This is the website for my Documentary Project. For this project, we were allowed to pick a topic that we were interested in and do a documentary style project based on the topic. We were given the choice to either make a book or a magazine. I am in Honors English so I had to produce a book.
My book started off as a research into Art in the STEM world, or STEAM, but my topic became more specific later into the process. My final documentary project is on wearable technology. In English class I wrote a 17 page documentary text based on the research and interviews I had collected in the last couple months. In Design, I took my text and inserted it into a book layout along with design elements and photography using InDesign. Finally, this website as well as the intro video to my documentary were produced in Digital Media.
The topic of wearable technology was introduced to me by my first interviewee, Sandra Lopez, VP of Sports and Fashion at Intel, and since then I have been fascinated by the topic. Wearable technology is a booming new industry and it is not simply a fad. This topic also has huge elements of art and fashion that are topics I am incredibly interested in so this made my documentary enjoyable even though it was a lot of work.
This was the first time I had ever done a documentary style project of this scale, and it was a really interesting and fulfilling experience for me because I got to learn so many new things about the production and publishing of a book. The production process brought a lot of stress and panic at times, but it was all worth it in the end because I was left with a product that I am proud of.
In Digital Media, I learned how to use Adobe After Effects. This is the first time I have used Aftereffects and I found it a bit of a challenge but it proved to be an incredibly useful program. I learned how to manipulate and animate photographs, texts, symbols, and more to create a video that is more visually stimulating than a simple slideshow. Although my video is still rough around the edges, I worked hard to produce it especially since I had to go out of my comfort zone to produce it. Here is the 1 minute video that I produced to introduce my documentary:
Here are my After Effects and Pro Tools interfaces that I used to produce this into video:
After our books were written in English, I produced the graphic design of the book using InDesign. My design concept was inspired by the Adrenaline Dress designed by Chromat’s Becca McCharen. The dress was made using technology to change its shape and mood based on the adrenaline levels of the person wearing it. The dress has geometric wing-like features in the back which I drew from as inspiration for the hexagon pattern of my book and this website. The hexagonal pattern also reminded me of the circuits in a computer chip with its twists and turns. In addition to the design elements, I took all the photos that are features in this book. I used photoshop to edit these photos before putting them into InDesign.
This was the first project that I have ever used InDesign for. I am proud of this project particularly because we had to produce it in a program that we learned only a couple weeks before starting this project. In addition, photography is still a form of expression that is far out of my comfort zone, so taking and editing so many photos was really a challenge for me but I am happy with the result.
I think that I learned a lot from designing this book because it was the first time that I had to use so many programs to produce a single thing. Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and more. Even though it was a lot of work and effort, I feel that I learned so much from all the trials and errors.
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16For my book, I needed three interviews to add credibility and a deeper insight to my topic about wearable technology. My first interview was with Sandra Lopez. As the VP of Sports and Fashion at Intel, she works with incorporating design and fashion into technology. Lopez was my ideal interviewee because her job works with wearable technology and her knowledge and passion about the subject was so inspiring. My second interviewee, Lauren Kato, is a dance instructor. In my interview with her, Kato introduced me to the ways dance incorporates technology into its performance and even behind the scenes. And finally, my third interviewee, the AP Studio Art and Ceramics teacher Mr. Levett, allowed me to learn more about the ways that art and technology affect each other. I chose all of these people to interview because all of these people work with both art and technology on a daily basis. They brought different perspectives, advice, and insights to this documentary to add diversity and breadth.
Sandra Lopez is the Business Strategy Director at Intel of Wearables within fashion and is the driving force behind Intel’s wearable strategy. Lopez was named one of the top 50 “Fun and Fearless” by Cosmopolitan Magazine in 2015, the top 10 Latina executives by Latina Style, and 2013 Marketer that matters for New Channels by WSJ and Sage Group. In addition, Lopez is a major advocate for women and latinas in the workforce. I got the chance to meet with Sandra Lopez at Intel, Santa Clara, through my Dad who works with Lopez at Intel. Sandra Lopez was one of the biggest reasons for why I chose to feature wearables in my documentary because her passion for fashion and technology inspired me to do more research on the topic.
Lauren Kato is the current instructor of Mountain View High School Dance Spectrum and Dance Attack. Kato grew up in the Bay Area and attended Mountain View High School herself, so she understands the student mind and social atmosphere in the Silicon Valley. My interview with Kato took place in the MVHS dance room after practice. Ms. Kato inspired me to add the aspect of dance and performance to my documentary project in a conversation we had about the way technology can change a dance performance.
Jim Levett is the AP Studio art and ceramics teacher at Mountain View High School. As an arts teacher, he encourages his students to branch out into new mediums of art that incorporate technology. My interview with Mr. Levett took place in the AP Studio Art room at MVHS. To him, technology is not a threat to traditional art, but a new medium with which artist can create new and different works of art.
