Film is an amazing medium for artistic expression, whether it is used for photography, or for cinematography, it allows for a limitless revelation of one’s innermost thoughts. Being an Industrial Design major at San Jose State University, I find myself constantly bounded by constraints and meticulous rules, both of which leave me with very little room for abstract expression. To add to this I find myself consistently bogged down by emotions due to friendships, relationships, or personal folly. It is with Super 8 film that I am able to create my own world, one in which I can escape all of these restraining forces.
The first Super 8 video I created was over two years ago, this is when I also created the name “Say Hello” for the collection of pieces I’ve made. In my pieces, I focus predominately on the art of skateboarding, because skateboarding is just that, an art. I also incorporate abstract imagery, which serves as a metaphor for my own life. All ten of the Super 8 video pieces I’ve created come from my heart and are influenced from the situations and certain emotional hardships I've endured over the past two years. Some of these situations include my own traumatic brain injury, the separation of a personal relationship and the confusion due to it, and the separation of a few of my very close friends due to moving. Generally, these situations will cause difficult emotions to linger in my mind as I film either my friend’s skateboarding, or something abstract. I try to include the emotions I feel during those times and use them in a way that's opposite of their destructive nature. I take difficult feelings and use them to their advantage through my own videos, as good or bad as these videos may appear in a professional videographer or editor’s point of view. I make my edits for myself, and for my future family to remember me by when I'm long gone. When I film and edit these videos I am completely uninhibited, which gives me a powerful sense of artistic freedom. I can’t control what life throws at me, nor where my friends go, nor love, but I can express this lack of control through the medium of film. For the few minutes each one of these films lasts, I can possibly make someone else feel an emotion they never knew was inside them. I can control the world I create and reveal my inner ideas through “Say Hello.”