For the Conceptual Project, Juniors develop their abstract thinking and communication skills to answer the question, “How can I use unconventional forms to express myself?”

This project emphasizes creative risk-taking through poetry, music, art, animations, experimental film and web production, challenging students to express their opinions through a distinct personal aesthetic. Students begin developing their technical communication skills by learning a variety of modern professional equipment and applications such as DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Audition, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps.

Photo Haiku

The photo haiku was one of the very first projects we did at Freestyle, and it happens to be one I really enjoyed. We had to write a haiku in English based on a random concept statement that we pulled from two paper bags. My statement was “I am exploring the feelings of desire through the experience of discovering new food”. We then had to take a photo that related to the statement in some way.

The continuation of the photo haiku project came in digital media, where we had to make out of our photo haikus.

Free Verse Poem

I’m really proud of my free verse poem. I wrote it right at the end of the unit, maybe a day or two before the deadline, not thinking it was anything serious. I just wrote what was on my mind, and expanded it. I ended up liking it a whole lot more than anything else I wrote because it felt a lot more authentic. It was a stream of consciousness that found its’ way into my work, as opposed to something planned out and I just felt a lot more connected to it in the end. A lot of my work tends to deal with more personal things, and this poem isn’t an exception. It’s a poem about my own mental health and how I feel in the bad moments. It’s hard to explain the mindset I get in when I’m having a spiral, which is why poetry is such a great medium for it. It’s very personal, so it allows me to really express myself.

I would share with you the process of making the photo, but unfortunately I can’t find the Photoshop file :/

Experimental Film

For the conceptual unit in Film, we were tasked with our first proper film. Using the concept statement from our english project, we had to make an abstract film that conveyed the idea. For my film , I chose to use a mix of traditional footage and stop motion video.

In all honesty, the experimental unit was a challenge for me. I wasn’t super connected to my concept statement to begin with. I could definitely create a film using abstract thought, given that I’ve always valued my creativity. Desire through new food just wasn’t something that really applied to my life. Though I love cooking, I couldn’t figure our where to fit the desire aspect of it. Things began to change for me during our pitch circle. I realized that I didn’t necessarily need to be literal with my film. I realized that I could take that statement and apply it to another part of my life.

That idea led me to this film. It’s a movie about the desire to leave a smaller town for the big city, but told with cake.

It’s a film about creating your own reality. Unhappiness is an inevitability in life, the question is what you do with it. the beginning of my film is meant to highlight the mundanity and boring nature of a suburban life, illustrated by my own neighborhood and driving through the daily route to school. The stop motion parts are supposed to add a whimsical feeling to it. I took as many pictures as possible to have fairly smooth movement to show a disconnect between reality and daydreams. the final scene is of the cake, now having a city projected on it. A slice is taken out to show that it’s all an illusion, which i feel ties back into the title, Life’s a Cakewalk. Not only is the title a pun, it’s an ironic joke within itself. Life is hard. You need to fight to get to where you want to be. Cutting the last slice shatters the illusion that what you wanted had been obtained, because really, crafting your own reality is much harder than making a cake.

This film took a LONG time to make. The stop motion alone took me around 3 and a half hours in total. Not only do I really love how it turned out, I gained a whole new admiration for the animation kids and what they go through. It took a long time to film and edit but in the end, it was worth it. It isn’t perfect, far from it. but it’s the first film I’ve made, and I’m proud of it

(I say this now but I’ll look at it in three months and cringe at how bad it is. Oh well!)

Elements and Principles of Art Title Page