Final Project Reflection

I found myself sitting on the couch at beginning of April watching a Cincinnati Reds game. The announcers were reminiscing on the no hitter that Homer Bailey had thrown in the previous season. It was at this time that I knew exactly what I wanted to do for my project. There had been a handful of plays in Cincinnati Reds' games in the past few years that had really stuck in my mind. I felt like I was at Great American Ballpark for each and every one. These plays painted a picture of the hard work and determination that the Reds had held in order to achieve what they had. I decided that if the professional players could make such incredible plays, me and my friends could do it too. I planned on getting a few of my roommates and going to a baseball field near my house. We would listen to the audio from some of these big plays and reenact them to the best of our ability. Then I would match the audio up to it and put into a video with iMovie.

As we laced up our shoes and threw on our jerseys (a very random assortment), I got extremely excited. I never really did much work with video production and I was anxious to try my hand at it. We had never actually gone to the park behind our house but we knew there was a baseball field so it would be perfect for filming. What we found as we entered the park was the remnants of a baseball field where dirt and bases once existed. I could almost imagine the little league baseball games that had been held there many years before. It wasn't what I had imagined, but it would have to do. The filming went extremely well and each of my roommates really added their own personal touch to the production. After we filmed, I went back and started to compile the film. It was my first time editing a video in iMovie but I figured it out very quickly and I really enjoyed the success I had with it.

In the few days that have passed since I took on this project, I have been very happy with my end result. I know that the skills I learned from this class went directly in my ability to edit and film the way I did. I've already shown the video to numerous friends and the reviews have all been good so far. Of all the projects we have done in this class over the course of the semester, I was most excited about this one. The main reason was the complete freedom I felt with this project. I was able to do exactly what I wanted and execute the project the way I had imagined. As I move on to other classes in the coming semesters, I honestly believe that I enjoyed this project and this class more that I have enjoyed anything else so far, in terms of curriculum. I think my final piece turned out awesome and I only hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I have.

Brainstorming

As this semester has come to a close, I looked back on all the projects I have done for this class. I thought about all of the different mediums of art I have explored and I realized one thing: I hadn't my favorite thing in the world into any of my projects in a large way. I am a huge baseball fan and always have been. If I was told I had one day left to live, my choice would be to spend at least some of that time at a baseball field watching the game I love. I grew up in a baseball family and it has stuck ever since. While I did incorporate baseball into my journey project, I wanted to revisit baseball and try to make my final project center around it. I'm not quite sure what I want to do with it yet, but baseball will be the main focus. I also believe it will incorporate some sort of video production. I didn't really give myself a chance to enjoy the video production aspect of this class and I really want to revisit it. I have played with iMovie a little bit and I think it will lend itself handy to me in this final project.

Failure and Success

If there was one major thing I learned throughout this class that will stick with me as I move on with my college career, it's that failure is in only in the eye of the creator. When talking about art, you can't let someone else tell you if a project is good or bad because the only opinion that matters is your own. I believe that my biggest failure in this class was probably playing it safe too often. As an accounting major I kind of figured my art skills were sub-par. Since I knew I wasn't going to be very good, I let that restrict my creativity. I found myself doing projects the way I thought someone else would want them done, rather than doing it the way I wanted to. I actually learned a lot from this failure. I learned that its better to go for it and put yourself out there than to just skate by with the bare minimum and try to please others. With art, I learned that failures are going to happen on a daily basis and you can't let them hold you back from what you aspire to do. 

I think my biggest success in this class was opening my eyes up to the art world and giving myself a chance at enjoying art before I get too old. Before taking this class, i had rare,y ever been to an art exhibit and I didn't have an appreciation for art as a form of expression. Now, after being in this class for 13 weeks, I can honestly say that I feel more exposed to art and the effects it can have on a person. I really enjoyed going the art exhibit at the Wexner Center and I only hope that in the future I can learn more about other forms of art and continue to draw an interest in the fine arts. One of the biggest things I learned from this success was just how lucky we are at Ohio State to be surrounded by art. We are very privileged to have the resources at our disposal and the chances to see so much art. When I decided I was going to school here, it was for a lot of reasons, none of which had anything to do with art. I now add that to my list of reasons why I love this school. 

If there was one project I could do over again, it would probably be MP5, only because it was the most recent one we completed and it's still in the forefront of my thought with this class. I feel like I could've been a little more creative with this project and I played it safe with the way I presented it. I probably would have tried to incorporate my other action word into my picture, rather than just using the one word I was comfortable with. Other than that, I really enjoyed every project I did and I loved the creative freedom that was given to us throughout the semester.

MP5

My action word: to disarrange.

For MP5, I had to decide on an object that I used on a daily basis. What's more important to a man than his wallet. I decided this was something that I never leave the house without and always have handy. Most of my pants are worn in the back pocket because of how often my wallet is in them. My action word was disarrange and when I think of this word, I think of unorganized chaos. This presented an opportunity to do something I rarely do, be disorganized. Im kind of a neat freak so this was a step out of my comfort zone when this word was assigned to me. When it comes to my wallet, I have designated slots and pockets for different items so it only felt right to make an organizational change. Since disarrange means chaos to me, I decided to take every single item out of my wallet and put them back in places where they didn't belong. Cards were facing every direction and cash was scrunched up into small pockets. Overall, I really liked to way it turned out. It expressed a side of me that most people don't see. Most of my friends see me as the one cleaning up after others and going out of my way to make sure things look nice. The funny part is when some of my friends open up their wallets at a restaurant or store, they actually resemble what my alteration looks like. They have no type of organizational structure and everything is kinda just thrown in there. This project was a great way to end our set of micro projects because it gave us a chance to pick an item that matters to us, and alter it to match, or in my case the complete opposite, of our feelings, habits, and emotions. This was a fun project and I really enjoyed the openness and creative freedom that came along with it. The pictures I took of my action word can be found below: