In this unit, we asked ourselves the question “Who am I?”. Reflect on the person I am and want to become in the future and create something that represents exactly that. In English, we read the book “College Essay Essentials” to help us write a (you’re never going to guess it) college essay! These essays were focused on demonstrating our core values through an experience of our choosing. In Digital Media we created colored and black-and-white mandalas that represented our values and identity. Finally, in Film the final project was to create a reflection video essay.

In English, we started by writing down our core values. In Digital Media we recorded them in Audition and Animated them in After Effects.

Digital Media

Mandala

The personal mandala project was focused on demonstrating our identity through different designs and drawings. I found it very relaxing and enjoyed the process of turning my brain off and drawing whatever came to my mind. I drew funny doodles and things that represented who I was. For this project we used Illustrator we set up our artboards to replicate the design we were drawing around a circle so that it would be mirrored around the entire mandala.

Here are the 2 mandalas I made:
If the images are not displayed below,
On a Mac, press Command + (plus) then press Command – (minus)
On a PC, press the Cntrl + (plus) then press the Cntrl – (minus)

Artist Statements

Black and White Mandala Artist statement:
In this project, I wanted to show my love for music. I incorporated all the instruments I play as well as some doodles. While working on this project I put on my favorite band and just started drawing. Lost in thought I ended up making a very detailed center. With many intricate designs and characters. My favorites are the crab and ghost.
Limiting myself to black and white proved to be very challenging. After a couple of hours into the project, I found myself unsatisfied with my work. I realized that some of my drawings and symbols felt empty. So to fix this problem, I inverted the black and white in some parts of my mandala. I found that this not only fixed the problem but also defined each drawing a bit more. I am happy with the art I made however I realize that I spent too much time working on the center of the mandala and it cannot be seen on the pizza board.
Overall, I found this process very therapeutic and I had a really fun time turning my brain off and letting my imagination and creativity run wild. In the future, I can see myself drawing mandalas as a way of letting off some steam.

Colored Mandala Artist Statment:
For this project, I focused on everything water and ocean-related. I included an octopus which is one of the smartest aquatic animals and just so happens to be the Freestyle mascot. I added Scuba gear because everyone in my family is scuba certified. There are also references to my dog Kobi and some of the sports I play, like water polo and basketball.
The hardest part of this mandala was the spacing. It took a lot of time but I didn’t know how to divide each category. I decided to use a wave-like design, which fit the ocean vibe I was going for.
My favorite part of my mandala is probably the water polo playing octopus.

Motion Graphics

We learned different techniques in After Effects, creating dynamic content like rotoscope videos and simple motion graphics. The process was difficult but I now notice the small animations in videos and commercials that I didn’t before. Implementing these techniques all together make for an attention-grabbing commercial and I now have some insight into how they create the small animated effects.

We made three different motion graphic videos.

This first video I learned how to sync audio with movement.

Then I learned how to rotoscope in after effects

Finally I combined many simple graphics together to create a fun animation.

English

Personal Essay

In English, we wrote a personal essay to help us with our college essays. The prompt was “Who am I?” we read the book “College Essay Essentials” by Ethan Sawyer and brainstormed our core values. I revised my essay many times and eventually used it as my Common Application essay.

Film

Final Project – Video Essay

At the beginning of the year, we worked on making video essays. We had 2 minutes to make a video explaining to the world who we were. For this project, I did a lot of filming underwater and experimented with different techniques while filming on a GoPro.

Film Exercises

The video essay wasn’t the only independent project I made for this unit. On the first day of film class, Mr Taylor surprised me with the task of creating a film all in one class. Unlike the other senior class, I am the only returning senior, the other seniors in AM film are new to freestyle so they had to make a video scavenger hunt (a project I did last year). I was going to have to create this short film all on my own.

The next exercise was a greenscreen exercise. Now that Freestyle has a new campus there is also a photo studio with an entire greenscreen wall and amazing studio lights. For this exercise, we shot a 10-second clip and worked on color-correcting it in PremiorPro so it would fit with our chosen image.

Finally, the last exercise was a group project. Me and my partner Lucas made a storyboard for a 1 minute narrative film, then we traded it with another group and had to film their story, then swapped the raw footage with another group and edited the story, all in 2 class periods.