Documentary blog # 7!

After reading this, I started thinking about social change and what it really is. I guess that before, I had assumed that it meant it impacted society as a whole.  After thinking about it, I think that Social change can mean either that or the impact that society has on an individual member of society and the changes they experience. Tying in with the theme of homlesness it this reading, I think that any of the people who stand on the corners asking for money have made meaningful social change, or have undergone changes as the result of society. The courage that it takes for one to stand on the corner and put themself out there to ask for money is remarkable. It is something that I don't know If I could ever do. This has to do with social change because the changing ways of society on this individual have led them to become homeless.

On Friday, we finished our documentary trailer, so we were happy to have that done ahead of time! We were not at MTN for as long as we were expecting, so that was nice. We are now working on lining up several interviews for our final documentary. We are talking to some environmental planners for the county and we are hoping to line up an interview with Mayor Rybak soon.

Documentary Blog # 6

A group that I feel I belong to is my neighborhood. I have been a part of it since I was born and have grown up immersed in it. My family is very close to all of my neighbors and we participate in activities with them regularly. They have always been there for em and I know they will be even when I am no longer living at home.

Our documentary is coming along well. We had three interviews this week, two with bikers and one with a man who works on transportation for the county. We will be editing tonight and tomorrow and will be able to have our trailer done by monday!

Documentary Blog # 5

The Langston Hughes poem on this weeks reading is one that I remember from sophomore year in Ms. Horswill's class. Poetry isn't something that really interests me, but I really enjoyed this reading. This also kind of tied back to the question form the beginning of the year of how  do our communities and associations we surround ourselves with impact us. Hughes says, I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you. His communities he has grown up in have shaped him.

Our documentary is slowly coming together. Our project will be answering the question of is love the main part of human relationships. We will be looking at several types of relationships involving love such as mother and daughter, twins and one couple. Our person we will be interviewing is Eva, who works at south. We will talk to her about her thoughts on love and relationships.

Documentary Blog # 4

Something that has been stressed from the beginning of the documentary project is the importance of research. The amount of research you do contributes to the overall value of your film. This reading showed the importance of digging deep and finding the information you really need, not just the information that is easily accesible.

My project has changed a little bit since my last blog, but is still relatively the same idea. Instead of focusing on just couples and their relationships, we are going to several kinds of relationships. We will still do couples and non traditional couples, but we thought it would be cool to also look at the relationships of twins and Identical twins and show the bonds their. Basically showing that Love can exist between two people without them being in a relationship

Documentary Blog # 3

My group has decided to focus our documentary on Monogamy. We are going to explore whether it is possible for two people to be together forever, not just physically, but also emotionally. We are going to interview several couples and get their perspectives on this question. We are going to find 3 different couples, meaning that not every couple will be a male and a female. Before we start we are going to have to do some research on the statistics of divorces, or the science on what leads people to get divorces.

It was very fitting that this weeks reading was on research. The subject of research has come up with EVERY speaker we have had and everyone has stressed the importance of it. Without research, you do not have a documentary that serves it full purpose. Our speaker today, Melody Gilbert, mentioned that research is not always necessary. Sometimes, you are able to learn about your subject by just talking to them. It was interesting to hear his perspective because it has been stressed by so many people already.

Before we begin our filming and interviews, we will make sure that we have done a good amount of research!

Documentary blog # 2

My group came up with several potential ideas for our documentary. We have decided that we are either going to do it on the restorative justice programs for youth in the city or a story following several different couples who are in love, but they are not the average couple. I think that doing the restorative justice one would be easier because we have access to people we can interview, where as in the other one we would need to actually find some couples. They both would be cool projects that we could create good documentaries out of.

I have always though of documentaries as the stories that are portrayed by Michael Moore; one sided and controversial. This reading had a line that stuck out to me which was "no code of ethics have ever been agreed upon by practitioners of the art..." referring to documentarians and their work. Documentaries are supposed to be about what interests you whether that be capitalism or restorative justice!

Documentary Blog #1

For my documentary, My group was thinking about several topics. One was the restorative justice programs for youth in Minneapolis and another was women in politics. We thought both would be interesting topics and would make for good documentaries. Having the speakers in our class this week also helped us come up with a bunch of ideas for making our documentary interesting and appealing.

This reading also helped me develop some ideas. I have always known about documentaries, but from this reading I also came up with some ideas on how to create a documentary that information can actually be attained from. I like the idea of doing these readings as we move along with the documentary project!