By Anne Starke

I can’t remember exactly what Teresa said in our Zoom class while she was telling us about our final project, but it inspired me to make my final project be about something that has brought me joy during these interesting, turbulent times. Life during quarantine has been an emotional roller coaster, but I have discovered small moments of joy and peace while working in my garden. These moments surprised me because even though I’ve been an experimental gardener for years I’ve never noticed how the garden makes me feel, literally, happy while I am in it. So I set out to capture the cuteness of small things in hopes of conveying some of the joy and peace I feel when I engage with them.

I shot the video on a couple of different digital cameras, experimenting with focal lengths and discovering which camera is best for getting down into the plants. Filming allowed me to engage with the plants and bugs in a new way; all of a sudden the caterpillars were interesting subjects rather than evil destroyers who must be eradicated (although I must confess to murdering them after filming them). Interestingly, I often saw more bug activity when viewing the film later than what I saw in real life. I put the video, music and sound effects together in Premiere Pro. It was fun to learn and I know I just barely scratched the surface of what it is possible. The music came from the YouTube Music Library and the sound effects from freesound.org.

I enjoyed this form of expression a great deal. It has definitely inspired me to learn more and continue taking classes in multimedia design.