VCDM 498, Section 555
Senior Thesis and Exhibition Blog
Post One
Friday, Feb. 3, 2023
Unfortunately, I do not have access to this course because of scheduling conflicts, so I was absent for the first class session. However, I was able to catch up on missed content from fellow classmates that are in the course. I have started revising my senior thesis proposal once more and reassessing our production binder. Also, adjustment to our pitch deck were made. I plan on using my powerpoint as a reference to our final website.
Post Two
Friday, Feb. 10, 2023
This week, I was able to register for senior thesis successfully and attend my first in-person class session with Professor Williams. We were able to do a full gallery space tour. Jazziel and I were brainstorming ideas to include in addition to our required move poster. Ultimately, we have decided to include props from our films such as the memory box and yellow cellphone. After receiving feedback from Professor Williams on our poster, we decided to proceed with recruiting graduate student Justin Thomas to design our film poster and possible bring him aboard to help out with our brochure as well.
I have also sent our senior thesis film to some of other artists and friends to receive feedback. It was generally great with some suggestion that we will make related to sound. Jazz and I will work on improving our film up until its final submission for mid-terms. We have claimed and have an idea of our exhibition space since we did a walk through this past class. Jazziel and I have been coming with ideas in terms of staging.
Post Three
Friday, Feb. 17, 2023
Jazziel and I have created a plan centered around diving up the work around our exhibition based on what areas we excel the most in, but we both must approve on the final product. I will handle all written task, the website, and poster collaborative work. Jazz will handle the final editing, brochure, and gallery space tasks. This past weekend, I met with Justin to discuss specifics dealing with our movie poster for senior thesis exhibition. He was present a screen print concept that gave a retro appeal in which I approve.
This week, I submitted the revised senior thesis proposal for this course and have started work on our thesis abstract while we await clarification for all film majors.
Post Four
Friday, Feb. 24, 2023
I took some time this week to find out how to make our small space presentable in the exhibition. After completing the discussion post on the "Black is Beautiful" Exhibition by Kwame Brathwaite, I came to some wonderful conclusions. Here are my thought:
I found the "Black is Beautiful" Exhibition ever so breathtaking. Its display was simple and allowed the art to do most of the talking, which I find key crucial in an exhibition of such power; the support theatrics are truly unnecessary with bold and historical pieces as such. Even the visual presentation of Brathwaite's photography is clean, yet indicative of the 1950s/1960, which he captured via font and color. Sectioning off black and white and color photography was an exceptional inclusion because showcased a theme of evolution in Black culture; this is what you would see in the African American Museum of History and Culture today. The split of one side art and beauty and period piece/statement photography is quite reminiscent of this museum. Also, the second Harlem Renaissance movement is representative of progress in the Black community, which is why Brathwaite's exhibit acts as a timeline. I love that Brathwaite incorporated fashion as tangible items so you could see the texture of the culture he was capturing; It felt like an archive.
I think the greatest takeaways I have here are to keep it simple and let your art talk, which I will apply to my website, booklet, and poster of our film. Also, one thing Brathwaite did fabulously was to avoid overstimulating his viewers/audience while utilizing space wonderfully. Sectioning off your work allows the audience to understand its placement; thus, simply adjusting your art can change translate to an entirely new meaning and possibly dilute one's message of not being careful.
Here are some small film exhibitions that I am pulling inspiration from below:
Post Five
Friday, Mar. 3, 2023
We finally received some progress from our poster designer, Justin. It was amazing to see his experimentation and interpretation our film, but we know the designs are not entirely there yet. Justin just wanted to show us that he was working on our film poster. However, I am in favor of the direction his going in. I made sure to tell him that the photo of my grandparents is mandatory. My favorite creative concept from these two drafts is the yellow phone. It stands out and really makes it the focal point of the piece which is what we want, the connection is a crucial theme in our film.
Post Six
Friday, Mar. 10, 2023
Justin sent another more finalized version. We received some feedback from Professor Williams on Justin's work for a third opinion and he made some of the same suggested as we did:
1. Making the phone pop out in a yellow color.
2. The green filter is a bit much and removes accents from her face, so maybe seeing how we can tone it down and make it more of a low saturated shot.
3. The word lineage is also hard to read at the end because of how it is transparent and Erica's hair being under.
4. Let's try removing the stars on each corner and seeing how it looks without it.
I gave Justin an extension on the deadline to finish up our poster so we have it ready by the conclusion of spring break.
In terms of our class exhibition theme, we have presented our "Inner-Piece" concept to the class and everyone was excited to move forward and add on to the presentation of the concept. Jazz, Tamia, and myself are part of the organization/presentation team that will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting. We will be bring others in to help with the creation process but as for now, we are the leaders. Everyone has agreed on doing aura photos with a color the relates to their art/creative process. It will be constructed in photoshop in collage form, but everyone will have their own individual photos near their senior thesis project. We are working on a date for capturing each student for the collage.
I was also accepted in the Dionne Farris exhibition which will be up until our senior thesis showcase. I learned how to wire hang my framed artwork, which will be extremely beneficial to understanding what is expected of us for our movie poster during our upcoming exhibit. I will take on the task of hanging once we get to that point.
Post Seven
Friday, Mar. 17, 2023
Jazziel and I have submitted the final version of our short film Neon Lineage for review and approval by the board associated with our department. We made some slight changes to improve the white noise in our audio as well as turn down some music levels. We also extended our title so that it appears twice within the 13 minutes of showing, once in the intro and then another when the credits role. Aside from working on our personal art in the exhibition, we have been working with Tamia to finalize the overall theme. Our concept is solid and has been approved. We are still working on a subtitle that we all agree on. What is comes next is the photoshoot and creating a spreadsheet for the selected colors of every individual; I take the role as the organizer when it comes to the aura colors our classmates select, so I will be making the spreadsheet. Our photoshoot is set for Monday, March 27, 2023 at 4:00 PM. We will be photographed from the torso up in the Black Box Theater. We decided on bring one light, one dark top, and possibly a neutral color top (all without patterns).
Also, I have just learned that Professor Melchisuha has limited us to only movie posters, brochures, and business cards, so the idea of having props on display is no longer which was not ideal; however, we will make it work and see if we can still leave the memory box or telephone on display.
Post Seven
Friday, Mar. 17, 2023
Post Eight
Friday, Mar. 31, 2023
Upon return from spring break, our senior thesis theme photoshoot commenced. Everyone selected colors for their aura to reflect their project and creative essence. My photo was taken rather quickly and I hold the colors white and purple. In color psychology, white symbolizes cleanliness, purity, and safety, which perfectly describes my intent as an artist and my approach for our short film. Purple symbolizes creativity, mystery, wisdom, and spirituality. Jazziel will be completing my aura photograph. Below, you will find the photo selected for our theme collage:
In terms of our senior thesis project, we are preparing to hang our senior thesis poster and print our brochures. I have order my business cards and they will arrive sometime next week. Jazziel and I have settled on completing a three fold brochure where my brand/business statements will be the left side and his will be to the right. In the middle will lie all information related to the senior thesis, including behind-the-scenes photos captures on set. Per critique of Professor Williams, Justin added a drop shadow behind the lettering after changing it to deeper yellow (which was requested by both Jazziel and I). Below, you will find our finalized movie poster we will be sending over Professor Melchishua for review:
Post Eight
Friday, Apr. 7, 2023
As we approach our showcase date, Jazz and I have been tying up any loose ends and completing our brochure. There is not much of a change from last week. This week during class, we were able to get a second tour of the gallery space to figure out some more logistics regarding the inclusion of props. Since there are a plenty of seniors showing work and all the gallery space is truly need, we decided against including said props mentioned above in the pervious posts. If we are able to, I would still like to include some of our behind the scenes photographs. We are still awaiting approval from Professor Melchishua on our group movie poster, and we ended up down sizing the dimensions of our poster from 24 x 36 inches to 18 x 2 for gallery spacing reason. I was able see a glimpse of my finial aura photo since Jazz worked on mine. I though it was beautiful and cannot wait to see everyone together in a collage setting which should be the finishing product. By the beginning of next week, Jazz and I should have our brochure finished to pair with our business cards on the podium in front of our poster. Below you will see a sketch that Jazziel completed for our gallery space to get a better visual of what we are trying to accomplish with our small section:
Post Eight
Friday, Apr. 14, 2023
Last week, my business cards were delivered from Visa Print. They came fairly quick and turned out beautifully. The only issue I had with the printing is that the dimensions of my QR codes were a bit smaller than I was expecting, but the camera is still able to catch the link to my portfolio and social media pages. Below, you will find images of the finishing product:
Additionally, we are still pending approval for the printing of our music poster; however, I went ahead and bought the frame for our poster, since we will be beginning work in the gallery space on Monday, April 17, 2023. We are printing our brochures and sending them off to be printed on Monday as well, so we will have enough time to set up our exhibition. Jazziel and I had a great Zoom meeting to create a checklist for what we need to finalize our exhibition showcase.
Post Nine
Friday, Apr. 21, 2023
The countdown is ON! We are one week away from installation and everything that possibly could go wrong has gone wrong. The printer in our department has broken, so those that have not outsourced their works are in limbo. We are fine because, Jazz and I made the decision to outsource our poster and brochures in the vary being. So, we are fine. However, the department have offered to pay for the printing of all our posters because of the mishaps. I had an unfortunate accident with my brochure design that caused everything to delete. I had to start from scratch once again and redo everything which was horrific. A few hours later, I came up with a replica of what I had initially created. View the finishing result below:
Jazz and I arranged for these to be printed. They will be here next week. We finally received feedback on our poster and made some small changes. Our poster will be and ready this week and our business cards will accompany, as well as the brochures when they arrive.
Post Ten
Friday, Apr. 28, 2023
Due to printing complications for the entire department, our senior thesis opening was delayed to May 1st. Jazziel and I printed, framed, and hung our poster in the gallery. Both of our business cards are done, and most importantly, the final of our senior thesis has been sent to Professor Williams for incorporation into the final showcase. We were able to acquire a podium for our exhibition set-up; however, it was quickly revoked because of the shortage for traditional art students in the showcase who needed them for their work. Our business cards and brochures will now be positioned in the front of the gallery space with the rest of our classmates.
Nonetheless, we are almost ready to rock and roll for our exhibit and artist talk. In addition to organizing my own exhibition, Jazziel and I have been assisting our other classmates with framing, staging, brochure designing, and printing recommendations.
On Friday evening, our brochures arrived from Visa Print in wonderful condition. The only issue is that two of our photos came our a bit darker than we expected, due to printing color difference. However, everything came out wonderfully and folded nicely with superb paper quality. I have plans to place them in the gallery when I return to school on Monday during the finishing touches portion of our senior thesis exhibition.
Post Eleven
Friday, May 5, 2023
Our exhibition is up str! And it is time for our artist talk. On Monday, our labels were placed for each of our pieces created for the gallery: our movie poster and short film. However, there was a small hiccup on the film listing on opening night, but Professor Williams said we will have that fixed.
Everything went exceptionally well! I was extremely overwhelmed by the positive response of my short film. I received a great amount of hugs and bravos, specifically on the writing. my message got to the audience with care, and that is all that matters. I also made an instagram post to promote my senior thesis short film and was met with an outstanding response there as well. Professor Washington from the theatre department and several other have suggest that we submit to film festivals. I originally resisted because this film was. more of a cathartic piece, but I have given it second thoughts. I will submit to the PG County Film Festival under the film student film category. We had such a phenomenally talented group of artists! We worked so well together, which is what made us look like a super power by the end of the night. I am extremely proud of us!
