4/28

4_28 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.


Credit:
Bruceosonhadordeverdade - Flapping noises
jppi_Stu - Bird sounds
Kerri Lake - Rainbow

Visiting Artist Lecture: Li Lee

Ji Lee is a graphic designs artist that has made numerous projects, such as the Bubble Project, where he printed out a ton of speech bubbles and placed them on various ads around New York and left the community to fill them in, taking photos of the results. He also likes to make mini projects, which are just fun little projects he does on his own time that are supposed to short and quick. Even then, these projects convey some small type of meaning or concept. Lee was pretty inspiring to listen to, and was very motivating. It was fun to see his various projects and hear how much fun he has making them and be able to pursue his goals.

4/26 Progress

4_26 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.


Credit:
Bruceosonhadordeverdade - Flapping noises
jppi_Stu - Bird sounds
Kerri Lake - Rainbow

4/21 Update

4/19 Progress

test from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.

Project 6 4/14 Revisions

Updated Synopsis: A bird that longs for its old companion sings a song that sacrifices his own life for that of his dead friend and the environment that surrounds him.

Some stylistic ideas that came to mind. Same idea just in water color cuts out. Or combination of construction and water colored paper.

New Outline:

Bird is in his cage, perhaps grooming its wings. Sitting in the gray and dead environment

He looks over at the bird fountain, where the statue of his deceased companion sits

Perhaps there needs to be a shot where he remembers the time this companion was alive?

In the bird's sorrow, he begins to sing, longing for his lost friend
So the environment around him is being filled with life and color again
As his song comes to an end, the cage and the bird begin to turn to stone. At the same time, his deceased companions statue is coming to life
Once the song ends, so does the bird's life, now encased in stone. But now his friend is able to fly away, free to fly in the skies

Project 6 Update

My concept will be about a bird that sings in its cage, giving life into its environment through its song, only to sacrifice itself in the process. The environment will start off as gray, and as the song goes, it shifts into color. Maybe there are flowers that begin to bloom, etc. Once the song ends, the bird's life will also end.

This piece will be set in an outdoors environment. There will be multiple shots showing the transition from gray and dead, to colorful and lively.

The initial set up will look like this (but with gray instead of this blue). Might need to make bird bigger along with its cage. Possibly need to make the foundation the cage sits on wider so the bird cage can be bigger.

Storyboard:

Wide shot then cut to close up on bird. Planning to have bird maybe cleaning its wing, giving it more movement.

Bird sees a birdy couple fly down to the bird fountain, being all lovey dovey. Makes the bird sad.

Bird starts to sing due to loneliness. Maybe music notes need to fly out as the song plays?

Starting with the tree branches: maybe music notes float by and then leaves or flowers or both bloom, color flows in.

The barren sticks begin to grow into big flower bushes.

The small plot of land becomes a small garden that has plants.

Bird fountain begins to sprout water out of the tube.

Towards the end of the song, the bird will go from a bright yellow into a gray like how the environment look. This is to signify the switched roles: now the bird will die after sacrificing itself to give life. Perhaps an additional shot needs to be shown of this environment now fully in color?

Final Project Concept

For my final project, I want to use stop motion with paper cut outs like with my second project. My concept will be about a bird that sings in its cage, giving life into its environment through its song, only to sacrifice itself in the process. The environment will start off as gray, and as the song goes, it shifts into color. Maybe there are flowers that begin to bloom or the curtains begin to open to a beautiful day, etc. Once the song ends, the bird's life will also end.

The bird is a canary, and apparently the males are known for humming wonderful tunes. But in pairs, they don't sing their own trademark song. So, when they are alone, they sing because they are lonely.

Project 5

lasseter_project5 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.

lasseter_4_5 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.

This project was a projection of videos onto a mask surface. I wanted to show a transformation from an old, cracked mask to a more colorful mask. This project was a little more difficult than anticipated. For one, I tried to make a bigger mask out of clay and the clay ended up being horribly cracked when dried. So, I had no choice but to use a smaller mask. Then, composting assets for the project was difficult in that I had to think of how the surface curved and what the images would look like on the surface. Then there was the projection itself. I didn't use the projector that was attached to the ceiling, but the one on the tripod so I could get up close to my mask. The problem was then that I couldn't really record my project well, hence the angle it is at now. Next time, I won't be so ambitious with my project and try to make it more manageable.

Project 5 Assets

butterfly from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.
Comp 3 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.
flower from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.

Project 5 Research

Thinking about using masks to project onto. Maybe start off with prettying up the masks and then cause them to decay and become grotesque. During their decay, possible vines with thorns, spiders, snakes, etc can crawl out of the orifices of the masks. Or if there are multiple masks, the center one causes the dispersion of the decay.

Here's some of the inspiration for this project:

Project 4

lasseter_project4 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.

For this stop motion film, I used sand on a back lit surface. I wanted my concept to be about this seemingly unbreakable egg that goes through all this danger. It ends up enduring until the end, the head of a chick popping out, only for a snake to eat the egg. Using sand as a material was less difficult than using the frosting. It was still a tad difficult to control.

Project 4 Storyboard Revised

My new concept is about an egg that is blown off its nest, tumbles down to what seems like safety only to be eaten by a snake. Using cut paper, I'll begin with a wide shot of the setting: big tree on a grassy area. Then the view will be shifted to a nest with some eggs. A breeze will blow and one of the eggs tumbles off. It makes its way downward, hitting a branch and getting its shell cracked. The egg descends so quickly it catches on fire. Then the shot is shifted towards the roots of the tree where a thorn bush is seen. But then the view shifts over and a pile of leaves is next to the bush of thorns where the egg lands. But, then a snake comes out and gobbles the egg up, slithering away.

Artist Lecture Review

John Medwedeff is a metal smith that usually creates metal sculptures out of animals or other organic things. He had studied at Memphis College of Art, and when he graduated, started up his own studio to make various metal works such as furniture or accessories. As of now, he has a much larger studio and a team to work with. They usually make various works such as furnishings. It was cool to see someone from this college come to present. It was also fun to get to see and hear about some of the metal sculpting. As a digital media major, I don't do a whole ton of sculpting that's outside a digital format. So it was cool to just see a new medium, especially with how dangerous sounding the craft is.

Internship Workshop Review

Since I'm in an internship this semester, Carrie Brooks requires that the students that are in an internship go to mandatory meetings. There are three meetings in total and I've gone to the two already. What basically happened the first meeting was an initial meet. She made all the students introduce themselves to one another and showed us a power point presentation on some things to keep in mind while on the job. Most of these things are related to making sure you're working and not goofing off and to communicate often with the supervisor or whoever is in charge. Then she handed out some kind of a scale to rank what we want to learn or expect to learn. And to also list our goal for the internship.

The second meeting was a follow up to see where we all are. She handed back our sheets of paper with our goals, etc. on it and had us pair up to discuss what we liked, disliked, or were surprised by with our internship. It was an interesting meeting.

Project 4 Storyboard and Outline

lassj_001_01 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.

For my next project, I will be doing a piece on pumpkin headed ghosts using card stock paper and paper bags. I want to start with black, and the audience hears a doorbell ring out. Then the scene fads in and the audience sees a pumpkin on the ground. Then it fades back out and the doorbell is heard again. So, it fades back in and three pumpkins are seen. Then it fades back out and the bell rings. And in fades five pumpkins. Then the last time, the door rings and this time the pumpkins are floating with ghostly bodies. The pumpkins begin to laugh as the scene fades out. Then the title comes up, using the same material to produce the piece.

Project 3

lasseter_3_1 from Julia Lasseter on Vimeo.

For this assignment I decided to use frosting as my material. I mixed the frosting with some vegetable oil in order to give it a sleeker look. I used a little bit of violet and kelly green dye to dye the frosting. First, I built up the subject using the frosting to make it into a flower. Then, I erased and recreated parts to show the frosting in movement. The biggest challenged I faced was working with the material. Even though I had practiced using it earlier, it was still a bit difficult to work with for the project. The main issue was trying to get the shapes right. Other than that, it was interesting to learn a new painting technique.

Project: Backgrounds and Keyframes

1.

2.

 3.