CLARA GANZ
Animation
It Is What It Is
In response to the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade, DC Animation Studio, Duke & Duck, organized an animated rally, featuring local artists, to create a space to educate & advocate for expanded access to reproductive rights. Selected as a finalist, I created a collage-style animation called “It Is What It Is”
The piece is inspired by HAIM’s song, “Man From the Magazine,” written as an expression of the band’s frustration with the misogyny that overwhelms not only the music industry, but so many other areas of our world as well. This piece serves to empower others to take a stand in the face of precedent, rather than succumb to the complacent mindset of “it is what it is.”
That's All
Grace Ganz is a 23-year-old singer-songwriter based out of Washington, DC. In May of 2021, she released her debut album That's All featuring previously released singles "Fever Dream" and "Santa Barbara Lullaby."
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I created this visual music animation in After Effects as a promo video for the release of the album. The animation features a portion of the first track on the album, "Baby Be Mine." The cool color palette and movements work to match the smooth and jazzy vibes of the song.
Clara^4
The assignment for this project was to create a looping animation using shape layers in After Effects inspired by the word "mirror". I incorporated a continuous line profile of myself with different colors and played around with position, scale, opacity, rotation, repeaters, and trim paths to create unique and simultaneous motions.
Countervail
For this kinetic typography project, I drew inspiration from Nigerian artist Toyin Ohij Odutola’s “A Countervailing Theory” exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum. Known for her exploration of pastel, charcoal and chalk, I was stuck as I was walking through exhibit by the range of values she was able to capture simply using white chalk on a black background. In the opening sequence of my piece, I tried mimic lines of chalk as a means to unveil and guide the viewer through the sentence.
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The word countervail means “to offset the effect of something by introducing another thing of equal force to counter it.” I used “countervail” and its definition as the focal point of my project and chose to use black and white to illustrate two equal forces countering one another.
Holy Crepe!
This film was my final project for my Introduction to Animation class. This piece was animated entirely under the camera in my college dorm living room using a stop motion method and then was edited together in Premiere Pro. Though my mom taught me how to make them, waking up every year on my birthday to the smell of crepes wafting up the stairs is a distinct memory that served as inspiration for this project.
Hairy
Meet Hairy. He's fun, he's cute, and he's living in a whimsical windmill world.
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This film portrays my first dive into the world of digital animation by way of After Effects for my Intermediate Animation class. The objective of this project was to animate a surreal dream sequence from a photoshop collage using found imagery from the web.
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Ever since my hair was long enough to braid, I have had an infatuation with any and all things hair related...I even wrote one of my college admissions essays about it. From barrettes and blowdryers to clips and combs, I chose this project as an opportunity to bring one of my weird interests to life in the most colorful way possible.
A Nerd's Day in Paradise
I created this 25-second film as a visual music piece for my Introduction to Animation class. This piece was animated entirely under a camera with a down shooter set up using "Nerd" candy on top of a Lightbox. This piece was animated in Dragon Frame to the exact beat of the song "Another Day in Paradise" by Quinn XCII.
Not All Balls Bounce!
This flip book style animation was entirely hand drawn on 100 index cards to demonstrate the animation principle of squash and stretch. If you watch carefully, you will see the ball stretch as it falls and squash as it bounces (or doesn't)!
