As a student that has graduated with a B.A. in Film Studies at Seattle University, I have been able to successfully create, produce, and edit projects for my film classes both independently and collaboratively. From my filmmaking classes, where I have been able to freely work on short films, to my elective classes, where I have gained the knowledge of film studies and forming video essays, I believe my knowledge in this field is growing more and more everyday.
Critiquing True Crime (2022)
Click the link here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfjgl1uRv6qhNDA9H-70eIg
Critiquing True Crime is a series of video essays that critiques the genre of true crime as a form of entertainment through a variety of mediums, including documentary film, podcasts, and television shows. As an avid true crime watcher who created this series for my senior communication capstone project, I wanted to dive deep into the negative aspects of the genre and allow viewers of this series to ask themselves the question: is it ethical to obsess over a severe crime as a source of entertainment?
Me, My Thoughts, and I (2021)
Director/Writer/Editor
Me, My Thoughts, and I details what it is like to live with regular thoughts and anxious thoughts. As a person diagnosed with general anxiety disorder, I wanted to show off what it is like living with anxiety and how it can affect people’s lives as an invisible disability.
Call Mom (2021)
Director/Editor
Call Mom is a documentary portrait that features a series of video calls with my lovely mother. The reason why I wanted to capture these moments is, as a child who has a close relationship with their mother, I wanted to share moments of goofiness and general nonsense that we have through these phone calls.
This piece was featured in Seattle University’s 2021 Art Walk, dedicated to the “Home and Hearth” portion of the exhibition (https://www.seattleu.edu/artsci/arts/art-walk/site-4/).
A Night in New Mexico (2020)
Director/Writer/Animator
A Night in New Mexico is an original, silent thriller short film I wrote in my FILM 3350: Screenwriting I class. With some help in perfecting the script, I ultimately made a visual storyboard of said film for my Filmmaking I final. The narrative follows a truck driver who witnesses a serial killer alongside a victim on his cross-country drive, and must decide whether to keep driving or stop the killer himself.
While I am not totally satisfied with the visuals of this piece, as I was working on the software Storyboarder and had a limited amount of time to learn, it was nice to put pen-to-paper (not literally) and see my screenplay–which I am satisfied with–drawn out. Since this piece, I have learned a lot more about the software and use a Wacom tablet (instead of my laptop’s mousepad) to create graphics for storyboards.
Fincher’s Femme Fatales: A Video Essay (2020)
Director/Editor
For my final in my FILM 3290: Crime Cinema class, I was to explore a concept learned in class that was found in films not yet mentioned in class. With that said, I decided to review the classic femme fatale trope that is still used in films today. I found myself able to narrow down my search to specifically films directed by David Fincher, and researched the trope as seen in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and Gone Girl (2014).
Psychogeography (2020)
Director/Editor
For my Filmmaking I class, I was given the task of creating an experimental video in regards to Maisie Ridgway’s “An Introduction to Psychogeography.” Psychogeography is defined as “the study of the influence of geographical environment on the mind or on behavior.”
With the definition and reading in mind, I went out and recorded visuals and audio that interested me, and experimented with video and audio editing on Adobe Premiere Pro. This assignment was a fun one for me, as I was still learning about the Adobe software and was able to play around with effects that came out very interesting.
If I Had Only Known (2020)
Director/Writer
Inspired by Julie Nolke’s short “Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self” (https://youtu.be/Ms7capx4Cb8), my first assignment in my Filmmaking I class was to have a conversation between my pre-pandemic self and current pandemic self. I scripted, directed and edited this short–my first short film ever as well as my introduction to editing on Adobe Premiere Pro.
Laurencia Trevino 