Cinemeauxgraph
(2017 Senior Thesis)
One of my favorite things about being graphic designer is being able to tell stories. For my senior thesis, I attempted something that, at that time, I had never tried before. It was…exciting and scary, overwhelming and rewarding…it was one of the most creative projects that I have ever worked on. I spent an entire semester crafting this project from the ground up as a one man production team.
Cinemeauxgraph can be described as, quite literally, 'poetry in motion'. For this thesis project I took poems about Louisiana and explored how they could be physically intertwined into real world environments.
This project culminated into four distinctly different short films, each with their own narratives, locations, and sounds. I wanted each visual to be a unique experience. I did not want you as a viewer to simply view the films, but be transported into the world that I crafted.
I detail the various stages of the project below.
Early Explorations,
When I began to explore ideas for my thesis, I decided to dig deep and investigate what was meaningful to me. This brought me to my childhood. As a child, my parents keep a grand bookshelf in the living room, with books of all kinds – particularly poetry. When I read the poems, I felt as though I was living in the verses and rhythms that these stories provided - it made me feel as though I was transported to their world.
Also during this exploratory phase of my thesis that I began an interest in motion graphics. I had never worked with any motion before, but I thought it would make for an interesting project to tell a story using video. I sought to combine poetry in motion into a unique take on what I had experienced as a child.
After deciding on the poems that would serve as the basis of my videos, I began to flesh out how I wanted the project to take form. This mainly took the form of storyboards where I tried to imagine complimentary imagery for the poems, line by line.
Production,
After finishing my storyboards it was finally time for the project to begin. Utilizing my storyboards and notes, I drafted a 'shot list' of all of the places I envisioned while reading the stories. With my rented Canon Vixia in hand, I hit the road, traveling all over Louisiana over many week night and weekends.
Filming took place beginning in my hometown of Shreveport and working my way down to Baton Rouge - picking up many cities in-between.
After the raw footage was shot and complied, I began editing them into their individual projects. This was honestly the most overwhelming part of the project because it required learning new software just to get it done. This would be my first time utilizing Premiere Pro and After Effects for a project.
It took some time, and many many Youtube tutorials, but I would eventually learn to work these programs well enough to see my vision come to life. Near the end of the post-production phase, I felt a sense of pride as I was finally seeing what started off as small ideas take flight.
Premiere Pro was used for compiling the footage into the sequences that I mapped out in my story boards, as well as any audio tracks that I added. After Effects was used for creating the 3D text projected into the environment. Music and sounds effects were sourced from Soundbible.com and Marmoset Music.
The Final Product,
The day had finally arrived- my senior thesis show took place on April 27, 2017. Leading up to this, I took on, what was at the time, the biggest creative challenge I had every accepted. Almost every aspect of this project was a valuable lesson–from proper research methods, pre and post production work, to preparing my exhibition space for the show. This was definitely one of the most rewarding experiences of my creative journey.
The Final Videos:
"French Girl"
"Fear Unknown"
"Homestead"
"Art Reborn"
