![IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Junior Zalie Mann performs “I Love to Cry at Weddings,” an ensemble piece from the fall musical Sweet Charity, to prospective students during the Fine Arts Showcase on Wednesday, Nov. 8. The showcase is a compilation of performances and demonstrations from each fine arts strand offered at McCallum. This show is put on so that prospective students can see if they are interested in joining an academy or major.
Sweet Charity originally ran the weekends of Sept. 28 and Oct. 8, but made a comeback for the Fine Arts Showcase.
“[Being at the front in the spotlight] is my favorite part of the whole dance, so I was super happy to be on stage performing and smiling at the audience,” Mann said.
Mann performed in both the musical theatre performance and dance excerpt “Ethereal,” a contemporary piece choreographed by the new dance director Terrance Carson, in the showcase. With also being a dance ambassador, Mann got to talk about what MAC dance is, her experience and answer any questions the aspiring arts majors and their parents may have.
Caption by Maya Tackett.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/53321803427_47cd17fe70_o-1-1200x800.jpg)
![SPREADING THE JOY: Sophomore Chim Becker poses with sophomores Cozbi Sims and Lou Davidson while manning a table at the Hispanic Heritage treat day during lunch of Sept 28. Becker is a part of the students of color alliance, who put together the activity to raise money for their club.
“It [the stand] was really fun because McCallum has a lot of latino kids,” Becker said. “And I think it was nice that I could share the stuff that I usually just have at home with people who have never tried it before.”
Becker recognizes the importance of celebrating Hispanic heritage at Mac.
“I think its important to celebrate,” Becker said. “Because our culture is awesome and super cool, and everybody should be able to learn about other cultures of the world.”
Caption by JoJo Barnard.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/53221601352_4127a81c41_o-1200x675.jpg)
With Halloween just around the corner, seniors Elmo Tang (‘22) and Serena Zhou (‘22) created the perfect way to spend the holiday with a scary, interactive game that they have been working on since quarantine.
“I started because I got accepted into Cosmos, a video game design cluster, sophomore year, and then COVID happened… I tried doing it myself, and I realized I needed a friend so I called Serena,” said Tang.
The game is an interactive horror game where the player plays the role of an ex-executioner and goes through different interactive scenarios, with the player up for execution. There are different outcomes based on how one plays the game which makes it more suspenseful and spooky.
“I liked the horror genre. Especially for video games, horror is one of the more attractive genres for most people playing and the emotions it can bring out,” said Zhou.
When creating the game with an interactive setup, they faced a variety of challenges of adding different elements into the game helping them to find unique solutions.
“I am pretty happy with the music. I play the violin and [Serena] plays the piano, and for a few of the songs, I had to go to her house to compose and arrange music for the game,” said Tang.
Tang and Zhou noted that their time spent in AP Computer Science and the club AVBotz made it easier to transfer skills while still learning the new programming. WIth their partnership, both were able to compliment their skills in order to create an all around excellent video game.
“[Elmo] was basically in charge of the art, and I did the dialogue, and then we had to coordinate the plot and the art, but other than that, we coded stuff independently,” said Zhou.
The partnership is extremely important in creating a well rounded video game including all unique elements of animations, plot, and music, and they couldn’t have done it without each other.
“You should probably work with one other person because if you’re a procrastinator, you need someone to keep you on schedule… I was the procrastinator, but in the end it all worked out because we grinded the last couple weeks before releasing,” said Zhou.
You can play the game at the link here.
This story was originally published on Amador ValleyToday on October 29, 2021.
