mirrors presentations, day 2

Day two of presentations came from the Kleine Band. Phillip gave us an overview of the band's arc, including their explorations of art, psychology, and leaps in understanding of math, as well as their trip to Joshua Tree.Tab started us off with a presentation of his film-making project. He began with a quote from Blaine Pascal: "I would have written you a shorter letter but I didn't have enough time," and explained that it was an inspiration and source of excitement because small things are just as hard to do as big things. He explained his scriptwriting process, showed us a short film exploration of different kinds of movie shots and the effects a shot has in telling a story, and screened his short film "Sweet and Sour". The movie was an experiment in using color to show your mood changing the way you see people and how you see yourself.Jane made a documentary about Brightworks for her project, reflecting her experiences at the school and her unique perspective about life here. She explained the differences between a movie and a documentary - nonfictional, real people not actors - and told us the six types of documentaries. Hers is an expository documentary. To make it, she took about twenty hours of footage and only used about 10% of it, using storyboarding and intensive editing to create her final beautiful piece.Matylda talked to us about her self portrait series done in graphite. Her goal was to improve her drawing skills and come out of the arc with five well-drawn pictures. She explained the research she did on the history of self-portraiture, expanding her drawing techniques, and studying body and facial proportions. With guidance from her experts Phillip and our artist-in-residence Kate, she made seven portraits that reflect her improving skills, her attention to detail, and her playfulness as a subject and as an artist.Alicia also studied self portraiture, beginning with examining four self-portraits done by well-known artists. She began by studying these artists' lives and absolutely loved looking at their work, and described each one of them with care that indicated her true respect and regard for them. As she worked on her self portraits, she said she developed her own style as an artist and techniques for the difficult facial features - like the nose! - and came out of the arc with four incredible drawings of herself.Aidan explained his interest in the mirror maze that the bands visited at the beginning of the arc and talked to us about the mirror maze he made for rats. He told us about the types of mazes that scientists usually use to test rat intelligence and memory, and said that during his test runs the rats took longer in the maze when he covered the mirrors versus when they were uncovered. His prediction was that the mirror maze kept the rats more motivated because they would often stop to look at themselves in the mirror and might have been scared to see another rat in the same space.Theo wrote a series of short plays inspired by his Kimochis, which help kids express emotions, and filmed one of them with the message, "It's okay to be mad, but it's never okay to be mean." He was inspired by one of his experiences during the Joshua Tree trip.