https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDaQaAyVtEQ&feature=youtu.be

In our LEAP 2 projects, we were challenged to compose a digital story rooted in our personal life that is about being human. As I began thinking about this project, I wanted to connect it to some ideas and theories that I felt were relevant. The first being the nature of relationships and how a person is part of a large community such as society as a whole, a smaller group of close friends and family, and then a person’s relationship with themselves. Another idea that I wanted to play off of was the interconnectedness of the reader, audience, text and social context. With these ideas in mind, I wrote a poem about how some of my favorite cultural icons, friends and family, and my own thoughts have influenced my life. Furthermore, I wanted to express my hopes that I could reciprocate the same positive effects on society as a whole and those closest to me while maintaining a healthy relationship with myself.

Visually, I hoped to make some distinctions between the different stanzas of the poem. I used some novice photoshopping skills to create a pop-art-esque collage of some of the most influential cultural icons in my own personal life. This was meant to express how popular culture can blend together and inspire people’s unique personalities. The second stanza about friends and family took images of specific people such as my parents and important friends and family. I added some motions and visual effects while I edited, so that it was not as strange and abstract as they stanza about society. I was hoping to relate the universal ideas of close relationships through images of those specific to me. The stanza about my own personal shortcomings was presented in black and white to produce a more somber tone as well as realism. Then the last section highlighted the words of the poem and mainly unedited images of myself reflecting the ideas of the poem. Hopefully, that comes off in the final project.

The creative process was slow and was full of highlights, lowlights, high beams, and floodlights. As far as the timing is concerned, the whole process took place during Corona Virus quarantine, so this was an interesting time to get introspective about what it means to be human. Certainly, I could have gone a more contemporary route and incorporated some of the current issues, but I decide against that. The project also gave me the opportunity to look through some old pictures and reminisce about times with friends and family and really appreciate them since I can’t see them now. The lowlights all have to deal with constraints that didn’t allow me to take it to the level that I might have hoped to. My initial idea was to make a collage that had three different rings of images- a pop-art society layer, abstract close relationships layer, and a realism self layer. The constraint was that I’m just not that good at art, so I adjusted my expectations. I also thought about incorporating more video into the project, but stay at home orders put a damper on getting anybody to help me with that, let alone be outside at all for non-essential activities. Overall, I was able to overcome the lowlights, learn some photoshop techniques, and make due with what I have, so that is always a highlight for me. Also, I was fortunate enough to catch up with a friend who just finished an instrumental track which he allowed me to use in the project, so that was quite fortuitous. Overall, this was an enjoyable project that I hope people find some meaning in.