Introduction
The Explorations project was set for us to create a project surrounding our elective, film, and finding something we don’t know how to do, and then proving how we have mastered it, through a final project.
For me, I decided to research and discover the history and uses of Drone in a cinematic aspect. I decided to choose this because not only did it interest me, but Freestyle has a drone that we could use. This was pretty cool because i was the first person to use this new drone, so I was really able to discover and solve all of the uncharted questions and problems that I encountered. After all of my research, I started to replicate some of the cool shots that I had seen at freestyle, and that is when a lot of my fellow students started to show interest, with some even telling me they had no idea that we had a drone. Drone usage is definitely an innovation of the 21st century and as we dig deeper into what can be done, we keep finding innovations where the drone can be utilized to get extremely unique shots. elevating the visual experience.
Process
For the process of the explorations, I dove into research and experimentation learning everything there is to know about the drone that Freestyle has, history of flying drones, how they can be used and then showing my ability of mastery with my final project. While doing this I spent hours watching videos explaining how to set up the drone and answering problems that I ran into such as when the SD card would not work, or when the RC wouldn’t actually connect. While researching and learning about the history, I interviewed cinematographer Mike Abela, who has been experienced with flying drones since they had come out 15 years ago.
He really helped paint the picture for what drones had come from, and where he thinks they are headed in the future. He helped explain that drone usage is not really limited to many constraints which gives it so much freedom and creativity in cinematography.
Final Production
Reflection
This is my final project, a series of cool drone shots that I collected over my time. This whole project was definitely one of my favorites because it opened up this whole new world of cinematography that I will be able to use for next year at freestyle. I can tell that it is meaningful because there were many people who went up to me when I was filming at freestyle, who said that they wished they had learned how to use it. Outside of freestyle, when I was filming, people thought it was so cool that I was filming, and the weirdest part of it was, that you could not tell that there was a drone above most of the time because of how high it was, which is a little creepy.
Music Production
For my music production I decided to work with my friends Nate and Evan where we wanted to sing “All I want for Christmas is you” by Mariah Carey. we thought this would be really fun because we all love this song and are constantly singing it, even when it isn’t Christmas time. We utilized the recording studio and multiple instruments and our voices to create this lyrical masterpiece.
Artist Statement: I am really proud of what we were able to achieve because all three of us have not played any instruments in a long while, and we have no background in singing. While I think our pitch wasn’t the best, this was definitely a creative and fun project where we were able to learn some really cool things about the new recording studio, which we will be able to use in the future because of this project.
Lyrical Essay
A lyrical essay for me is a descriptive for of something that you want to express in a artistic way, not set to any parameters. I think that it allows for incorporation of figurative language like metaphors and descriptive imagery, which paints a great picture that the reader can relate to. While Mr. Greco was out, with the help of Mr. Geier, we studied the meaning of a lyrical essay and how pieces which are very different, can all be categorized as a Lyrical essay because of their detailed features. We looked at pieces from David Foster Wallace and Ross Gay among others, to help us form out Lyrical essays.
For mine, I was inspired by my APUSH class where we learned about the history of the US, and its themes and events. This made me think about all of the history that has happened in my lifetime and I wanted to reflect on that somehow, so I created a list of events that have happened in the past 17 years, and then I added my thoughts and feelings about each important event and my experience with them.