Dear readers,
It has truly been an honor as well as a full-fledged learning experience working with all of you over the past few months. I learned so much about my writing, and myself and I feel like I have honestly utilized my creativity to it’s fullest potential in the midst of the last few projects. I have always been an artsy type, but have also been consistently caged by academia, and its expected structures with writing essays, and just writing in general. This class has really let me spread my creative wings and vibrant voice. I learned that I am able to incorporate a poetic voice, even into nonfiction essays. I learned that it is even easier to do that with the help of structuring your essay the way you want to; utilizing paragraph breaks and manipulating sentence structure are just a couple of examples.
With that being said, my last project was definitely the toughest and most time-consuming of all. I attempted to take the theme I worked with in my second essay, and portray the new scope I have recently acquired. The way I write music is similar to the way I write words; I attempt to create an atmosphere that makes it impossible not to ponder; I attempt to make my reader and/or listener reciprocate certain moods, thoughts and emotions. It’s because I believe the audience is the most important part. I am not necessarily worried about perfection, but more interested in reader’s – or listener’s – reaction.
I hope you guys enjoyed my writing because I can definitely say that I have enjoyed all of yours. I’m so happy to have been able to find a group of creators and innovators among thousands of suit & tie, 9-5, business students. It was definitely a breath of fresh air. Cheers.
-Kris Kesoglides
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GKr07-vEu4
Kris,
This is a very interesting piece–and difficult to comment on because it’s so unique and includes as part of the essay’s “story”–musical composition/performance. I think what stands out most to me is how dynamic the essay is. The combination of still words on a blank screen with the movement of the music and camera work are very exciting, and it’s in the interplay of these elements that, for me, the primary mood/sense/”message” of the piece gets conveyed.
I can see where/how this would be a difficult project to complete, because you’re working with all these different elements, and because this project is no outside the box of the typical “essay.” But I think you pull it off–or at least have really begun to pull it off. It’s a thought-provoking and moody piece. I think the section filmed on the bike is still a little too “joggy,” or jumpy. I do love the “interaction” with the other people in the section immediately following, and somehow the jumpy camera works there really well (it suggest joy to me, which is echoed in the guy’s smile). And the music you’ve composed for the final two sections evoke and develop the music from the beginning nicely. I feel something of the same mood from back in the beginning, but there’s a repetition with a difference, for me, in the music, which works really nicely to frame the entire piece. There’s something in the theme of being on the road, suggesting coming home, settling, by the end, and I feel that storyline developed through the music. That’s one of the things I get out of it, anyway.
Well done. This project is one that I will come back to view again and again. It offers a different experience with each viewing.
Cheryl