Introduction
Across English and our elective class, the documentary unit had us portray a person, group, place, idea or issue in the community, focusing on narrative-style journalism.
Reflection
This project opened up a new pathway for me to non-fiction. Writing in documentary style was very new for me, especially after working with so much fiction in earlier units. I pretty much learned everything I know now about producing a documentary, whether it be a magazine article or a documentary film. It’s safe to say that I’ve gained a newfound respect for this type of work. Thank you to all interviewees who made this unit possible.
English and DM
In English, our documentary was the biggest project of the year. After brainstorming and settling on a subject, we began a research process, conducted interviews, and finally wrote a magazine article which we used Indesign in Digital Media to create. I documented the Silicon Valley Bicycle Exchange. The process got pretty time consuming towards the end, and I periodically revised the article up until the second to last day of school. After lots of work and intense writing sessions however, I am proud of how the final product turned out.
Here’s the article:
Film
Mockumentary
After going over documentary skills in film, we practiced them for the first time by creating a mockumentary.
Turns out, each one of us has our own distinct opinion of Freestyle and Mr Flo.
Documentary
For the main project of the Film unit, we documented a local organization, business or person, similar to english. Like our narrative and experimental film, we first gathered lots of dailies, this time of which consisted of interviews and b-roll, and edited it all together in Premiere Pro. Ben and Jesse-my group mates-and I documented Maldonado’s Pizzeria right off El Camino.