Jayla Ebanks
Jay Monaé is an interdisciplinary creative with a deep passion for music, film, fashion, live entertainment, producing, and visual storytelling. Her experience spans working as a videographer for films and music videos, producing theatrical performances and fashion shows, and contributing to marketing and digital content creation. She has had internships with Concord Music Publishing, The Broadway League, and Black Theatre United (AKA), where she contributed to digital strategy and creative campaigns. She currently works as a Videography Assistant for NYU GPH and serves as the Graphic Designer for The Collective. As a Tisch Dean’s Scholar and MLK Scholar, Jayla participates in workshops focused on innovation and social justice. Her passion for creating powerful stories through sound and visuals fuels her drive to work in the music and entertainment industry, where she aims to amplify diverse stories, foster creative communities, and demonstrate how sound and visuals work in unison.
Title of Capstone Project
Fade Out: How Sound Moves Us
Description of Capstone Project
Fade Out: How Sound Moves Us explores the power of sound in film. This project investigates how sound design, music, and film scoring shape an audience’s emotional response, revealing sound as one of the most influential tools in a filmmaker’s toolbox. Through extensive research and the creation of an original short film experiment, this project dives into the complex relationship between sound and storytelling. Often invisible and unnoticed, sound can intensify tension, build atmosphere, and convey unspoken emotions that visuals alone cannot express. A sonic cue can foreshadow danger, reveal a character's psychological state, or shift our perception of a scene entirely. From ambient noise to carefully layered match cuts, sound guides our emotional journey through a film. What happens when we realize that the feeling in a scene may not come from what we see, but from what we hear?
What Inspired Your Project?
This project was inspired by my deep love for both music and film and the unique emotional power they hold when brought together. As someone who not only creates films but also music videos and original beats, I’ve always been drawn to how rhythm, tone, and sound can completely transform the way a story feels. Sound isn’t just an add-on—it’s emotional architecture. My passion for blending music and film into one cohesive, resonant piece has always fueled my work, but this project became even more personal after the passing of my father in 2021. I felt a deep need to honor his memory in a way that felt true to my creative voice. I turned to the emotional language of sound—finding comfort and expression in the spaces where words fell short and expressing what I couldn’t say out loud. Music became a way to process emotion, connect, and tell stories that live in feeling rather than dialogue. Fade Out: How Sound Moves Us builds on this by examining how sound design, music, and film scoring evoke feelings and memories and how they perform emotional labor within the film.