My favorite project this year in this class was probably the logo project because I felt that I worked really hard on my logo and it came out better than I had hoped. Some skills that I learned in this course were how to use creative commons licensed material and how to use programs like audition and premiere. In my future I could see myself becoming a graphic designer. I have taken graphic design classes before but this class helped influenced my want to be a graphic designer even further. I found other resources that were really helpful to me when I was working and got stuck, I could see what I wanted it to look/sound like in my head but I didn’t know how to make it happen on my screen. One of the big helps to me was YouTube. YouTube has a lot of good tutorials by all different kinds of people who can help you achieve what you need. Also the Adobe web site has some videos that helped to familiarize myself to the programs that I had not used before. They do an especially good job of showing you your work space and helping you to get used to all of the controls that you have at your fingertips and what each one is used for. Some skills I wish I had learned where just some more advanced options, there is so much that you can create with some of these adobe programs and I wish there was more extra credit opportunities to learn more advanced skills in these programs, that go what is already taught. Overall this class was a lot of fun and I really liked how it was more of an independent class, much like how a real graphic designer or self employed photographer would work, It really gave me a feel for what it would kind of be like to work in one of these fields.
Final Video
For my final video I only made a few adjustments. I first started off by making it so that with each change of the scene there was a transition to make the video run smoother thorough all of my steps of applying makeup. Then I cut the first song to just the first half of the video, where I put on all of the liquid latex and I faded out the music and then I added another track that fades in. This track continues while I apply the colored makeup, and it seems to go along with the creepy effect of the makeup look too which I really like. At the end I changed the sequence title to credit both sound cloud users David Heartbreak and Stylop for their music used in the video and I also tried to slow down the ending text so that the viewer could read it more clearly. I decided to not cut anymore footage out of the video because although it is a longer video I think each of the scenes are important in showing the steps I take to create a look like this. Also I know that there seems to be a lot of latex application and blow drying the latex at the beginning, but I think it is important to show that it takes a lot more than one layer of latex to get the desired effect. Over all I am really happy with the way that this video turned out. I think it really shows my viewers how I don’t just stick to the typical mediums of art like painting or drawing as a source of creative outlets in my life. I also express myself in my makeup, and although I don’t go out in public on a day to day basis with this zombie make up, I do still apply this creativity when I apply my every day makeup.
| Time | Video | Text |
| 0:00 – 0:01 | Intro- fades into start of makeup sound fades in. | |
| 0:03 – 0:06 | Start of latex application | “Makeup is one of my creative outlets.” |
| 0:13 – 0:20 | Me showing the latex piece already made up | “I have always been fascinated by special effects makeup. |
| 0:15 – 0:18 | Drying the latex with hair dryer | |
| 0:19 – 0:33 | Another layer of latex and drying | |
| 0: 35 – 0:43 | Putting texture in the latex | “and since zombies seem to be in style right now…” |
| 0:43 – 0:49 | Brushing on powder so the latex is not sticky. | |
| 0:49 – 0:54 | Putting on cover up to blend | “I chose to create a zombie look” |
| 1:11 – 1:34 | Applying the pre made latex piece | |
| 1:34 – 1:40 | Blending in the pre made piece | Music track fades out(David Heartbreak track) |
| 1:41 – 2:01 | Starting to add color to the look | Music fades in (Stylop track) |
| 2:01 – 2:30 | More color and lots of blending | |
| 2:30 – 3:29 | Adding shine and gore to the look | |
| 3:29 – 3:35 | Putting in right contact | |
| 3:35 – 3:41 | Putting in left contact | |
| 3:41 – 3:53 | Let hair down and add a bit more. | |
| 3:53 – 3:54 | Showing off the final look | |
| 3:45 – 3:59 | Fade to black, Credits. Music fades out. | “Produced and Filmed by: Samantha Leuthy.No humans were harmed in the making.
Music from Sound Cloud users: David Heartbreak & Stylop. |
First Draft Video Story.
For my video project I was stuck between wanting to show my audience my creative process in just one medium or all different kinds of medium. I started off thinking that I would show a little bit of how I take photographs, paint pictures and make collages. However I thought that might be too much material and decided to stick with one medium. My medium of choice turned out to be make up, which to most may not seem like a medium in the realm of art but for me it does the same thing as creating a piece of art. When I create art, I feel as though I am expressing myself, just as I do through the makeup I wear. I started my project by filming my entire process at a friend’s house and I ended up with almost an hour of footage… which is quite a lot of footage to cut down to only a maximum of four minutes. The hardest part for me was knowing what I should cut and what I should keep. For the most part I used the butcher block method, I went through my raw video footage and cut out what I didn’t want from start to finish. I then repeated this process about three more times and finally got my footage down to just under the maximum limit. I then added music which I found on Sound Cloud by user David Heartbreak, and added titles to parts of my video so that I could give my audience a clue as to what my video was about. Over all I know my video could still use some work, but I am happy with the start that I have. I would really like to hear what others have to say about what I can add or what I can do to help improve my video story.
| Time | Video | Text |
| 0:00 – 0:01 | Intro- fades into start of makeup sound fades in. | |
| 0:03 – 0:06 | Start of latex application | “Makeup is one of my creative outlets.” |
| 0:13 – 0:20 | Me showing the latex piece already made up | “I have always been fascinated by special effects makeup. |
| 0:15 – 0:18 | Drying the latex with hair dryer | |
| 0:19 – 0:33 | Another layer of latex and drying | |
| 0: 35 – 0:43 | Putting texture in the latex | “and since zombies seem to be in style right now…” |
| 0:43 – 0:49 | Brushing on powder so the latex is not sticky. | |
| 0:49 – 0:54 | Putting on cover up to blend | “I chose to create a zombie look” |
| 1:11 – 1:34 | Applying the pre made latex piece | |
| 1:34 – 1:40 | Blending in the pre made piece | |
| 1:41 – 2:01 | Starting to add color to the look | |
| 2:01 – 2:30 | More color and lots of blending | |
| 2:30 – 3:29 | Adding shine and gore to the look | |
| 3:29 – 3:35 | Putting in right contact | |
| 3:35 – 3:41 | Putting in left contact | |
| 3:41 – 3:53 | Let hair down and add a bit more. | |
| 3:53 – 3:54 | Showing off the final look | |
| 3:45 – 3:59 | Fade to black, Credits. Music fades out. | “Produced and Filmed by: Samantha Leuthy.No humans were harmed in the making.Music from Sound Cloud user: David HeartbreakCom 210! |
My Video Tutorials
Tutorial 1:
Tutorial 2:
Raw Video Footage
Final Audio Story
Here is my final audio story. Let me start off by saying I had a lot of difficulty getting rid of the background noise that one of my peers had pointed out to me. I used my resources though and went to youtube and found a video tutorial that helped me to try and reduce that static noise in the background of some of my audio. It took me a long time and I was very frustrated by the end but I think I was able to get rid of a lot of the noise that was in my audio. Since my first draft audio story I have added the interview of my dad, and also added some background music to kind of help my audio story along and help hide some of the background noise that was too hard to get rid of. The music I used was from sound cloud and was tagged with a creative commons licence. Over all this project was a lot harder for me than the previous projects because I am a lot more familiar with the Photoshop and Illustrator programs then I am with audition. I struggled the most with getting everything to come together into one audio clip, knowing what to cut and what to add to my story. I decided to do my audio story about where my love for concerts came from because it is a big part of my life. It’s an experience that I have shared with my family, like my mom said since I was about eighteen months old. My love of concerts has defiantly branched from my exposure to them and my experiences at them, and I think that everyone should be able to see a concert at least once in their life time. Just so they can experience what it is like to see a live band perform and so that they can get that concert rush.
Audio Story Draft
For this assignment I decided to talk more about my experience at concerts. For the last project I focused more on my love for photography and making art, but for this project I wanted to do something different. I wanted to make an informative audio story about what a huge role concerts play in my life. For this audio story I recorded an interview of myself talking about what it is like to go to a concert and what my favorite artists and venue were. Then I got on Skype and talked to my parents, and in particular, asked my mom what she liked about concerts and what her favorite venue was. I also asked her a bunch of questions including ones like “what was your first concert and who preformed, as well as what is it like to go to concerts with your family? I then picked through my audio interviews and came up with a more generalized sense of what concerts really mean to me, with the help of my mom. I also interviewed my dad and look forward to editing some of what he has to say into my audio story. I think that the more information and interview audio I have, the better my story will come across to my viewers and my story will be more complete. For my final audio story I know I want to put music into my composition to help drown out some of the noise in a few parts of my audio as well as to help to transition to different parts of my recording so my audio won’t sound so rigid and boring. I was also thinking about interviewing my little sister or my best friend who are the main people I go to concerts with. Overall I think my audio has a good start but I know I still want to work on it to make it better.
Raw Audio
Here are my raw audio clips.
Audio Audition Tutorials
My Final Logo
This is my final logo, I didn’t make too many changes to it because like my peers suggested there was more problems with the font of the logo, then the actual vector (or lens part of the logo). I chose to create this logo with the idea in mind that my dream job is photography. If my life could consist of me being a freelance photographer and I could make good consistent money to support myself, I think I could be pretty happy. So with that in mind I decided to create a logo that would reflect that dream job. My biggest change in this logo from my draft was the change of font and text size. After hearing my peers out they advised me that in my previous logo, my font was too distracting. So for this final post I changed the font from Bookman Old Style, size 123 px to Adobe Caslon Pro, size 54 px. I feel like this changed the dynamic of my logo, from all about the text to more about the lens that I created using the pen tool, the ellipse tool, the mesh gradient tool, a feathering effect and the transparency panel. Over all I am very happy with my logo, It is scalable, and looks good in grayscale considering those are the main colors of my logo. In addition however, my logo also looks good when colorized. I used Photoshop and used the hue saturation tool to change my logo a bit and to put a bit of color in it. Overall I think for most things my grayscale logo would be the one I would use but color is an option. I could defiantly see this logo on a building as well as on stationary or even on t-shirts and business cards. I am very proud of this logo and look forward to the next challenge.
Samantha Leuthy 