Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Events & Activities

2013 Festival of Scholars

Creative Concepts

Date:	Tuesday, April 24
Time:	10:00am - 11:00am
Location:	Humanities 124
Description:	From the delight of brainstorming, design journals and spontaneous play entire universes are emerging. Presentations of original work of sophomore multimedia students as they create characters, places, objects and stories to fill their worlds.

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Student Abstracts at this Session

Student(s): Jared Beeson Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Thomas the Teenage Avocado This project is about an avocado's quest for love and acceptance in a human world. Many people can relate to being a minority or a newcomer. We all know what it is like to try to be accepted. The goal of this project is to explore assimilation into a culture in a humorous and lighthearted adventure. This story was created with a concept development process in which we took inspiration from a random collection of pictures and words. After creating a story from this random collection, we developed a more structured story and designed images of our characters, places and objects in the story.
Student(s): Danika Briggs Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	The Psychology of Reality and Fantasy Colliding in Break The narrative I have written, "Break", holds importance mainly for the young community by providing entertainment and encouraging imagination. Ultimately, the goal of "Break" is to preserve youthful mindsets, allowing creativity to never be forgotten. This will be accomplished by providing a work that starts in a realistic setting, eventually transforming into a fantasy world where virtually anything is possible. Displaying the underlying message that anything is possible will give the audience a particular outlook on life; taking risks to gain rewards. In order to create this concept, I used my current, surrounding reality plus my reconstructed imagination, essentially using the underlying message in my narrative as my own motivation. Methods include class collaboration revolving around creative brainstorming sessions, ultimately leading to the establishment of characters, places, and things.
Student(s): Felicia Castro Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Trogalicious Mess-Capades Trogalicious Mess-capades is an action-packed fictional story that centers around the life of three characters, Kylee, Luke, and Jim, whose lives merge together when they are faced with the horror of themselves and the evil of the planet Trogalicious. This story was created to explore the human struggle against their psyche and their environment, and how life is affected by the interactions of beings. By using fictional alien-like creatures and allowing readers to personally connect with them, Trogalicious Mess-capades becomes a vessel for understanding the reader's own self. Through the use of immediate imagination and Adobe Illustrator, the world and characters of Trogalicious Mess-capades take life.
Student(s): Brandon Comer and Eric Renn, Drake Martin Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Sexuality and Existentialism in the Modern Space Epic My purpose is to show how modern space epics rely on sexuality and existentialism to tell basic stories. To expand further, I will explore how most modern epic stories (including both literature and film) use sexual story lines and a search for their character's own purpose in this world to give very basic stories more meaning. For instance, a young boy from a small place who must venture out and become a man through his trials and tribulations. I used concept design and parallelism to complete this task. I used concept design to create a universe of my own, with a very basic story. Then, I created a small story line of a love interest and a search for purpose for the protagonist to create a more elaborate story. Then, using parallelism, I showed how my story relates to other popular stories out now.
Student(s): Giselle Fernandez Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Finding the Beauty of Life Through the Power of Dreams: As Explained in the Story Through the process of creative development, we will dive into a story filled with hope, fear, courage,and discovery. Everybody dreams. Even mermaids dream. Ria is a mermaid in Ocealtna who dreams about leaving her small underwater town and venturing to the big city, Oasis. With visuals created in Adobe Illustrator and presented through Powerpoint, I will not just tell but show the world of Bend. Through the pursuit of dreams, we will discover the beauty of life. This story is a spin-off of the story "Break."
Student(s): Heather Garcia Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Amper's Nuts In Amper's Nuts, you will be able to look into the 22nd century world of an outdated Mini Cooper named Ronnie. This fiction is based on the lives of Ronnie, a car with no self-esteem, an enthusiastic oompa loompa named Aloobobby, and Vladimir Bolshevik, a Russian mechanic with a hidden secret. It takes place in a flashy city in the US called Huffington. The climax of this story comes when the three characters get pulled into a supernatural universe, creating a cliffhanger as they try to find a way out. Thanks to a cluster of media, art, visual surroundings and pure imagination, this story was written to create a new and adventurous world with three very diverse characters.
Student(s): Jacob Gibson Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Fuzz Man The world is in danger from a force that has never been seen before. The Most Interesting Man in the World, is at it again murdering and pillaging. The only one who can stop him is Fuzz Man. He was born with strange powers that allowed him to control foam, and father was murdered by The Most Interesting Man. Since then he has trained to avenge him. Fuzz Man is a twist on the modern superhero. Throwing himself into battle with nothing at his disposal but his foam and his wits, Fuzz Man travels the world fighting lesser nemesis' in search of his enemy, The Most Interesting Man in the World. A wall of cut out pictures was used to create this concept and it was developed with concept drawings (Photoshop and Illustrator) and an in-depth media book, which will be presented in this session.
Student(s): Taylor Guyette Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Love With a Twist in the Story of Political Sunshine The presentation will showcase the story of Political Sunshine and the twists and turns that the characters take during the course of the story. With love, fighting, drama, and plenty of curveballs, the story has at least one element that every person can relate to. After the presentation the audience will see the elements come together in a creative mindset. With multiple techniques used in both the hard copy side of the procedure, and the digital side of the creative process, the story will come to life and allow the audience to grasp the inner workings of the artistic world that is being portrayed. From creating the storyline, developing and shaping the fine details, and illustrating the imagery that brings the audience into the experience; the presentation will show the process it takes to create something that will become a cohesive art of the mind.
Student(s): Amanda Johnson Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	The Misguided Adventures of Hersha In this presentation I share the process of developing this story, how I created the plot and characters, and how I came to the end result. This is a concept story that follows a young troubled girl as she gets thrown into an alternate dimension and finds out where her true destiny lies. Through the story Hersha faces discrimination for her strange looks, she finds a mentor and guide while at a low point, and battles the people who are trying to prohibit her growth. Through group work I was able to develop the characters. Brainstorming and feedback helped with the development of the plot, and the places and things were created with the help of my own experiences. This story was developed through a series of different creative ideas and collaboration with which helped to ultimately create the story.
Student(s): Drake Martin and Brandon Comer, Eric Renn Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave' in a Modern Context Through concept design and storytelling, we follow the story of Sylvester, the modern day everyman. He makes a concoction in his kitchen, and upon consumption, it pulls him through a vortex into another dimension. Little does he know that he has created a drug that the US Government has been attempting to eliminate for the last three decades. In this alternate dimension, there are hypnotized hippies everywhere, except for Sylvester. Can Sylvester avoid the government agents and make it out alive? The purpose of this work is to allude to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in a more modern and understandable manner.
Student(s): Maxine Nelson Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Exploring the Importance of Creative Thought Through the Development of "The Awkward Tree" Demonstrating the importance of creativity in a person’s life, and society as a whole, is artistically explored through the development of the creatively-challenged protagonist of “The Awkward Tree.” This story features businessman Ross Whitman who has been sentenced for eternity to a rubble prison for letting his mind waste away. He must be removed from society until learns to imagine. The goal of this project is to explore how a man who cannot contribute innovative thoughts to society, directly related to this story beginning from my own imagination. The methods of developing this story began with gathering ideas from selective images. I refined the appearance and purpose of each character through concept drawings and collaboration with other students.
Student(s): Christopher O'Shea Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	The Ludicrous Contest The wizard Smoopus uses his magic and Hixertazink copy machine to create an outstanding work of art in order to win a day as the king of Aberdeen. I want to show how creativity and lunacy can be beneficial in creating a story rather than detracting from it. The main design method used to create this story was the process of "shotgun story boarding" wherein the class had to extract ideas and conventions from random articles, advertisements, and editorials from the magazines. After that, I streamlined my vision by trimming any unnecessary details and ideas. A foray into an unforgettably bizarre universe where only your suspension of disbelief can save you.
Student(s): Eric Renn and Brandon Comer, Drake Martin Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Religion, Morality, and the Struggle for Power My project is an exploration of religion, morality, and the struggle for power in the context of a high fantasy story. The purpose of this project is to learn about the creative process through example. Using methods of creative and improvisational brainstorming, I generated a simple concept that served as a basis for my story. Through analysis of the creative process and collaboration with classmates, I elaborated on my concept and developed it into a full story. Throughout the story, Nietzsche's "Will to Power" is a prevalent theme as everyone eventually becomes consumed with their wills to dominate. A deconstruction of modern storytelling tropes lead to some of the creative decisions made in the development process.
Student(s): Jordan Terwilliger Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	The Power of Vengeance Over the Human Psyche There is nothing more dangerous than the power of the human mind and the influence of its emotions. When the young girl Sharocka discovers that her older brothers murdered her parents, her entire life is turned upside down. This story will uncover the influence of betrayal and the power of vengeance overtaking the human mind. Through concept drawings and digital illustrations, the tale of Sharocka comes to life. She must find the strength to take the lives of the only family she has ever known. The power of the human mind is infinite… driven by emotion, unstoppable.
Student(s): Heather Wilson Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Curiosity in the Ocean A young mermaid finds a gold necklace by the shore, and becomes curious of where it came from. Living her whole life in the deeper ocean, she asks her brother to tell her more about what goes on on land. They spend their time talking near the place she found the necklace, and overhear men talking about its magical qualities. They then venture on to decide what to do with this magic, trusting in each other along the way, which brings them closer together as siblings. The purpose of this story is to show how adventure can help people become closer as individuals as well how curiosity can be positive as it evokes you to open your mind to new things while asking questions that expand your knowledge. Creative concepts, imagination, concept design, collaboration and computer graphics programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator were used.
Student(s): Austin Wollitz and Matt Hirsch Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	The Story of Crazy Jim and The Celery Man Crazy Jim and The Celery Man is about a drug addict who finds his purpose in life and reaches enlightenment. He is a drug addict and professional musician. One day Crazy Jim accidentally kills his producer while under the influence of drugs. Pained with his actions Crazy Jim goes on a quest to redeem himself and change the world for the better. He goes on many adventures and searches for the Fountain of Truth, with his (imaginary) confidant The Celery Man. He meets interesting characters along the way in the land called Lacuna Land. The story focuses on the bond of two friends and a man's paralleling quest to find his purpose in the world. The story is an example about an individual's personal journey to find himself and overcome his addiction. This project was developed through the creative process of story telling and concept boards, using magazine clippings and sketches as source materials.
Student(s): Gustavo Youngberg Faculty Mentor: Mr. Daniel Restuccio	Unwilling: The story of a Father's Journey to Rescue His Beloved Daughter Unwilling is a story about a young actor who is thrown into a series of unfortunate events that change the course of his life. His life is turned upside down when his adopted daughter is abducted. Through his journey to rescue his beloved daughter he learns the full extent of his love for his family and the lengths he will go to preserve it. This story examines and demonstrates the values individuals have on their families and the extents that they can go to save those who they hold dear to their lives. The methods used for this creative concept included the use of a "story wall" (a collage of magazine and newspaper clippings as source material), the developing of these concepts, and the refining of these concepts through quick sketches, pitches, and story telling.

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