FILM & VIDEOGRAPHY
GrACELAND
Produced and Edited by Nina Segal
Music: "Graceland," by Paul Simon
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The short film, “Graceland,” directed and edited by Nina Segal, is a stop-motion animation made entirely from paper cutouts, with stills taken from a documentary-style video on a family trip. Originally filmed in Tacoma, Washington, Nina was inspired to make the animation at her brother’s college graduation, with the film mirroring her relationship with her brother as they grew up to moving on to the next step of life.
Tyrannosaurus Rex Paleoart Process
By Callum Carter-Klauschie
In this piece, I began by importing a reference for proportions and blocking out the figure of the main subject of the painting with thick, messy lines. I kept tweaking it until I was happy with the base. I then add another layer and refine the shape as well as some basic details like fully shaping the lips, refining the tilt of the head, and the eyes. In this stage, I made sure to draw a few lines and wrinkles to show the contour and shape of the animal's body. This helped me to shade later.
After this step, I thought about my color palette and any patterns I wanted on the skin. I am often very indecisive about which colors and shapes I use and spend quite a large portion of time considering what will make the most sense and look best. I end up using countershading in this painting, which is commonly seen in nature and means the top half of the animal's skin or coat is darker while leaving the bottom half lighter, allowing the animal to blend into its surroundings. I then added the shadows to my animal and began rendering. When I am doing this step, I always make sure to think about how my lighting will affect the drawing if it were 3D, and where the light would reach. This process is always slightly different for every drawing I'm doing, but I tend to do a clipping mask with the filter multiplied on for the shadows and a separate clipping mask with the filter overlay for my highlights. Because shadows tend to feel cooler, I give them a blueish purplish hue, and because highlights are often warm, I tint them with yellow or orange. I like to turn off my color layer when I am doing this, so it's easier to perfect the lighting.
The next step is where it really gets time-consuming. This is the rendering phase where I make the scales, refine the textures, and vary the colors. I add veins and rimlight. Throughout this process, use the same brush to make it look a bit like a traditional painting. Once I'm finished rendering the Tyrannosaurus, I turn to the background, thinking about what the lighting on the animal means for the background as I color the sky a light blue. I paint a few trees and add a subtle blur to keep the focus on the dinosaur.
COLORFUL MINDS
Production, Videography, and Editing by Nina Segal
Music by Arielle Efron
My name is Nina Segal, I’m a junior in AMPA at Hamilton High School, and this is my documentary! For a lot of my life, I felt that I was trying too hard to be creative and not just naturally being creative. One day, I was sitting in my room, brewing and complaining about not being able to think of anything to film for my assignment, so I pulled out my camera and started filming myself being in a writer's block. This launched the idea for the film, and I decided to interview some of my beautiful friends, all of whom I would personally consider creative, to see if they felt the same. The music in the film is created by my best friend, Arielle Efron, a senior at BHHS, and I, after being in a similar creative block. If anything, this film showed me that everything has to come from something, and there’s no way to begin if you can’t bring yourself to change your perspective.
