Showcase

Welcome to my Freestyle Showcase page! My name is Hannah Kitamura, and I am a student at Freestyle academy, class of 2022. At Freestyle, I am taking Film, Digital Media, and English. This is my first year at Freestyle, and it has been a challenging year. I never had any prior experience with working with cameras, Adobe programs, and other various tools introduced to me through Freestyle, so it has been a learning curve. Freestyle challenged me in ways I haven’t been tested before, as I had to push myself to think outside the box creatively, and work with new people to create something.

The main reason why I chose to do Freestyle in the first place is because I want to work within the entertainment industry in the future. I have dabbled in the fine arts since I was young, taking dance and art lessons, and in more recent years, singing, acting and technical theatre. I wanted to expand my resume and learn about the film industry, and dabble in acting in front of the camera as well as how to produce a film, starting from the pre-production process to the post-production process. While my college plans are not set in stone, I will be majoring in something related to theatre or film.

Reflections

The first ever film that I made on my own was for the Reflections unit, where I made a two-minute short film about anything I wanted. I chose to focus on human connection, specifically through hand-holding. I this theme since it was the first time I was going back to school and spending time with my peers since the pandemic started, and I never realized how important human connection was.

I wanted to include visuals of me spending time with my friends, as well as footage of other people showing affection towards their loved ones. I wasn’t too confident in filming, and I didn’t know how to edit my footage at all. A lot of shots turned out blurry, and I didn’t do much editing. I did like my theme and overall message, but I wish I was able to edit more to make it look a bit nicer and cohesive.

Zenith

One of the last film projects I worked on at the end of the year was the Zenith Project. I partnered up with my friend Josh, who I met through theatre. We both are aiming to do theatre in college, and we also wanted to involve theatre in our final film as a passion project. We decided to create a promotional documentary for Upstage Theater’s production of Little Shop of Horrors, which Josh was directing, and I was assistant hair and makeup.

There were several challenges as we were filming this documentary, as Josh and I were incredibly busy. There were also several other factors that were out of our control, and we had to adapt to new curveballs on the spot. The Zenith presentations were a week before tech and performances, so we were unable to film those portions, and we lost all production photos due to a corrupted SD card. While things didn’t go to plan, Josh and I were still able to post a promotional documentary that we are proud of.

Reflection

Overall, I can see the growth I made from my Reflections to my Zenith. I am proud of both, and I enjoy that my Reflections shows who I was back at the beginning of the school year, and that my Zenith intertwines who my passion for theatre.

Overall, I think I grew as a creator since the beginning of the year. I learned several new tools and skills, and I worked with new people throughout this whole process. I learned how to be adaptable, and overcome challenges by working with others.