Claire  Nicholson

about claire

My name is Claire Nicholson, and I am a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, where I earned a B.A. in Studies in Cinema and Media Culture.

My background focuses on video editing and post-production, with experience using Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Illustrator.

I’m particularly interested in motion graphics, narrative storytelling, experimental work, and commercial editing. I enjoy exploring how pacing, composition, and design work together to create visually engaging and cohesive projects.

film projects

Insomnia

This project was a way for me to experiment and connect physical media with digital editing. My process began with a concept and filming all my videos. Next in the process was sequencing them all together in a timeline.

Once that was completed, I turned the frame rate down on each clip to around 8 frames per second. I took each frame from the videos that now had fewer frames per second and printed them out on paper.

I drew, cut, and wrote on the different frames. After I finished altering all of my frames on paper, I scanned them back into the computer and arranged them in the timeline. Once my video was finished, I added sound design.

Drawn frames

What AI Can’t Learn
About Creativity

I addressed the prompt about what AI can’t learn about human creativity and expression.

I created motion graphics and used any videos I had on hand to try to see what I could make without going out and filming with a specific project in mind.

Bell Museum Advertisement

This was a faux advertisement I created after seeing an exhibit in the Bell Museum. I used After Effects to create motion graphics and mixed it with videos I took of the gallery.

Molecule Marketing Graphic

Using a camera in After Effects, I created this motion graphic for Molecule Marketing. I created the molecule-like shapes in Illustrator and imported them into my project.

I then animated the rotation of the circles and created moving dashed lines by adjusting the stroke gap settings and keyframing the Offset. I added blurs, changed the lighting, and added lens flares.

Dunn Brothers Coffee

This video was made primarily to show a Dunn Brothers Coffee location in different ways using cinematography.