Mentors: Xinyi Zhang, Nyeema Martin

Capstone Summary:

Produced a fashion show and worked as documenter and videographer as well as create a backdrop & red carpet.

Project Abstract: 

For my senior capstone project, I produced a Fashion show. In the beginning of  the year, another student and I decided to do a combined senior capstone. Her part was making the clothes and the models and my part was the event. In the beginning of the school year, we got together SLA students who were interested in fashion to join our fashion club. I documented the fashion club from the beginning of the process and edited and created an introduction video for the audience. I also designed and created my own backdrop for the fashion show as well as a red carpet for hollywood effect. I handled the lighting, camera shots, and photography as well as the projector. I chose to do this capstone because it was combining two of my interests which is fashion and videographer and I thought it would be cool to do something that was close to a technical producer. Another reason I chose to do this capstone is because in the future I plan on working in the medical field and I know it takes plenty of collaboration and communication to be successful just as it does in a fashion show and to be exposed to the environment of a fashion would give off the same effect  as working in the medical field. I've been in digital video class since the beginning of my junior year and has worked with previous projects of RoughCut productions. RoughCut productions is a film organization that Mr.Herman, a teacher at SLA, runs. Being apart of that organization, we've worked on numerous amounts of projects which in turn has exposed me to video graphing and documenting. When creating a film, it also takes a lot of collaboration to make a film successful. With that being said, I was used to filming and never got a chance to actually learn how to edit and create final products. One of my main goals for this project was to have a successful show and to explore documenting and videographer.  

For our group’s projects, there were plenty of downfalls but there were also some successes along the way. For example, when we first started planning what we were going to do for our project, everything sounded as if it was going to go well. In the beginning, we wanted to first go around the city and pay homeless people to do an interview with us but we then seen how that could be a problem beings though some homeless people may feel offended to the idea. We then thought of another idea, which was to visit homeless shelters and food distributions. When we visited one of the homeless shelters, we thought it was a hospice because of the sign in the window. We asked one of the few guys who were coming in and out of the building what exactly was the building for and who exactly lived there and the man had said it were for homeless men who were trying to work their way out of homeless. We thought that connected to our slogan since our slogan was  “Homeless not Hopeless”. We then wanted to set up something there so that we could buy them something to eat in exchange for interview questions. The director agreed to let us make sandwiches for them while we interview them and he gave us a set time. Beings though NHD took longer then we expected, we missed the time that the Director told us to come and he was not answering his phone. Another issue we faced was that we wanted to buy stickers with our slogan on it but we couldn’t purchase them in time so we brought posters from staples instead. One of the successes in this project was our fundraising bake sale. We wanted to raise money so that we could buy food for the homeless people who we interviewed and my group nearly sold everything and made a lot of money from it. In the end, our group managed to get interviews with homeless people. Ways that we got our issue out to people in Philadelphia was that we made posters with our slogans on it, both for the city and to put around in SLA as well. Also, we made a website explaining what our organization is and how to help and we also put the stories of the homeless people on the website as well.  

Me encanta mi ciudad

Mucho amor por mi ciudad

Me encanta mi ciudad

Filadelfia 

Language Essay

“Ugh, we got drama next. Kill me now.” I said.

“Why you don’t like drama class? Its actually fun.” said my friend.

“I mean like, I like the class, but it’s just, well I don’t know.”

“I think its cause you don’t talk much”

“What you mean? I always talk around ya’ll?

“Oh true, but well never mind.”

“Hmmm, ok.”

            That was the end of the conversation, but still my mind pondered about what my friends exactly meant by me not talking much. I know that I do act shy sometimes, but that’s only around people who I don’t know or don’t feel comfortable around. In class, I usually do not raise my hand because my language changes when I’m talking to my friend on the side, and when I am speaking in front of my class. When I speak in front of a lot of people, my voice seems to get lower and I begin to rush my words. My mother often tells me that whenever I have an exciting story to tell, I began to talk really fast, but I never notice it. Drama class just began, and I had to perform my monologue in front of the whole class. As soon as I got on stage, I could already feel my throat tightening up. I felt my mouth get dry as Introduced myself. “My name is Kenisha and I’m playing a girl named Buffy from Scary Movie 2.” As I looked down into the audience, many faces were staring right back at me, and I suddenly got nervous. I tried to speak, but nothing would come out. “Kenisha come on, go head and start your scene”, shouted voices from the audience. Even though the comments that were shouted from the audience should have encouraged me, it actually made me feel worst. I attempted to speak again, but my words came out dry and cracked. Overall, my monologue turned out to be terrible, which brought my grade down. As soon as I got in the car, I told my mother what was going on.

“Mom, can you take me out of drama class?” I asked.

“For what? I thought you liked it?” asked my mother.

“I do like it, but I just can’t handle it anymore. I always seem to mess up performances and that is hurting my grade.”

“Well, what’s exactly the problem?”

“Well, when I get in front of the class to perform, I get shy and then my voice changes which messes up my whole performance, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

“Ard, we will work on it. So you’re staying in drama.”

“Ughh, ard mom. Don’t get mad if I fail.”

All that week, my mom was pushing me to do better. That encouraged me to push myself as well. I practiced in front of friends, family members, and even in the hallways where random people walked by. It was the day to perform, and I felt more confident. I ended up doing my scene right and my teacher said he was proud of me.

According to James Baldwin, “ The price for this is the acceptance, and achievement, of one’s temporal identity.” He believes that the reason people usually change the way they talk around others is just for their acceptance at the time. I was looking for the acceptance of my mother, classmates, and my teacher. When I thought that I couldn’t receive acceptance from them, I wanted to quit. As I worked more on it, my confidence built up and I gained the ability to speak in front of others. I still get a little bit nervous but I still improved. People speak around others based on how confident they are. When I am around my friends, I am confident and I know that they will not judge me. If I try to speak in front of people I don’t know, I feel uncomfortable; I lose confidence and my voice changes. A person’s language or the way they speak changes based on the comfort level of the speaker.