Senior Spotlight: Kayla McCray (12-3)

You produce Word in the Halls videos for Voices. What was your favorite Word in the Halls edition? How do you find and approach interviewees?

Sometimes it’s easy to find people, but sometimes it’s really hard. When Brady, Noah, and I were doing the February video, we couldn’t find a willing freshman so we only ended up interviewing four people instead of five (one from each grade and a teacher). I joined Voices last year during the pandemic. It was a little easier back then to find a willing subject who would record themselves answering the question. Now, you go up to people randomly and they’re not prepared so it’s more of a billy-on-the-street feel to it. I like it better now, though, because I’ve developed my style and I have certain sound effects and background colors that are in my inventory. The best ones were October 2021 and February 2022. I started asking people their favorite movies in holiday months because I’ve become quite a movie buff over the years.

What do you look for in a good movie?

A good movie is something I learn from or can apply to my real life. Not necessarily educational, but I can understand this character’s personal struggle. Through this person’s character development, I can take that into my own life. But also if I can tell people put a lot of work into it, like movies that have good cinematography. Even if they’re bad in a technical way, I can still have fun watching them, like Rocky Horror and Earth Girls are Easy. They’re dumb but on purpose.

Do you have any other hobbies?

I can draw. I don’t do that as much since I have less time but I also cook and I experimented with a lot of different recipes during the pandemic. If I move away for college, my goal is to learn how to make mac and cheese and maybe a chicken.

What are your favorite movies at the moment?

Thelma and Louise (TW: sexual assault) because I remember being empowered by it. People see it as a feminist movie and a few years back MFC used to show it. I see myself in the characters even though they’re middle aged white women. From an adolescent standpoint, I can take away the themes of self-discovery and not allowing yourself to be put in a box.

Alien because the main character, Ellen Ripley, pushed through even when she was terrified through all the chaos. I wanted to be that resilient.

Luca, the Disney movie. Like Thelma and Louise, it’s about identity and discovering yourself. I really liked the colors in that one. He reminded me of me when I was his age, 13 or 14, the goody-two-shoes.

Beetlejuice is kind of cheesy but I appreciate how much work went into it with the stop motion and the design of the creatures. Barbara, Adam, and Lydia are my favorites because I took something unexpected away from it: you need to find the silver lining. Barbara and Adam died and it was a huge inconvenience, but then they met Lydia and it was the one positive that a family moved into their old house.

Encanto; I could see myself in Mirabel because she was the only one who didn’t have a gift. She didn’t feel special. She was constantly struggling with if she was good enough, and that’s honestly how I felt at this school for a really long time. At Masterman it felt like there were times when everyone was smarter than me, like imposter syndrome.

How do you handle feelings of imposter syndrome?

I remember that I am not my grades and I am not what I accomplish right now. I still have my whole future ahead of me. I don’t have to be a prodigy right now. What I really have to stop doing is comparing myself. Just last week I was thinking that I hadn’t done enough or left a mark on Masterman. But I have, and it might not be as much as other people but that’s okay. The fact that I’m here means a lot. I deserve to be here as much as the next person.

What are your next steps?

I wouldn’t mind staying in or around the city for college. Technically I’m undecided, but I’m going to explore and see what’s out there. I wouldn’t mind studying computer/data science as a major, with a film minor. When I did an AI program virtually from the Mark Cuban foundation this year, they were telling us how important it is to have different voices in the AI industry because technology impacts so many different people. I say that I’m passionate about representation, but I was only thinking about it from a film standpoint. I didn’t realize that other fields like data science needed it just as much.

What would your superpower be if you could have one?

Teleportation.

Describe your perfect day.

I would go on a road trip with my friends listening to our favorite songs down the highway with a really cool car. I can’t drive yet but that’s what’s motivating me to learn.