For this project I chose to focus on the lyrics "turn it into an empire... breath out, breath in, American Oxygen" because for me they hold the most meaning and impact. They make me feel as though I really can do anything.. When thinking about how I wanted to handle this project I envisioned a documentary. I felt it remained true to the song and its music video. However, instead of doing a video I stuck with the 21st century trend of gifs, or moving pictures. Although nearly everyone has seen a gif on Facebook or tumblr, most don't know that              , the website for making gifs, has over 100 million daily users who send 1 billion gifs every day, according to             . I thought it was an interesting way to capture the essence of the lyrics that I was focusing on while simultaneously differing it from more typical documentaries. I opted to shoot with an iPhone over a camera because the style of the music video was very similar to a home movie and people take home movies these days with their phones.

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I chose to specifically focus on eight people because the song was the precursor to Rihanna's eighth studio album. After taking the picture of each person, I asked them, "how would you describe the American dream in 3 or less words?"After I had the pictures and was making the gifs, by having the typing effects on their answer builds on the fact that our American Dreams, whatever they may be, are currently being written. We are deciding how our futures are changing in this very moment, and we ultimately will decide what will get written. I chose to use the black and white filter because I thought it brought more unity to the entire image as the different backgrounds with color can be a little more distracting in my opinion. However, I did add a colored filter to the colored version which definitely added unity, I just felt as thought the black and white was more effective.

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Initially I only wanted to use pictures of international students because I thought I would get more interesting responses. However, I quickly changed my mind when I realized that the topic of the American Dream is up for debate with Americans as well. I was shocked to hear some of the responses from both international and American students. Overall, I am happy with the outcome. Not only have I been learning more about myself as an artist but as a person as well. These eight simple moving pictures along with the lyrics of the song shed light to the incredible divide in feelings toward the American government and American Dream.

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CHANCE PROJECT

I decided to use this project as my Chance Project as well because the tone and direction of this entire project depended on chance... had I asked differed people it could have ended up entirely different. Just by chance my views started to shift and change about the American Dream because the reactions that I got from these eight people were so far from what I was expecting. I got the idea for the project from one of my favorite songs not knowing that in the end the project would actually be shaping me and changing my views of this country that a lot of us call home.