For my capstone, I decided to write, produce, and master an EP of my music. An EP is generally 3 to 6 songs long, mine ended up being 5 songs, and titled “Sick and Tired.” The goal was to have a polished and publishable product. Making music is something I’ve always wanted to do but it also has been a big source of insecurity. Making my capstone, “Sick and Tired” forces me to release music which is something I’ve been struggled with doing since I was a freshman. The songs on the album explore the topic of self-perception and letting go of societal pressures. It is a collection of music that shows the growth and setbacks I’ve run into while becoming the person I am today from the point of view of outsiders and myself. For Example, in the case of “Loser” the second song on the EP. The song is about how I felt and feared I was perceived. Another song on the project “Pretty in Pink” discusses my own struggles with femininity from my point of view.

To be published June 1, 2020

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uMr5VkLrU3-Ny_X1fo8uHDphiram8lR4O_Z2parhv00/edit?usp=sharing

Over the course of my senior year, I worked to put on the She’s Reel Film Festival with my best bud and co-creator Ruby Ginsburg. The She’s Reel Film Festival is a festival made by young female filmmakers, for young female filmmakers. We wanted to give artists like us from the Greater Philadelphia Area a platform to have their art showcased and awarded. The final product is a combination of many works. The first being our virtual festival. This was an hour-long festival that we streamed on youtube, we awarded 11 films, and the video now has 200 views. Along with this is a youtube playlist of all of the official selections.

I have broken down the process of putting on this festival into three stages, stage one being the conceptualizing and branding stage. This is where we made decisions about the ethics of our festival, created all of the guidelines, and made our brand. We made a logo, color palette, name, slogan, Instagram page, and website. After that is stage two, the marketing and organizing stage. Here we searched for a venue, created a budget, found judges, created a timeline, pitched to Braskem, received full funding, posted on Filmfreeway, and then started accepting submissions. Stage three was the presentation stage. Here we had to switch our festival from in-person to virtual, learned how to stream, had the judges score the films, analyzed the results, assigned awards, created a script, highlight reel, and slide show for the virtual festival, and then hosted it. After the main event was over we designed and ordered swag for our festival and crafted homemade She’s Reel gift boxes that I hand-delivered to every submitter, judge, friend, parent, mentor, and supporter of our festival.

I learned a lot over the course of this project. I learned how to effectively collaborate, how to stay organized and follow a schedule, how to strengthen a community, and how much better it is to complete a project when it’s something you’re truly passionate about. I’m really proud of this project, for all it did to help me grow as a person and the joy it brought to the community of young female filmmakers in Philadelphia.

Bibliography

What I did in my Capstone was make beats which I rapped to make an album. Each rap is about an environmental factor like climate change or pollution. I wanted to make raps talking about our environment and letting people know that if we keep this up our planet will not be able to recover. I made the beats on Garageband which is a music app on iPhone and it has a lot of music options to create anything you want. With each new beat, I made it progressively got better and I really felt the growth comparing the first beat with the last. I like making beats and I really wanted to apply that to my capstone in some way. The link to the album will be provided below this summary if you would like to listen. You’re going to have to copy and paste it in your URL. Also, the lyrics are in the description of each rap but the instrumentals are there if you want to listen to the beat or you want to try rapping on it, talking about the topic yourself.

(Presentation link) https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AWbOkmtULUxfC2YDejKPNDBPIllUKM-nm-bCk9ScVMo/edit?usp=sharing

Nature’s comet (album link below)

Bibliography link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OhKjDryrJASZzGXlTJxAw9xQjS6pigKmNMcVUWCZZfw/edit?usp=sharing