I believe the directions were to “say a little about yourself.” Well, there’s ALOT. Here it is in short form:

I was born in Los Angeles, Ca and grew up between there, spending part of the year with my father, and here in Eugene with my mother. Especially back then, two places could not be more different so in both worlds I was always considered “different.” I graduated from South Eugene High School early after the first term of my junior year (see? Different). Then I tried further to separate myself from the flock by begging my fashionably hippie mother to sign my military enlistment papers (she wouldn’t). However, five days after turning eighteen I was on my way to San Diego, Ca to begin my eight years as a U.S. Marine.

Since then I have been all over the world and to nearly every State, six of which I have lived. Through that time I have had several careers spanning from managing a bar to monitoring felony DUI offenders wearing alcohol detection bracelets. I have signed a recording/music publishing contract (which amounted to nothing except losing my desire to work in the music industry) and I have spent time in federal prison. Those things and all the moments in between now have led me to be where I was half a life ago; in shool and no idea what I want to do in life or where it may take me.

In the meantime, I am single, a homeowner, and live alone with my two dogs. I still write and play music as well as practice the art of photography. I am also a motorcycle enthusiast with a couple of Harley-Davidsons and an Indian, and I also collect and speculate comic books. Again, what comes next for me I really don’t know. I just try to stay focused on having gratitude for the small things, for being upright and breathing. If I can accomplish that each day, that’s how I stay winning.

Hi, my name is Hannah, and I am a Multimedia Design major. I want to learn more about film/video editing so that one day I might be able to join the Hoonigan Autofocus Team. 

My passion for video editing started in a class that I took a few years ago. It was an introductory level class editing in Premiere Pro and I think I probably only completed half of the assignments. I was a slow learner, and the class was not creative enough to keep me engaged. However, I did many little side projects in that class, like a blooper reel that I created, that sparked my love for film editing. 

Before I learned to be in production, I was in front of the camera. I was a dancer for the majority of my life, always a performer, and I began learning aerial silks and partner acrobatics 8 years ago. I have been learning related skills as long, like dabbling in trapeze, rope, and contortion, and it used to be my dream to join Cirque du Soleil.

My passion for cars started very young. As a kid, I would watch and help my dad build his 1967 Camaro, and watch him race it at our local race track on the weekends. Since then, I’ve been immersed in car culture, and one of the biggest names in that is Ken Block. He is a rally driver and pro drifter and is famous for his Gymkhana video series. He has built the Hoonigan brand and the team alongside it, including the Hoonigan Autofocus Team, the team of talented photographers, videographers, editors, and producers behind all the action.

Hi there, my name is Sydney Hammer-Powell and I am a part time student at Lane. I am 19 years old, 20 on the 27th of this month (Aquarius) and I am a male, my pronouns are he/him. This is my technically sophomore year, although I was in a pretty dark place, headspace wise during the 2019/2020 school year and didn’t get much out of it. I am a recovering addict, 107 days sober as I write this post. I had you would call a pretty normal childhood, my parents split when I was young but I spent equal time at both houses and was emotionally stable. Im an only child by the way. I graduated high school with okay grades and started to get mixed up with a negative crowd. A combination of wanting to fit in, social anxiety, substance users all around me, and easily accessible drugs lead me down the road to addiction pretty quick. I forgot who I was, what my values were and only cared about getting high. This last September I started having seizures and had to check into Riverbend hospital. When I got out, my parents and decided as a whole that I needed treatment, so I checked into Serenity Lane in Coburg. Best decision I ever made! I have come full circle since getting out of treatment. I am living on my own, have a job that I am content with and am more fulfilled than I can ever remember being, not to mention my depression and anxiety have plummeted. I know this journey of life still has its struggles, but I am learning how to cope with those issues rather than try to pretend they do not exist. I am so grateful to be here, alive today, with a roof over my head and an access to education. I haven’t chosen a major yet, but I am very interested in film arts and found this class compelling. Im excited to learn with you all this next term. Bless up!

Who am I? I ask myself this question fequently because I have changed a lot over the years. With plenty of ups and downs, learning from my mistakes and consistently working on self growth, love and care. For starters, I’m a pretty shy and outwardly calm girl from the outskirts of Portland. However once the seal has broken I get comfortable around someone, I am very outgoing, adventurous, weird and love to laugh. Some of my favorite things to do in the whole world are experiencing new places with the people I love, late night crazy talks, screaming songs at the top of my lungs in the car with my friends, and being outdoors. The outdoors fascinates me. Sunsets, mountains, beaches, trees, snails, everything about it is just amazing. I also love talking about the unknown. Aliens are real. Some of my hobbies are playing soccer with my friends, surfing, making pasta, hiking, and just hanging out with my friends. I just picked up surfing and have gone a total of five times, and I absolutely love it. However the lingering fear of running into the man in the grey suit (a shark), scares me a little. So who am I? I’m just a teen enjoying every second living in the midst of the most memorable years of one’s life. 

Hi there!

I’m Timothy Patton, and I’ve been making short Stop Motion Animation films since I was 13 years old. I started my own YouTube channel in October of 2015, and have since then amassed over 8,000 subscribers. Despite the numbers, I haven’t received a single cent of revenue in the 5 years I’ve been animating, as most of my projects contain copyrighted content. I figured the money isn’t worth sacrificing my channel to unavoidable copyright strikes.

One such video I take much pride in is Amelioration: my first step into digital animation, and a testament to my ability to find workarounds for a seemingly endless stream of problems. It taught me a great deal on Workflow and my underlying love of computer functionality, which made me come to understand that maybe Stop Motion isn’t what my passion needs to surround. It’s far more efficient, and flexible than any physical animation medium out there. Unfortunately, Amelioration received half the amount of views than that of my number of followers, which is typically how media works. The more ambitious/different an art piece is, the less attention it typically receives.

I currently have no plans post College, not out of a disregard for the future, but rather a calm transition into adulthood. High School gladly thrusted College-level workflow on my unsuspecting childhood routine, and I resent that. This ‘one-problem-at-a-time’ philosophy will hopefully allow me to sympathize with younger generations by the time I’m old enough to give them the work I once mulled over.

Hi, my name is Anna! I was born in Oregon and don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. I love exploring Oregon and the beautiful surroundings that we have here. I’ve always been interested in art and tech so I figured I would take both of those interests and combine them to figure out my career path and art journey. Painting and drawing digitally keeps my creativity happy because there are no limitations on colors or size but I still love traditional drawing and using ink pens.
I love playing video games such as The Witcher 3, Assassins Creed, and horror games like Resident Evil. I always find myself in awe at the detailed environments and character designs of video games and I end up looking at the concept art for those games and wondering what inspired that artist and how they came up with designs for monsters or fantasy environments. The amount of creative work and ideas that go into creating games inspires me to keep creating. My dream is to work in the video game industry creating concept art or something related to that if you couldn’t tell!

By: Anna Ballinger