The HEAVINESS Project
Grades: 11th & 12th
Subjects: OSIRIS Digital Media Program, Music Production, Video Production, Sound Design
Key Outcomes:
Mr. Tobias’ OSIRIS Digital Media students worked on a collaborative partnership with senior student (Matthew Tucknies) from Eastern Washington University’s Music Technology department to create an audio / visual video project. Matthew provided music mentorship, creative assistance, and learning resources for our IHS students as they worked together to define their project goals, assign the key roles each student would take, and execute each aspect of the project based on their creative skillsets. This collaboration centered around exploring themes of emotional heaviness that we all have faced throughout the course of the global COVID-19 pandemic, coining this “The HEAVINESS Project”.
Throughout the progression of this semester long project, the IHS students also had the opportunity to tour the Music, Film, Theater, and Visual Communication Design programs at EWU. They got to attend a Convocation performance, and spend time in the Music Technology studio with Dr. Trail. This collaboration with Matthew and Dr. Trail provided our high school students with real life applications of what futures in music, film, audio engineering, and design careers can look like. They were able to get real time feedback on their work as it progressed, and had a final viewing ceremony to celebrate the completion of the project! Their final piece, “THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL” is an audio / visual work of video-art featuring student made music, sound design, film, video editing, and special effects.
“It’s a project about a moment in time, one made by people that lack the clarity and the exact words to describe what they’re feeling, so they create.
It’s why the OSIRIS program exists. It's why art exists. To give raw, evocative feeling to things otherwise intangible. To lift the HEAVINESS of that burden.”
THE WEIGHT OF IT ALL:
A year after the destabilizing events of the COVID-19 pandemic, the OSIRIS Digital Arts Program at Innovation High School collaborated with Eastern Washington University & TECHNO LOGIC to create a short film dedicated to the overwhelming, ubiquitous feeling that clouded our lives post-COVID. Combining high quality macro footage of old televisions and fluid dynamics with the low-fi aesthetic of digital camcorders, HEAVINESS emulates the miasma of dread that looms over us in our modern world.
A Word From The CREATIVE DIRECTOR:
"Working on the HEAVINESS project was a really interesting experience for me. It was the first time I was asked to translate my visual style, something I had been working on fine-tuning for nearly half a year, into something pointed and cohesive. A ‘professional’ project with a title, and a thesis. In this program-wide project, my job was to film and edit footage that we felt most strikingly expressed the feeling of ‘heaviness’. Camcorders, television static, and fluid dynamics became the tools used to create HEAVINESS.
Despite my hand in the visual process, I can honestly say that the OSIRIS program, with its myriad of artists, each with their own artistic niche and skillset, are directly responsible for the HEAVINESS project as you see it now. We developed mood boards, consulted with one another about key themes and imagery, and let our own interpretations of the word guide the creative process of the video. I think now, if I was asked to create something with the exact same prompt as given for this project, I think it would look drastically different. I think that’s what’s special about HEAVINESS to me. It’s a project about a moment in time, one made by people that lack the clarity and the exact words to describe what they’re feeling, so they create. It’s why the OSIRIS program exists. It's why art exists. To give raw, evocative feeling to things otherwise intangible. To lift the HEAVINESS of that burden."
CREDITS:
Zane Guthrie, 12th grade: Composition & Sound Design
Jake Neal, 12th grade: Composition & Sound Design
Lincoln Tabino, 12th grade: Creative Director
Ayden Mandziara, 12th grade: Concept Artist
Aubri Villarreal, 11th grade: Visual Effects Artist
Jake Christianson, 11th grade: Grip
Miller Kuck, 11th grade: Gaffer
SPECIAL THANKS:
Matthew Tucknies, EWU Music Technology Senior
Chelsea & Tobias Hendrickson (IHS & PRIDE Schools Staff / Founders of Techno Logic)
Innovation High School
Eastern Washington University
2021-22 school year