Freestyle Academy

At Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts and Technology in the Mt. View-Los Altos UHSD, we believe passion drives success. We also believe 21st Century communication skills with and without technology are necessary for success in any workplace, organization or institution. We believe that school should be a fun and rewarding place to learn these skills. In essence, Freestyle Academy provides students a unique, relevant and challenging, but fun opportunity to find or enhance an artistic/technical passion and develop their communication skills that are applicable to most any field of study or work.

Since 2006 when Freestyle opened its doors, we have challenged students to be creative and imaginative with communicating their ideas by producing art for larger project-based units through various multimedia visual and audio formats with modern software and hardware tools. Each student takes 3 classes at Freestyle Academy that contributes to the final productions for each quarter-based project. In this 2-year program limited to 80 Juniors and 80 Seniors, each student enrolls in 2 required core classes English and Digital Media (max number of students 20 per class) and then chooses a production focus either Film or Design or Animation (max number of students 13-16 per class). Students take other classes and complete other graduation requirements (Math, Social Studies, Civics, Economics, etc.) at Los Altos HS, Mt. View HS or Alta Vista HS for the remainder of each day.

Because “story is king”, all project ideas begin in our 1st required core class of English through readings, discussions, critiques, brainstorming sessions, writings and peer editing. In our 2nd required core class, Digital Media students develop their creative expression by learning tech skills to communicate with websites, photographic art, illustrated art, desktop publishing, podcasts, photo galleries, animations, video productions, audio productions, and original music productions with live and MIDI instruments using Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, After Effects, WordPress, Pro Tools, Reason, and Ableton Live. All students have access to our modern and fully equipped studio for filming, animating, photo shoots and audio recordings.

For their 3rd class:

• Film students develop their creative expression further by producing 2-10+ minute documentary, narrative, and experimental videos with various film cameras/equipment together with Premiere Pro, Audition, Media Encoder, After Effects, and StudioBinder (film production management software).
• Design students develop the project ideas through visual art such as photography, illustrations, diptychs, triptychs, drawings, magazines, and books with the use of DSLR cameras, lighting kits, electronic drawing tablets, Lightroom, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
• Animation students develop their creative expression further by producing short 2D and 3D animations with DSLR cameras, lighting kits, electronic drawing tablets, traditional hand drawing/animating materials together with digital software application such as Maya, Animate, After Effects, Audition, DragonFrame, ZBrush, and Media Encoder.