Reflections

The reflections unit was the first project of my Senior year at Freestyle. It was designed to answer the question “Who am I?”. In English, we had to write an essay, which doubled as a college essay, about ourselves. I wrote my essay about a very personal subject, and it was difficult for me to write about something that was so emotional for me. I persevered through the assignment and I’m really proud of what I wrote in the end. I was also glad that we were working on out college essay.  In Digital Media, we wrote a speech and made a video based on a personal opinion we held. . In Film class, we made a video essay that was meant to show something about ourselves. I made my film about singing, and I was very happy with the result. It was difficult jumping back in Freestyle after summer, but I think the Reflections project was very good way of easing out of summer and back into school.

 

Personal Essay

To write my personal essay, which was also a college essay, I had to think of something that would make me stand out. I ended up writing about a very sensitive subject. It was difficult to figure out the topic and have the guts to write it down, but when I did I proud of what I wrote. When I was done, I didn’t feel comfortable recording it, so I instead recorded a short story I wrote. I think both piece, my essay and my short story, show two different sides of who I am. My short story is more lighthearted and funny, and my essay deals with a very serious topic.

A girl walked down the street.

It was dark and gloomy outside, the sidewalk damp and shiny from the rain. The smell of wet asphalt and rotting leaves cut through the air, mixing gently with the acrid odor of gasoline from the dozens of cars lining the road. The quiet was interjected by a loud laugh from a nearby house or the whine of a hungry dog. Streetlights interrupted the night with small puddles of yellow, flickering light.

The girl walked further and further away, speeding up with every step. My pace stayed steady. I looked down at my shoes, leaving faint wet prints against the deep gray concrete.

She dropped something.

The object cut through the darkness, stopping me in my tracks.

A pencil, bright neon green.

I slowed, walking almost tip toed until I reached the pencil, half submerged in a greasy puddle, and picked up the lost item from its dry side, wiping off the dirty part on my jeans. The viridescent hue shown even brighter when held to the sky, the yellow moonlight reflecting a brilliantly bright aquamarine.

I only had one lingering thought in my head

“Wow that’s a one neat freaking pencil”

 

Perspective

For our Perspective project in Digital Media, we had to share an opinion or perspective that we had, and make a rant about it. After, we had to make our rant into a video with visuals. I decided to share an opinion I had on food, more specifically ravioli. I was very passionate about my topic, and I think it showed in my video. I had never used After Effects before, but I figured it out pretty easily because its similar to Premier Pro, which I have more experiance with. Once I got a feeling for the shortcuts, the process of staggering all the picture and lining them up with the audio went pretty fast.

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We used After Effect to add pictures to the audio of our Perspective Piece. We found pictures for each part of the audio, then added it in at the right place.

 

Video Essay

In Film class, our assignment for the Reflections unit was to make a video essay that showed who we are and how we think. I eventually decided to do my video about singing, which is something that I like to do but I’m not very good at.

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To make this video, I used my DSLR to film my friend Julia doing the things I described in the narration of my video, like balancing book on her head. I used shots of myself cooking eggs, and enlisted by little brother to get other shots. For the shot of musician, I went to the farmers market and filmed the person performing. I then edited everything together in Premier Pro. It was a pretty simple project, so I just put the clip together so they went along with my voice over. To make the film look better, I color-graded a lot of my shots in Premier. I then added a music track in the background that complemented the theme of my video.

I used Premier Pro to edit together my video, and also color-grade and stabilize some clips.

This project was very different than all the other projects we’ve done in Film class so far. We’ve been learning about narrative structure and how to tell a good story, and this project was much more abstract. The project seemed like it would be easy at first, because it was shorter and involved less production. However, it was hard to find a topic that was original and unique to myself. I ended up going through a bunch of ideas before I found one that worked. In the end, I’m very happy with what I made, and I think it really does show how I think.