Introductory Note
Hello, and welcome to my website! I am Sofia Dominguez, a Senior studying Animation at Freestyle Academy. For these past two years, I have expanded my animating, writing, interviewing, video editing, photographing, illustrating, audio editing skills. And many more! Outside of Freestyle, I am also part of Ambassadors, a leadership program at my high school. I’ve learned much of my public speaking & social skills through that program. In my personal life, I love spending time with my family, my two chubby guinea pigs, listening to J-Pop and Latino rock music, and trying to learn new origami on Youtube that always looks way easier that it actually is.
Culture and language are very important to me: I am a Mexican immigrant, and a full Spanish-speaker (I can read and speak and write in Spanish fluently), and I have been studying Japanese for the past four years. I also value choice and freedom, and have been making it a point to follow a path that is right for me, not what I think is “correct”.
Next year, I will go to UCLA as a World Arts and Cultures Major, which is an interdisciplinary program that is based on the importance and influence of art in society, and is very tied to Social Justice, philosophy, ethnography, and of course, art. I plan to also major in Japanese so I can eventually be fully trilingual!
I chose to Showcase my writing, because the major I’m going into and my future projects will heavily depend on my writing skills, and it’s something I’d like to develop more beforehand, especially for fiction writing & storytelling. The main project I’m showcasing is my Documentary Article “Home Food”. I am also showcasing the magazine design layout I made for this article in my Digital Media class. The smaller piece I’m showcasing is my Flash Fiction story “Star-Shaped Bones” that I wrote last year.
Thank you so much for reviewing my work! You can contact me at: sofiadomsal@gmail.com
Enjoy!
Showcase Intro Video
An intro of me, and an overview of the projects I will showcase.
Projects
“Home Food”
“Home Food” is a documentary article I wrote in my Junior year about a woman in my community named Elsy, who has a small business making pupusas in her home. I am really grateful I got to interview her and witness her passion and resilience, and that she let me share her story with the world. I also interviewed Tania, a community leader in Mountain View, to get more of an idea of what owning a home business here is like.
In the article, I argue that Elsy’s small business isn’t just a business: it’s a statement of cultural pride, it’s a form of resistance against oppression and invisibility, it’s a way to empower the Salvadoran and Latino community here in the United States. There are many struggles the Salvadoran community has faced both outside and within the United States-whether it’s the obstacles to being granted asylum; to stereotypes and invisibility; to institutional racism that prevents them from making their businesses established and their communities strong-have shaped Salvadoran immigrants and Salvadoran-Americans’ unique voices.
I draw a parallel between Elsy and Quique Avilés, a Washington DC poet, performer, and activist, to solidify this connection between the authenticity of Elsy’s food and cultural art.
I would like advice on how to better highlight and portray my subject, as I feel like it sounds condescending at times. Also, I’m not sure how to make the middle sections more engaging and understandable for the reader.
“Home Food”-Magazine version
After I wrote Elsy’s article, I used Adobe Indesign to make this magazine spread, as well as created several design elements in Adobe Illustrator that gave off a homely and warm feel. The colors and elements are inspired by pupusas, and the tablecloth and spatula design are also taken from Elsy’s actual home. I had a lot of fun designing this, it felt like putting a little puzzle together, and it was very satisfying to see the end result, when it was actually printed! I’ve always wanted to make a little “book” that I could hold and flip through, and it was a very interesting process to figure out how to depict my writing.
I’m not very experienced in design and I would like some tips on how to organize the layout and colors to make it look more professional. It also feels a it too overcrowded and empty at the same time, and I don’t know how to fix it so that the layout is balanced. Additionally, I’m not sure the photographs add a very positive view of my subject, and they don’t fit very well with the overall aesthetic.
“Star-Shaped Bones”
This is a Flash Fiction story I wrote for my English class last year. It is about a star-being who falls to earth and is raised to be a human, and must suppress their star-nature. Because the Flash Fiction genre forces you to be concise, I focused on making the story and its themes more subtly told. I took advantage of the unreliability of the young protagonist to give a vague ending and make the readers have to think a little to understand the story. While brainstorming this story, I also focused a lot on the “visual” aspect of the story: what would the characters look like in people’s minds? How could I contrast them with the world I placed them in? This approach to thinking visually of the world caused the story to be very reliant on heavy descriptions, and I’m not completely sure this was for the best. For this project, I would like to know: How can I better develop and edit an original story that actually makes sense? How can I keep a balance between subtlety and clarity in my writing? I feel like there are times when my writing style gets in the way of feeling the story, how do I fix that?
Showcase Reel
This is a short 1-minute reel done in Adobe After Effects, showcasing my best work at Freestyle Academy.
Reflection
The first day I entered Freestyle, I was so overwhelmed with all the resources and the incredible projects that had come out of here, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t take advantage of it and I’d let myself down. Well, I can proudly say this was not the case! I have put so much of my being into every single project here at Freestyle, and I always strive to make something I can look back on a month or even several years later and still be proud of. I’ve also learned how to push through things that are difficult or make me uncomfortable, and to climb the learning curve no matter how steep it feels. This incredible environment with my extremely passionate and hard-working peers, paired with my awesome teachers, made this a place that I will always call home. Freestyle Academy has given me the opportunity to explore the immense sea of creative expression without having to be tied down to a certain area, and I have been able to grow from video editing to photography to 3D animation. A part of me never wants to leave, but another one knows that because of it, I am extremely equipped for whatever I may face in the future.