Explorations Project
In the explorations project we have to learn a new skill and teach it too the class. As a film student our skills have to be related to film. Our skills also have to be connected to a 21st Century Skill which is a core value of freestyle. My project was teaching the film skill of fight scenes to the class. I took the 21st Century Skill of risk taking because fight scenes are extremely complicated and I took a risk choosing such an ambitious topic. I also created a video essay instead of a longer slide deck which took way more time but I think it improved my overall presentation.
My process for creating my project started with lots of research. I thoroughly researched everything about a fight scene from stunts to story principles. I spent a lot of time learning how to make the stunts as safe as possible to not injure anyone while filming. After doing research I created a document where I broke down the skills needed to have a successful fight scene. The skills I learned were stunts, editing and story. After this I got 2 actors and spent around a hour teaching them how to punch safely and do some stunts. I then edited together my little scene which is toward the end of the video. I then started to write a script for a video essay explaining everything I learned and showcasing what I created. This ended up being super time consuming but it was fun. I completed my video and my slide deck in around 2 days.
Overall I am happy with what I created. I was a little rushed because of finals and baseball so I didn’t get to spend much time on it but I feel I utilized the time I did have really well. It was a challenge to stay up very late editing during finals but I think it was worth it to have this project. I really liked how the explorations project is structured. We were given limited instruction which allowed us to be super creative. It was also awesome seeing everyone else’s presentations.
MUSIC RECORDING
The music recording project was a fun experience. We learned how to use the recording studio to produce professional sounding music. We decided to cover In the Kitchen by Renee Rapp
Artist Statement:
For our music recording project we covered a song by Renee Rapp called in the Kitchen. I was on piano while Julia sung. Julia was inspired to pick the piece because of advice from her voice coach and I thought it sounded great as well. I am most proud of how I was able to pick up this song from never having heard before and have the chords come out okay. I really valued gaining a deeper understanding of how to record music in music studio which is something I wouldn’t be sure in doing before.
LYRICAL ESSAY
A Lyrical Essay is a complicated genre of writing. It is a mix of a traditional essay and poetry elements. They can almost feel like a stream of consciousness and be very abstract. For my essay I wrote about my feelings as a jazz improvisationist as a metaphor for my life. It was a great exercise and felt almost therapeutic in nature. I wrote almost all of the essay by just jotting my thoughts down and reorganizing to make a coherent piece. I really liked how it turned out. My essay was inspired by Ross Gay who wrote the “Book of Delights” which was a collection of essays on things that delighted him. I tried to do a similar thing in writing about improvisation.
