Creative Projects

Here you will find all my creative pieces across my college career. Pieces are arranged by time, newest at the top, oldest at the bottom.

Antarctica Proxima

For my final project in ART179: Experiments in Digital Worldbuilding (Spring 2025), I compared the geography/climate of Antarctica today, and of Antarctica 250 million years in the future. Based on Scotese projection, continental drift will guide the continents back together, into Pangea Proxima, or “the next Pangea”. In the project I explore the vast differences between the frozen continent today, and the diverse landscape of tomorrow.

This video still needs improving, I intend to add subtitles and properly cite Christopher Scotese’s geological work.

A large part of ART179 was learning Blender, which I had never used before. I chose to do the work in “low poly” (the term for using less shapes/geometry) due to my laptops limitations, and my preference for 2D animation. Still, I created 3D assets such as the South Pole and the ferns. The clicking/mouse animation was done in Adobe After Effects, and I narrated the piece myself.

Mystery at Mead – In Progress

This was my final project for MS131: Interactive Narrative Design. I created a text-based video game about Lake Mead, the lake above Hoover Dam. Inspired by the lake’s history, H.P. Lovecraft, and pet goldfish; the story centers around uncovering secrets of the mob, and why so many people go out into the lake, but don’t come back…

This game is, simply put, FAR from done. I was restricted by time, and didn’t finish the final product by end of semester. I am continuing to work on it now that I’ve graduated. Here it is, as it stands currently:

itch.io

note: in the credits I acknowledge that I used ChatGPT in the creation of this work. I forgot to clarify, and will edit the file soon, that AI was used as an assistant to learn HTML, not create any content. All copy is my own work.

(Un)filter – Senior Thesis

This is the final product of MS190: Senior Seminar in fall of 2024. I originally set out to animate the pilot of Self Destruct, but the project became unmanageable for the time period. This forced me to pivot, but made me rethink core aspects of my series which will be useful in the long run. This piece is an adaptation of the final scene of the pilot, in which a mother tries to get her daughter to take her medications. The barrier around the daughter distorts the mother’s words, displaying the unreliable narration of mental illness.

The accompanying paper can be found in:

Academic Writing

Backpack – Shot-by-Shot

An experiment with shot-by-shot animation for #inktober 2024

Drawn and animated in Adobe Animate.

“CLASS REGISTRATION”

This piece was made for the Studio 47 Challenge, in which filmmakers are given prompts to create a short film in 47 hours. I later recycled my work for my MS170 “Digital Cinema: Experimental Animation” final, in late November 2023. The subject matter was inspired by a conversation I had with a professor about student stressors. I mentioned it was a particularly stressful week because the course schedule dropped. “What’s stressful about registration?”

Special thanks to Clara Desmond for providing the prompts and always supporting my art.

Drawn in Adobe Photoshop. Animated in Adobe After Effects. Audio recorded in Adobe Audition. Edited and assembled in Adobe Premiere. Sound effects downloaded from pixabay.com.

“MEDIUM”

This piece was made for MS170 “Digital Cinema: Experimental Animation” on November 9, 2023. When I heard the prompt, “animated documentary”, I winced. As I explore in the piece, I don’t know my medium, but I know I’ve never had any interest in documentary. Unsure what topic to explore, I remembered that the pieces from “Introduction to Video Art” that were best received, were the ones in which I explored a facet of myself. I often find myself toggling between art forms, and that internal struggle finds form here.

Special thanks to Tristan Phipps for audio assistance and for believing wholeheartedly that I have the right to call myself an “artist”.

Drawn in Adobe Photoshop. Animated in Adobe After Effects. Audio recorded in Adobe Audition. Edited and assembled in Adobe Premiere. Sound effects downloaded from pixabay.com.

“A DAY AT THE BEACH”

This piece was made for MS170 “Digital Cinema: Experimental Animation” on October 9, 2023. The prompt for this assignment was “walk cycle”, and rather than a humanoid figure, I opted for evolution’s greatest achievement. As for the plot: the Greeks wish they wrote a story this tragic.

Drawn in Adobe Photoshop. Animated in Adobe After Effects.

“WORM”

This piece was made for MS170 “Digital Cinema: Experimental Animation” on October 3, 2023.

What appears to be a simple 20 second animation, is actually the product of 5 hours of me swearing at my computer.

Plus side: I now know how to morph shapes in Adobe After Effects.

“REMEMBER”

This piece was made for ART148 “Introduction to Video Art” on April 13, 2023. The prompt for the assignment was “rules of play”, and I started to think of all the rules I’ve lived by, past and present. This piece follows 12 years of social rules I never really understood. One prevails over all.

Disclaimer: I am not happy with the audio. I was crunched for time and forgot about it entirely; I have since attempted to clean it up.

To employers: I will never neglect audio again. Mistakes = lessons.

“Illusory”

“Illusory” – based on illusion; not real.

This piece was made for ART148 “Introduction to Video Art” on March 9, 2023. In it I focus on the dialectical contradiction of the permanency and the impermanency of the written word. I confess and explore my fear of historical documents. I experiment with jump cuts and auditory rhythm.