Showcase

Hi! My name is Lemo Sekiguchi and I’m a Film student at Freestyle Academy. Ever since I was little, I loved telling stories by making skits with my friends. As I got older, I found myself taking as many video production classes as I could for my elective credits. In freshman year, Green Team, the Los Altos High School environmental club I was in, promoted to their members about a short film competition on combating climate change. I decided to submit to this competition and worked on it during my free time, going through the processes of pre-production, production, and post-production. I wrote the film, used green screen virtually on zoom, made posters, and got friends to act in it. Eventually I got an honorable mention and this was how I got back into my childhood passion for storytelling. This drove me to continue creating short-films independently, in summer programs (NYFA, USC, Emerson), or at Freestyle Academy.

For my showcase, I have chosen my film from the Zenith Unit titled, “A letter to our past and future selves”. It is a poetic/experimental documentary that serves as a closing or goodbye to childhood. It reflects on numerous high school seniors around the world, about their childhood memories, coming of age challenges, and what they hope for the future. I chose this project because I believe it represents my storytelling style and voice most effectively. I’m interested in non-fiction stories– especially of those who I can connect with or am similar to. This served as a project where I could reflect on my childhood experiences as well as coming of age challenges while interviewees did too. It was a chance for my partner Kylie and I to demonstrate that even though everyone had a different experience in childhood & in coming of age years, we’re still very similar in so many ways. This project also allowed me to cumulate of all the skills I’ve learned to tell an effective visual narrative, as well as add a new skill of animation. I found my strengths in areas of communication, scheduling, and gathering a story through interview audio.

Another piece of work I produced outside of Freestyle that I would like to showcase is my film titled, “My Past Current Future”. I created this film at a summer program I did at the USC School of Cinematic of Arts in 2022. Although my skills have improved a lot since I created this (because it was before Freestyle), I chose to add this in addition to “A letter to our past and future selves”, because it corresponds and responds to each other in terms of the message and tone.

Also considering my screenplay, “Yoshie” that you read, I would like to know your thoughts about these questions: How do I make these projects more engaging throughout the entire film, instead of making them engaging in one part? How do you do this without cutting something out, or would cutting be the only solution? How do you make something make sense if I cut certain parts out? Is my work in documentary stronger than narrative, or vice versa? What are my strengths and weaknesses in each area of film? What role in film do you think I would excel in? What organizations or jobs should I apply for to gain more experience in the role you thought I would excel in?

This fall I will be attending NYU Tisch School of the Arts for Film & TV. Since I want to tell authentic stories of experiences often left out in the media and in history, representing marginalized groups who’ve been silenced, I’m excited to do this in a city full of inspiration and diversity.

My Past Current Future

Here is an artist statement to read afterwards: When you’re a kid, you don’t see the harsh realities of our world– the hate, the overwhelming headlines, the overconsumption, the inequity of social issues, the pressure to succeed. I was taken back to the warmth of childlike innocence as I watched my younger self one night. But I realized I was still in this young adult body with so many deadlines and expectations. In this film, I illustrated the complexity of my thoughts and emotions I felt in that moment– the half color, half B&W room is the girl’s conscience inside her head. She’s sucked in once she becomes curious to see what it’ll be like to go back. Knowing she should be back in her own time, she tries to get out, but it’s too late– she’s stuck in her past where she can’t distinguish her timeline. She feels like a childhood stuffed toy that hasn’t been played for years, left sitting in the dusty dark closet.

A letter to our past and future selves

Reel

Reflection

As I stated in the video, I’m proud of Kylie and I putting in as much effort as we could into this project and make it the best we could with the time we had. But if I could do it again, I would tell myself to prioritize the most important soundbites and do the animation for them instead of animating in chronological order.

I’m so grateful to all the staff at Freestyle who created an incredible program for students like me to let out their creative side and make something out of it. Especially since I knew I wanted to go into Film since Freshman year, Freestyle allowed me to experiment with all kinds of art and different roles, learn about my creative side, and understand my strengths and weaknesses as an artist. I grew a lot as an artist understanding myself and how I work– whether it was with collaboration or solely. I’ll take the lessons and skills I learned at Freestyle Academy with me for my future work.