My final project is a short film, “A Day in the Life of Xander.” Xander is my two-year-old tabby, who I rescued from a home with animals that were aggressive toward him when he was just a few months old. Over the last couple of years, I’ve realized that I have one of the most mellow, easy cats I have ever met. He doesn’t get into much mischief, and he is a big cuddle bug that desires to be in the same room as someone else- all of the time. Xander is my first pet and has become an essential part of my family. Before having this sweet loaf of a cat, I was honestly a dog person, haha. After having complications and setback after setback with my original project idea- I realized I had a perfect project partner sitting in my lap the entire time I struggled with my original idea.

My original idea was to do a claymation stop motion film, but this project was more challenging to my experience. Most of the videos I have done with multimedia have been stop-motion, and they don’t always need a lot of transitional or effect editing. With stop-motion videos that I have done in the past, I have either sped up the frame rate, deleted unappealing shots, and added music over the top. With this short film, I was able to experiment with different transitions, editing sequences, and screenplay additives with clip art files. I am proud of how this project turned out; and was fun to create. I hope everyone enjoys watching it as much as I enjoyed spending this time filming with my Xandy boy.

By Ashley O’Connell