documentary

Introduction

The documentary unit was a deep-dive research unit where we focused on one project/subject to focus on. We spent all of our time researching this topic, getting interviews from people about it, and writing about it. First we wrote an article in english, then we put it into a magazine article format and added more graphic design elements to make it more visually appealing. Then finally, we animated the story.

English

In english we had the biggest undertaking. We had to write a 7 page documentary, research, narrative article about a subject we were passionate about, and do a ton of research to further it. I picked the topic of My friend Karen Chien and her dance career, something I had never gotten the chance to learn about before. This project was all about exploring a topic and faithfully and truthfully representing it, as well as sharing it with more of the world.

I had a lot of trouble with this project, mainly because of my starting ideas, and because I was so unfamiliar with this style of writing. First off, our teacher warned us against picking a topic we were too familiar with, since it could end up boring us, and we would feel unmotivated. I listened to that a little too well, and instead chose a topic I was something I wasn’t familiar enough with, so I felt lost and didn’t know how to make the topic appeal to the audience and tie into a greater issue. Mr. Greco, my english teacher helped me a lot, but I felt so lost with the style and topic of this piece that I avoided talking to him about it because I started falling behind. Eventually I got it all together, and I’m happy with the final result, but I definitely could have communicated better with Mr. Greco, and the final result could have been more fleshed out and concise.

Digital media

In digital media we turned that article from english into a real magazine article, full of pictures and other visuals. I enjoyed this project a lot, although I was very rushed. I used the color pallet from the dance competition that meant the most to my documentary subject, and I included elements from her hair business, her dance, and the musical we put on together. I am really happy with how it turned out. I think there are a couple ways that I could make the design easier to read and more visually appealing, but I am happy with it in general. Next time I would try to add drop caps because I forgot to do that and it makes the text a little harder to read.

Animation

In animation we were tasked with bringing this story to a more dynamic level, using the skills we had learned throughout the year to represent the story and tell it in a different way. I had a lot of trouble with this project, specifically because it directly followed a group project where we had more time and manpower capabilities, so I mistakenly assumed I would be able to get just as much work done by myself. I planned out over 25 scenes, and ended up finishing 5 of them. I ridiculously overcommitted myself, mainly due to how complex I felt the story was and how much I wanted to show about it, but it resulted in a very unfinished and mediocre final result because I spent so much time on so many different scenes instead of focusing on finishing just a few. Next time I would definitely reevaluate the amount of work I have time for, and plan better accordingly.

Interviewee Bio

Karen Chien is a student at Mountain View High School, and at Dance Academy USA. She is an award winning dancer, winning Teen Eternal Flame at the National Heat Competition in 2023. She helps out with and takes part in the choreography of her school dance program, Dance Spectrum, and has her own hair business as well. She was also Persephone in the MVHS production of Hadestown. She is multitalented, and insanely creative, and she is caring to everyone.

This is the transcript of her interview that the article is based off of.

Reflection

Overall, I am not super happy with this project. I didn’t put as much care into it as I should have. But I am proud of most of the results, and I will continue to work at them after this year. I want to make sure that I am representing Karen’s story truthfully, and I hope that more time and effort will allow that.

Thank you

Thank you to Karen Chien, for letting me represent your story. Thank you to Ning Wan, Karen’s mother, for further educating me on the story. Thank you to Mr. Greco for helping me write this. Thank you to Mr. Flo for teaching me to tools needed for this article. Thank you to Mr. Cho for being patient with me.