Portfolio
Hi, welcome to my Portfolio page! My name is Reed Keenan. I’m 18 years old and have been a student at Freestyle Academy for the past two years. Through various creative projects in English, Digital Media, & Film Production, I have been able to completely transform both my knowledge and voice as an artist. However, I didn’t really discover my true love and passion for art until about 7th grade.
It all started when I would spend my days watching travel videos. I fell in love with the beautiful scenery’s and compositions they were able to create through the camera and in post-production. The seamless transitions from clip to clip. The feeling that you were there experiencing this all with them. In 7th grade I then downloaded Adobe Premiere Pro and started making my own edits for fun. My passion for little edits then turned into a passion for films. I specifically chose Los Altos High School over a local private school because of the opportunity I would have to do Film at Freestyle Academy. Now, four years later, I can say it was worth it.
When I’m not behind the camera, I’m an athlete. I was one of those kids that constantly had to be in motion. At one point, I was playing three different sports at the same time. The main sports I dedicated my time towards were soccer, baseball, basketball, volleyball, water polo, & track. Out of all of those sports, the one I primarily play today is basketball. Nonetheless, after playing sports for over 15 years one might ask what life skills have I developed from my experience? As you may notice, almost all the sports I’ve played are team sports. So through countless ups and downs, wins and losses, I’ve learned the importance of being a team and working together. And after working on various film’s I understand how a film crew is almost like a sports team. You need to work together to be successful.
As you watch these three pieces, I want you watch the cinematography get progressively much much better. If you take a look at the compositions and the color grading from the Dominic Crosby Documentary to “Location,” my most recent film, you will be shocked by the improvement. If you only have the time to watch one of my pieces, I recommend you watch “Location” as it is my best work to date directing and behind the camera (scroll to the bottom).
Dominic Crosby Documentary
One of my lifelong friends, Dominic Christiansen, referred to as ‘Dominic Crosby’ on stage is an upcoming successful musician. I found Dom to be a really good profile subject because his story isn’t like others. In comparison to to the past, traditionally, a kid like Dom in the suburbs of the Bay Area would never have had a shot at releasing his own music. He would have needed an agent and a record label to sign him. But today, with all of the latest technology, Dom was able to teach himself the audio editing software called LogicPro by watching YouTube videos from the ground up. He’s never taken proper lessons with an instructor for any of the instruments he’s played either, he’s entirely self-taught. Even despite this, after posting his music on SoundCloud and then on Spotify, the music streaming platforms, he amassed over 60,000 plays in around 18 months. Dom’s story is striking because he brings such emotional intelligence to this decision, and that same emotional intelligence shows up in his music.
I didn’t only want to create this documentary as a way to promote Dom and his music, but also to show everybody else out there that faces a similar decision or is struggling go for it or not, that you should. One of the hardest things to do is actually committing to something and seeing it through. And I believe that Dom is the perfect example of that because he didn’t have lessons, he had to teach everything to himself, yet he still found the passion and inspiration to keep on creating, and that’s super important. And when you look at him now, he is on the verge of a successful music career because he kept on going, he didn’t quit.
Sugar, a short narrative film
This next featured project, “Sugar,” (writer/director/editor) is hands down the most difficult project I have ever done. Not necessarily because of the story, but because of the personal obstacles I was experiencing. Film school applications are probably the most demanding college applications of them all, in my opinion. And I feel like I can say that now after living through it. My original plan for college was to make the Early Decision I deadline for NYU, November 1st. However, in early October I suffered an already severe concussion. Then within a couple weeks after planning the final parts of my film, I got double concussed from an even more severe hit. I had to stop going to some of my classes. I would get dizzy driving. I couldn’t even look at any sort of screen, ultimately meaning I couldn’t edit. I literally had to dictate my college essays while someone else typed them, it bothered me that much. I was so angry with the circumstances that landed in my lap, but I knew deep in my heart that even if it wasn’t NYU, I wasn’t going to give up on my dreams of applying to film school. So, I had to work through the headaches and the early 5am shoots that ultimately made my concussion worse, but hey, the experience was worth it. The idea for this film was cut down to 5 minutes due to the submission requirements and maybe it wasn’t in every little way how I envisioned, but in the hardest months of my life I was able to get this film done and I’m proud of pushing through no matter what.
When reflecting on this project, I’d say it turned out the best possible way given the circumstances. Not only did I have my severe concussion, but the owner was super uptight about shooting times and even how many times we could shoot. My original idea was to have the film take place at night with a different ending storyline, but the owner said no, you can only shoot from 6:45-8am. On top of that I had two professional actors flake due to Covid which led me to turn to my friends. And when you’re trying to direct your friends, sometimes it doesn’t always go as planned. But I think the most important part to me about this film was guaranteeing the diner location. I had this spot envisioned the whole time and I did everything I could to convince the owner to even let us shoot there to begin with. Lastly, in comparison to all my other projects, from a compositional aspect, it’s the best. I understood framing a lot better than before hand and new what I want. In past films I also used to over-saturate a lot of things which was a preference, but I think the color correction I did on this film fit very nicely with everything else.
Location, 10 minute dramatic short
Boy, was this a big project. My partner, Vinh, & I originally came up with the rough idea for this film at the end of our junior year. Except it was really just in its infancy. We new we wanted to have some sort of storyline based around a robber and have some massive growth of his character to the a point where he saves everyone, but not himself. And now a year later, we pretty much kept that storyline, but reworked it. As I mentioned above, I had a really tough concussion this year. And while I was dealing with that and making “Sugar” we also had to go through pre-production for “Location.” I have to say, I could not have done that without Vinh. He grinded so hard to help us out especially since I couldn’t look at a screen for a while. I’ll never be able to thank him enough. This film is a result of over 7 months of film work from start to finish. A lot of late nights shooting and a lot of great lessons learned. Hope you enjoy it!
Stills & BTS from “Location”
This film’s rough cut started off at 14 minutes long. We nailed the first two acts, but because we weren’t able to get the location for our ORIGINAL ending scene, we completely switched up the ending. Condequently, as the one and only Mr. Taylor pointed out after watching our rough cut, the third and final act now didn’t align with the rest of the story. Vinh and I then went into about an 8 hour long depression until we were in the editing room later that night trying to make what we thought was going to be a much lamer 4 minute version of our film. Mr. Taylor then realized, ultimately saving our film, that we could still make the ending work by messing around with the order of the clips. So, in the end, we somehow made it work. It’s not how we would want it work in a perfect world, but because we didn’t have the shots that we needed we worked around that problem. And hey, I think the ending still tells the story it needs to tell, which is most important. Story before everything.
Future: Next year I will be attending Chapman University as a Film Studies major to deepen my knowledge of the techniques and history of film to further transform my style and professionalism behind the camera.