I believe our voices are incredibly important.

And to be part of doing that, as a storyteller in Hawai‘i, I think is a great honor.

My HIKI NŌ experience was definitely an eye opener.

The foundations that HIKI NŌ allowed me to learn will definitely give me a leg up in what I plan to do in college.

That's how I do film.

Nothing is, nothing is just ‘ah, whatever.’ It's your, you go big or you go home.

[bouncy music] My name is Jacqueline Cano.

I graduated in 2022 from H.P.

Baldwin High School.

I was definitely a theater kid.

As I got older, I kind of realized that I was less interested in being involved in the stories and more being the one who was in charge of making the stories.

I felt like the easiest way to connect with people and sharing my messages with the world was like, through film.

When I met Mrs. Roy is best – is definitely when I kind of changed everything over.

I can't even begin to describe how like, much of an influence she was on my life.

Like, not just in the film industry, but she was honestly like, throughout all four years of my high school, um, she was like a, a second mother.

And sometimes I felt like she was especially strict on me at times, but I, as I got older, especially now that I've graduated, I've realized that it's just because she saw so much potential in my work.

She always hammered down that everything you do has to have a purpose.

Everything has a purpose.

And that is something that I learned from her.

Like, my hope is to make films that have a purpose, that have meaning to people.

When the first Thor movie came out in 2011, my family and I gathered around the living room TV to watch it.

And since then, it's become a tradition for our family to watch every Marvel movie together, with no one else except each other.

I'm not sure what exactly drew us to love these movies so much, but I have a few ideas.

I, I love it honestly so much.

Like, there's not a lot of things that I’ve made I guess a while ago, but I'm still like, I'm still like, resonating with it.

It, uh, it's just really great to watch that again, and then remind myself how far I've come as well.

Like, I've definitely improved in my filming techniques and what I can do now, but the message is still the same.

And who knows, maybe one day there will be a family that makes it a tradition to see my movies.

That would be wonderful.

When I heard that my video was going to be aired on HIKI NŌ and PBS, that's what I wanted.

I wanted my messages to be shared, and so, and so to see that somebody actually liked it enough to air it on TV, that was, it was perfect.

It made me very happy.

The reason I film is because of the things that hold value to me.

Whenever I make films that, especially that aren't about me, like when I make films that are about certain subjects or different things, even if it's just like a silly music video, I'm always worried about whether or not people are, are seeing me through those films, like, are they seeing what I want them to see?

Through that student reflection it was about me and what I want to share.

I think to give other people a platform for their films or for their stories in general is very important.

Because me, I'm, I'm a young Hawaiian woman in film, and so to be given the opportunity to have a platform to share my messages, that is, it's, it means so much to me, because there are so many stories that need to be shared.

in order to change the world and make the world a better place, that's where you start, is by telling stories.

My name is Jacqueline Cano, and I'd like to tell you about a much-needed service.

My mother, Julia Paschoal, provides for the Maui community.

She works at the Department of Human Services SNAP office.

The heart of my job is basically to interview people and determine if they're eligible for benefits from the state of Hawai‘i, such as SNAP, which is food stamps.

Um, the prompt for that HIKI NŌ challenge was ‘Not All Superheros Wear Capes,’ and I felt like my mom was perfect for that prompt.

Most people don't realize that 65% of families that are on SNAP or food stamps are working people.

They have jobs.

But because it's so expensive in Hawai‘i, uh, rents are so high, everything costs so much money, uh, that a lot of times even having these jobs, you know, after you've paid your rent, electricity, water, garbage - you don't have a lot money left over for food.

And that's where SNAP comes in.

Because you shouldn't have to decide between paying rent or feeding your kid.

Uh, the first time that I entered the SNAP story into a challenge, it did not place.

HIKI NŌ believed that there was a great story behind, uh, my mother's video and that with a bit of drafting and revisions and whatnot, that we'd be able to make a really, really good film.

I believe that we definitely did that.

There were a lot of revisions and changing here and there, but I felt like I definitely learned a lot from my mentors, again, reminding me that everything must have a purpose.

And I felt like that was something that I was kind of missing a little bit.

And so, by giving me pieces of advice, in, in editing, and doing reshoots, and whatnot, I believe that we were able to craft a really, really good story.

And I was really proud of that, and I was – I am – eternally grateful for that knowledge from HIKI NŌ.

It just makes me feel really good to know, all of the good that our department does.

We help hundreds of thousands of families in the state of Hawai‘i, and that, that's something to be proud of.

It, it meant a lot to me that there were people who saw my story and saw my film and were able to get a proper message about what financial aid really is.

And so, there was never ever an assignment that I was like, okay, it's fine, whatever, it's just my classmates that are gonna see it.

I was planning on showing it to my whole family, to my friends, sharing on social media.

So, I took it very seriously.

That's how I do film.

Nothing is, nothing is just ‘ah, whatever.’ It's your, you go big or you go home.

It needs to mean something.

Otherwise, I believe there's no point in making it.

I'm really excited to get into a major where everyone there wants to do film.

Hawai‘i has so much to offer to the world, and there's so much that they can learn from us being here.

And so, my goal is, after college is gaining recognition, hopefully, being in the film industry, and then once I gain people's attention, telling them about my home.

I'm Faith Christy Soliven, a HIKI NŌ graduate from the Maui High Class of 2022.

My HIKI NŌ experience was very grounding, and what I mean by that is it helped humble me into the person that I am.

Looking back on, you know, my self-reflection and really looking into myself about the person that I've grown to become, and also grounding me into my communities and my family, and everything that I live with, and having greater appreciation for the things and the people that I could tell stories for.

But sometimes, if we get caught up in trying out new things, we can forget to prioritize what's important to us.

In my life, nothing brought this issue more delight than the pandemic.

The message of my student reflection was the importance of human connection, and how important it is to not take it for granted.

So, when the pandemic came around and rolled around, a lot of that was taken away, whether it was from like, your high school experiences, or work or events like bigger family gatherings, I would say that you can either isolate yourself or find ways to entertain yourself through like, media or YouTube or things like that; or you can really try to connect with the people you have around you, even though might be a virtual connection.

I would say it's important to kind of find that value, especially with your family or your close friends.

I connected to the outside world in the wrong ways.

Each time I chose my screen over the people in my life was a chance that I missed out on to bring value to my life and to others.

I hope that we kind of turn to appreciating ourselves and our communities and the things that we love in a time where we feel most alone.

And so, I hope that my peers can also use, if they use social media, use it for connection and to better themselves while also appreciating who they are and appreciating their friends and family and the communities around them.

My mental health came to a breaking point until I realized I was already surrounded by the people I needed.

I would say that especially having my family involved in the filming process, it would kind of be like, “Hey, could we go out for maybe a day and then I'll just like film whatever we're doing?” And it was a nice way to spend quality time together, and as well as bring up the idea to them that they're going to be a part of my reflection.

I think I was a little hesitant at first because I wasn't sure what they were gonna think about that, or they're not really people in front of the camera type of thing.

So, knowing that they were like, “Okay, you know, we're willing to do that and support you and whatever you need,” was really comforting in one, knowing that they could be a part of my video.

So that plan worked.

And two, knowing that they were always open to supporting me in that way, and to just being a part of, um, my HIKI NŌ video.

When HIKI NŌ still continued and did the student reflections and feature stories during the pandemic, I think it's super important for us to see like, hey, someone else is struggling in a similar environment that I am in, especially within Hawai‘i, and seeing how another student may be impacted by similar things.

It kind of helps you feel less alone.

The fact that the little things I do matter makes not only me feel important, it makes myself feel like I matter and makes me feel loved.

It also makes them happy.

Knowing that HIKI NŌ could keep it consistent, where they could still provide storytelling and engage, um, students to still create things was really nice, and it kind of set a structure for me to get back on to doing more creative projects.

Having a good trust system within the feedback process, ranging from your teachers to the HIKI NŌ mentors, was definitely super important.

So, just always keeping that in mind and knowing that they're not going to judge you just really helps me say like, okay, if they say, “Oh, can you please fix this part of your script,” you know it's not personal.

They're only doing it to help you create a better story.

And understanding that the mentors have more experience and wisdom than you is really reassuring because, especially if I'm unsure about something, or if I have doubts about stuff, I can trust that my teachers and HIKI NŌ mentors will definitely help me to my best potential.

I think as I grow up to become an adult and graduate high school, I think the world definitely needs people who believe in other people, and basically having more faith in the power of working together and understanding each other.

And being a filmmaker and storytelling is such a powerful way to communicate who we are as people and who we are yet to become.

I'm really excited to enter the world with that mindset, to know that I could help make it a better place by storytelling.

My name is Coral Haeger, HIKI NŌ class of 2022 from Kapa‘a High School.

My HIKI NŌ experience was definitely an eye opener.

I first started in about, I think it was eighth grade was my first experience with HIKI NŌ.

I was a host school for HIKI NŌ, and this was when I was at Kapa‘a Middle School.

We are back at Kapa‘a Middle School on the east side of the island of Kaua‘i.

Here, students are given the opportunity to explore their interests through eleven different elective course options.

And then my second HIKI NŌ experience that really opened my eyes to like, the whole production aspect of everything was twelfth grade, and that was the 2022 Spring Challenge.

So, you'll get about seven days to present your final project.

The first day, which, you'll be given a prompt, and that is not decided until that day when your teacher tells you, “Okay, so this challenge is,” and then they'll say the topic, and you'll be given about seven days to complete everything.

Postproduction, pre-production, and all in between: filming, audio sounds, editing.

And then on that last day, you'll get a specific time mark of when your assignment should be completed and uploaded to the HIKI NŌ Challenge.

So, the prompt was ‘hidden gems in your backyard.’ So, we first got that prompt on Wednesday, and I had Mr. Sanderl’s class after lunch.

We believe that the Ho‘omana Thrift Store was a hidden gem because everyone passes it pretty much every day, but no one really knows about it, and like, how they're not just a thrift store, they're also like a provider to the houseless and they also provide like, a space for people in need, and just like, a space for anyone to come and like get cared for.

No one really understood or knew about it, especially since it is off the like, our main highway.

I ended up calling the Ho‘omana Thrift Store, um, one of the managers, Rowena.

I called her and I was, I told her about our Spring Challenge and how it was hidden gems in our backyard, and she was really thrilled.

We wanted to help the native Hawaiian people to become self-sustainable and be able to say that, due to the fact that they have support, that they could continue to reach their maximum dreams and their maximum potential.

And that day on Friday, we went to the thrift store, and before we even like, wrote anything out, we just wanted to go and talk to people and interview and get as much B roll and footage as possible.

And we were there maybe for like, three hours, like the entire time.

And then when we got back to school that the following week, one of us ended up taking the computers home, just to work as fast as possible.

That was definitely a challenge, but we pulled through and we even stayed after our classes on that seventh day that we needed to submit it, just to perfect it.

And this was probably one of like, my best projects I think I made because we watched it, rewatched it, shared it with the entire class, got their critiques, just to make it perfect.

And I'm more of like, a perfectionist when it comes to these kinds of things.

I have like, a set thing in my mind that I need it to turn out to be.

And now the first-place winner of the high school division of the 2022 HIKI NŌ Spring Challenge is - it's a tie.

The first-place winners are Kapa‘a High School and H.P.

Baldwin High School.

We were really nervous when it got to first place, and then when we saw that we tied with H.P.

Baldwin, we were really shocked but excited at the same exact time.

And we were all really confused because we never, we didn't know that like, we could tie.

One of the teachers from, um, H.P.

Baldwin, she ended up reaching out to Mr. Sanderl and we exchanged videos to like, see the comparison of both our stories.

It was really cool to see that we both tied first place for two different stories with the same exact prompt.

HIKI NŌ really opened my eyes to all the production, all the behind the scenes, and how kind of stressful it can be.

But then seeing the end product, it just kind of relieves all the stress that you had or have been having.

I guess it just all gets pushed aside once you really see the full finished product to your perfection.

So that's why I kind of, I want to continue to educate myself and understand the whole media aspect of everything because I like to see the finished project.

So, in the fall of 2022, I will be attending University of Colorado Boulder and I will be majoring in Media Production.

Our story really gave me, um, inspiration I guess, to continue to pursue media production.

My name is Saige Adaro, and I graduated in the class of 2022 from Pearl City High School.

I've always known I've wanted to do something creative.

Mr. Sato, my broadcast media teacher, he gave us free rein with this one.

He said you can do a personal reflection, you can do a classic story, you know, it's up to you, and, um, it was our very first HIKI NŌ project.

And I was like, okay, I want to do something where, um, I'm passionate about it; I know what I'm doing, and I feel like, you know, I have interest in this story.

And I thought, “Might as well do a personal reflection because that was a huge change in my life.” And I thought it's worth sharing, and I wanted to share it.

So it was like, “Okay, I want to do a personal reflection about dances to filmmaking, but how do I even start?

How do I even get to the final product?” So, it was definitely a trial-and-error process where it was just like, a whole bunch of new things and new opportunities kind of thrown at me and I got to learn the process and really, um, get immersed in HIKI NŌ and what they present, or what they are all about.

When the COVID-19 lockdown was put into place and quarantine started, I decided to quit dancing.

For ten years of my life, it was my main creative outlet and allowed me to express myself freely and tell a story through movement.

But since the pandemic started, dance classes were just too expensive, and everything was online.

Now that I was so isolated and had just lost something I was passionate about, I found myself losing a sense of direction, especially with so much talk and pressure about college applications coming up, and I still had no idea what I wanted to do.

One afternoon, during the summer, my mom showed me a flier she found for an all-virtual film program for girls in Hawai‘i.

At first I was really hesitant because I did not know anything about film, and I never really had the urge or just to learn about it.

And it all just felt really outside of my comfort zone.

But eventually, I pushed myself to do it, and I am so glad that I did because I discovered a new passion of mine: film and storytelling.

During the program, I was challenged to create a short film from home in just a week.

Altogether, I found a new way to express myself, and even though it was all online, I got to connect with new people and experience new things.

It's all still new to me, and I'm constantly learning.

COVID-19 may have taken away a lot of opportunities for me, but it challenged me to find something fresh and new that I'd never tried before and venture outside of my comfort zone.

And scene.

So, yeah, that was really just a sum up of my entire junior year of high school because I just felt really lost, especially during the pandemic.

I know, I didn't know, like, oh, what my future would look like, and it just felt really uncertain.

And, uh, when I heard that my story was going to air, I was a little hesitant at first because it felt like such a personal story, and then I knew it was going to be, you know, shown to such a wide audience.

Um, but it was also kind of gratifying, because, you know, I put so much work into this project, and I was actually going to be, um, seeing it being shared with the community, with the whole, you know, state, and it was just really interesting and really, um, awesome.

It gives, uh, other people and other young people a chance to relate and to see themselves in other young people who are creating these stories and sharing it through video.

The part of filmmaking that I really, um, grasp onto or latch on to would definitely be writing and crafting the story itself.

I love seeing the pieces of the story kind of fit together and how a character or how a person grows throughout the story.

And I just love crafting those with my imagination or even just finding those stories within my community because I just love learning about growth and learning about people and things going on in my life and in my community.

You know, I always thought that I'd be doing this kind of work in college or after high school, but being able to do that while I'm still in school was huge, because I got to reach a mainstream audience with my videos, you know, tell all kinds of stories, learn from mentors about how to tell the stories before I even graduated high school.

So that was definitely a big opportunity that led me to where I am.

Hawai‘i's New Wave of Storytellers.

I'm Saige Adaro, a senior at Pearl City High School on O‘ahu.

Having Mr. Ken Sato as my broadcast media teacher, someone who's in the industry, who's still doing work, has all these connections, all this knowledge, was a huge, um, mentor figure for me, because, um, he had real life experience.

He knew what he was doing, and he was so open to teaching us everything he knew, and everything we needed to know to be able to learn as much as we could, grow as much as we could throughout the school year.

So, Mr. Ken Sato introduced me to Mr. Ryan Kawamoto, who happened to be a HIKI NŌ mentor, and, um, offered me the internship at his production company, Kinetic Productions.

And that was huge, because I finally got the real-life experience that I wanted.

So, most of the time, I'm shadowing, observing him, and I try as much as possible whenever I'm in the office to kind of pick his brain and, you know, learn as much as I can, because he has a lot of knowledge.

Um, you know, him being in the advertising world – Ok, go ahead!

– and the documentary world, he really knows what he's doing.

And especially me wanting to be a writer, he really knows how to craft a story and how to, um, adapt and be flexible along the way to create a story that's as impactful as possible.

So, we both, uh, definitely have an interest in, um, Asian American history.

Uh, he is really into Japanese American, um, and I actually really like exploring my Filipino roots.

I want to be able to share stories about my background, my culture, um, through mainstream media, because I feel like more stories like that need to be out there.

And being able to use film as the outlet for that is so, um, just opens up so many doors for me and for me to do what I can for my community and for the people who came before me.

In the fall, I plan to attend Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, and I'm going to be pursuing a bachelor's in writing for film and television or screenwriting.

There's so much, um, growth in the industry and so many jobs that are opening up, especially catered to the younger generation, and as a South Asian woman or a Filipino woman kind of entering this industry, it's so important to share underrepresented, um, voices.

And, um, I really want to, um, take advantage of the knowledge that I got from HIKI NŌ and Mr. Sato and Ryan, and just try my best to contribute as much positive and, um, impactful storytelling that I can when I enter the industry.

Definitely going into film, it was a huge change, but I think it was probably the best change in my life because I finally found something where I loved doing it and it didn't feel like work.

My HIKI NŌ experience was one of a kind.

I found a way to express myself.

It was kind of like therapy for me at the time.

I got to share my story in front of people, and it made me feel like, important.

I think it's a really good opportunity for you to kind of get something out that you really think is important in the community.

The only thing I would do differently is join sooner.

I would have joined my freshman year, for sure.

[upbeat music]