Academic challenges must be met with an open mind while remaining grounded in intense discipline and focus. In the Information Technology program I am studying the use of computer technology for the benefit of various industries. The beauty of Information Technology is the applicability it has to many areas of human endeavors including both business and art. The business side of the subject matter is designed to generate efficiency in industry and ultimately generate money by driving production at dizzying speeds. The artistic side of information technology seeks to tell stories of human significance to an ever-wider audience, and to visualize or to make audible things that the artist had hitherto only been able to conceptualize in their own minds. I have always been interested in artistic undertakings and throughout high school I worked with local graffiti artists, and collaborated in graphic design with numerous groups. My passion for visual arts led me to become the group leader of the Miami River Mural project. Through the project I learned valuable lessons in management, and the importance of collaboration in completing large-scale public works. The biggest lesson of the Miami River Mural project is that artists have a difficult time paying their bills and a starving artist, dumpster diving to feed themselves, can hardly afford a pencil. And yet, I still wanted to tell a story. One that people would listen to.
My generation doesn’t remember a time before the home computer was ubiquitous. We’ll never really understand the carefree world where a date wouldn’t be interrupted by a ring or vibration of a communication device. My parents had computers in the home from before I was born, and their nature as furniture, garbage, and treasure troves of entertainment or data, made them amenable to my natural youthful inquiry. I’ve been taking apart and rebuilding computers ever since I can remember since and it’s morphed into a hobby. This hobby eventually taught me a discipline that was transportable to jobs that people would pay for. As an assistant at the Acupuncture Medical Center in Miami, I helped the doctors and nursing staff conduct the flow and storage of information freeing them up to take care of the patients. Discretely controlled data flows could be established whereby administrative duties and the retrieval of patient data would be streamlined. Seeing people get better is inspiring, and I had the opportunity to learn different skills, like communications, and administration. In my present position as an Audio/Video & Computer Tech I have honed many of my skills, including: website creation, customer service and support, teaching, and hardware maintenance and repair.
I really love how movies tell stories. The visual effects can leave us in amazement or terror and the effects of sound augment the emotional pulley. Films created by the DreamWorks Studio drove my initial interest in artwork generated by computers, and as a result I have taught myself to use Photoshop and AutoCad in order to make my own artwork. With the use of a computer, and the correct software, one is able to make awe-inspiring graphics and wondrous sound effects. There are vast visual that I’ve only seen in my head, and nothing can quite replicate it, except a computer. My career goals involve the use of my computer skills to produce movies. Working for a company like DreamWorks or Pixar would allow me to harness the vast amount of computing and talent resources necessary for the tale I’d like to tell.
DreamWorks is responsible for a large number of movies, television programing, and videogames. These works are modern drivers of art, and the company is at the forefront of cultural innovation. The first movie produced by the studio was Antz, a film that used computer-generated imagery to tell the tale of a dystopian ant colony in Central Park of New York City. The ant society is totalitarian and the inhabitants are conformists, aside from the main protagonist who is an individualistic ant played by Woody Allen. Drawing on various artistic themes, the movie was a fascinating and amusing tale, albeit somewhat dark. The artwork generated by the film was exciting, and as the 2nd film to ever be created using computer animation represented a revolution in what computers could do for people. Since this first film, DreamWorks has produced a number of CGI movies, but it was when I saw Antz, and the rendering of Woody Allen’s face onto the body of an ant, that I first became truly excited about what computers could do for arts sake.
DreamWorks, and their productions, in effect inspired me towards exploring the types artwork that could be done with computers. Prior to watching these animated movies I was content to paint and draw with pencils and markers. The computer provided a new medium to express myself through artistry that did not replace other art forms, but freed me to create effects that I had visualized yet couldn’t illustrate. Scholarship assistance would enable me to pursue an internship at a company like DreamWorks, and expose me to the practical aspects of telling a story through computerized animation. It would also give me greater freedom to find inspiration. Art is often rehashed and reinterpreted. Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood is Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and the musical Rent is a modern take on La bohème. The scholarship would allow me to go backpacking in Europe to view the prior generations great works of art and architecture in Paris, or maybe attend the opera in Vienna.
In sum, my goal is to tell an interesting story that will impart a lesson through the use of computer technology. In my amateur, professional, and academic orientation I have focused on the computer as the medium to tell my story. Being selected for the scholarship would empower me to further explore my interests in the arts and hone my computer skills to assist me in telling the exact story that I want to tell.
