Eagle Era

Looking back on the teachers that have influenced my journey to art school.

Kingston Lo

As students slowly mature, they make stronger connections with the teachers that you meet frequently. Since sophomore year, I’ve been really passionate about art and visual design, which led me to join a bunch of clubs as a publicist and be that one guy in the group to design all of the slides for a presentation. However, I feel like not every class is helpful for developing art skills, unless you consider drawing a parabola or a perfect circle in math “art”. As well, I struggled at making connections with others, which led me to be very shy when talking to new people. As I reflect on the many teachers I’ve talked to, I want to talk about the teachers that have given me a chance to express myself.

Being a student in Ms. Min’s class for U.S. History was pretty fun with the projects we were given. One of the most memorable projects I made in her class was a music video parody about an immigrant, their history, and their experiences going to Ellis Island. Students could pick any song to parody, and at the time I really liked this song called “Massa” from Tyler, The Creator because of its flow and the beat, and I erased many parts of the lyrics and replaced it with my own to make it relevant to the immigrant. After watching, I got a huge applause and many compliments on the lyrics. It really helped me build the courage to stop caring about how others feel and showcase my creations with my head up. I used that idea of not caring how others feel for a big skit I had to do with others or if I had to  present some drawings I made for another project.

A teacher that really focused on big projects was Mr. B.C., who taught 2-D Animation. One thing I learned is that Adobe is a really evil company (greedy business) and Adobe Animate sucks from crashing every few minutes. But the other thing I learned is to collaborate with others in animating. I gained experience in learning how to storyboard and work with others while forcefully having to use Adobe Animate, and those experiences definitely carry on to art school where, as an animation major, I’ll have to collaborate on animations many times, and there will be many more minds writing a script and storyboarding together. Mr. B.C. also helped me with setting up a portfolio and what to place on there, which later helped me when I had to submit my art portfolio for art school, so many thanks for that.

Ms. Huang, my Chinese teacher let us make films during junior year as part of our exams, and that was probably my most favorite project I did in high school ever. I got to direct and edit a bunch of videos and clips, and even though some of them were stressful, I got to polish them and test out how many times my Davinci Resolve software would crash. It was great practice on scripting, directing, editing, and combining everything together, and I would always enjoy the end result, even if she was a bit skeptical about how crazy the script was. I absolutely loved the amount of creativity from other students too.

The teacher that helped me the most with my art journey would be my goat, Mr. Elam. I had him for World History during sophomore year and now Gaming Concepts, and he has given me a lot of opportunities to showcase my art skills and practice designing graphics, like flyers and slides. I did some bite-sized animations for World History, one of them being about the 1750s, another one about WWII, and one being about the history of Hong Kong. It helped me stop being shy about presenting my work. Additionally in Gaming Concepts, I did a lot of graphic design and video editing, which was really fun and great practice for me, especially when I had to collaborate and brainstorm with others for some projects. I also learned some more about Adobe Animate, and even though I hate it, I still learn it so I can put it on my Linkedin page.

So, if you haven’t yet, go talk to your teachers and have some fun doing creative assignments. Take the opportunity to make something special in a presentation or a project, and create something that you’ll love. And trust me, you’ll need these connections when you need a letter of recommendation.

Caption: A variety of graphics that showcase the things I have learned and practiced, including animation, filming, video editing, and speaking to an audience. (Illustration: Kingston Lo (12))