School: Maranacook Community High School

Instructor: Jeremy Smith

Rubric & Supplements to Multimedia Presentation

Digital Photography Final 2009  Due 6/8/09

1. Artist's Reflection Planning Sheet

Thesis statement

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First body paragraph --

topic sentence

about best work

Define terms next:

Support details:

Second body paragraph --

topic sentence

about most meaningful piece

Explain why it's meaningful

Conclusion statement

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2. Model Artist Reflection on Multimedia Piece

     The piece I am critiquing is a 1:30 clay animated short, detailing the mishaps of two cheerleaders who are contaminated by a toxic vulture. The movie begins with an intro that consists of the cheerleaders practicing while the viewer watches the vulture fly in from the nearby nuclear plant where it roosts.  There is a simplified scene of trees, mountains and a house.  Soon, the cheerleaders begin to ooze green slime, indicating the level of toxicity that was created on them after the vulture visited and deposited some of his contaminated molecules. 

     The everyday scene of two girls cheering soon descends into the green, protoplasmic occurrence of a toxic swamp that envelops the girls.  The bird that has flown back to his roost soon becomes humanoid and then also degrades into a protoplasmic surrounding which puts an end to him as well.  Meanwhile, the blue sky and green grass create a scene indicative of the American homeland, a land no longer safe for cheerleaders, birds, or whoever comes into contact with similar contaminants.

     To make this short film, I created a backdrop, created the figures and used a digital camera to capture the subtle movements of the figures as they created a story line.  I used a tripod, turned off the flash to obtain better texture and took somewhere in the neighborhood of 190 photos, that later edited in Adobe Photoshop.  I added the colors for the grass and sky, deleted the blurry shots, and removed with the clone stamp aids such as a pencil for the movement and positioning of the vulture and my hand in the couple places it appeared.

    After editing the photos, which took me about 8 hours, I added them to iPhoto and then to iMovie as stills.  With some of the newer features in iMovie, it is a bit challenging to add stills, but I managed to make a slideshow where each slide or photo ran for ½ a second. (I had to do this manually to each photo in iMovie)  Then I exported the film as an .m4a iTunes movie and brought it into Garage Band as a track, primarily to see where each piece of the movie coincided with the tracks I was creating for the soundtrack, consisting of music, sound effects, & the characters’ lines.  I merged the files into one track and after re-adding the footage from the edited Toxic Cheerleaders movie, I was able to add the credits and tracks to the piece and finalize the movie by exporting it once more.

In my opinion, the film is meaningful because it accomplishes the task of creating a genuine, mutant adventure into the destruction of something wholesome and innocent.  I enjoyed the production and creative process involved in the conception and execution of this project and glad to share it with my friends.  It may be viewed online at:

3. Digital Photography Multimedia Presentation Rubric & Prerequisites

    * The artist's reflection is word processed or hand written legibly according to

 parameters explained above OR

    * If the artist's reflection is delivered orally, notes are referred to.

    * The student explains which piece or pieces are most meaningful.

    * If project is collaborative, each element described in project guidelines

is doubled, including the finished product. Please ask instructor about individual elements, if there are any questions.

4. This project requires the student Artist's Statement (resume)      

Model Artist’s Statement

Artist Statement

Jeremy Smith

5/1/08

My pottery, found object sculptures, paintings prints and photographs are inspired by the world around me, material & spiritual, tangible and intangible. Just as people of various backgrounds and determinations frequent my world, my art is created to fulfill a certain purpose. 

By creating my art, crafts, and photographs it is my attempt to convey emotions, concepts, or some form of narrative about experiencing whatever sense or senses I wish to convey.  It is at times instinct-based and wholistically derived from my own life and the places and people I have witnessed, or sometimes my work pokes fun at the nature of things subconsciously or abstractly symbolized in shapes, textures, line, color, etc. 

The timelessness and mystery of nature astounds and inspires me continually as I rejoin my interests and fascination with visual media and items of interest, whether from found objects, collage, or scenery that I can’t avoid capturing on digital media, woodcut block, paper, or canvas.

5. Completed and attached Project Guidelines sheet complete with:

* Description of purpose statement if not included in presentation.

* Slide analysis or storyboard depending on content and guidelines.

* Title and credits, audio and animation (PowerPoint) references, & trailer (movie) if applicable.