular among this category of videos as well as among art videos on youtube in general.

Although I do think that being able to complete my commentary would have been interesting and allowed me to convey a certain message and view that I had originally, I still found it enjoyable to see my end product as something part of a community that does already exist. I think my goal with my portfolio has become more about enjoying the things I am making, as well as conveying technical skills of course. For many years, since I was in middle school basically, I have had a lot of trouble finding joy in certain activities or hobbies, and it is also easy to get caught up in my own self-criticisms when working on any sort of art. I have found that although fitting assignments and goals are important, I am usually happiest when I put in my best effort to create and finish a project that fulfills me personally rather than just others. 

Edit: While going through and watching everyone else's projects I also rewatched mine, and I noticed that for some reason no matter what I do some of my edits will not stay in the right place, unfortunately. I think it's possibly because of how much I increased the speed of each video clip, but that is why there are some awkward cuts I think.

https://youtu.be/5SMW6CKBgPE