iMovie Project

A Day in the Life of an Art Student by Kendall Hart, Jessica Allen, & Emily McKenna

In this short film, we wanted to show what a day spent at the Alexander Calder Art Building is like (hence the title). Specifically highlighting the struggles (messing up art works, over-caffeinating, waiting for the Macintosh Labs to cooperate, carrying too much, etc.) and trying to put a sarcastic, light-hearted, and satirical spin on them. 

We begin our film with Kendall walking into the building on a dark morning at 7:50 am, to show how early most students show up for classes, and that don’t end up leaving the building for another 12-15 hours, and sometimes even longer. And how often times those students get here in the dark, and leave in the dark. Emily is the next character to enter the film, getting on the bus at a fairly early time as well. She shows how all students riding the bus must deal with overly full buses where it’s a common occurrence to not receive a seat; For art students not getting a seat means also carrying all of your bags on the bus as well. We then show Jessica, our overly-tired, sleep deprived character who has spent so much time on campus the scene opens with her sleeping at an early hour, implying that she had so much to do she ended up just sleeping on campus. The remainder of the film follows these three characters throughout the day by highlighting struggles (or naps in Jessica’s case) and humorously mocking how it feels to be an art student. 

We chose the majority of our music to be a sad violin instrumental, accompanied by the theme music from Jeopardy, intense music, Big Pimpin’ by JAY-Z, and Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds. Most of our music was to add an overly dramatic spin to our feelings about our days. Big Pimpin’ was used in a day dream Jessica was having while napping. And to finish it off, Simple Minds famous song was used in the final scene and credits of our film to end on a high note, of accomplishing and living through another day, while also mimicking the end to the famous flick “A Breakfast Club.” 

We went in to shooting our scenes with only rough ideas of what we wanted to capture. But we all seemed to have a similar idea of what we wanted to portray, and in the humor and style that we wanted to portray it in. Using iMovie was relatively easy, and we all took to the software quickly. Although we only had a rough idea of what we wanted to accomplish, we all worked together smoothly, and communicated well and were able to create a short film that we were all pretty proud of. 

MindMap:

Timeline of Film / Member Tasks:

Kendall entrance: Jessica sleeping

Title to time (6:30 am)
Coffee grounds/filling of pot
Emily bus entrance
Emily entering building (first shot approaching door)
Coffee cup filling/draining
Emily opening door hitting bags

EMILY:

Kendall walking into computer lab/down the hall
Emily locker combo
Kendall at computer logging in/start loading
Emily at locker/cramming in
Kendall computer loading still
Jessica sleeping--Illustration couch
Coffee filling/draining

JESSICA:

Emily painting/coffee dip
Kendall waiting at printer
Emily painting white paint
Jessica sleeping-White chair studios
Coffee filling/draining
Kendall at walking into room/microwave OR vending

GROUP:
Jessica sleeping-enterance hallway
Daydream with money-Green screen

KENDALL:

Emily drawing charcoal on hand
Jessica/Emily stuff on face
drop pencil box
Kendall computer dying
Kendall walking out at night (Jessica sleeping background)\
Hands up and "Wednesday Check mark"

Credits

The Final Product, AKA "A Day in the Life of an Art Student":