Introduction
For this page, the goal is to showcase 2 Freestyle projects that we are proud of and want to, well, showcase to depict our change and growth as a human bean. This has to be only two projects, so sadly I can’t mention the beautiful ending to our dialogue scene or the best damn thing I ever wrote in high school. So I won’t mention those projects.
The two projects I’ve ended up deciding on were the ones I felt to be the most crucial elements in my growth and change throughout my two years of Freestyle. They also happen to be the two major film projects I am the most proud of completing. These, of course, are my Explorations project and my Reflections project.
Exhibit A. Explorations
The Explorations project was the mini-Zenith we did at the end of our junior year in May 2019. I’ll be honest— when excluding this final semester of high school (for obvious reasons), both semesters of junior year probably both rank at the bottom 2 slots of the total 7 semesters. The second semester especially was a slow-burning trainwreck that continued to get worse all the way up until May. But May was a weird month because in May I made a turnaround at the very end of the school year and settled into a sort of lifestyle that I hadn’t quite expected to settle for earlier.
Behind the scenes were some changes in my daily routine and attitude that resulted in a more introspective and reflective mindset to end such a disastrous semester on. I am often reminded of cool, cloudy days and calmly driving along to Gish during this particular time period. With the freedom to design a project of our own choosing, it ended up being fairly obvious that I wanted to try my hand at film analysis.
It was interesting because prior to this assignment, I didn’t really think all too highly of analyzing films in-depth. There were some surface level assessments I’d seen before that I felt were totally fair to analyze for meaning and significance in the story, but I somewhat felt that going into the subtleties was stretching, as it’s nothing that you’d notice or pick up on. But as a wise old man once said, “You may not have noticed it… but your brain did.”
I chose to do film analysis entirely because of a trilogy of movies I’d discovered and come to love throughout 2018. These made up the Cornetto Trilogy, which were Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and The World’s End (2013). Okay, in all honesty, I didn’t like Shaun very much. Sorry. It’s not all that great of a movie.
Regardless I focused on analyzing it from a visual perspective. I really did learn a lot from watching each movie over again and spotting what I called “subtle intricacies” within them, and I’ve continued to pick up on this style of visual storytelling from movies I’ve seen since.
The Digital Media assignment was creating an infographic regarding our process, which worked very well for my project. I am actually very proud of this creation to this day.
Regardless, my main presentation for my project was actually in the form of writing, which I have always considered to be my greatest strength. Surprisingly the document came out 22 pages long, including a fancy and formal bibliography, but that’s also lengthened by some screenshots scattered throughout. It doesn’t have the best formatting (given that it was made on Google Docs), but I’m still very proud of what I pulled out and analyzed. And here’s that:
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Open in new tab More aspects of my presentation can be found on the Explorations page of this site.
Overall, this project both defined me personally and also academically. The two changes coincided— they revolved around me coming to accept my relaxed and isolated style of working, as well as how much I love to approach art with a critical mind and aim for a deeper analysis. I mean, seriously, I really love critiquing music and movies in my head as much as I can now, and I don’t think I would have been quite as good at picking up specific elements, nor convinced that those elements played any factor in the final media, had I not done this project.
Exhibit B. Reflections
The Reflections unit was the first one of our senior year, taking place around the end of August and beginning of September in 2019. The name is pretty self-explanatory. We were tasked with poking our nose into our junior year selves and writing a report gathering whatever intel we may have found. For me, I essentially reflected on my feelings in May, during the Explorations unit.
There was this short freight train line up into the Permanente Quarry near Cupertino that went down rails I had thought were disused until April, so my train loving self had to go see it whenever I could in May. When I thought about that time period in hindsight, I often thought about the hill where I went to wait for it— so I recorded my film on that same hill.
I think this film is a little pretentious in hindsight and the metaphor stretches on a little. But it definitely depicts the change I had gone through in that May as well as the summer afterward. I made the film during a period of time in which I’d just been thrust from 2 weeks of peaceful isolation on a Lake Winnipesaukee island into thousands of kids cluttering hallways in the middle of suburbia wonderland. Being alone was a nice thought.
I’ve changed a hell of a lot since that film, but one thing that remains a key part of my development regarding film is that this is the first time I really messed around with these cameras. No, seriously, I don’t remember adjusting the aperture or shutter speed much at all during any of the junior year units. But this time around I found myself switching lenses, creatively framing shots, and trying to get as many interesting angles as I could. I also wanted to film the whole thing by myself, as having someone else there would have made the process overwhelming, to be honest.
While I don’t recommend creating films without the help of others, I was impressed by the shots I could get alone. As long as someone didn’t steal the tripod in the 15 seconds in which I drove around the curve for that one shot, I was fine.
I don’t like the editing or dialogue all that much, but I think a lot of what I filmed was very impressive and sparked my inspiration for creative shots and angles. I actually really love the Edgar Wright-esque quick cut extreme close-ups of starting the car. My favorite shots are still up on the hill— honestly, everything up there looks really good, but the most creative shots involved the mirrors. That one of me tracking the truck was absolutely a highlight and took me many, many takes to get right.
In essence, this film is so important to me because it represented the first time that I found out how much I truly do enjoy wielding a camera. And personally speaking, it defines a clear point in my high school career to reflect on in the present and future.
(Also, this is the hill, in case you wanted to shoot your epic film there too.)