In the explorations project, we had the opportunity to get school credit for learning a skill of our choice. I decided to focus on lighting in Film, but with a twist – at night, in a car. Lighting at night is difficult enough, but the factor of filming in a car makes it 10 times more difficult and interesting.
This entire process was a lot of fun, as I got to do my own research in a limitted amount of time, write my own mini-script, and be the director of a short film where I experiment with lighting on the fly. You can check out the film below.
There were some challenging aspect of filming, like finding the right angle and distance I wanted the lighting to be at, as well as changing my camera settings to get the shot that I wanted. On the other hand, I used everything else I learned this year in Film to make the Film I wanted, and I’m very proud of my Explorations film. Seeing it on the big screen during my presentation felt surreal, and I was a little emotional. I can’t really explain why, other than this is something I worked so hard on, and the lighting aspect of Film feels like the last piece of the Junior Film fundamentals I needed to get ready for Senior year.
Poetry
For the final unit in English, we had a wonderful poet come in for a week, and teach us about poetry and it’s uniqueness. After multiple exercises, we got to write our own poem. Here’s mine: Perfect Triangle
Coach calls my name, and I jog out calmly,
But inside, a storm is growing strong.
The crowd fades, the world narrows,
Tunnel vision. It’s just me.
Butterflies are hyper, but I breathe them down
Inhale confidence, exhale fear.
Three points await me,
So simple, but so complex.
Every step back, rehearsed, precise.
Left, then right, then left again
Aim down sights, perfect triangle.
Pressure is on, but I’m so eager
Muscle memory steadies my body.
I trust the snap. I trust the hold.
Even when doubt whispers,
It should shake me, but it doesn’t.
Preparation keeps me still.
Eighty percent in my mind,
Where anxiety and calm clash.
I feel the weight of 4 years of hard work, but I’m ready.
One swing. One shot. EYES.
Before this unit, I wasn’t a big fan of poetry – I always thought it was a little corny. however, I have completely gotten rid of that mindset, and I actually had a lot of fun writing this poem. I didn’t want to present if I’m being transparent, but I felt very happy when I did, and I felt a little more complete.
Music Recording
In Digital Media, I partnered with Christopher Green to sing Tequila, by The Champs. Don’t worry, we didn’t just say Tequila and call it a day – we brought in my friend, Santi, to help us with bass and electric guitar. This was Santi’s first time recording for a production or project, so he was very nervous, but he had a huge smile on his face the whole time.
Behind the scenes
Santi Castillo, our guest artist
The editing process
We made sure to add a little distortion on the electric guitars, and mix the higher and lower octaves together for the verses, then let Santi rock and roll with a guitar solo the rest of the way. Feel free to give our song a listen!
Collaborative Artist Statement
In this assignment in Digital Media, Stephen Messner and Christopher Green collaborated to do a cover of The Champs’ Tequila and Stephen brought in his musically talented friend Santi to play the guitar and bass. We were able to use the recording studio to practice being in the booth and producing music. The inspiration behind doing Tequila was a reel that Stephen saw of someone playing electric guitar over simple songs, like the Barney theme song. Stephen knows someone who plays electric guitar (and can improvise bass), and figured he’d be a good fit. The result? A silly and fun cover of Tequila, starring Santiago Tejada Castillo on electric guitar and bass.
This project is different from other projects we’ve done because we needed to reach out to other artists and have them come into Freestyle to record – our guests would come to us. At first, it was tough to schedule everyone to come in at the same time, but with enough patience, we were able to get things figured out and get all of the recording done in about an hour and a half.
Overall, this project was very fun and taught us a lot of new skills in audio editing and using the recording studio that will be extremely useful in the future, especially as seniors. Santi loved helping us out, and there’s no doubt that he’ll be back for future projects.