Sample Essay - Sample College Admissions Essay - Analog

Sample Essay - Analog

Although my relationship with video started before I was in high school, my tools have remained the same: beige Mac G3, video 8 camera, VCR, and AV cables. Most people making video today are using digital equipment. I'm still in analog. Quality is lost, and the picture that is finally imported looks like it was shot in the '70s. Analog is all give and take. If the computer does not want to render full screen video, I just reduce the picture by half. If the computer will only play a few frames before it cuts out, I'll go take a walk. Working this way may be frustrating, but when the video performs, diced into tiny fast-moving segments, and the music gets poured over the top as if it is directing it, that's when I'm satisfied. Analog is grainy, gritty, and shiny. Analog is beautiful the same way some graffiti art is, because it's real. These are all the things I love about it. And these are the reasons why analog is the place to which I return year after year.

I am not proud of my first efforts in film. The camera was my toy �a diversion to pass time, to occupy myself in a creative way. But these early films gave me experience. I gradually gained both the patience and maturity to create something I'd want to show to people other than my snickering friends.

My first real attempt, Gone Wrong, was a clumsy, hardly-edited, three-scene piece about a kid who gets hit in the "fundamentals." The soundtrack starts with an upbeat jam by Chick Core a but then shifts to a melancholy Gershwin song for the agony scene. Although the music was appropriate, it was not synched to details. The whole piece was unfocused and immature. I had gone out to have fun, not to create a work of art.

Though Gone Wrong was childish, it was my initiation into the feeling, rhythm, and method of editing. It was my first taste, my first negotiation, my first exchange. It was also my last film that would have dialog and an artificially-created story. Through my next two attempts, I realized I was much better at recording real life than creating one of my own.

When I look back on the days of Gone Wrong, I see myself as a child trying language for the first time. I made mistakes, but I was learning.

About a year later, I spent a Sunday taping my mom endlessly watering the garden, and my brother and dad intently building a soapbox car. I put the scene of my mom, and the scene of my brother and dad, into separate boxes on the same screen. The constant jumps between the two jaggedly-cut shots were a great way to show my family ’s compulsiveness. Each lasted only a few seconds before shifting angles. I chose Miles Davis's "Springville" as a soundtrack. It is a fanciful, carefree piece with a melancholic undertone. Then I edited all the quick cuts to match the music. The movie ended on the last note of the song.

Sunday helped to establish my style. When I finished with it, I had an excellent technical and creative grasp of my workspace. However, as much as Sunday was a huge step forward from Gone Wrong, it was still immature. The quick cuts made the film almost over edited. It was as if, in my quest to show my family's obsessive ness, I had emulated them, becoming obsessive myself in the intricate construction of the film.

I entered Sunday in a student festival. I was surprised when it won first place in the nonfiction category. I think it won because, unlike many of the entries, it wasn't blatant. Sunday was about a family doing what families do. It was fanciful, escapist, and soothing. I could make subtle reference to conflict, without beating the ideas to death.

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