“I’ve always been interested in making videos. My first attempt at getting into filmmaking was in eighth grade, but I never did anything serious because I knew my first product wouldn’t be great. I was striving for perfection from the start, and the fear of not meeting my expectations was blocking me from really continuing with what I was interested in. 

I posted my first video in the summer of 2024 after my sophomore year. I went to Monterey with my friends and made a recap reel. (Shout-out to Gia Sanan — she’s the reason I made that video). I also made a bunch of mini videos with that and posted those at that time. Taking that first step and posting those videos gave me the motivation to keep going. Now, I post almost everything I make.

I draw a lot of my inspiration from Instagram. I follow a lot of creators, whether it’s professional filmmakers or high schoolers, and I get to see what they’re working on and take a lot of inspiration from that. My Instagram feed is filled with a lot of ideas and creativity. The technical parts of filming and editing you can always pick up through watching YouTube tutorials. 

Out of the videos I’ve made so far, my favorite is probably the homecoming recap video for Class of 26. The homecoming recap was not necessarily my biggest project, but it was one of my first major pieces. The videos I made before that were shorter, and of poorer quality. I had to work on the recap over the span of a week, and I was able to learn a lot from it. I heard a lot of people liked the one I made for Shreen’s campaign for senior class officer as well. It received a lot of views and I feel that it helped her campaign, which I was really happy about. 

The main difference between the videos I make for myself and the ones I make for class council or other people is the amount of creative freedom I have. When I’m not making videos for myself, other people have a vision as well. So not only do I have to implement my ideas, but I also have to take into account what they want.  Sometimes it’s a challenge to combine the two, but it usually works out, and I think it’s great. Solo and collaborative projects each have their pros and cons, and I can’t say I prefer one over the other.

The biggest challenge I’ve faced is balancing the things I want to execute with the time I have as well as  what’s realistic. A lot of times, I see other creators doing certain things with their videos, and I want to emulate that in mine, but I don’t know how to execute it. It’s pretty difficult if you don’t have enough experience and if you don’t know where to look or who to ask. I just have to keep researching and experimenting, and then eventually I’ll get it right. 

Of course, I haven’t experimented with that many types of filmmaking. I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries, and that’s something I want to try making. Short films are also nice because they have a lot of visual effects which I think are fun, but the execution is harder. For those, you need to find actors and it’s just a more complicated process, so as of right now, I want to learn how to create a documentary and maybe try making one of Irvington. 

I’m joining ASG’s media team next year, and they put a lot of effort into making the homecoming theme reveal. That’s usually a very big video, and I’m excited to work on that.”