DOCUMENTATION

30MFF - AirPods Addiction

This project is centered around a film about a person who lacks social skills but is obsessed with AirPods. His obsession worsens his already abysmal social skills and alienates him from his peers. When his AirPods die and he is unable to find his charging case, he returns to those peers and begs for help, only to realize that they now alienate him in the same way that he did to them.

I wanted to create an imaginary campaign centered around AirPods addiction awareness, with the film as an advertisement. I also wanted to create a modern, minimalist UI that would metaphorically mimic the design of AirPods while still serving the purpose of raising awareness for this imaginary addiction.

I used jQuery as a primary library, and various CSS transitions attached to classes to handle subtle animations (i.e. fade-in). Full-page scroll handling was self-implemented, but suffered from issues with inertial trackpad scrolling.

The result was a clean, minimalist campaign website that I was quite satisfied with. I am quite glad that I decided to use CSS-based animations over JS-based animations, as CSS ends up being faster and more reliable. The next step would likely be to account for inertial scrolling, either via library or personal experimentation.


COMIC - Idea

This project is about two people who are unable to decide on an idea for a comic. Eventually, one of the people gets an idea to make a comic about their experience trying to come up with an idea for a comic. The story, in turn, is based on the experience Jana and I had when trying to decide what idea we should implement for our comic.

Jana and I wanted the comic to be recursive, in that the last panel of the comic would loop back to the beginning of the same comic in some way. This simple idea evolved into a slightly more complex idea of having "alternate realities" where each time the comic looped back to the beginning, the characters would change but the plot would stay the same.

Jana was in charge of the illustration component, while I put together the website. jQuery was the primary library, with fullpage.js for full-page scrolling and inertial trackpad scroll handling. Each of the comic panels' layers are fit to a set size to make positioning and animating more convenient.

The result is a lighthearted, performant comic format that I was satisfied with. I am glad that I managed to incorporate Jana's artwork into the site and bring it to life using relatively simple techniques. The next step would likely be to optimize CSS animations performance further and figure out more precise transitions for the recursion part.


SOUND - Hot Wok

This project follows the story of Hot Wok, a band at NYUAD with Aaron Marcus-Willers, Mark Penjueli, and Jake Chouljian. The trio first met at auditions for another band (1AM), and after the dismantling of 1AM, they decide to form their own group. Stylistically, they describe themselves as "indie space funk rock on happiness island" and possess a chill, laid-back sound/harmony.

Ganjina and I wanted to encapsulate the vibe and aura of the band and their music in the website. When the band sent me their logo and social media, we immediately noticed that they used neon, dissonant colors; for example, their logo was red over a blue background. We decided that for the website, we would tone down the brightness of the colors while keeping the basic red-blue pairing, thereby preserving the indie feel without making the website difficult to look at.

Ganjina was in charge of the sound component, while I put together the website. jQuery was the primary library, with fullpage.js for full-page scrolling and inertial trackpad scroll handling. I also used howler.js to handle audio with more fine control.

The result is a website that encapsulates the indie vibe of the band while being aesthetically pleasing and accessible. The next step would be to tweak the audio further (mixing/mastering), and to add an about page (which I totally forgot about).


VIDEO - Bands on the Block

This project follows the story of Bands on the Block, a reincarnation of the canceled Battle of the Bands. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Battle of the Bands was postponed and eventually canceled, leaving bands and fans distraught. However, with the help of Matteo Marciano and several other key figures, Bands on the Block was successfully organized.

Our team wanted to immortalize the event and capture the hype and excitement surrounding it within the video. We also wanted to add a fiction narrative element by introducing Suzan as an ambitious "diva"-type character who is willing to backstab and turn on even her own bandmate for fame. Despite the ephemeral nature of filming live, we did our best to work around the limitations in audio and video through various post-processing techniques.

Amina handled most of the filming, Tori handled preliminary edits, Suzan handled final edits and played the diva character, and I worked on the website. jQuery was the primary library, with fullpage.js for full-page scrolling and inertial trackpad scroll handling. I also used video.js to make it possible to stream higher-quality video footage than normally possible (I actually figured this out after presenting the work).

The result is a website that I felt was a fun take on Bands on the Block.