Reflections

Reflections unit was about a time to look a back, and reflect, on what we’ve done and the skills we have gained at our time at Freestyle. The main overarching question was who am I? Throughout the work we did, we threaded through the concept of self expression and identity.

MANDALA

The mandala project was a chance to show our creativity through reflections… pun slightly intended. We worked through illustrator to create rings, then using masks so they would duplicate what was on one slice of the circle.

B&W Mandala:
Title: Astral Layers
Statement: I wanted to create a Mandala that not only had layers with space themes, but had layers that described me. Turns out those are two similar things. I created the design similar to the universe. The further out and further in you go, the more abstract it is. I also really wanted to test the detail on the laser printer, so I made really tiny details all over the piece to see if it could print them. The inner layers I wanted to represent things I really love. So yes, that is the death star and several super hero logos, but I feel that’s all very me. Most of it was experimental and just playing around, but I did have a very fun time making it. The symmetry looked so cool.

Colored Mandala:
Title: I promise the stars and the moon
Statement: I wanted to create a Mandala that represents the moon and the sun intertwined. It represents more then just my love of space, it represents a desire to give to my brother. A promise that I’ll be with him and helping him regardless the circumstances.

COLLEGE PERSONAL ESSAY

The college personal essay unit in English was extremely helpful, one of the best features of freestyle is the assignment of the essay, which the common app uses, we get guided instruction, as well as reading and studying how to write essays, and peer review. I wrote my college essay on a really sensitive topic and an important and personal part of my life, so I will not be sharing it here. I hope that is understandable. I still owe you an essay I guess so here’s a quick essay I wrote. – Side note a big comment were learning about is how to use A.I. ethically, so we have to credit where and how we used it, since I haven’t used A.I to write an essay before, here’s a practice in quoting it MLA style.

“write a two-sentence essay, comedic in nature and poking fun of itself for being short. – use common language.” prompt. ChatGPT, 3.5 version, OpenAI, 18 Nov 2023, chat.openai.com.

Please note that the essay and prompt is meant to be comedic and satirical in nature, I understand the ethics and responsibility of using A.I in writing, I went way too far with this joke and couldn’t stop.

MOTION GRAPHICS

We got to learn After effects! I was so excited, Adobe After Effects to me has always been scary, a powerful tool that I found myself constantly getting lost in, but learning to use motion graphics within it was fascinating. I also went through a bit of a phase where I loved Darth Vader, you’ll understand in a second.

In middle school, I loved listening to remixes of movie songs, I would watch the videos and they always had a sound bar that bounced with the music, and I would be constantly fascinated with it, I thought it would be so hard to do. It turns out its not that hard.

We were learning how to do motion within after effects, I was also really into John Wick at this point and I really wanted to animate a quick bit to the song in the trailer.

Rotoscoping and Motion Graphics are extremally important skills to understand and be able to use, they are powerful and can be very helpful in filmmaking, rather then having to go frame by frame changing the mask. I don’t know how much time this technology has saved me but I’m guessing its a ton.

FILM

Reflections Film

How do you summarize yourself and your unique perspective, especially through film. I find a lot of what makes film makers unique is both what they show in front of the camera, and what they don’t show. The concept of the assignment was simple, make a film no one else but you could make from your unique perspective. I first wanted to do a film about maybe space, or acting as I love both of them. But what I realized was a lot of people could do those stories, and probably have. No, what I had to do was shoot a film about cheerios. My favorite breakfast food/snack.

Green Screen

Because of freestyles new campus, we have the ability to use the brand new greenscreen room. The goal of this exercise was to make a shot that looked like the environment around it, and to practice green-screening. I… took some creative liberties with the assignment.
Please note, the following footage is satirical footage of what Youtube gamers marketing towards kids looks like, the types of videos I used to watch… and make.

1 Period Videos

You have 1 period to make a film… GO!

1 Minute Videos

Over the course of three school periods, we wrote a one minute film, gave it to a different group for them to shoot while we got a different one to shoot, then did the same with the footage to edit.

The one we wrote

The one we shot

The one we edited