This project is a series of two YouTube videos that follow me learning new skills. The first is soldering, and the second is jumping a bicycle. The goal of this project is to use it to hone my cinematography skills and to inspire other beginners to try new things by highlighting my own trials and tribulations and being vulnerable.

“Mix Mix Tayo: The Many Pieces in Our Stories'' is a written reflection, exploring the creation of the dance documentary, Carried Across the Water as well as the community event, Mix Mix Tayo. The ideas behind these works are centered in storytelling, filipino american identity and community. This research explores the use of film, dance, event production and the mixing of elements to create new wholes in order to communicate these ideas. These works were imagined in response to a call that was felt from people actively searching for healing, community and ancestral knowledge.

Time is an important issue for most of us, and as we grow older, we become increasingly aware of it. We save it, waste it, spend it, value it, and somehow never have enough of it. It’s something we are all familiar with and pay attention to, yet is difficult to define and understand. It simultaneously acts as our limitation and our opportunity, and serves as the invisible but all powerful dimension that limits our reality to happening only one event at a given time and place. The limitations of time force us to make active choices on how we spend it. This simple fact causes time to have a very influential and significant role in our lives. Due to this, each one of us begins to form a unique relationship with time that has an enormous impact on how we live our lives. As we grow mindful of our consciousness and the timelessness of the present, our psychological time seemingly disappears. We can begin to see time not only as something we cannot control, but also as a tool that helps us live our lives to the fullest. Time’s three main domains of past, present, and future all provide their own set of opportunities and obstacles. These domains act as types of lenses through which we see the world, ultimately forming our time perspective. During my junior year, I became increasingly aware of my relationship with these domains of time, and realized that the majority of my stress, anxiety, and fear stemmed from either dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. Moreover, that kind of time perspective had a negative impact on my life and wellbeing. I was inspired to make a change in my life by living more in the present, appreciating every little moment and acknowledging who and where I am today. For this thesis creative project, I created an experimental short film that represents the essence of time and its presence in our lives. The overall goal was to inspire others to reflect on their own perception of time, and inspire them to be more present and appreciate every moment in their lives. Writing, directing, producing, and filming this film on my own required an extensive pre-production process of writing, drafting, securing locations and coordinating schedules. Setting deadlines, being open to surprises, and learning quickly is what made this production successful. The entire process from forming the idea to pre-production, production, and post-production allowed me to grow and develop immensely as a filmmaker and creative storyteller.

Digital Lover, A Thesis is a short film about two young Black women who fall in love over the internet. The film can be classified as a music video, utilizing the song Digital Lover by lil qwerty and Lee, but breaks slightly from generic convention by utilizing an entirely narrative-based approach. This thesis submission shows the scope of this work’s creation, including the primary ideation and pitch document (the treatment), a version of the script from the middle of pre-production, and a late-stage version of the film.

Set in 1999, the film focuses much of its time on exploring alternative visual interpretations of a color-saturated digital space, and contrasting these with a less-vibrant analog world. This contrast intends to provide a visual differentiation between the digital and analog worlds, serving as the basis of the film’s storytelling. The built worlds privilege the emotional context of the internet, and contain an inherent thesis statement: that the digital experience can be as rich and meaningful as that of the analog, if not more so. The visual direction is the result of integrating several perspectives, including contemporary representations of the internet on film, personal observations, digital themed art installations, and experiences of others on the internet. As such, this film intended to engage with the existing body of work, and provide an artistic contribution to what already existed within the film and music video landscapes.

With this, I intend to use storytelling as a tool for conceptualizing worth. Specifically, with the centering of two Black women as romantic interests, I hope to provide a nuanced affirmation in a space where representation is often lacking.

Every color that you see in film is purposely chosen by the filmmakers. The majority of film viewers do not consciously realize the role that color plays in their movie experience. Subconsciously, viewers are deeply affected by the color choices in the film as it changes moods, tones, characters, and more. By examining color in film, filmmakers are able to create better stories, therefore having a greater effect on the audience. By becoming aware of the role of color in film, audience members become better, more involved viewers.
The following project is cut into three major parts: Color Theory in Film, An Analysis of Symbolic Color, and the Technical Applications of Color in Film. Part One gives the necessary background on color theory, light theory, color mixing, color associations, and color palettes needed to understand the rest of the project. Part Two examines color symbolism and color psychology in three films, detailing their importance to the storylines in-depth. Part Three looks at the ways filmmakers employ color during post-production, principal photography, and post-production. By looking at production design, the history of color grading, and the power of lighting and cinematography, one is able to discern the different effects color creates and how that effect is created.

My thesis project entitled Petticoats for Petty Killers was a feature length screenplay intended to be a solid first draft in the area of screenwriting. The story follows a young woman named Lottie in Victorian Era London, as women in her class are murdered by a serial killer. When her best friend becomes a victim, Lottie takes it upon herself to dress up as a man and solve the crime. In order to complete this project, I began in an Introduction to Screenwriting course in order to understand the basics. From formatting, to story, and plot I learned the essentials of screenwriting. Though often lacking written detail, screenplays require a visualization of the actual film. My conception of the project came from murder mysteries, period pieces, and concepts involving hardheaded women head of their time. This included Jack the Ripper, Sherlock Holmes, The Da Vinci Code, and Outlander. I researched the victorian era with Great Courses, read screenwriting books such as Save the Cat and The Writer’s Journey, and read screenplays for films. Most helpful was the former novel and the screenplay for Silence of the Lambs, as the story followed the same flow with a strong female protagonist. I spent time drafting outlines, treatments, and character development in order to keep a strong flow and dynamic character arcs. With the basics in place, I wrote the first twenty pages (the first act) a handful of times. The outline was perfected and written out into the full eighty-three pages. With a lot of exposition, stagnant characters, weird time jumps, and too much dialogue I redid the first act another two times. Finally, my director and I determined that further changes would be reserved for later drafts, and that this first draft of eighty-three pages was complete.