My name is Max and I probably go to film school. While on a hiatus, I decided to reconnect with one of the people I used to know in high school, Connor Pilot. I'd always go watch him play with the band he'd fire every night before rehiring them the next day because he wanted to play again. I've seen him play everywhere, ranging from a small community center to a slightly larger community center. Watching him grow as an artist and seeing his confidence increase is why I've chosen to document his life. Connor Pilot is, in my professional opinion, the most influential artist of our generation. Although he hasn't influenced anyone, his unique views and his affinity for playing the guitar are matched by almost no one in his general vicinity.

 

 

I spoke to him about his early life and the tough time that he had growing up. I truly believe that his resilience is inspiring and his music reflects the hardship he has endured. He also talks about his strained relationship with his family and how it has shaped who he is today. He also talks about mentors and friends who have helped him along the way.

 

 

 

I was given the opportunity to observe and speak with Connor as he took me through his routine in the studio. I got to see the true genius in his work and the amount of mastery he has over the studio. I have never seen a more efficient or creative recording artist at work.

 

 

 

 

 

Every artist has goals, so I sat down with Connor to discuss his outlook on the future. His optimism is electrifying and his knowledge of trends in his industry is vast. He discusses how his work compares to others. I personally assure you that the world will wake up to his genius, so I've already gone ahead and created the cover for the Rolling Stone magazine issue that he will grace.

The purpose of the innovator project was to do exactly as the name suggests: innovate. Our task was to choose a field the interested us and to create our own project using the freestyle guidelines. As you can see on this website, Max and I created a mocumentary based around a character that we created.

The innovator project was great fun we had an amazing time exploring and writing comedy wth Mr. Greco, filming the sequences, and editing the clips. The primary purpose of our project was to explore the stereotype of the typical rockstar and to take someone who wouldn't be so out of place back in the 1980s and put him in 2016. We can't ensure that everyone will find any of this funny, but we are very proud of our work. We also learned a lot about comedic devices from Mr. Greco and applied them to our script. Neither of us are very skilled at video production, but that worked out in our favor given that we wanted to paint Max's character as inexperienced. Attached below, you can find the pdf copies of our research papers. Karna chose to write his about the falsehood of the rock and roll stereotype and max chose to write his about... Thank you for exploring our fake website about a documentary that doesn't exist about a character that isn't real!




                                                                                                          Reflection


My partner Karna and I chose to do this project because we both love the same kind of music and are pretty interested in comedy. We decided to create a mockumentary after Karna had told me about the movie Spinal Tap, directed by Rob Reiner. We had been talking about the film for a while before realizing that we wanted to produce something similar. We’re not incredibly funny guys but we do get by with the occasional quick remark. We also have no skill in the film industry, so at the beginning, we knew this would be a good challenge.

During our research process, we gained insight into the public perception of the famous, the basics of comedy, as well as the essence of mockumentaries. All of these aspects are ideas on which we previously had little to no knowledge. We attended workshops specific towards producing a comedic script for the film. This was a great help for the overall process. It allowed us to gain insight on how to properly structure the flow of the script. Our research gave us the ability to create something cohesive with the Innovator Project.

Karna and I worked really well together on this project. I was surprised at how easy it was to work with him. We created an environment in which our ideas flowed freely. We were almost perfectly in sync for the duration of the project. Together, we had very few issues involving production. We have two very different ways of thinking that I believe complimented very well and that fact, I believe, was very important for the initial writing for our mockumentary. It was a very natural process and we managed to add even some of our own personal types of comedic strategy to the film. We also got some very good outside assistance and critique during the scriptwriting process.

If I wanted to do this project over, I would probably consider spending a lot more time on the production and editing of the film over the actual scriptwriting. Karna and I have zero film experience as Web/ Audio students so that aspect of the project was very straining and difficult for us. We probably should have also taken initiative and used the expensive resources available to us at Freestyle such as high quality film cameras and editing programs. Without these tools, we produced a fairly low quality film in the visual sense. The videos overall were low resolution and choppy. We spent the majority of our time on the writing portion of the project, so we were basically camping out in the English room, getting very helpful tips along the way. This managed to improve the comedy aspect of our project including the flow of the story. Although we wanted a better quality film, the fact that it was poor in quality only matched up with the story even more, given that the documentarian character was supposed to be an amateur film school dropout.

If I had to think about which 21st Century Skill I improved upon, it would definitely have to be teamwork and collaboration. I think that my ability to work with others has greatly increased and I have gained new perspectives on teamwork which will allow me to work more fluidly with others in the future. Karna and I were close friends before the project so team work wasn’t too hard in the beginning but I believe that we became better and better at working together as time went on throughout the weeks. One skill we didn’t do so well with was technological literacy as we failed to utilize the tools we had access to at Freestyle and settled for basic and cheaper products.

If I were to continue thinking about my future in academics, teamwork and collaboration would be a great skill to utilize in the future. It’s essential for working with any group or partner and allows for ideas to flow freely and for work to be done efficiently. I have learned to take initiative and I believe that this will be of great importance to me.

By doing something completely new and outside of my comfort zone, I think I really stretched my abilities as a student. I had to learn on the fly and managed to expand my knowledge on foreign subjects. If I had chosen to do something more similar to what I had been learning for the past two years at Freestyle, I do not think I would have grown as much. This was an entirely new and exciting experience and I’m glad that I chose to do something so far out of my skillset.

I value this project because it allowed me to actually enjoy learning something new. I gained new perspectives on subjects that I’ve always been interested in such as classic rock and comedy. If I had the chance to choose to do another project, I would shoot it down because I think my partner and I made a very valuable decision.