From the moment Jake and I first sat down to talk about our ideas, our minds went wild; creating and developing ideas in a perfectly synchronized dance. We created a story that tackles something we both care about, something that has -to a degree- personally affected us both (me certainly), and something that we know takes a toll on the mental health and education of our peers. A number or a title on a piece of paper doesn’t determine your self worth and shouldn’t be the cause for disrupting anxiety and poor mental health practices.
Because we were telling a story about modern students, we had to make sure that is exactly what we were seeing on screen, a modern representation of high school, not something based on stereotypes created in the late 80s with the rise of teen culture because culture changes. This project was the perfect opportunity to people watch, to pay attention to the world around us, to interpret it, and try our best to represent that on screen. And that’s what we did. We are proud to have created characters that, we believe, represent a portion of our peers accurately and we are even more proud to have had the opportunity to work with a cast just as diverse in personality and other traits. Something truly representative of the most diverse generation in history.
The production of valedictorian was a memorable one, full of great memories with friends and lots of inside jokes that will bring clever laughter to all of us for years to come. The opportunity to make a project like this is so scarce in education that I am so humbled and thankful to have been able to partake in something like it. This project has provided me with the opportunity to understand the production process on a much deeper level, and I will forever be grateful for the knowledge I've acquired, keeping it at the forefront as I begin my journey in the mass media industry.
Thankfully, due to the excitement Jake and I had about starting to work on valedictorian, we were able to complete much of the production before this unfortunate global pandemic. However, it was an interesting experience to undergo the post-production process completely virtually. I believe that I developed a lot of new skills due to this challenge and I look forward to implementing them in the future, not out of necessity, but in a spirit of innovation! In some way, this project has helped me cope with this pandemic situation; it has been a great distraction from the overwhelming nature of what's going on out there. I’m also grateful to have had Jake as a partner because I believe it would've been impossible to pull it off the way we have without a partner who you can rely on, trust, and share a vision with.
And that brings me to Jake. There is no one I would have rather done this with than him. Although we met in 8th grade (Yes, yes we did Jacob.. sorry it’s an ongoing argument), our friendship started in our AS level media class. I know they often say to not work with friends but to that I say: (1) he’s my best friend and (2) we make a heck of a team. We have an exciting journey ahead of us in college, and I can't wait to see what sort of crazy fun and deeply fulfilling adventures we embark on. I am extremely proud of what we have created and I couldn't have asked for a more awesome senior experience. I hope we made Tina proud dude.
Boy oh boy! It’s hard to believe that this journey has come to an end. As I sit here writing this post, I struggle to type every word, in many ways I don’t want it to be over, saying goodbye to what has been the highlight of my semester feels like saying goodbye to my senior year and saying goodbye to the class and the teacher that has put a smile on my face every single day for two years. This wasn’t an assignment for me, I don’t care for my grade, I set out to have fun and make a film with my best friend and that’s exactly what I did.
Here’s to my coffee-filled, detail-oriented, media adventure!
Tina, thank you.
For the last time…
Signing off,
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