ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
This…This was an adventure. What should have been a simple assignment turned into what could only be described as a living nightmare. It felt as if the universe was doing everything in its power to stop this assignment from getting done. I started out, ready to make dinner cool cinemagraphs. The story was lacking though. After a few attempts, I threw in the towel on that idea. Then I came up with a great idea using existing footage from Inception to create a humorous scene making fun of those who...might not like Inception as much. (All in good fun, of course!) Yet, I met opposition at every turn, mainly trying to get the screen cap to work.
Finally, I decided to try something radical: make a story out of a space simulation game.
I first started playing Kerbal Space Program last summer, and I've played it a good amount since then, enjoying the challenges it offered and the understanding of astrophysics I gained playing it. However, could this game be turned into a storytelling device by making gifs of a mission? Only one way to find out. However, even this was met with great opposition on all accounts, causing me to spend an absurd amount of time on this project.
The story is simple enough. Some Kerbals (the astronauts of the game) go on a trip to the Moon in a Starship-type spacecraft. They encounter some difficulties, but in the end, they make it back home safely. I tried my best to make the gifs of things that were visually interesting, while keeping the viewer understanding the story line, especially for someone who has not played the game or studied orbital mechanics. I thought of the reading that we did in class a few periods ago, how the fans of something can have part now n the creation of what it is. Turns out there are whole YouTube channels with millions of views of people telling stories using Kerbal Space Program, which is a cool way to engage with this media and shapes the way we view it.
I wasn't able to utilize the repetitive nature of the gifs for effect with all the shots, but a few shots I was, especially with the engine and reentry burns. The rest of the shots are simply loops that look like loops, but yet the medium of gifs created a story that was both concise and visually interesting.
This assignment, in the end, looked nothing like I imagined it or frankly nothing like I wanted it to. And yet, I made something that was fun to make and I learned a lot along the way.
-Tanner Liddiard
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