Welcome! My name is Aiya Yankovskiy, and I am a film student at Freestyle Academy. My classes that I took this year were Digital Media, Film Production, and English. Although a two-year program, I joined Freestyle for their 2019-2020 academic year as a first-year senior. Most of my high school career, my classes had a heavy focus on traditional academics where I prioritized sciences. My art background wasn’t very developed outside of drawing as a hobby. I am extremely happy I had the opportunity to join Freestyle as a film student. My experience with film was practically nonexistent prior to this year, and my technical and creative skills has grown exponentially since I started the program. What I love most about Freestyle is its community and openness. Everyone is here for a reason, and they share their passion with their classmates.
Outside of Freestyle, I am a professional fencer and a coffee barista at my local Starbucks. I have been fencing since 2011, and have represented the USA overseas in Cadet and Junior national tournaments for two seasons. I recently committed to Temple University’s Division I Women’s Fencing Team, which currently stands at no. 5 in the NCAA rankings. In the little free time I can find, I love exploring new places with friends or family and listening to music. Late night drives along the coast are my favorite. I value logic and structure greatly, which sometimes conflicts with my creative side. But here where I live; in Mountain View, California, I have met many others who have helped me find a way to cohesively blend these two sides into something unique to me. A lot of my art and projects are typically dictated from a more structured perspective, and I take pride in my organizational skills that helped me also develop good time management.
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to review my work. These projects have unique compositions as well as experiences behind them I will never forget.
Senior Zenith Project
A SPACE MOVIE was, to say the least, both the best and weirdest experience I have had with digital productions. On one hand, I was collaborating with friends and getting to learn new programs from a filmmaking perspective, yet on the other I barely slept, stressed over every small mishap, and wondering if I would be able to accomplish any work remotely once the coronavirus lockdown shut me inside my home.
With Alex Beattie and Cristian Pilling, this project made use of our pre-production, production, and post-production skills we developed throughout the Freestyle program. By drafting a rubric that would evaluate our success as a team and that of our project, by creating a detailed calendar to set our deadlines and manage time effectively, and by writing a project proposal to brainstorm ideas and finalize our vision, we were able to create A SPACE MOVIE. It was absolutely no easy feat, but well worth the time when seeing how much not only I, but my partners grew as production artists.
We were extremely ambitious, and wanted something that resembled a space brawl or interstellar chase to fully display how impressive virtual production could be. Space is especially hard to replicate in movie settings, with special limitations both added and removed when considering things like gravity or lighting. But the scope of this project was more than sliced in half when the shelter-in-place was announced for California, and thus we eventually decided on a trailer after also running into numerous technical issues. Because we did not have the access to Freestyle-level, otherwise industry level, equipment like before, our little laptops were practically cooking when we would attempt to further complicate environments in Unreal Engine 4 or Blender. Sadly, we do not have machines that eat crash reports for breakfast available at home. Despite this, Alex and I were able to work around the visual limitation and manually remove or add elements that we could place and film with. The presentation below details my specific focus in this project, where I was responsible for art direction and environment integration.
by AiyaY, AlexB, CrisP
Mandala Project
This project was one where I could showcase my design abilities, while learning how to use Adobe Illustrator for the first time. I focused on emphasizing even the smallest of details near the center of the mandala.
I used spacing to create contrast between the sections of the mandala, but also to not make aspects too obvious. If you look closely you can see a koala figure all around the outer ring. If you look even closer, you will notice the small faces near the center.
REFLECTION OF GROWTH
In my past year here at Freestyle, I have learned an enormous amount not only about design, communication, and modern technology; but also about teamwork, community, and who I am as a digital artist. Whether it was editing in the film room until 11pm, or staying up for days learning both Blender and Unreal Engine 4 with Alex only to have to explain our progress to Cris in the morning, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything else. My only regret? Not having been able to join this program in my junior year. The community here is passionate about the work they create, and they support each other each and every day. The environment also helped me progress as a digital artist, with people not only in my elective class sharing their frustrations or successes in class. Everyone’s unique perspectives showed through in their works, and I drew a lot of inspiration from what sets me apart from an everyday stranger you meet on the street in my own projects.
Freestyle let me take my artistic preferences from a hobby to an ability where I can create almost anything without limits. Each project had its ups and downs, but the learning experiences I took from them are irreplaceable.