Collaboration and Leadership Statement 

             Independence is a skill that just about every person has experienced at some point in their career. Whether it is to work on a passion project, writing material, or being tasked to work on something nobody else could be trusted with. With that in mind, whether it’s taking on leadership positions or working with a group collaboratively, it’s extremely important to know when it’s time to put your trust and reliance on others when working on any project with a team. This is because regardless of a person’s level of independence, most projects cannot be done on your own in an efficient time. The following projects prove that both my leadership skills and collaborative skills have been obtained through such example experiences. These experiences and given artifacts will also identify key components that make up a leader and collaborative role.

             Although its production value is low, I was tasked to direct one of my earliest films titled “Follow The Instructions” Which is a story about a construction worker, an artist, a businessman, and a scientist as they all fail at making a sand castle because they forgot what it’s like to behold their inner child. The reason this project proves the capabilities of my collaboration skills is that I allowed each actor to form their own characters and personalities without my intervention. By trusting others to help work on the vision I had for this project, and thanks to this concept of “trust in others” I was able to create something consistent and fun. This brings me to explain the importance of one key factor in collaboration: Inclusiveness in creative input. In the world of production, this concept may seem very controversial. Obviously, if a crew member were to tell Steven Speilburg that he’s doing something wrong in his newest film, and if that person so happened to be an audio technician or dp then he’d probably be fired on the spot. But in other more traditional cases where directors are required to work with producers whose moral consideration is at stake, or the likeliness of traumatic experiences to come from intense projects, then it’s important to take into consideration this aspect of trust in creative input from others. This not only proves the openness I have in others when regarding delicate projects, but I know when it’s time to turn it off in critical moments.

             The next project that I will be talking about regards a film I Ast. Directed titled “INK,” in which I explain a skill that I had learned in leadership. The story of “INK” takes place in a dystopian world where art is now deemed illegal, and that any form of it will result in execution. The story follows a character whose grandfather died to such consequences, and it was due to the consequences that the character attempts to create his own work in secrecy. Now, in this project, there were a lot of moments of struggle when it came to the consistence labor of crew members. During our beach scenes, we didn’t have either our cinematographer or DP, yet being the most experienced in filmmaking and taking up the role of assistant director, I stepped up and took on this important task as a means of contributing to the film's success. That said, there is a very important aspect of what makes my leadership skills thrive, and it’s this: Don’t do other people's jobs if you don’t know how to do the job itself. Similar to the discipline of culinary arts, if a chef is absent, the head chef should never appoint the dishwasher. With that also comes a level of responsibility, just as one should never do a job if the person doesn’t know how to do it, the leader shouldn’t do the job just because he’s a “leader.” For example, regardless of how much I know how to play piano, I would never replace a music composer’s job because I know nothing about what it’s like to be a composer.

             For this next project, I would like to mention the importance of listening to your higher-ups regardless of your role as a leader. “The Soup and the Bread Script” is a script for the film “The Soup and the Bread.” It was not only the first time I had written an official script, but it was also a project that was overseen, corrected, and taught by my professor Sensei Sugano who was one of the only two artists of residence at the University of Washington. The story itself takes inspiration from the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts during the early establishment of American history. The style itself also takes a very German expressionist tone as well as a child’s book storytelling technique. As a leader, it’s important to understand when it’s time to cut your ego in times of criticism. I was deconstructed from the ground up with this project, and it destroyed me in the best way possible. Before this project, I thought I was the stuff, but after being taught that I have much to learn is when I understood a very important aspect of any leadership role: You have lost when you say “I’ve learned it all. There is always something to learn from when it comes to your craft no matter the profession. There’s no such thing as a roof.