Composite the World

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve completed my MFA thesis project! It’s been the biggest undertaking so far in my artistic career and I’m very proud that I was able to stick with it and finish.

I also was honored to come in 3rd place for motion graphics at my school's annual Spring Show!


The Elements from Candice Weber on Vimeo.

From the start I knew I wanted to do something centered around art education and my idea grew out of the first things you learn in any foundations class: the seven elements. I want to use the seven elements: space, line, texture, value, color, form, and shape as themes for the piece.  I thought it would be an interesting project to mix motion graphics with compositing and make each shot represent one to two of the elements.

My top priority was to create a piece which flows together naturally with nicely composited effects. I also wanted to create a handmade or unique look to the piece so I created several original fonts. Overall, I feel I was able to capture the look and feel I was hoping to achieve.  

In addition to my goals for the final look of the piece, it was important to me to improve my technical skill set. In the creation of this piece, I utilized the following programs: Nuke, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Silhouette, and Cinema 4D.

A teacher once told me: “Thesis work take so long to complete, you’re a different artist by the end.” I found that very true, besides the changes from the experience of creating my thesis, time has changed my overall taste and style. I’ve learned new skills which lead to new ideas and it was sometimes frustrating to keep working on the same project for years. I think thats why artists have the tendency to abandon projects, but the nice thing about a thesis project is that you have to keep working and schedule work time or you don’t finish and graduate. So I will probably never do a large project like this on my own again, but I am glad to have this piece as a time capsule of my grad school days.