I knew that I wanted it to be reflective since that was one of the main core values from SLA that I thought gets under valued. After speaking with multiple people about I thought that there wouldn’t be a better way to do this then to have those are the pillars of the school reflect on what they have learned about the school and what SLA truly means to them.

This gave me the Idea for two videos to me made. The first video the I wanted to make would be for incoming teachers to SLA since they are the pillars of the community and need to adjust just like everyone else does. In order to do this I needed to see what it was like to be a part of that learning process is which is why I choose to take a full year of classes with Amal Giknis one of the new teachers coming to SLA this year. Through being her student I saw what big changes needed to be made from the traditional teaching style and how they needed to be adapted to the SLA way to thinking and learning.

My second video would be not just freshmen, but people from multiple classes reflecting on their freshman year. Since SLA is such a vastly different experience from going to school anywhere else I thought that having multiple people give a subtle recap of their freshman year with the challenges and struggles they faced and giving advice to the next incoming class would be a wonderful thing for future freshmen. Another way I wanted to do this was by experiencing it with them which is why I insisted on becoming an SAT to a freshman class to watch them struggle and grow into the wonderful student that SLA produces.

Annotated Bibliography

by Sieanna Williams

1. Frank Miller's Sin City. Dir. Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino, and Robert Rodriguez. Prod. Bill Scott, Elizabeth Avellán, Robert Rodriguez, Bob Weinstein, and Harvey Weinstein. By Frank Miller. Perf. Jessica Alba, Benicio Del Toro, Brittany Murphy, and Clive Owen. Miramax Films, 2005. Film.

Frank Miller’s Sin City is the film that inspired my capstone project. This film includes a plethora of diverse shots, angles, lighting decisions, and a unique storyline that drew me in instantly. This film provides me with insight on how to transition between storylines, establish mise-en-scene according to the nature of the settings and time periods as well as upping my editing decisions. Another aspect of Sin City that caught my attention was the way each storyline connected to their themes. Just by watching this film I am educated and reeducated about the unlimited types of styles, design, colors, etc. that I can line up in my film. There are so many ways to bring creativity to a film and I believe this film demonstrates that in ways most films do not.

2. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Dir. Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez. By Frank Miller. Prod. Elizabeth Avellan. Perf. Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis and Eva Green. Miramax Films, 2014. Film.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is Sin City’s sequel. Even though Tarantino was not apart of this film, his Sin City touch still remained. In ways, I enjoyed part two better than part one. Nearly a decade after the prequel, the performances of Sin City 2 have gotten relatively stronger, which has impacted how I will direct my own actors. Even though I enjoyed this film more than it’s predecessor and it’s lurid cinematography, it often felt redundant, something I am struggling with when writing my own stories. I don’t want any of the stories to be the same, and so watching this repetition play over in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, it’s become a great resource of what to watch out for and how to avoid this.

3. Slacker. Dir. Richard Linklater. By Richard Linklater. Prod. Richard Linklater. Perf. =Richard Linklater, Rudy Basquez, and Jean Caffeine. Orion Classics, 1991. Film.

The 90’s film. Slacker, is a perfect example of what I am trying to produce. I wouldn’t have known about this film had it not been for a friend. Slacker is set over a period of one day, my film is set over a course of one month. Slacker’s main concept, as my own, is to show snippets of unconnected lives throughout Austin, Texas to show their strong connections and relations despite the fact that they are internally and externally complete strangers to one another. The way Slacker approaches this is by showing each of these characters as slackers yet amazing artists. The point of my project is to show a global connection of people through struggles, morality, etc. So when I watch this film, I hope to take away an idea of how to connect my characters other than their blood relation (which is what I currently have).

4. "5 Techniques That Create Depth & Make Your Cinematography More Dynamic." No Film School. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.

Lately, I usually have not had any issues getting a great image on the camera before it hits color correction. But then, I never needed to get a great image in areas other than cold outdoors or warm indoors. I realized that by the time I start filming for this project it is going to be hot out, which means I’m going to need to adjust to all different sorts of lightings and temperatures. Not only just for my film but as a cinematographer in general, I’ve needed this. With this source I have learned how to add depth to my shots, enhance depth of field (rack focus is my favorite technique), and even contrast lighting.

5. 5 Scriptwriting Tips That Will Make Any Story Better." Goins Writer RSS. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.

This source was a huge help for me getting down some of my scripts. It’s more difficult than it sounds to write a script out of a short story. This source told me to not only establish a clear voice, but to have my characters speak in vernacular. This was interesting and immediately inspiring. Since all of my short stories besides the first and last one will have first person narration based on the character driving the current storyline, I was struggling at first with how to keep the audience engaged with each character and keeping each character distinct. Another point that really stood out to me was to show and not tell. I don’t have much experience with scriptwriting, and, often, when I do I spoonfeed the story through lots of narration because of my own bad habit of including so much detail and explanation. But this source explained the importance of letting the audience find out things through dialogue and action. This source has completed the few scripts I have finished already.

6. "The Compelling Story Technique." , CollegeGrad.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.

As I mentioned in my proposal, I’m worried that my stories aren’t compelling enough. This article, however, appoints me to my weak points and issues with story telling while noting the definite dos that will drive one’s story to life. This article speaks briefly about using details and nuances to enhance the quality of my stories. One quote from this article that stuck with me is that one could achieve compulsion by simply “continuously striving to stay personally connected with the interviewer.” Yes, this article is mainly for people getting tips on how to interview, but it has been a great resource for my stories as well. It makes perfect sense to connect with the audience. It is the quickest and most important part of storytelling. If you don’t give your audience anything to relate to, then they’re only observers and they take nothing away from your story.  

7. "How to Tell Your Story without Boring Your Audience to Tears." Goins Writer RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.

When I read this article, I noticed that the author talked a lot about reflection and not just how my audience and readers would reflect after hearing the stories but how I would reflect on everything. If I can answer every posed or self-posed question about either my text or film or both then I should be okay. Suddenly, this topic translates to not how to tell my story but why I’m telling it. This article really made me think about why any of these stories are important and what exactly do I want my readers to take away from them. I know I want the struggle of deciding between moral and immoral is supposed to be the crux of the stories to show that humans connect through struggle, but why exactly would this be important? Thanks to this article, I’ve figured it out.

8. "Can You Have Multiple Storylines in Your Novel? | Advanced Fiction Writing." Advanced Fiction Writing. N.p., 21 Feb. 2011. Web. 29 Jan. 2015.

Of course I knew that one could indeed have multiple storylines within their novels, but I knew this article would have more to offer me than just answering the question in the title. The article, at one point, states that it’s important to remember that every one of the multiple characters are the lead character in the novel of their lives. This means that every character’s voice is unique, they should all be active characters (because no one wants to follow someone who is statically moving through live; that’s boring), and each of their storylines’ relationships to the main storyline must be established either totally clearly or totally vaguely, depending on whether I’m doing a mystery, psychological story where I want readers to figure out certain things for themselves. And that is another crucial tactic to writing with multiple storylines, according to the article: leaving the audience hanging. Not only are cliffhangers great (sometimes), butsimply not explaining or giving every skeptical moment in the story a chance to be explained. This is where most of the ability or even desire to analyze stories go to die. I’ve learned it’s important to let readers figure out things for themselves, keeping them in the dark often makes them more interested.

9. "The Godfather: Part Two." The Godfather: Part Two. Web. 30 Jan. 2015.

I was told the Godfather Part 2 was claimed to be the most amazing screenplay ever written in the world, and as many film screenplays as I’ve read, I could not agree more. Because I still needed guidance when screenplay writing, I often turn to example screenplays written for films I love. I love the films for a reason and I wanted to see just how the writers combated making it sound so great, how the actors took what was given to them and turned it into what they did on screen. This screenplay truly is genius. Even as a simple guide I’ve learned so much. Include camerawork, place it on the left; the structure of the narration referring to characters, sound and action; I’ve also learned that extension on narration is okay, so long as I do not spoonfeed the actors but instead use it as JUST an extension on stage directions. After reading this script, not only am I no longer intimidated by screenplay writing, but I’ve written several screenplays for my short stories and am fairly confident in all of them.

10. Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and James L. W. West. "Hot and Cold Blood." All the Sad Young Men. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2007. N. pag. Print.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of my favorite authors. He is a romanticized writer, something I greatly enjoy and have taken to my own story writing. His collection of short stories, All the Sad Young Men is what inspired the short story portion of my capstone. Although F. Scott did not have intertwining storylines, he did have a theme that connects the characters in a more general sense. F. Scott uses grief, sadness and loneliness to connect his characters and I know enough about this book to understand just how to bring out those emotions and more within my own characters.  

My capstone evolved over the course of the year but it was always centered around art. freshman year I have always been a fan of the artwork the decorated the halls of SLA and I asked myself “What can I add to SLA’s creative and artistic environment?”. At the beginning of the year my plan was to paint on a large canvas that could be taken with the school if it ever found a new building. I contacted Al Gury, the Chair of the Painting Department at PAFA, but unfortunately my attempt to stay in contact with this him failed. Since I was unable to obtain a large canvas I decided to paint the walls on the third floor. I had previous experience with photoshop but I was not pro. I spent a lot of time tinkering with the many tools the program has to offer. When it came time to decide what it was I was going to paint I decided on a black and white theme. I used photoshop to created girds and rough drafts of my future artwork. My final products were a painting of a zebra and a silhouette-like body slice. This project taught me new skills but most importantly I learned that art takes patience, resources, and collaboration.

Trying to be original without repeating “For my capstone” or “This year…” is extremely difficult so i’ll let this serve as my introductory sentence in hopes that it might provide some type of variety for the students, staff and human beings on this blog today. One could say, my capstone, encompassed a plethora of topics and enterprises including, early child development, constructive community development, peer/ teacher mentoring and mindfulness skills and practices. Although, this list of subject matters may appear scattered and somewhat unrelated, it was my job during the time spent on my capstone to use all of these skills/tactics to guide and mentor students ranging anywhere from kindergarten to fifth grade.

The locale of my capstone activities took place at “The Common Place”, located on 58th and chester. Here, they provide empowering, enjoyable and impacting after school programs such as anger management, art therapy and general homework help and horse play. The purpose of these programs is to serve as a positive and productive outlet for children that, otherwise, may not be lucky enough to have. Although, to the kids, i may only be remembered as a double dutch champion but during the time not spent skipping, I worked hard on creating programs of my own to help them utilize some skills they may need in order to become more productive and effective adolescents and adults. My two largest projects during this time were the diary card and the hip-hop music therapy program.

The diary card was a mindfulness tool that the kids were to take home weekly. It’s function was to afford a more observant and advantageous way of expressing emotions and events that happened to them throughout the week. A list of mindfulness skills and stress tolerance practices were also included on the bottom of each sheet as a reference and reminder of more productive emotion regulation techniques. I also helped my super in the crafting of a hip-hop after school program that incorporated music therapy techniques. It did this by allowing the children to express themselves both lyrically, and rhythmically using music as an emotional and creative outlet making both of these projects an asset in the betterment of the kids emotional intelligence.

All in all, my time spent at The Common Place was anything but common, it was life changing, inspirational and everything else cliche. In truth, it was an amazing experience helping impact and guide these children’s lives and i'm excited to share my full experience in june. Thank you!

Disclaimer: Unfortunately the presentation/ visual aspect of this project is still underway. Due to privacy violations and possible confidentiality breaches parts of my visual are pending approval requests. You’re patience is appreciated! Thanks!

Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13iZKa-KZiMxT8l2bHFUR-7lKirl38Q7-kYil9oe0uOM/edit?usp=sharing

Abstract:

    Hi, my name is Chris Tran. Today I’m going to talk to you about my capstone that I have been working on over the past few months of the school year. A capstone is a graduation project that can be on any topic of your choice. I decided to choose something that I have been passionate about and that was to fundraise and donate money to Doctors Without Borders to specifically provide them money to help them on their mission of aiding the world. Also another reason why I donated to Doctors Without Borders because they were accepting donations to provide care for those who are ill with Ebola. I believed that all I could do is do my best to fundraise a specific amount of money to help them with their mission. I also dream that someday I could have an opportunity to do a fundraiser by myself. The process that I took to complete this project is really easy at times, but it can be difficult. The easy part is to make a website that provides the people on the web information about Ebola. I used information composed by research and compiled them into a website. Then I went out and went store-to-store asking for donations to support my capstone. When I ask them for donations, I give them a card that has all of my information as well as a link to my website. I ask them to read it and spread the information that they have learned about Ebola to people that they know. At times asking for donations is difficult because they aren’t as open to donating, but I later learned that there is a technique to talking to others and I used that to my advantage.