What I Hear

New York City has energy. It has an energy that pulsates through all matters of life. You walk through the bustling streets and you can feel that energy- those vibrations- those noises- absorb into your skin. You’re surrounded by sounds that spill into your ears and submerge themselves into your entire being. From chatter, to footsteps, to the wind or the rain, to cars and trunks honking, a ceaseless orchestra of noises pulsates through the air. Someone screaming about God in the distances, someone whispering about their lover next to you as you wait to cross the street. Layers of noise, one of top of the other, responding to each other, and you responding to them. They tell you where to move, to avoid the oncoming ambulance, to step to the side when someone asks, “excuse me” as the try to get off the subway. The clocks tolls two and you know it’s time to go back to work, the man in the distance yelling about fruit remind you that you need to go to the grocery store before you go home, the band playing a cover of “Wonderwall” on the street makes you think of an old friend. And it never ends. In a City like this, silence is an abstraction. There is no such thing as silence here. The energy we’ve created always hums, like a heavy, drawn out sigh, even in the quietest of hours.  

This is the end result of my "Define A Space" project.

So for our final video project, me, Raymond Chen and Michael Mancuso made the video entitled "Look Closer". When we first got into the group, we had no idea what we were going to make a video about, bu as we talked it out, and threw ideas on the table, we thought it would be fun to make a thriller of sorts, maybe with a twist at the end. Going into actually filming the video, we had a basic idea of the story line, but didn't have much of an idea about what shots we wanted. As we walked through Hunter, though, we found cool places that we thought would make for some nice shots. A lot of it was in the moment improvission; if we felt we could get a nice shot, we tried it out. It's better to have more matterial and not use half of it than o get back to edit the final product and find you are missing shots, making the video choppy. After a couple of days of filming and reviewing shots, we got into the computer lab to edit the film. Neither or us had ever used Final Cut Pro before, so we were kind of feeling around in the dark. Eventually, we got the hang of it, though, and we found the editing to be both fun and challanging. We went about it as if it were a puzzle- we had to find just the right pieces so that they would all fit together smoothly. After several hours of editing, we came up with the final project. You can watch it here, and I hope you enjoy it!

Bellow is an advertisement for tattoo cover up. In my opinion, this commercial is one of the most engaging and creative ads I’ve ever come across. It begins with mid-length shot of a man sitting in a chair behind a black backdrop. After looking straight into the camera, the young man removes his shirt; the completely black background acts as a strong contrast to the subjects white skin. After staring into the camera, and leaving the audience curious as to what will happen next, he reaches for a scrubbing pad, holds it up for emphasis, and then begins to scrub his chest to reveal some dark substance on his chest. Unable to tell what it is, the audience wants to continue to watch to figure out what is being advertised, seeing as it has yet to be revealed. Next, the young man takes a cloth and starts to rub his face, and after a couple of seconds, he pulls away the towel to reveal his face that is fully tattooed that makes him look like a skeleton.

            As the commercial continues, and the ad shows a reverse clip in fast motion of make-up artists covering their subject, a man who is famous for having almost 100% of his body covered in tattoos, it becomes clear that the man had this tattoo removal cover-up all over his body. The product is so proficient that it can take someone completely covered in tattoos, and make them look like someone with normal, untouched skin.

            Through use of suspense, a emphasis on the actor, situated in the middle of the screen, and contrast of colors, this advertisement leaves the audience interested, curious, and has a shock factor as the subject reveals a face covered in tattoos. 

http://vimeo.com/30036902

THE KING

Often times, stamps' subject matters include famous people, so for this stamp, I decided to use the iconic figure, Elvis Presley. I thought it would be both aesthetically interesting and thematically fitting to have the background of the stamp be a collage of pictures of female fans screaming in joy, seeing as this was a common occurrence when Elvis was out in public. Seeing as all of those images where in black and white, I wanted to picture of Elvis, that would be the top layer, to be in color to contrast the muted background. The picture of him I placed in the left corner, so in order to balance out the image, I put the text of "The King," allowing viewers to know who the stamp was about, and the official price of the stamp on the right hand corners of the stamp.

POTATO WIZARD

A Commuter's School

The population of CUNY Hunter is made up of mostly those who commute to get to school. Because of this, Hunter doesn't have a campus; the college is made up of three vertical buildings located in the middle of Manhattan. Because of the lack of campus, students have to get creative for places to sit in the downtime between classes.