Artist's Statement
By: Mariela Allen-Cadet
For my “artistic process”- I feel weird calling it because I wouldn’t consider my app to be art. But anyways, before I started the app stuff, I had to interview people for the first task. Mostly I asked about environmental stuff and predictions. It proved to be kind of inspiring because before I couldn’t decide what I would do because I´m not really creative. So by then, I had decided to do something about animals but then narrowed it down to my personal predictions. But then I had to decide how to present my information in a creative way. I couldn’t do a movie type thing because my friends aren’t really interested in the news and things like that. But in applying for computer science programs, I realized that I could use the same software that I had used last year to make another app. Then after a lot of testing, Youtube movies, and planning, I had a prototype for my app.
As for my actual app, it’s more educational than fun. But with the time constraints, I think it was pretty okay. I used Blockly, a block-based coding language based on Java. I used dark blue for the first two parts of the app because dark blue stimulates clear thoughts opposed to red, that prompts a physical reaction. After that, I used light blue as the background as it calms people and helps with concentration, which I wanted to make sure was part of my presentation. One of my favorite parts is the web viewer because you can look at a website while inside the app and I got really excited when I realized I could do that. The most confusing part for me was linking all the pages to buttons so that everything is connected. This app was also different from other apps that I‘ve made because it was more reading and compared to the other ones, required way less research, because it was more of seeing what people like and opinions, but this was more focused on me which was pretty cool.
I think this might be too long but that’s it.
Artist's Statement
By: Sasha Lennox
I knew when I first decided to do a movie I definitely wanted to do a bit that was lighthearted and fun to watch. And with my limited space to film, I thought what better idea then to draw! You can do any scene imaginable in animation, you are not constrained by where you can or cannot film. I would’ve never found a way to film a scene that was supposed to take place in a lab, or a restaurant, and basically anything outside. But with animation the possibilities are endless.
The first thing I did was come up with a script, then I recorded the first 10 seconds of audio, pulled out my Wacom drawing tablet, and started animating, and I repeated the process until I was done. The script did change a lot as I got rid of, and added new things. It took me a total of about two weeks, about 15ish seconds of animation a day. I’ll admit, this was a lot of work, and I definitely thought to myself multiple times “Sasha, why did you choose such a hard and stress inducing task for this project? WHY?” But I'm so glad I did it because It definitely got me into animating. This was my third go at it, with my other things being only about four seconds long. So I'm pretty proud of myself.
Artist's Statement
By: Semaj Daniels-Almond
My art is a “youtube inspired documentary” as my dad calls it. Honestly, at first, I was going to draw an image showing before quarantine vs. during quarantine, but I haven’t been motivated to draw anything over these 6-7 weeks. I haven’t been motivated to do anything really. Making this video pushed me out of my comfort zone because I really don’t like how my voice sounds and I had to listen to it over and over and over (which was torture in my mind). It’s crazy to think about so many things that have changed due to COVID-19, even simple things like the kid parks. It just doesn’t seem real. My mom’s friend who works as a trash person said he’s seen more fast food trash in these six weeks then over holidays since all we can do is be locked in the house and eat.
My artistic process first went like how am I going to show the effects this pandemic has created upon us. Then after some thinking, it made sense just to go to different locations and show how they are now vs. how you remembered them being before the quarantine. I wasn’t shocked while going to the beach, parks or grocery store because I knew what to expect, it’s just all surreal. Another thing that was a part of my artistic process is gathering a bunch of videos and pictures and editing them the way I liked it. I’m not an expert video editor person, but the finished project wasn’t completely horrible. It was like my third time using Imovie, and it was pretty confusing, but I got that hang of it. I might continue to use Imovie to create little “vlogs” because why not. Maybe this can be my new hobby, making cringe bad quality videos.
Artist's Statement
By: Henry Powers-Lowery
For my project, I knew that I wanted to do some sort of video. I decided to make a trailer for a made up movie called Covid-19. I chose to emphasize issues that people experience everyday due to the Coronavirus. The video is meant to convey the daunting feeling of uncertainty that the Coronavirus has caused us to feel.
Artist's Statement
By: Helen Hailemariam
The idea was really inspired by my mom, I really want to thank her and people like her who are helping the community during this pandemic. At first I wanted to do just a video celebrating and thanking healthcare workers but I thought it would be better to show the larger Cambridge community. Through this project I wanted to highlight the many essential workers in Cambridge during this COVID-19 pandemic. My project consists of pictures and videos of essential workers taking part in helping the community. I collected relevant images online ranging from many sites. I also decided to feature a Cambridge choir youth group as a way to highlight all of Cambridge. I came across the song randomly when looking for pictures and their song moved me. Over all, these essential workers have played a role in making our community safer and supporting those in need. Through this video, I hope people realize who and what essential workers are and thank those who help them.
Artist's Statement
By: Leah O'Connell
When I first started my thinking about what I wanted to do my coronavirus pandemic creative project on the first thing that came to my mind was diving. Diving is a very important part of my life and it is a sport that some people tend to look past. The goal of my video was to highlight how the pandemic was affecting the diving community and how the same thing is happening to many others. In my opinion, I feel that the focus on how the virus has affected people tends to be put on larger communities or larger organizations and that is sometimes the first thing people think about. However, what I want to do was to point out how communities that don’t receive much recognition are suffering, too. I want to show how much damage is being caused to this one sport and organization because of this pandemic and how there are millions of situations just like this happening right now. Overall, what I want to demonstrate is how nobody is safe from the affects of the pandemic.
Artist's Statement
By: Aurora Arruda
For my creative project, I decided to make a video. I decided to do this because Mr. Cohen and Salam recommended I make a podcast. I thought it was a good idea, considering I like to rant a lot. When I do projects, I tend to lean more towards the informational side rather than the creative side. I decided to make a video to make it more interesting, you could say. I used the questions that were in the ¨task documents¨ and put all my answers into Google Slides. For my video, I went slide by slide and read out my answers. However, I tried to elaborate on them a little more so it didn’t seem like I was just reading from a paper.
In my presentation, I mainly focus on how the coronavirus has impacted the environment, society, and our everyday lives. I also make sure to yell at the ignorant people that decide it's a good idea to go out and about when they don't need to. (The video is 6 minutes longgg😭) The point I hope to get across with my project is that nothing is going to get better if people continue acting the way they do. I also want people to know that EVERYBODY is affected by Coronavirus in their own way, so we need to do everything we can to prevent it from getting worse.
Artist's Statement
By: Caroline Allan
So this video was not actually my original plan for the project, but what I really wanted to do didn’t work and I was left with a day to put something together, so to be honest I am not very proud of this project. I used the audio from an interview I did with my ballet teacher about her experiences, and then I found some statistics from the Boston Globe. I needed some video to put with the interview so I ended up just doing some relevés and messing around in my pointe shoes.
First-Person Perspective
By: John Anthony Capello III
Artist's Statement
By: Adrian Lax
There’s no doubt the coronavirus has been hard on all of us, whether it’s shutting down places we like to go, or keeping us locked inside all day, or not being able to see friends. For me, however, there are some mixed feelings about this pandemic. On one hand, it put a very early end to the ski season, but on the other hand, it opened up a bunch of places I could go skate that normally would end up with me getting kicked out… Here are some clips from those places.
Artist's Statement
By: Neko Mengesha
At first, I was really confused because I was kind of given a full range of the project which has never really happened in my academic experience. After some hard thinking and brainstorming, I thought of creating a film. I wanted to do this because if I just wrote about the coronavirus I would have just used some big and heartfelt words. I wanted to make this project new and different from before. Also, I have really bad grammar, and I knew Mr. Cohen was going to murder me with my bad grammar that would hurt my grade so a film was much better suited for me.
I was going to make a movie trailer centered around the corona pandemic. I did do a little bit of that because I wanted there to be a factual/reality part in the film. The other part of this film was just my schedule and what I do on weekdays. I also had to be really careful I worded things in the right way so that it is socially acceptable. Most importantly that I don’t offend anyone by using the wrong word. I have also learned the hard way of how to use editing software like if you leave editing software on too long then it will automatically shut off and it will not save. I made that mistake two times.