Dance Through the Decades

Final Video Story

Posted on May 1, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

For For my final video story I wanted to add a preface to the video I created for my draft so that the viewer would be prepared for the information they are about to receive. Since I was using the same audio from my audition project I recorded a new audio clip to introduce the viewers to the topic. The audio that then plays behind the video is an interview I conducted between my mother and I about how dance has affected our lives. I wanted my final project in this class to encompass all the projects previously done so I used the photos from my graphic collage and the audio from my audio story to create a project that was cohesive from this whole semester. Most of the video clips I used were from a free video site but some of the clips are of me from over the years. I wanted to include these clips to make the video more personal to me. I also wanted to include pictures of different cultural dances to show how wide dances affect is on the world. I kept the whole video in black and white as a nod back to my graphic collage, again giving a timeless effect. I tried to use a combination of photos and videos paired with the audio I chose to tell a story of the impact that dance has had on myself and so many others. Although my final video strayed very far from my original storyboard, I am very happy with the result and think I achieved my goal. All links will be included below.

https://mixkit.co/free-stock-video/dance/?page=2

Ekaterina Kondaurova of Mariinsky Ballet performs in the “Diamonds” segment of George Balanchine’s “Jewels.”(Natasha Razina / State Academic Mariinsky Theatre) https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-10-24/things-to-do-in-la-phil-mariinsky-ballet-psycho-halloween

Elements Contemporary Ballet dancer Chloe Duryea. Photo by Topher Alexander. https://seechicagodance.com/organization/elements-contemporary-ballet

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in George Stevens’s Swing Time (1936) https://www.publicbooks.org/shadow-dancing-with-zadie-smith/

Kevin Mazur/WireImage https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/rolling-stone-readers-pick-their-10-favorite-dancing-musicians-18885/

Soul Train Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/dance-dance-revolution-nelson-george-on-soul-train-242224/

Draft Video Story

Posted on April 24, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

For my video story, I wanted to find a way to bring all of my previous projects together to show a culmination of what dance means to me and so many others. For the audio I used the interview I conducted between my other and me from the previous project. At the beginning of the video I used the pictures from my graphic collage to begin the story I wanted to convey. I moved on then to a clip of myself tap dancing from a few years ago which I thought flowed well with the audio. Then, in the interview clip, I ask how dance affects the world and I thought it would be nice to have examples of all different types of dances from all over the world to show just how important dance is to many different cultures. For the question about the friends made through dance I wanted to show different clips of people dancing together whether it was casual dance or structured in a dance studio. When I begin to talk about the impact dance has had on my life I chose two clips that I though conveyed the impact dance has had on my life, one of me performing and one of me just having fun at home. For the end of the video I wanted to add some more clips of dancers and wanted to end with the shot of the crowd because it is a good representation of how dance can bring people together. I kept all the clips in black and white, referencing back to my original graphic collage. The video I ended up with is very different from the storyboard I had originally planned but I am happy with the result. For the final cut, I need to clean up the time to fit one of the timestamps assigned and also clean up the transitions between clips. All links will be included below.

https://mixkit.co/free-stock-video/dance/?page=2

https://www.starquestdance.com /%E2%80%A8ten-dance-around-the-world/

Elements Contemporary Ballet dancer Chloe Duryea. Photo by Topher Alexander. https://seechicagodance.com/organization/elements-contemporary-ballet

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in George Stevens’s Swing Time (1936) https://www.publicbooks.org/shadow-dancing-with-zadie-smith/

Kevin Mazur/WireImage https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/rolling-stone-readers-pick-their-10-favorite-dancing-musicians-18885/

Soul Train Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/dance-dance-revolution-nelson-george-on-soul-train-242224/

Raw Footage and Storyboard

Posted on April 22, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

Dance Through the Decades Visual Diary (Rough Plan, Subject to Change)

Visual Elements	Audio Elements
0:00 – 0:20 images of dancers feet, stretching and warming up	I plan to use a mix of the audio I used for the audition section and other interviews from other dancers throughout the whole film
0:20-0:40 images of empty stages, stage views of auditoriums
0:40-0:60 dancers performing onstage

Final Draft Audio Story

Posted on April 10, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

For my final audio story I made minimal changes to my original draft. The main change I made was finding a royalty free audio track that was the same length as my interview so that I would not have to edit the music. The draft I created had longer audio than my interview which resulted in somewhat choppy sound editing as I am not very strong suited to edit music. I kept the same formatting as before, I just cleaned up a few answers such as cutting out a few parts and eliminating long pauses. I only used the answers the mother’s and I recorded about our experience in the dance world to make the interview very personal. I considered adding in audio from other dancers but I ended up keeping the original audio only because I found it to be more intimate. Through my interview, I wanted to convey the impact that dance has on individuals as well as the impact that dance has on the world. I used an inspiring track and my mother and I’s own personal experiences to hopefully portray this in a minute. I am happy with the outcome of my audio story as I feel it accurately conveys the message of my blog while also conveying my story as well as my mother’s.

Draft Audio Story

Posted on March 20, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

For my audio story I used clips from an interview I conducted with myself and my mother. My mother and I have both been dancing our whole lives so I thought we would be good sources of knowledge for this topic. I wanted my audio story to convey how important dance is, not only to dancers, but to everyone. I combined the answers to give a natural flow to the audio as if it was a conversation. I tried to limit the amount of interview questions because I think the audio sounds better without the questions between every answer. I used a simple piano song in the background as a nod to the piano music played typically in ballet classes and also to give the audio more of an inspiring feel. For my final draft I would like to possibly find some other interviews from dancers over the years that I could use. I also need to either find a better audio or find a way to better edit the audio for my final draft. I am satisfied with how this turned out. Most of what I will change for the final draft will be small revisions to polish this project and make it neater. I think it does a good job of communicating the message of my blog, overall, and fits in well with the other media I have created.

Raw Audio

Posted on March 17, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

Audition Tutorials

Posted on March 13, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

Final Logo

Posted on March 6, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

For my final logo I wanted to keep a majority of my original design with just a few minor details. When I was making my draft logo, I noticed that the timeline itself looked like a barre and that the pins on the line looked like dancers. In my draft logo, I added a thin circle around the tops of the pins to mimic the arms of a dancer in high fifth and for my final logo I wanted to make the barre illusion more apparent. Most barres have two bars connected to a post on either side. I added the other line at the bottom to give this effect but I made it’s weight slightly less than that of the main line so as to not distract from the timeline as a whole. I actually increased the weights of all the lines that were in my original draft by 1pt so that the addition of the other line would not degrade the design. I want my logo to be scaleable so the line weights are important to keep in mind. I kept the logo in black and white, again referring back to my graphic collage in which everything was in black and white to give a very timeless effect. I decided to keep the fonts the same because I like the effect that they give and I think they do a good job of highlighting my theme of “Dance” and “Decades”. Overall I am happy with the logo I created and I think it does a good job of conveying my theme.

Draft Logo

Posted on February 28, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

For my logo design I wanted to mimic a timeline as my theme is “Dance Through the Decades”. As I was playing around with the timeline design I found that the the lines going through the baseline almost looked like dancers at a barre so I added a thin circle around the dots to imitate a dancers arms in high fifth position. As I stated in my Photoshop collage, I think that ballet is one of the most important styles of dance and is very central to all other styles which is why I wanted to incorporate it into my logo. For the text I wanted to make “Dance” and “Decades” the most prominent words as they are the most important in my theme. For the words “through” and “the”, I wanted them to look as if they were flowing between “Dance” and “Decades” to give the effect that all the time is fluid. I kept the logo in black and white to reference back to my Photoshop collage to achieve the same timeless effect. I made sure that the line thickness was thick enough to scale up but kept it thin enough that it wasn’t overwhelming on the smaller scale. Overall, I wanted this logo to portray my theme in a fun way and I think that I achieved that. For my final logo I want to explore other fonts and possibly make the timeline resemble a barre more, but I like this logo as a starting place. Links I used for inspiration will be in the footnotes of this post.

https://designshack.net/articles/inspiration/10-tips-for-designing-logos-that-dont-suck/

https://mashable.com/2014/04/30/logo-design-tips/

Logo Sketch

Posted on February 26, 2020 by autumnbuckosh

This is a very rough idea of what I would like my logo to look like. I wanted to play on the idea of a timeline since my theme is “Dance Through the Decades”. However, I would like to find a way to make it a bit simpler.