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!

Blog # 7!

I learned a lot from this PSA unit. This was the first "real" video project that I had done and I learned a lot. The biggest thing was just the basic camera skills. It may seem basic, but there is a lot you need to know. Editing was also a big thing. I now am able to edit a project using imovie! Another thing was timing. My group did not realize how much time it would take to edit the project, so that is definitely something that we will remember with our documentaries. I really liked this project and I'm glad we were able to have so much freedom with it!

Blog # 6!

I think that our PSA turned out to be pretty effective. The main goal of our PSA was to raise money for the media center, and so far we have raised over $1,000.00 for the library. I think that by making it a more funny PSA than a serious one, it was found to be more effective. If we were to do it again, I would probably want to pick a topic that is more relevant to society such as the environment or the economy. Overall though, I think my group completed a well done and effective PSA!

Falling Polar Bears!

I don't think that our PSA was as effective as it could have been.If we would have been able to do whatever we wanted to with it, it could have been more effective. Having a slogan could also make it more effective.For our Re-edits, it would be nice to include a slogan or something that would make people actually want to donate to our nasty library.