Goodbye

I don't know if anyone will read this, but I just wanted to say thanks to all of you for this last semester. As most of you know, I am going on my mission to Ukraine on May 18th. I never expected to be so blessed as to be admitted into my major and among so many talented people so soon in my college career.

You all really are very talented. I have been so humbled to see the works you produce and the way you think. Especially Nephi with your animations for storyboards, those blew my mind. Drew and Babetta too, you guys will go far with your talents.

I tend to learn by shutting up and watching what those around me are doing. You guys never disappointed in providing terrific insights and making me push my vision of the world.

To those who I have worked with, thank you for the amazing experiences. Fun times and enriching field experience, I loved every project. The last one was especially cool when I had the opportunity to work with Brenna and Mariana. And those of you that I never worked with, I regret not having enough time to get to know you better. You all had better be doing mind-blowing things with your education by the time I get back. I don't doubt that you will.

Amy, you have made a great class. It has been a very friendly environment, which is more than I can say for most of my classes this year. I have been challenged in each assignment. Overall, I have really enjoyed this experience. Good work with the educating.

Again, thank you all. It's been real. It's been cool. Thanks for letting me share in your media experience. Good luck to you all, and I hope to see most of you in 2013. Friend me on Facebook if you think of it.

-Brandon Porter

FINAL blog post

I feel very strongly that my final project really reflects who I am as a Mormon artist and shows a glimpse of my goals for future projects as a Mormon artist and as a member of the BYU film program. I feel very passionately about both my explicit and implicit projects for different reasons. My implicit project really comes from my heart. There is a lot of room for interpretation on the part of the audience. There is no specific sin committed that is overtaking the main character’s being. This open ended sin allows the audience to place themselves in the main character’s shoes because we have all been in a place like that before. We have all felt like our sins have gotten out of control and caused us deep despair that brings us to our knees. I really wanted the character to seem relatable and inspirational in the sense that his sins are forgiven him and they are also forsaken. My goal was to make the repentance process seem possible and worth the despair because we can be happy again if we repent and become clean. Personal interpretation is a huge part of my implicit piece which I hoped to intrigue the audience with.

My explicit project is a documentary about children’s view on the repentance process. This was slightly more difficult because the kids did not respond in ways that we were expecting. This is a lesson that we as young filmmakers needed to learn at some point—things do not always work out the way that you expect them to. Sometimes you have to go with the flow, make do, or maybe even change your story based on the material that you are able to capture. However, I feel like we were still able to capture the point of the documentary. I really wanted to show repentance through the eyes of children because of how spiritual and inspiring children are. All of these kids will one day have to repent if they have not already and it is important for them to know the importance of repentance as well. Also, there is a lot that adults can learn from children, even in the gospel and I wanted to exalt the children’s views and opinions because often times they are overlooked by adults even when they have such important things to say. Sometimes we just need to kneel down and listen, which was my goal of our explicit documentary.

Working in a group was extremely helpful and wonderful. I love collaborating on projects because I feel like the possibilities of the projects grow with the more people that are involved. I know that there is a lot that I need to learn that I can learn from working with my classmates so I really enjoyed collaborating on my ideas with my group members. It is always a pleasure to work with other aspiring Mormon artists and to incorporate all of our ideas really takes our projects to the next level.

Mormon Artist Response

Collin--I was very interested in hearing your father; a successful Mormon artist, talk about the hard work that it takes to actually be successful in writing. He was able to help me understand that most of the time success comes out of a lot of planning and sacrifice. I thought that you edited the interview quite well and showed us his work in a very visually interesting way and I just really enjoyed hearing about him. Thank you! Job well done!

Casen--I really loved your brothers work. I personally love the sky as well, so I can understand what he see's in it and why he chooses to photograph it. I thought that it was well edited and very fun and interesting to watch! It was a great example of art where you go for the things that feel good and right and focus on the things that give you joy and make you feel the spirit and through that, make others feel the spirit when they view you art.