[“How can you find, explore, and/or expand your passion?”]
This unit was focused around focusing on our specific passions within each class and expanding on our knowledge of that particular skillset.
Music Recording
In Digital Media, we had to get into groups and create either an original or a parody song using the new recording studio and ProTools.
I had so much fun making this. I mean… you know, of course I did, it would be hard not to have fun making something like that.
I worked with Maisie to make a Christmas carol rap song, because that’s what my first song was about, and because I really miss Christmas. You know, at the time of making it, we were almost as far away from Christmas as one could get in a year, so I wanted to commemorate the holiday season.
Lyrical Essay
In English, each student had to make a lyrical essay (an essay in which is focused more on the art or poetry instead of being formatted as an article whose sole purpose is to give information).
It was really fun writing this! I’m really grateful Mr. Greco lets us explore more ‘artsy’ forms of writing, it’s so much better than writing normal essays!
I wrote mine about being an (identical) twin. I wrote down a few conversations I had with my sister the day she won third place at an art competition. A while ago she asked me if it was bad how much grammar and vocabulary we ‘left’ around each other, and it prompted me to put some context to our conversations in order to talk about our relationship.
Animation
Our next project after the documentary was to explore a topic of our choice (so long as it was related to art and animation).
I partnered up with someone else in Animation, Lillian, which I don’t think has been done before, but I’d say it went pretty well!
We both wanted to explore different things, so we decided to combine our projects together to make kind of a music video / introduction to characters within a show. We each made one character and made a story around the two of them, and went from there!
I chose to explore post-production animation in After Effects and storytelling through colour. I can’t say I’m too happy with the colours in the short, but I am very happy with what I learned and got to experiment with in After Effects!
I chose those two things because 1. I really really love cool lighting, it just makes everything look better, and 2. I really really really love good colour. Neon colour is my favourite, I don’t think anything can beat neon lights— a combination of both best things!
This has been the project I’m most proud of all year, and I’m so happy I got to end Junior year off well. I never could have actually imagined finishing an animation, or even making anything close to a real story, coming into Freestyle.
I understand now that one of the main points at the start of the year, when I thought all the small projects I was working on in Animation, were pointless, that they were there to help me get started. To work on smaller projects with tight deadlines so you get used to working faster and not being such a perfectionist.
And also, I’m so happy that everyone got to present their exploration projects! I had so much fun, especially because I got to present it with Lillian, since we worked together!
This was so great. It made me so excited to come back next year, and I’m already thinking about what I could do for my senior zenith project!
Overall, the last couple months of Freestyle were unbeatable, and it was such a great way to end things. See y’all next year!