SENIOR SIGNATURE PROJECT

Because you do is a short film/demo mangled of cut up journal entries, fever dreams, hopes and aspirations, and disappointment that phased out of something I wanted to do, to something I had to do. The initial vision spawned out of my own frustrations with peers around me and being in an intermediate point of my life feeling stuck in a sort of limbo of perpetual confusion, and immense feeling. Serving as an attempt to find some sort of relation to people around me that I didn’t seem to understand at all. Finding a way to capture the feeling of change, and disappointment of young adulthood. Over the past 7 months, I spent drawing and drawing and painting and rendering and cutting and clipping to create the demo you see.

Everything is done by me. The backgrounds, the animation, and the music. I had to learn everything by hand. I used photoshop 2020 to create the majority of the puppet models to convert for rigging with DUIK (an animation plug in) in After Effects. Everything that went wrong to put it simply went wrong. I went through so much frustration and trial and error and unfortunate events to create the project.

My computer broke, I lost my stylus in America and spent a month wasting time in Germany, I lost 3 months progress due to the computer breaking, and I had to juggle a job on the weekends and Wednesday from 7-6 all the while juggling 10 classes. The most efficient way to finish this project was simply to jump right in. 1 thing at a time. I watched youtube videos and tutorials to play around with effects until 4 in the morning. Making sure everything was to my liking and I had to realize that it would never be to my liking. Which I feel is every creator's dilemma.

All the audio was done by me, and mixed in garage band and audacity and cut for the animation including the guitar squealing which was done with putting the amp into 10 and putting on a flanger and distortion to add a layer of atmosphere. What I eventually accomplished was a 2-3 minute demo of a concept of what I'd like to expand on. An obscure glimpse on to what I hope could be 15 minutes longer. An atmospheric journey of the psyche. Working more as an amalgamation of scenes into one late night hangover.

Looking back at the “Because you do” project I realize it was a very ambitious project that had perhaps been an unattainable one that had started as a 10 minute animated short film. I underestimated many factors such as work load, the inconsistency of life, mental health decline, juggling a part time job, and many makeup classes. Everything worked like an iron triangle with one factor being dependent on the other another creating a monotonous loop of frustration. 10 minutes became 8 minutes, 8 minutes became 6 minutes, and 6 minutes became 4 minutes realizing that maybe the direction I took with this project was beginning to stray from what I was trying to show. Ultimately what the making of “Because You Do” shows is incessant perseverance.

Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. I had started the year with 6 classes and ended that very month with 11 classes. I had started that week with my ideas and excitement to get on the storyboards that very weekend, to having to work 24 hours a week. The pressure of the deadline weighed on me 7 months before it was even due knowing the classes were eating at the time I had, and the job with the 7am wake up time was eating at my mental health, and then back at it again the next morning with a 6am start at school. Despite it all I found myself at the end of the day in front of this glowing computer screen and a faint glow from my graphics tablet.

It no longer became a matter of “proving i could make the grade” it became a matter of “Proving I was able to finish something I had started.” Proving to everyone that I wasnt the mentally handicapped, victim of unfortunate circumstances. I became an improviser and worked with what I had rather than what I didn’t. Learning from my faults, and from the rubble creating something new. As an artist one is always forced to compromise.

The vision is never truly “complete” (that being said that does not mean there isn’t room for improvement here, there is much room for improvement.). Eventually the project would finally be done, not being what I intended but finally being something I started and finished. Something I can come back to at any time and learn from. With perseverance I also learned patience with myself. That the training wheels were ok for the time being. As well as learning from the experience and accepting room to grow, I applied the very same ethos to myself. I hope to one day approach a new project with a much more organized and attainable point of view.