Hi! My name is Stella and I am a Film student at Freestyle Academy and a senior at Los Altos High School. I’ve always found film to be one of the most dynamic and interesting forms of storytelling so I took the opportunity at Freestyle to approach film creatively and explore unconventional subject matters.
Reflections Video Essay
In the first semester of senior year, we began with the “Reflections” video essay, a two-minute film answering the central question: “Who am I?”, inspired by a past film supplement prompt from Chapman University’s Dodge College.
The process began with writing a script, as a short essay was the basis of the film. From there, I worked with voiceover and B-roll to represent my message visually and aurally.
My film explores my need for human connection through the metaphor of a pet rock. I had a lot of fun matching different video clips to my essay to both support and expand upon my writing. You can read my preliminary script below:
Why is it that I’m so drawn to inanimate objects? Like oh my god it’s just a rock. Not even a cool rock. I don’t need a rock. It’s just a rock. Sh** –– what do I do with it now? It almost feels compulsive, like I was drawn to this rock. I was about to leave it behind when thoughts popped into my head like “it’s so sad and alone”, “it needs you”. It’s a rock, shut up. I can understand why humans are attracted to some objects: maybe they’re shiny or colorful or maybe they remind us of something or someone. Maybe they can be sold on Ebay. But a rock? It’s just a rock. Maybe there’s a part of me that relates to this rock: small and alone among other rocks that are all somewhat the same. I’ve felt like that –– hell, we’ve all felt that. I wouldn’t wish that feeling upon a rock. But then again, something must stand out about this rock that made me feel the need to “save” it. Maybe its shape somehow reveals a distinct personality, but I doubt it. I think I could elicit an emotional reaction by naming a rock Steve, giving it a complex backstory, and then throwing it into the ocean. But I don’t think I could live with the guilt of doing that. I think maybe it’s part of our nature to form connections to different things: people, places, things. Or maybe it’s just a childish curiosity that we never grow out of. Whatever may be the case, I think life would suck if we didn’t have these sorts of connections –– we kind of need them (I know I do). Of course a person would be preferable, but I’d rather have a rock by my side than feel alone. I don’t mind being alone –– but feeling alone really sucks, like a tunnel you can’t quite dig yourself out of. I think our tendency of forming connections to people and things adds some meaning when life feels static and overwhelming. because we really do just live on a rock. We’re all just tiny specks on Earth –– and Earth is just a rock, right?
I really enjoyed taking something very random, mundane, and personal to me and generalizing it to a universal human experience. While I wish I had a wider variety of footage to work with, I’m very happy with the final film and I think it feels true to who I am.
While I don’t think this film represents my best technical skills, this is my favorite writing that I’ve done for film. I think it’s a good balance of the quirky and metaphorical without feeling pretentious.
Zenith Documentary
Zenith or “The Ultimate Freestyle Project” is exactly what it sounds like. As a culmination of all the skills honed at Freestyle, the Zenith project challenged us to self-direct and focus on a project we’re passionate about.
Because of all the creative freedom we had, I took the opportunity to do something more unconventional. I knew I wanted to do a documentary to redeem myself after my junior year documentary was void of B-roll, but I was unsure of a subject. On a whim, I decided to do my documentary on the Zenith project. The documentary would include talking with my classmates about their projects, the process of my own documentary, and the Zenith project as a whole.
In the month that we had for this project, I went through the stages of pre-production, production, and post-production. My process included researching forms of documentary and structures, scheduling interviews and drafting interview questions, conducting interviews and collecting B-roll, and editing all the pieces together in the end.
If you look closely in the first clip of my documentary, you can see the (very blurry) rock from my Reflections video on the desk behind me.
I had a lot of fun with this project. There were moments toward the end when I regretted choosing this subject for my documentary, but I’m happy with how it came out. Because my documentary was partially about my own project and process, it gave me a lot of opportunities to reflect and hold myself accountable. The final product is far from technically perfect, but I think I did a good job capturing the Zenith process and the voices of the Freestyle students that I interviewed.
Similar to my Reflections video essay, I’m happy that I took a more unconventional approach to the project. I chose these two projects to showcase because I think they represent my “style” of communicating through film. They not only represent who I am as a filmmaker, but who I am as a person. In terms of feedback, I would love to know how to improve upon my storytelling and communication techniques as well as how to balance the visual content and audio content.
In Conclusion,
I’m so proud of how much I’ve grown during my time at Freestyle. From learning technical skills and collaborating with peers to finding an outlet to express myself, I can confidently say that Freestyle has pushed me and shaped me in so many ways. I’m attending UC Davis in the fall and I’m excited to continue exploring and discovering new sides of myself. While I have little idea of what I will end up studying, I’m going to continue creating art and exploring new forms of media.
Thank you so much for taking the time to review my work, I really appreciate the opportunity for feedback.