The form of my capstone has significantly varied, but all versions have been centralized around combining music and engineering. I love making any form. Synthesizing an idea into a tangible product is one of the most joyful interactions imaginable, and music is where I most often find this joy. Because of that, the fundamental goal of my capstone is to “spread music.” At first, I believed the best way to accomplish that was through a digital program that would allow anyone to start writing original music quickly. However, when I tried to put this idea into practice, I swiftly realized its infeasibility as it would take no less than 10,000 lines of code to begin to make a semi-final product, and I could barely write 10. After seeing the impossibility of completing my audio program, I switched my capstone to something I have more experience with and is more intuitive to me, building a bass guitar. Making a bass was attractive to me not just because I would get a new bass out of it but also because it allowed me to understand an aspect of music that I previously had no insight into. My first step in this process was designing the bass using fusion 360 to create a profile. Once the design was finalized, I cut the wood, glued it together, messed it up, and had to cut it back apart, then glued it once more. I am continuing to make my bass and should be done soon.

Website with pictures: website

Annotated bibliography: bibliography

The form of my capstone has significantly varied, but all versions have been centralized around combining music and engineering. I love making any form. Synthesizing an idea into a tangible product is one of the most joyful interactions imaginable, and music is where I most often find this joy. Because of that, the fundamental goal of my capstone is to “spread music.” At first, I believed the best way to accomplish that was through a digital program that would allow anyone to start writing original music quickly. However, when I tried to put this idea into practice, I swiftly realized its infeasibility as it would take no less than 10,000 lines of code to begin to make a semi-final product, and I could barely write 10. After seeing the impossibility of completing my audio program, I switched my capstone to something I have more experience with and is more intuitive to me, building a bass guitar. Making a bass was attractive to me not just because I would get a new bass out of it but also because it allowed me to understand an aspect of music that I previously had no insight into. My first step in this process was designing the bass using fusion 360 to create a profile. Once the design was finalized, I cut the wood, glued it together, messed it up, and had to cut it back apart, then glued it once more. I am continuing to make my bass and should be done soon.

Website with pictures: website

Annotated bibliography: bibliography

The Grand Budapest Hotel and Wes Anderson as an auteur revolve around the beauty, wonder, and imaginative potential contained with art.

The plot and structure of The Grand Budapest Hotel are defined by fast pace, adventure, and mystery stories. From the fast plot changes, shifts in perspective, and dramatic escalation of the film, the plot forms a winding maze. Within the first five minutes, we transition from the women paying respects at a graveyard to the deceased author to his self, story and finally to the story told within that by Mr. Mustapha. These elements don’t have a specific meaning or commentary, instead of cementing the surface-level structure of the movie by disorienting the reader. As the movie progresses, this theme is only amplified. The highly choreographed movement of the waiters, symmetrical perfection present in each set, and frequent shifts in time maintain the illusion of a storybook illusion.

As well as having a structure that supports a feeling of unreality, the characters are equally artificial. Mr. Gustave, for example, is full of extremes. He is a hyper-competent concierge who takes great pride in his work, charming and surrounded by admirers, extravagant yet profoundly lonely. Such a polarized character makes his flaws of overconfidence and surface interaction obvious and allows the story to flow more efficiently than if there were more neutral characters. Even more, Mr. Gustave is used as a commentary on Wes Anderson himself. By having an extravagant and obsessive character that mirrors Anderson’s attitude, he is poking fun at the frivolity of his movies but also embracing that fact and demonstrating its intentionality.

In The Grand Budapest Hotel, color and ornate sets give the movie a whimsical, storybook style highlighting the incredible but distinct from the reality of the visuals. In nearly every scene, there is a highly intricate set that makes use of ornate details and highlights symmetrical framing. There are frequent time skips throughout the movie. These are supported with different coloration and a changing of aspect ratio, with scenes further in the past becoming progressively narrow and scenes in the present winding. This creates a semi-conscious metal separation between the many threads of the story. Finally, we see the whimsicality peak through a stop motion chase scene, truly hammering in the imaginative nature of the film by completely switching styles without regard for inconsistencies. 

Another separation from reality occurs with the war happening in the background of the story. Instead of using the obvious connection to World War Two, Anderson creates a fake and much less terrible version of the war with an almost comical presentation. When Zero and Mr. Gustave train is stopped by soldiers instead of a bloody take over, there is a comical fight between Mr. Gustave and the soldiers before Henkel saves them. By limiting the severity and violence of the war within the world of The Grand Budapest Hotel, the attention is taken away from it and allowed to focus on the central narrative of Zero. Having the focus remain on the fanciful plot allows The Grand Budapest to stay story without the sharp edges ever-present in reality. 

Ironically the lack of a greater message is a commentary in itself. Anderson seeks to show that the need for deeper meaning is frequently over-exaggerated, causing us to lose the ability for short-term, surface-level enjoyment of a marvelous story. The Grand Budapest Hotel is an art not to promote a narrative but is for the sake of art. It is the beauty inherent within the intricacy of the ridges and folds of a maple leaf or the motion of a fire blazing. Simply wonderful because of enjoyment derived from seeing something wonderful and amazing. A primary reason for human success is this ability to continuously search for meaning, a group who seeks to understand will naturally obtain greater understanding than one that stagnates, but this evolutionary urge can lead to circular over analyzation detracting from the joy present in the world at large. On the largest scale, happiness is not made happy because it comments on sadness, but for the simple fact that happiness is inherent; happy.

Westerns fundamentally revolve around the juxtaposition of modern, civilized life and the rudimentary, untamed frontier. They take place in a time of transition. One where the inherent human inclination toward expanding territory coincided with the rapid growth of technology. The technology and desire for growth and adventure fed on one another, creating a society evolving at an extreme pace.

“Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid” captures this feeling precisely. To make a poster reflective of this, I decided to follow the example set by the western genre as a whole and combine new with old. To satisfy the classical aspects of my poster, I examined the trope of western wanted signs and previous movie posters and attempted to format my poster similarly. The elements I drew from these were large, centered portraits of the main character in a semi-painterly style and the type font standard in these posters. I also used text with highlighted bars to draw the observer’s concentration first, allowing them to comprehend the information essential to marketing, such as the name of the movie and starring actors, before looking at the scenes depicted.

Contrasting these widely used tropes of western culture are two images in a more modern style. First is a portrait of Butch and Sundance staring into the camera. While the concept of shoulder and up pictures in a movie poster is nothing new, the gradient behind them and the eye contact with the camera is a new twist used in current posters, such as “Moonlight” and “The Martian.” Along with the contrast, the portrait also captures attention. The human face evolutionarily draws our eye. Therefore, having too large faces will lead to more people looking at the poster, which is the goal. The second image I used to imbue the aspect of modernity is a digitally rendered, 3D scene containing a landscape of dunes and rocks with two blacked-out characters walking from left to right. Similar images are not often used in posters because it is fairly monochromatic, lacking the attention-drawing colors and intense action of other posters. In the context of this poster, the unassuming image is a feature, not a flaw. It is naturally observed after the title and portraits allowing for a complete experience of initial interest-grabbing and further exploration. I chose to create this render in the form I did because it emphasizes the aura of mystery and adventure promoted by the western genre. You don’t know why and where the people are walking. All that is known is that they are, giving an incentive to see the movie and fully understand the poster.

Through an integrated combination of attention curating composition and image, font, and color choice, my poster put a new spin on an established art form and serves as a successful poster.