The Water Street Project Week 10: Final Sprint, Showcase(s), and Reflection
Now that I’ve gotten enough sleep to type a coherent sentence again, I’m excited to talk about both my earlier April 20th showcase, and the Senior Showcase! I’ll also talk a bit about my plans moving forward and anything interesting that’s happened since then.
In the week leading up to my lighting performance, it was an all-hands-on-deck kind of operation. Almost my entire week was dedicated to ordering cords, assembling all of my equipment, writing lighting scenes, practicing and finalizing my Max patch. The equipment was definitely one of the trickier parts of the project, since it not only included instruments and audio gear, but all of the technology that I would need to operate the lighting system as well. I ran on a very small amount of sleep to get things done, especially in terms of the Max patch, but with Dr. Nakra’s help, we made it. Just barely, but we made it.
I think that both the performance and the showcase went really well. People really seemed impressed by all of the different elements of the project that I had set out to make (both in terms of new content and a performance-ready dynamic lighting performance). They definitely understood that the project was a lot of work, but overall seemed genuinely interested in how I controlled the lights and how I went about making something that could work from the perspective of a multimedia designer and a performing musician. One thing I really learned from the showcase is that in a trade-show style event, you kind of have to be a street performer in a similar sense to a street musician. Since I wasn’t in a designated room, I had to grab people’s attention in the hallway on their way to the next room. I found that speaking confidently and loud enough for people to hear me resulted in more people stopping to listen to what I had to say. I also learned that I had to be very quick on my feet with answering people’s questions (some that I hadn’t even really thought about myself), such as “What could you do moving forward with a software like this?” or “How could you make a simplified version of this project without the pedalboard in case I wanted to try a version of the project myself without having to multitask?”
This project taught me about so many awesome things that I was excited to learn more about going into senior thesis. For content, I got to improve on my photography skills, build a new website with my band, shoot some new videos, make new music, and design new merchandise! I will absolutely take those skills that I have developed over the course of this project into my future musical endeavors with the band. I became more well-versed in software like Max, After Effects, and Illustrator. I learned how to use a (fairly advanced) lighting board, with the help of Mark Kalinowski. Finally, I learned so much more about signal flow, lighting setup, and MIDI signal.
More importantly, though, it taught me about a bunch of things I never even wanted to learn in the first place. And I think looking back, that’s one of the greatest things about senior thesis. It’s about getting out of your comfort zone and expanding on what you don’t know, not just what you feel is your “lane.” The first time I walked into Traditions, the lights weren’t even addressed properly. I had to take it upon myself to fix the lights even though I had next to no experience with lights. And there were so many bugs within Max that I just didn’t know how to fix. But that is undoubtedly the best part of senior thesis, because it forces you to be a quick learner and actually take the time to learn things that you never wanted to learn, but those things end up being some really crucial qualities that employers are searching for in entry-level professionals such as ourselves.
If I had the chance to change anything I did, I would give myself more time within the venue so that I could troubleshoot and fix things in a less crazy, constrained way. I think that if I had spent more time earlier on in Traditions, I could have gotten things solved much quicker and maybe allowed for a longer performance than three songs. I would have liked to shoot some more video content and involve my band in the process a bit more, which was also one of the difficult pieces of the project. Since most of the group lives almost two hours away from campus, and most of my thesis work was done on-campus, it was often hard to coordinate with their schedules and make other content with them in addition to my school life here at TCNJ.
Since the showcase, I’ve actually had a follow-up response from one of the guest panel judges, former Cartoon Network VP Alice Cahn. I’ve talked to her a bit more about my project and future goals, and thanked her once again for being at what was a fantastic showcase. I have also continued performing and working with my band. We have been directing contacts and fans to our new website, where we hope to have our second album out shortly along with our newly-designed Water Street merch. In terms of the Max patch project, if I can find the right team of people who are interested and have the skill sets necessary to develop the software, I would love to pursue and develop a consumer-level, user-friendly software that allows even intro-level musicians the ability to customize and control a performance with their own live music.
To any of the future IMM seniors who stumble across this post as they begin designing and creating their senior thesis projects, I say the following:
- Please, please, PLEASE plan out your goals for your project ahead of time. There were so many times where my next steps were unclear, and I felt discouraged by not making progress due to poor planning. A little prep goes a long way; even try just mapping out your big goals, and then break those down into smaller goals you can accomplish week to week.
- Do what you love, and love what you do. Don’t pick the project you think employers will want to see you make. Make what you want to make. And it doesn’t even have to be something you consider to be “in your wheelhouse.” This could be one of the only opportunities in your life to make a really cool project based in something you have zero experience in. Where there’s time to learn and make mistakes and grow from something you maybe don’t know how to do all that well, but can learn a lot from doing.
- The last, most important one: Your professors are going to tell you to get sleep, and eat healthy, not too much coffee or junk food, etc. But let’s face it. It’s the month before the showcase, and (like me) you either put off certain parts of your project until the very end, or your project was really ambitious and you still have a lot to do. The week before the showcase, you probably won’t be sleeping very much. So at the very least, if you’re going to stay up through the night a few times, stay up with your friends. It’s a lot more fun that way, and your friends will encourage you to keep pushing forward with your project instead of watching that really stupid, funny bird video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKFXD46lFnY). Try to avoid your room, as well (go to the IMM building!). Keep in mind that there is a bed in your room trying to tempt you, and that there’s nobody else nearby to keep you from getting distracted other than yourself.
A week and a half before my performance, the lights were flickering so uncontrollably and improperly that Dr. Nakra and I discussed the possibility of cancelling the show, which would have been a huge letdown for myself and everything I had set out to do with the project. The sole reason that I think this project was successful is because of the tireless, collaborative effort between myself, Dr. Nakra, Mark Kalinowski, my peers and my other professors. I am incredibly grateful and indebted to these people for what they have taught me. Thank you.
And lastly, thank you to everybody on Medium who’s been following up on these posts and reading about what I’ve been doing. If I continue my work with this software, I will be sure to post here again!
Best,
-Dave
