Art Project Cool- 38

The Cool Fool from Sandy G. on Vimeo.

1. What insights about cool does the art integrate? What do you hope people will realize or question from their encounter with your art?

Some insights about cool that this piece of art integrates is the paradox of trying. Trying to be cool is uncool but you cant be cool unless you put in some sort of effort but it just cannot be shown. The main character "Mike" is seen in several different ways. He did not seem to try very hard to get people's attention while playing baskeyball in the gym. When he does not try the is left unnoticed by one girl and has another girl falling for him. In the cafeteria it was clear that he was trying to get some sort of attention when he walked in. When he does try, people are more critical about his coolness. No matter what you do people are going to have mixed opinions of you. There is no deffinite way of getting everyone's approval. There is no definite way of being cool.

2. Describe the process of making the project - how'd you do each step? If it was a group project, what did you contribute?

It was a rough start in our group (me, Andy, Carrie, Kate, and Rachel J.) to create the video because we could not decide what we wanted to do that would have everyone involved. We finally decided on basing our idea on the show "The Office" where the basic set up is that a scene happens and the characters who are in the scene say their point of view and what they think of the situation. This allowed everyone do have an acting part and we all contributed our own ideas while edited together.

First we did the personal parts where everyone said their character's opinion, then we created the group part. This part was a little different from what we originally planned where there was a "Cool Mike" and an "Uncool Mike" as two different situations with different characters showing the different reactions to Mike. We ended up having Mike as one person where others had mixed feelings about him which seems a little more realistic and simpler to convey. We showed Mike interacing with other people in school and we see him presenting himself in a more casual way and in a more "obnoxious" way. Once we had all of our footage we got together to put all the clips in the decided order and adding necessary effects.

3. Does making art seem cool to you? Why or why not?

I think making are is cool. It is a cool way to "show don't tell." I love making art because there are so many possibilities and ideas to choose from that will fit the art's message, you have a lot of freedom to creating art in creative ways. It can be challenging at times because you want to make something that will grab the audience's attention in a way that allows them to understand what you are trying to show while enjoying the piece of art but once you overcome the challenge it can be very rewarding. Specifically to this video, it was hard at first in deciding what to do but once we did decide, it was cool to collaborate with the rest of my group and make something that we were happy with. I feel like in general, art is something almost everyone can connect to. Art is a general form of expression it can be through audio, visual, movement, there are so many different ways. I think most people can connect with art in one way or another.