Ryan Abner has played a huge role in this school: taking up many jobs presented by the staff such as editing the lip dubs, editing videos for multiple clubs, his current homework, and helping set up the podcasts. But did you know that Ryan also has his own side projects? He has made his own short film called “Legacy” which was a great start for his filmmaking career. He has also made his own mobile game called "Zag".
Legacy is a short film that is inspired by his grandfather's passing. He first thought of the idea four years ago. When he was in his freshman year of high school, he and his friend Jaden Henderson became inspired by a book on film editing. It discussed how a good film doesn't have to use dialogue and can use music and acting to convey the story instead. One of the most notable things about this film is the actor, Jonah Ewalt, and his acting abilities. He was so good at his role that he never had to do more than one take.
Zag is Abner's first attempt at making a game and publishing it. Zag is a simple arcade game that is set in a sci-fi theme. This game is a simple but addictive, and a fun to pass the time. He created this game to practice publishing games to both the Google Play store and app store. The game is set to release sometime in April. The main objective of this project is to act as a stepping stone into much bigger applications he plans to use in the future.
Ryan stated, “I had seen similar apps with the exact same premise, but they were really bad. Just wanted something that took the idea and made it right. So I made different game mechanics.”
Overall both Legacy and Zag are great learning experiences for his future projects. They are both major achievements for him and his career in both filmmaking and programming.
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