Conceptual: Your central idea and how it is conveyed; What are the relationships among the media that you employed?

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1 From: Christopher Watts Subject: collaboration across the grades, continued Date: December 7, :13:05 AM EST To: Jordan Hensley Megan Scott Skylar Van Steemburg "Ashley E. Alden" Cc: Christopher Watts Here are the things I'll be thinking about as I evaluate your project, and the things I'd like you to address in you final critique. If you would like to tinker with this or add things, hit reply all and fire away. I'd like to have your critiques by the end of the week remember that you are to work on writing these privately, though you are certainly encouraged to have discussions about how it all turned out. Conceptual: Your central idea and how it is conveyed; What are the relationships among the media that you employed? Art/Aesthetic: Why these particular combinations of movement, image, and sound? How does the pacing and structure of the piece work? Does it engage? Does it support the content effectively? Technical: How seamless is the combination of materials from shot video, GarageBand, and chromakey (and edited together in imovie)? Which of these did you personally work on, and how would you judge the quality of these components from the standpoint of workmanship/craft? What were the various technical obstacles you faced? Process: What was the organizing principle for your project in terms of the group members' duties? How did everyone know what to do and when? What was the decision-making process like? What were topics of friction or disagreement for the group, and how were they resolved? Reflexive: What did you learn about the ways that media are constructed? What did you learn in terms of technical skills? What did you learn about working with other people? What did you learn about you? What did you learn about the relationships among dance, image, and music? How pleased were you with the final product? How pleased were you with working through the process? What would you have done differently? What grade would you give yourself? Dr. Christopher Watts Director, Newell Center for Arts Technology Assistant Professor of Music St. Lawrence University Canton, NY fax ncat.stlawu.edu "My superego where I go, he go." -Tears for Fears

2 Ashley Alden Collaboration Across the Arts Self Evaluation #2 December 10, 2009 Throughout my life, I have been a part of countless collaborative projects. Although a few projects were for fun, most were for a class. I am not sure if it is because I am an only child, but I am not one that likes to rely on others. If I had my choice I would much rather do solo work. Despite my hesitance toward group work, many group projects have turned out to be something more amazing than I could have produced singly, the all things green project is one of them. Although I was a bit worried when I joined the class, as the process began, I realized that we had such different views we would be sure to create something great. It was through that process of creating this piece, that we each learned more about each other and ultimately ourselves. When we first started brainstorming about our project, we had a lot of ideas about things that we wanted to do, but not any ideas of what exactly we wanted to convey. During the beginning of our project, we came up with an idea and as we worked through the semester, this idea became more and more apparent in our work. Our idea was to convey visually how people feel when they listen to music. We wanted to create an abstract view of music and how we visually represent sounds in our heads. We used the green screen, the flip camera, the larger camera, garageband, and imovie to create this project. I think that the green screen was essential in creating an abstract project such as this. Although we could have simply videotaped Meg dancing without the body suit and green screen, I think they both employ elements of imagination into our project. All of our technologies worked simultaneously to create a spectacle that was abstract and fluid. The first thing we did was create the music. We needed to listen to music and then see how it made us feel and what it made us think of in order for us to visually represent it. Skylar created a piece in garageband that encompassed all of the parts of music we wanted. We wanted a strong beat throughout and some soft and electric noises. From the music, Meg listened to it and moved with it.

3 She tried to dance in a way to stay with the beats and try to represent, visually, the sounds she was hearing. For example, in the beginning she pulses her body to correlate with the pulsating noise in the song. As we began shooting various organic and electric shots, we realized that the movements paired with the song, was an organic combination but towards the end became very loud. We decided to use some interesting organic images on her body, which to us represented the fluidity and realness of her as a dancer, whereas the background was bright and unreal in a sense. It took us a while to correctly match the video with the song; however, after numerous takes we finally were able to match the movements with the sound in a way that is less distracting to the viewer. In our first draft of the video, the movements did not match up with the song, which was distracting because it seemed as though it should have been. I think that it was very apparent that we used the green screen in this project, but without knowing, it seemed as though the movie and song from garageband and editing in imovie was seamless. We spent a lot of time editing to make sure the transitions from various images looked seamless and fluid. I personally worked with imovie, the flip camera, and the green screen. I think the quality of the lighting could have been better. However, it was very difficult to get a perfect set up in that room. The flip camera footage was great and the editing in imovie seemed to be on key with the sound. In this project, we had to work with many technical problems. There were many days that the lights were not in the correct spot, the chromo key software was not working, the video did not upload right, or we lost footage. I think any technical problem that could have happened did, however it made us make some bigger executive decisions that in the end, may have made out project better. In our group, there was very little delegation. We all rather did what was needed at the time. Skylar and Meg had clear positions of what they were to do. Skylar is bit more tech savvy than the rest of us, and she wanted to work with the chromo key software, so she was the green screen director. Megan was always the dancer, except for days in which she was not there, which in that case I would

4 jump in. Jordan and I recorded a large amount of the flip camera footage but we also acted as technical critics in a sense. We would watch Meg as she danced, looking for changes in light, looking for what moves worked better than others and cueing the music for her. We also helped Skylar with the technology as needed. Therefore, our positions were helping as much as we could, because we only needed one person to dance and one person to run the chromo key software. We just did what we needed to as we saw what we needed to do. We made sure throughout that we were all included in every decision making process. We each decided what to do every step of the way, from the music to the dance moves. We had little disagreements, but the ones we did have were solved by discussing the pros and cons of each idea. In the class, I certainly learned a lot about different technologies. I had never used a green screen or chromo key software before and this class made me a lot more familiar with such technologies. I have learned that when it comes to technology I should be willing to experiment and try new types of technology but also to be patient with the technology. I think that I definitely learned that group work is not all bad. At the end of the class, I was very satisfied with our final product. I also learned that dance, image, and music are more closely related that I ever thought. As I watched the piece come together, I realized how much more difficult it is to create a music video than I ever thought. I have a newfound sense of appreciation for the process of making music and music videos now. I am very pleased with our final product I think it is great. Although the process seemed a little bit slow and dragging on at times, I think the result was great. If I could change anything, I would maybe incorporate more various styles of music and see how that would turn out. I would have to give myself a 3.75 for this class. I think that I worked hard with my group, offered my help and advice when needed, and demonstrated seriousness for the final product. I really enjoyed this class a lot; it was a fun experience that I will always remember.

5 Skylar Van Steemburg / Final Reflection / Collaboration Across the Arts The main idea we wanted to capture in this piece was to convey how music looks. Not only do people hear music differently, but also see it differently as well. Music is closely tied to emotions we feel excitement, sadness, happiness, etc depending on how a song sounds to us. We wanted to create a visual aspect to our own piece of music, and reflect how sounds can generate images. The relationships between the media also reflect this message; we combined graphic and natural images to follow the progression of the song. We chose seemingly clashing images to project onto the amorphous shape (Meg in the bodysock) and in the background because it shows how two things may not look as if they go together, but when they are layered it can create a certain effect. We used four pairings of images and repeated them throughout the piece. There are four sections that are more long and drawn out as the song builds. When the song picks up, the images change quickly. The gradual change from slow to fast not only reflects the sound and mood of the song, but also keeps the audience engaged. It took a lot (A LOT) of trial and error to create the final product. We encountered many obstacles along the way, mainly with technology. We were challenged to change our vision as we met technological difficulties; generally, we were able to figure out a solution (or a way to get around the problem) with little uproar because we understood from the beginning that many of our goals were not possible given the time frame and available technologies. Our biggest problem was with the Chromakey program. It crashed, restarted, failed to record, recorded too slowly, recorded as too big a file, blurred the images, and crashed some more. It forced us to rethink our approach more than a few times, but after many trials, we were able to accomplish our goal. First, we filmed Meg dancing in the sock in

6 HD on the camera. We uploaded this to imovie and exported it to a.mov file so that the Chromakey program would read the file. We also exported the glow stick, leaves, paint, bike spokes, and sparkler videos to.mov files. We fed those images into the Chromakey program and created four full movies: glow sticks/paint, glow sticks/leaves, glow sticks/bike spokes, and glow sticks/sparklers. We chose to keep the glow sticks in the background because the Chromakey program would not read them well in the foreground the images kept blending together and we could not read a clear dancing shape. After we filmed these four movies, we dropped them back into imovie, added the song, and clipped them together to match the music. We could not use Garage Band to create the final project because the program would not allow us to upload the four separate movies. In imovie, we matched pieces of the movies together in longer sections as the song built towards the big ending. When the song picks up, the images flash more quickly. We added titles and credits and exported the entire file. After all of the hard work, I am very proud of the final product. I was primarily responsible for editing the project; Meg, Ashley and Jordan were always present to make decisions about what to do and how it should look, but I was in charge of doing the physical editing. For having minimal imovie skills, I think I did a pretty great job. I am glad that I encountered so many problems because I learned more about technology and what to do when nothing goes the way you expect it to go. I learned to improvise and make critical artistic decisions, not to mention that I learned how to maneuver in imovie, Garage Band, and the foreign land of green screen technology. I now know to always plan for the unexpected and to always leave time to let a file export. I am very pleased with the melding of images and music; I think it really reflects how we can visualize music without fancy big- screen music videos.

7 I am very pleased with the way our group worked together; I became very close with existing friends and new friends. Each member contributed important ideas, critiques, and solutions to problems, and I feel like our original vision is not too far from the final outcome. We all worked very well together and were able to make it through all the madness to create a great final project.

8 All Things Green Conceptual The central idea of representing music visually is a strong one. Your piece is also driven largely by the particular technology you used, which is fine esp. since it s not readily apparent to the viewers how you did it until you show them at the end. One downside to your piece as it has turned out is that the I think the visuals overwhelm the music such that the music s role does not seem as central as it actually is. By contrast, the relationship between the movement and the images is much stronger; more on this coming up next. I still wish you had done this as a performance piece, but since I m not in the group I don t get a vote. Aesthetic The element that most surprised me has to do with the images. I like the contrast between the organic images on the body and the slightly abstracted, artificial y background image. Most appealing, though, are the textures of the images that appear on the body the rocks, bicycle wheel, etc. manage to seem very 3- dimensional in a situation where things are more likely to appear very flat. The structure of the piece, which is clearly driven by the music, works very well, and you have done a nice job of putting the multiple takes together. The pacing is about right, too, although in the final version the music seems to take a bit too long to build up. I don t remember thinking that about previous iterations. The piece is engaging, in large part because of the way that the viewer slowly begins to grasp what you re doing and what it is that they are looking at - the little glimpses of the shape of the human form that you get every once in a while are really effective in this regard. The strong textures of the images could cut both ways, though. One potential problem with the piece is the viewers predilection to try to find a story in the images: is someone riding the bike down a gravel road? Where are they going? etc. While I don t think this is a serious problem with this piece, it s worth considering. Technical Of course you were at a disadvantage technically because of the fact that you were doing something new with new equipment and software that wasn t quite ready- for- primetime. Maybe you didn t want to complain too much about the software since I was the one developing it. Awkward? I appreciate your patience, anyway. One of the hardest parts of doing a project that s very technically- oriented lies in putting it together so that the technology doesn t get in the way of the final product. People like me spend their entire lives trying to get that right consistently. I think you got it right here. Your piece doesn t carry with it the sense that it was hard to make. That s a good thing, and it stems largely from the smooth combination of media: nice editing.

9 Process My sense of your group s process is that you were quite flexible and fairly egalitarian. Obviously, the project started out as Meg s project, but you all made it your own and pitched in in various ways. The nature of the project required lots of experimentation to figure out what was going to work, and I think you approached that in an open- minded way that was productive. While I got the sense that you did a good job of communicating among yourselves, you might have done a better job communicating with the fifth member of your group: that guy who was writing the software. What I mean is that, while you were good about letting me know what wasn t working (and being patient while I tried to fix it), I m not sure that I had exactly the right idea of what your needs were. I m not holding this against you, I just mention it as a part of the collaborative process that could have been more transparent. And I recognize that there is some weirdness there since I m also the person who ultimately has to evaluate the project. Often in a group of 3 or 4, there is one person who becomes marginalized to some extent. This was certainly true in one of the other groups, and I wondered at times if the same thing might be happening with one member of your group. I couldn t tell for sure. You had several strong personalities, but overall it seemed that you found a congenial and productive group dynamic. To sum up, I think you have an A- product, an A for effort, and an A for process.