MOVEMENT
The Journey of Sound
April 2024, ARTDES 338 Moving Image
In a realm where reality blurs, this 3-minute film explores sound's ethereal journey, personifying and evolving it through surreal visuals and an evolving musical soundscape.
A Journey of Sound challenges the conventional perception of sound by personifying it. The journey will be that of how the sound grows, evolves, and dances through various dimensions. A Journey of Sound uses unconventional visuals and experimental techniques with film and animation to represent the different layers and frequencies of sound. With these sounds, there is also evolving music, creating a soundscape for the visuals to grow.
DSLR, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Ableton Live
Esta-aonta
April 2024, ARTDES 447 Narrative Forms
Lost and dismissed in a world of regret for struggles in pursuing their dreams, an aloof main character’s life takes a harsh turn when a mysterious artifact appears on their porch one fateful day. As this artifact completely takes over every aspect of their consciousness, the main character descends into a psychosis of self-loathing and despair. The push and pull of understanding this unknown object forces them to question their own identity. Throughout the story, they lose all around them to unravel the mysteries that surround this artifact and, in the process, discover truths about both the artifact and themself—or do they?
Panasonic AG-UX90, Premiere Pro, Ableton Live
Wired
December 2024, PAT 202 Computer Music
Wired is a ~three-minute audiovisual piece. The audio is sampled from another student’s composition in PAT 202: Computer Music class. This project started from taking my peer’s composition and sampling, reshaping, and reinterpreting a small section of a piano during the beginning of his track. From this, I turned it into a new instrument and created my own piece.
Visually, Wired was made with my old footage of blurred lights and street lamps, which slowly become abstracted and manipulated through color effects and layered with lumetri scopes. Each object, lights and lumetri scopes, corresponds to different sonic elements within the composition. This is truly a piece of transformation in every aspect.
Original song by: Isaiah John Cortez
Ableton Live, Premiere Pro, DSLR
A Movement—Classical to Electronic
January 2024, ARTDES 338 Moving Image
A 6-minute documentary-style interview following interdisciplinary artist and musician Paloma Calvin’s transition from classical to electronic music.
This was created as part of an assignment documenting movement of any kind. This piece not only captures a shift in genre, but also a shift is personal evolution: physically, musically, and emotionally. Music has been central to Paloma’s life, but her college experience marked a turning point of a movement from structured, classical roots to the freedom and experimentation of electronic sound. Seen and heard is a combination of narration and archival footage of Paloma’s journey of reinvention around sound and movement.
Panasonic AG-UX90, Premiere Pro
Untitled
December 2022, ARTDES 265 Intro to Video
A surreal, narrative short exploring themes of perception, identity, and internal confrontation.
This piece follows a girl who wakes up in an unfamiliar, abandoned parking garage. She is then abruptly confronted by two mysterious figures who morph into mirrors of herself, making her confront and examine the inner workings of her mind and bending the perception of reality.
Technically, this project was a practice of masking techniques in Premiere Pro, which allowed me to have multiple versions of the same figure to exist simultaneously within one frame. The soundtrack was created in Garageband with multiple midi instruments to enhance the tension within the piece.
Premiere Pro, Garageband
Raspberry Tea
January 2023, ARTDES 243 Intro to Animation
A motion graphic that responds one of my own tracks.
This piece was created for an assignment to visually respond to a track. I decided to challenge myself a step further by producing my own, original track instead. Raspberry Tea is my first fully produced composition in Ableton Live.
After finishing the music, the title came naturally, and with it I generated a color palette that shaped the rest of the video. The motion graphic is playful and atmospheric, where the sound leads and visuals follow.
Ableton Live, After Effects
Wave Field
October 2022, ARTDES 265 Intro to Video
Inspired by Maya Lin’s Wave Field, this piece explore how the nature of water can be conveyed without using water itself. Drawing on shadows, textures, and color palettes reminiscent of waves and shorelines, I used reflections, lighting, and droning, ambient sound to build an abstract aquatic environment. I focused on evoking the feeling of water through unexpected materials and visual metaphors.
Panasonic AG-UX90, Premiere Pro, Ableton Live
Hidden
February 2022, ARTDES 125 Studio: 4D
A short horror film presented through the narration of an email to a close friend.
Hidden follows a the unraveling of someone haunted by a unknown presence. Throughout the piece, the figure is subtle, yet evolving. Told through voiceover, the narrative blurs digital space with psychological tension.
This was my first ever short film, inwhich I explored the positbilityies of post-production effects, using editing and sound to build atmosphere and a sense of unease.
Premiere Pro, DSLR, Garageband
Rotoscope Alien
March 2023, ARTDES 243 Intro to Animation
My first ever experimentation with rotoscoping, this piece was creating by tracing over, frame-by-frame, footage of myself playing guitar. Inspired by my love with the idea of alien life, I used rotoscoping techniques to transform the familiar into something otherworldly.
DSLR, Photoshop
Abstract Rabies
April 2023, ARTDES 243 Intro to Animation
A surreal animation which explores the distorted behavior of a cat showing signs of rabies.
Told through fractured movements and abstract visuals, this piece blurs the line between narrative and complete abstraction. The progression mirrors the mental and physical unraveling of the disease. It was created using a combination of frame-by-frame animation in Photoshop and keyframed sequences in After Effects.
After Effects, Photoshop, Ableton