I think my generation has a lot to say.

It's really important for us to connect with each other in a different type of way by storytelling in our own communities.

I have wanted to let others know like, yeah, you're not the only one that's going through this alone.

It's very hard, but we'll all make it eventually.

I think it did help me, um, HIKI NŌ, to get into college and pave my way to the future.

I think it's like, really important to make those mistakes and like, be able to identify them and then change that in the future.

And then you kind of just learn and grow more as you're going through your film career.

Just like a thing I know in my heart, like I would like to do in the future.

[slow orchestral music] Our parents met in birthing class, and every single time I see Santana, like, at the start of the new year, my mom was like, “That’s Santana, from birthing class.” So, I've known Santana technically our entire lives through our parents.

Yeah.

My media journey began in fourth grade by joining the Media Club, because I wanted to be in morning broadcast.

And towards the end of my sixth-grade year, I'd done a HIKI NŌ, and I liked that process.

And I’d just done, kept doing digital media throughout middle school.

And I was like, “Well, I'm not going to stop now.” For me, what got me interested into media would probably be the pandemic.

Um, before that I wasn't anywhere near interested in anything to do with digital media.

Ms. Roy is actually a really good family friend of mine.

Um, so, when I started getting into filmmaking and photography, um, she kind of persuaded me to take her class, and that's kind of how I got into it.

So, I wanted to find ways of, um, teaching students different ways to tell stories.

And a lot of times in English, we have them do journals for college entry exams, etcetera.

But I thought about, ‘why not do it visually?’ Came up with this idea, it's kind of like a personal narrative, but they weren't allowed to be in the actual video.

So, that kind of started off as being a kind of a cool challenge for them, you know.

How do they tell a story about themselves without actually being in it?

This isn't really me.

But today, I'm gonna show you what my life is, like.

I grew up here.

Oh wait, no, here.

Throughout all of my life, I grew up on Maui with a pretty good social life.

I always had friends and someone to talk to, played ukulele.

So, one of the, the assignments that she came up with was doing a personal narrative.

So, um, for me, it was kind of trying to narrow down a story or something in my life that kind of resembled me.

And I felt like, um, the journey and how I got into photography and filmmaking really was something that I could do with my brother.

Finally, something new, something to kill the time on, something to keep me busy.

Eventually, after a year and a half of being isolated from the rest of the world, I started to get pretty good at this kind of stuff.

Here, let me just show you.

It was basically the first time we were asked to do a story about ourselves, and you also can't show your face in it.

So, for me, at the time, I was really struggling with a lot of anxiety on where I wanted my future to go.

So, I wrote about not knowing where I'm gonna go to college and some of the anxieties I had in regards to whether all the stuff I did was worth it in the end, if I wasn't sure on like, what I wanted to do in the future.

And while my peers’ ideas for the future could change and evolve into something completely different down the line, I couldn't help but compare myself to them because it was still better than what I had in mind, which was nothing.

My carefully planned life filled to the brim with extracurriculars and classes comes to a halt when I reach the day I graduated high school, because from there, the pages for my story are blank.

That video has some of the best cinematography I've done throughout my career.

I'm, I'm actually really proud of that video, and it taught me that it's okay to be proud of the works you make, especially ones that you put, you know, you put a lot of hard work into, and showing that emotional vulnerability can be really helpful in storytelling.

Once I published the video through HIKI NŌ, I got an email saying I had won an award for Mental Health of America – the Hawai‘i award for student voice.

I'm glad I got the self-awareness to know and understand and be okay with taking the first steps to knowing it's okay to not know.

Thank you.

That really changed my perspective on that, I didn't realize that that message had been so powerful or impactful to people.

My entire life, I've struggled with a lot of anxiety and, um, a little sprinkle of depression, but making sure I can share that and work through it, it's a form of helping myself be more realistic with my goals, and being true to myself will also, maybe hoping that someone along the way can realize that other people use creativity as a way to fuel through hard emotional times.

Even if I don't have all the answers yet, I still have the opportunity to find them.

However long it takes me, one day, one page at a time.

HIKI NŌ has really been the biggest opportunity in showing me as a student, like, people, students, in my generation, we had a purpose and we could impact like, um, media in general.

Hey there, welcome back to the channel.

In today's video, we're going to be talking about, uh, my favorite camera I’m using at the moment, which is the – Um, I'm pretty used to being on camera because I do have a YouTube channel that I kind of post about and, and run on my own.

Santana is like my son in school, once he wants to do something or know something, he'll just immerse himself in it.

So, during COVID, he just kind of like, studied everything online by himself and mastered all these different things with the camera, with coloring, with editing, with lighting.

Eventually, I kind of want to lean into directing, and just being able to focus on telling a story instead of having to worry about shooting it all.

I've been, um, filming a lot of stuff on my own for like the better half of three years now.

I'm excited to go into like, um, a bigger crew kind of production, learn the ins and outs of each department, and then take that into my future career.

Um, doing HIKI NŌ also got me to get an opportunity to work with PBS Hawai‘i as a stringer shooter.

So, what that is, is that I get hired to sort of get footage from an outer island to send back to PBS Hawai‘i.

I've shot stuff for PBS Hawai‘i's Kākou and Insights episodes.

But if it's a midterm solution and not a long-term solution, and you're reinforcing the beach so that the economy could continue to thrive.

I got the opportunity to come to the studio.

You know how everyone has their ‘look, Mom, I made it’ moment?

That was one of those moments for me, as I'm just like, standing in front of the, the lights, the cameras are rolling.

It's also big and huge.

And then knowing that, like, people asked me to be here to talk about stories that people in my own community made.

And I think there's something really powerful about that, getting the chance to be recognized and support your community by sharing their voices.

And being able to support your peers through that.

It really made me consider a career in film.

It's something I might be interested in minoring in when I'm in college.

We'll share those pieces with you throughout this episode.

I will be going to Pacific University in the Fall next year, and that is in Forest Grove, Oregon.

And I think a lot of the times, like, leading up until that decision I made on May 1, annual college decision day, it's, it was a lot of anxiety, like, I'm going to be completely real, I was so, so stressed and really scared a lot of the time.

And that came down to accepting the message in my own film that I had written a year ago that I need to trust myself that everything will be okay in the end, and it was worth it to keep going.

Some things are not as important as they seem to be, um, because when you look back on like some of the things I was stressed about, like, freshman year, I'm just like, I would have had a lot more time if I didn't like, stress myself out.

That video was extremely motivated by the stress we were under at the time.

So, we wrote that video about, um, the stress students feel to succeed in high school so they can set themselves up for their future and how much of life they end up missing out on, and it's really hard to strike a balance between that.

So, in the fall, I'm actually going to be heading over to Portland.

I'm not going to be attending college, um, chose to take a little different route and try to go on the job in a production company.

Um, yeah, they do a lot of commercial campaign, um, right up my alley kind of stuff.

So, I'm excited.

For sure I would say HIKI NŌ, um, definitely had a part in preparing me.

Um, it kind of helped me practice, uh, communicating through online emailing and, uh, learn how to work with people off-island where I live.

For Hawai‘i in general, it's important to have programs like these, just so you give students and kids the opportunity to grow, um, being able to share it with your community and then see what other communities in Hawai‘i are doing.

We're still on islands separated from each other.

So, having a program that draws from students from across the state, it's really important for us to connect with each other via storytelling in our own communities.

I think my generation has a lot to say, and I also think that HIKI NŌ is also giving kids a platform to kind of speak their vision and speak what they feel.

Providing something like that is really important.

[music] I'm Kiari Uchida.

I graduated from Roosevelt High School, 2023.

I heard about HIKI NŌ from my middle school teacher.

It was my eighth-grade year, one of the English teachers, he started this media program.

A lot of students really wanted to get in.

So, I thought, "Oh, I should try it out."

And thankfully, I was one of those few selected and he really brought me interested into the cameras into story making.

He asked some of the media students if we were interested in coming to a workshop during Fall break.

Me and one other student was like, “Oh, yeah, we'll try it out.” And I was like, “Oh, wow, this is like, a legit thing.” You have to project.

So, once I graduated from middle school, I started to think like, “Oh, is there going to be a program in high school for me?” Thankfully, there was.

Um, Mrs. Teraoka took over, and yeah, we just started doing videos.

They really persevere through all of the difficulties.

They really learn how to just push through all of it.

My student reflection.

It was kind of funny because it happened when lockdown just started.

Um, everybody was moved on to online school.

And she's like, “Hey, um, we have this HIKI NŌ program that's coming up.

Would you be interested in voicing your opinion?” And I'm like, “Oh, yeah, for sure.” Because I have wanted to let others know, like, yeah, you're not the only one that's going through this alone.

It's very hard, but we'll all make it eventually.

It feels like I'm overwhelmed by a never-ending pile of work, to the point where my mental and physical health suffers.

Some nights, I would get less than two hours of sleep, and have to go to classes from eight to sometimes four.

I remember filming that.

And I was just like, so tired.

I just wanted to sleep.

But I also wanted to make this video at the same time.

It is work upon work upon work.

And by the time it is Friday, I have a large list of assignments to do with no break.

It's like teachers want us to have met all of the criteria within a short amount of time, even though everything has changed.

I can see how tired I was.

No matter how much concealer I put on, you can see my under eye bags.

It, it's sad to think that I had to work like a dog every day for like, my sophomore year.

For sure.

I'm just trying to survive.

The only break I can see coming is summer.

I can't wait.

Um, my media teacher was like, “You gotta look more happy.” And I'm like, “I can't.

I, this is how I feel.

I can't make it seem more lively.

This is as lively as you're gonna get.” She's like, “Oh, okay, we'll take it.” I asked my mom to just push the filming button, being like, “Kay, Mom, push this button.” She's like, “Okay, if you say so.” And then I look back at the footage.

I'm like, I have to refilm it.

I was stressed about that.

Because I'm like, this is gonna be on the internet.

Like, it has to look good.

The amount of work virtual learning requires makes life balance feel impossible.

My classmates were very thankful that I made that video because they're like, “Oh, yeah, somebody finally voiced how they felt.

Like, I feel exactly the same way.” And now since thankfully, we've moved past that quarantine phase, it makes a lot of students like, thankful like, oh my gosh, I remember that time.

Thankfully, we don't have to do that anymore.

It was definitely something I thought I would never do.

It was hard because the person that was editing my footage, I wasn't able to see her until the finished product.

So, I just gathered as much as I thought she would need, and thankfully she was able to make it that great video.

So, I'm gonna go to esthetician school in the Fall and then get my license and then go to UH to major in language.

My esthetician school told me having like the, at least like, the basic knowledge of knowing what to film, what to post, it'll help me, and hopefully I'll be able to do like some sort of digital media on the side.

It made a huge impact on how I felt as like, a student.

[music] I'm Moira Nagle.

I graduated from Kapa‘a High School.

I'm Bodhi Moomaw and I also graduated from Kapa‘a High School.

Um, originally, I got into media through, uh, my dad.

He got me a camera when I was about 12, and I kind of just started picking up, uh, like photography and little bit of video here and there.

Um, and then I went into the like, digital media pathway at my school when I came in as a freshman.

I actually started in sixth grade.

Um, there was this class, digital media, with Mr. Sanderl; he's the best teacher ever.

I think I first heard of HIKI NŌ in eighth grade, and I did it all throughout middle school.

Then I started again in high school, but once I started, it was also doing COVID.

So, we had to do it on Chrome laptops, and that made it really difficult.

I started questioning if I actually wanted to do this.

Then I was like, no, I do.

I like cameras.

I didn't hear about it till pretty late, till like, uh, junior year, I think the beginning of junior year.

And that was the, uh, the Waipā Foundation video that I made.

And I think I ended up getting second in that, and that was a super cool experience.

That story was about Waipā Foundation is like, a small foundation on the north shore of Kaua‘i.

And they do like, uh, land restoration and trying to like, keep a lot of native plants on their land.

And like especially focus on like taro and lo‘i.

Mālama ‘āina and aloha ‘āina, they’re Hawaiian words, they’re Hawaiian values to take care of the land as your sibling, but we feel like they're also universal values and that if everyone globally felt that way about the land, we would all take much better care of the earth, basically.

It would be amazing, wouldn't it?

A HIKI NŌ Challenge is basically a bunch of interviews with a story about a specific person or place that you only have a certain amount of time to complete, like, four or five days, and you have a specific prompt that you have to follow.

The first one that I won was in sophomore year.

It was about joy in a time when there's no joy.

We went to my friend's house.

She was on the team.

It was about her tree house that she was building and how they've always wanted it, and this was actually a perfect time to build it during COVID.

No one was expecting COVID to happen.

But suddenly, in the middle of lockdown on Kaua‘i, we found that time was a blessing in disguise.

The Ho‘omana Thrift Store was in junior year, also first place.

It was about a local thrift store on Kaua‘i that helps the homeless people on the island.

And then the one after that “Local Musician,” was this past year, about a friend of mine actually, Makana Aqui.

He is a local musician, and he plays local spots that inspire a lot of people around him.

I began taking guitar lessons from him during winter of 2021, and during that time, I was dealing with a lot.

Our guitar lessons were the only consistent thing in my life.

The lesson itself was the one thing I looked forward to.

Yeah, I definitely want to be able to like, make them proud of their own story.

But also think like, couple times, like, when I've made a story and then you show it to the person and then it's a completely different story than they had envisioned in their own head.

And sometimes they think it's weird at first, but then they almost like, grow into it and learn to love it more, and I think that helps them like, tell themselves more about like who they are.

Yeah, I think it's definitely helped like, influence and like, gives me like a strong foundation for like what I want to do.

So it’s like, given me the basics, I need to like be able to tell a story or help somebody tell their story.

And I think that's a really cool strength to have, and I think I can take that into like, a lot of different places.

HIKI NŌ has definitely influenced how I think about filmmaking because I'm always now thinking about, um, stories that I could do.

That person is super cool.

This thing is super awesome.

And definitely the class, because Mr. Sanderl would always be like, “Okay, think about, you know, what the HIKI NŌ people would think about this.

What are the eight questions, or whatever?” I think my experience has prepared me because I know a lot about competitive film and what the competition is.

So, I sort of know how to stand out, but I'm still working on it.

And it helped me realize what I want my style to be in filmmaking.

In the Fall in late August, I'm heading up to Montana, um, Montana State in Bozeman.

It's gonna be a little cold, but you know, should be fun and they got a pretty good film school up there, it looks like, so I'm gonna try to hopefully grow and get better.

And I submitted my, uh, the HIKI NŌ Challenge the, the Waipā Foundation one.

I submitted that to them, and they thought that was really cool.

And I think that's partially why I got in and they gave me a scholarship for that as well.

And I think kind of doing that challenge and learning about photography and film throughout high school has like, really helped, and I think it'll really help my career in the future for sure, kind of coming in already knowing something.

Um, for the college that I got into, the American University of Paris, I submitted, um, a couple of the HIKI NŌ challenge videos for my application, as well as a couple of short films.

I think it did help me, um, HIKI NŌ, to get into college and pave my way to the future because it gave me a baseline of knowledge of the competition and how to be competitive in film, and I think that will help me to further those skills.

[upbeat string music] My name is Reece Lapas.

Uh, I graduated from McKinley High School, and I got into HIKI NŌ through my Tiger Media Class from my teacher, Ms. Kaizawa.

Tiger Media is like the, um, the arts and like, media class for, um, our, for my school, for McKinley High School.

I read this book from this dude named Eitan Hersh and it was called Politics is for Power, and like, in a one sentence summary, it's basically like, you can exercise power and change in your local community.

I already had those ideas bubbling in my head, and it was like, oh, like, I can actually, like, put this into like, something I like, which is like, doing videos and like, doing storytelling.

Um, and then that's when I, that's when my teacher introduced me to like, the HIKI NŌ stuff, and it was like a, it was like, oh, like this, like, totally works for what I'm trying to do.

The video was basically like, uh, as simple as possible, like, how do you like, bring change in your community.

It was just like, oh, like, I can contribute to this.

When you're just one person, thinking that you have the political power to change anything at all feels like a tall order.

Often what causes this feeling of helplessness is distraction and confusion about how the process works.

Here are five steps that you can use to help to push change in your community.

So, the Pinion is basically the student run newspaper for McKinley High School.

What they did, basically, was introduce a bill that protected the free speech of student journalists.

I just thought it was really interesting to see students from high school actually pursue something like that and to actually bring change in their community.

It was just like, oh, this is awesome.

They're actually doing stuff.

Instead of just being worried about that pressure, they actually did something about it.

So, I thought that was cool.

Step four, you will inevitably encounter stalls and roadblocks, but don't give up.

Study your issue with your representative to prepare your own testimony as you continue to rally your friends, family and neighbors in your community.

Step five, vote.

Remember, a big part of making sure that the issues you care about are talking about by lawmakers is making sure that you are represented by people who align with your ideals.

Ultimately, this is the most important step that can have the widest impact.

So, after I did the video of the people over at PBS Hawai‘i, they saw my video, and I guess they thought it was pretty cool.

They were like, we want you to host an episode.

It was intimidating at first because like, I didn't, I didn't really know what to expect.

I don't know how hosting works.

I didn't really know what a teleprompter was for a little bit.

When I actually did it, and with all the people here it was like, oh, this is like, so chill.

Like, everyone was super nice.

Episode was on like, mental health and stuff.

Since the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic, there have been a growing trend, some would even say a surge, of stories on HIKI NŌ dealing with youth mental health.

It was just a nice experience to be able to see those videos and then like, actually, like, host it.

After I hosted the HIKI NŌ episode, I got another email, “Would you be interested in co-moderating this Kākou thing?” So at first, I was kind of hesitant on it, but after I read through it, and I saw what the topic was, I was like, “Whoa, this is also a thing I’m really interested in,” because, um, in my Modern History of Hawai‘i class, there was this like, thing where it's like speak on like a modern issue about Hawai‘i or whatever as like a project, and then what I talked about was the brain drain in Hawai‘i.

How do we convince our best and brightest to make their lives here?

Being able to do stuff like HIKI NŌ or Kākou, being able to actually talk to people in real life and like, be able to do video making like that, that stuff just like, it like, really clicked with me.

It just intersects with all the things I'm interested in.

I can actually make something, look at it and be like, “Wow, this is cool,” and then like, show it to other people.

When I did my episode on HIKI NŌ, which is a show that exists here, um, I learned a pretty important aspect about, um, I guess, not growing up, but like adulthood, it's that your community matters a lot.

Um, and you, it feels like as you get older, you kind of feel this, um, obligation to your community.

And I think that would be my anchor for coming back.

It's that this, um, Hawai‘i has given me a lot, and I hope that I can provide some value to it when I'm older or when I can.

I always wanted to go into like, politics or whatever.

So, like, I basically like did like a little bit of research like, “Oh, like, this school would be cool.” Puts Princeton at number one.

And, um, I learned at, like, on December 1, like that's where the decisions came out.

I was like, “Oh, I got accepted.” And like, that was basically it.

I was like, oh, what the heck?

Like, I was planning to go to UH.

Like, I kind of thought to myself like if I didn’t get into like, um, Princeton or whatever, I probably would have just like, got like full on into like, um, like media stuff at UH to like, try to connect with like PBS Hawai‘i.

I just having that connection to like, PBS Hawai‘i, too, it's like, oh, this is like this helps.

This helps like, this like, a thing I know in my heart like, I would like to do in the future.

[outro music]