About
My senior thesis project, “UNO!” was created as a creative exploration project, along with being a step forward for me as a visual story teller. As someone who dreams of working in sports media at the highest level, I am inspired how media — hype videos, motion graphics, social media posts, etc — can capture the energy, action, and emotion of a game. This research led me to my senior thesis. In pursuit of creating something unique, I settled on a game of Uno for my video. This challenged me to create a video that showcases excitement, action, and emotion, from a simple card game. Along with the video came 5 posters. These posters were created to represent the video itself, as well as one poster for each character.
This film represents an important step in my journey as a creative. Learning how to make ordinary, everyday moments into something fun, exciting, and cinematic was a challenge. It was essential to find a good location to film this. A plain, uninteresting black background was used to remove any distractions. I chose to make each character match the color of an Uno card. This added more personality to the characters. Along with each character came their own personalized poster.
The green player, Motion Man, played by Jayden Armstrong, represents control and calculation. He likes to be in control of the game. The red player, Crashout, played by Peter Young, was created to represent the rage that an Uno game can bring. The broken pieces of his name on the poster continue to represent that emotion. The yellow player, Wildcard, represents the fun, laid back aspect of Uno. As seen in his poster, he is just happy to be there. Uno is meant to be a fun game with your friends and he is the character to represent that. Finally, the blue player, Sleeper, played by Umair Behlim. He represents calmness and working silently. He shows that working in silence can bring you lots of success.
To match the flow and energy of an athletic hype video, there are lots of animated pieces throughout the film. The first challenge of this piece was creating the motion graphics. Without the opportunity to take the motion graphics course, I had to teach myself the animating skills necessary for the video. This project was challenging and stressful, but extremely rewarding. I feel more prepared to pursue my long term goals of working in creative sports, where creativity, resilience, and the ability to tell compelling stories is essential.
I am extremely blessed for the opportunity to create this project and complete my education at the University of Dubuque. First and foremost, I want to thank my parents, Jamie and Jamison for their endless support. My parents have given me so many opportunities and provided me with any form of support I needed. I literally could not have completed this project without their support in helping me get a new laptop to complete this project. Secondly, I want to thank my friend and mentor, Noah Bullock. He has shown me the art of photography and taught me everything I know about working a camera. I want to thank the professors that have paved the way for my success, including Sheila Sabers, Jean Holdener, Isaiah Overton, Lynn Roth, Jenn Supple, and Sue Ann Marino. Finally, I cannot forget to thank, my friend, Braden Troeger - for being there since we moved in together freshman year, my siblings Camryn and Evan - for being my comedic relief, my girlfriend, Olivia Roth - for being my emotional support no matter what, and Caden Stimmel, Jackson Drobac, Joey Rhomberg, Daniel Sandberg, Jayden Armstrong, Peter Young, and Umair Behlim - for being the people that made my college experience so great.
