The purpose of the Senior Innovator Project is use your own passion to innovate, create, and develop your own project.
Originally my project idea was based off the film hateful 8 by Quentin Tarantino. He made the whole film in 70mm in the old school format and that inspired me to create a film in the old school format. However, when the time to create came, I wasn’t as ready as I anticipated. At this point, I took interest to Andy Hamlin’s project. His idea was to create a rap song and a music video to go with it. When I heard this, there was no looking back. I eventually hopped on his project and we took off.
My research didn’t really help with the project because my research paper was about celluloid film, but Andy’s research really helped with our project. He researched trends in music culture and studied the culmination of album creation. Along with this he studied the evolution of rap creation as a whole and the sudden interest in caucasian listeners. Along with my research on my essay topic, I put some time aside to study Andy’s topic. I learned so much about rap and hip hop culture and I believe it will show in our music.
The collaboration between me and Andy can be compared to rapper Future and producer Metro Boomin. We just work well together. From the start we had the same vision and everyday we work hard to capture this vision. When one of us is stuck, the other knows what the problem is. It’s kind of crazy actually.
I wouldn’t change much about this project. We worked really well and we learned a ton. If I had to change one thing it would have to be time management. Certain days we would get so in the zone that we would literally create three amazing songs and then later realize, we’re not making an album, we’re making one song and one music video. Sometimes our beat creation was so enticing that it got us off track.
The 21st Century skills I acquired in the process of the innovator project are without a doubt the ability to work with others in the music world. I don’t think I will ever become a music producer but the skill to work with others in a creative environment was priceless. Another skill I learned was beat creation. I had a basic idea of how it worked but after this project, I can truly say I know what I’m doing.
I am definitely going to continue producing at least for a little bit longer. I don’t think I will pursue it as a career, but there is definitely a market out there. If I do pursue it as a career, I will definitely have to upgrade from garageband. During my research I read that the Drake’s producer “40”, stated that “You don’t need all the fancy equipment to produce. The great producers can create magic with any software.” So I’m happy with my decision to teach myself the ins and outs of garage band so that I could have some sort of foundation. It’s what I did with imovie. Started off extremely basic and now I can work with any editor. It takes time but, I can only go up from here.
I felt this whole project was a mix of collaboration and self determination. You have to rely on other people in the music industry but there you also need to have a sense of self guidance. I really did have to teach myself how to create music and in doing so I developed skills I never thought I would ever possess.
Overall, this was one of my all time favorite projects. My life usually revolves around Filmmaking and Baseball, so it was refreshing to hop in the studio everyday and experiment with a medium that’s somewhat new to me. I’m thankful for my friends and teachers for pushing me to create something I know I’m capable of. If it wasn’t for the innovator project, I probably would never do what I did. I now have a collection of various beats and sounds that may not have ever existed. Overall I’m very happy with this project.