Our documentary project was a bit of a roller coaster ride. We began with the idea of homelessness. We wanted to go to Down Town Washington and talk to some of the homeless people there and get their stories, then talk to programs like Shepard's table and find out how people can help. Getting their stories would allow us to convey the idea that they are just like anyone else and they need help, someone has to step up. Unfortunately our idea didn't quite come through, partially because we didn't have a strong enough base to begin with, that is our idea was based off of interviews and not research which meant we had to get interviews, that we didn't. The other reason our project failed was because our teacher didn't agree with it. As a result of this, our group instead did a welcome video for the British kids that came to stay with us. We basically did a montage of the school along with shots of students welcoming the British kids and saying their favorite aspects of the school.
In the creation of this project I was really surprised as to how hard it is to create a montage that seems messy and playful on purpose. When we began the project we found some playful music and attempted to create a montage style welcome that showed how lively the school is. This is a lot harder that I thought it would be, but we pushed through and learned the tricks of the trade. I was particularly surprised as to how much structure the video had to have to make it look unstructured.
The biggest challenge we had was convincing the teacher to let us film it. We failed. Once we switched to the welcome video production went much smoother and we didn't run into any problems. If I did the project again I would lay out exactly what the plan was for the video earlier so that there would be time to change ideas if the teacher didn't like it. Because we didn't do this, we couldn't actually make a documentary which was depressing.
As the teacher it would have been helpful to ask everyone to make a plan at the very beginning entailing the idea and how they plan to film it. Thus any big changes could be made immediately after that point there would be no chances to change ideas. This would make for a smoother project.
From the documentaries I have made in the past I know that these projects are quite fun and I'm glad we are doing one, I have one request. We should do claymations, those are great and really allow students to leave the confinements of the school.
Last weekend I went to the most amazing place I have been to in awhile. It was a tiny art gallery wedged behind a huge dance studio. The gallery itself is perhaps the size of a classroom, but contains a beautiful array of different artists and paintings. Currently they are running an event called "Hello My Name Is", which is based on street art and graffiti painting. What they did was they gave all the artists a poster that was like a name tag and then the artist would represent themselves. The show runs through March 31st and has a panel discussion (which I know nothing about) on the 23rd.
The art work is absolutely incredible and it really shows a kind of art work that gets barely any attention. Plus on a corner down the street there is a bakery called the Spring Mill Bread company which sells fantastic brownies. So ya know...if the graffiti wasn't enough.
