For the Documentary project, I had to answer the question “How do you creatively and truthfully portray a significant person, group, place, idea, or issue in the community?”

For the Junior Documentary Project, I had to portray an intriguing person, group, place, idea, or issue, by gathering primary and secondary research sources to develop a distinct perspective about that subject’s significance in the community. The research-based paper from English I wrote serves as the copy for the magazine article and a film, commercial, and website. This unit emphasizes narrative-style journalism.

The Documentary unit launched in late February and ended in early May of 2020, meaning the entire project took a major hit from the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially, my partner, Sarah, and I were going to focus on experimental music around the Bay Area. We had enough interviews lined up with with various people from the local radio stations to cover the entire unit, but were only able to complete one before the shelter-in-place orders took effect. Since we were unable to film in person for interviews, the film aspect of the documentary was completely out of the window. Instead, we had to break up our partnership and pursue an individual documentary about our life in quarantine. Since I could only interview my family for my new documentary, I decided to have a focus the cultural impacts of the pandemic given that I come from a Chinese family.

From this project, I learned how to work with what I had available to me. We were told incessantly at the beginning of the project that you can’t make a film documentary on your own, but suddenly, I was in a situation where I had no other option. I didn’t have an extra set of hands to help out or depend on, I was left to my own devices. This project was extremely tedious, but in the end, it allowed me to learn how to use my independence and make the best product I could, despite the given circumstances.

ENGLISH

Unlike the film part of my documentary, my English documentary never changed subjects. I continued to focus on experimental music. I held two more interviews via Zoom and was able to start my research paper on experimental music. When I first started outlining the article, I hit a wall. Experimental music was such a broad term that I didn’t have a specific argument for my paper to really be effective. But with the help of Mr. Greco, I was able to look at my project from a new angle and write an eight-page article about how experimental music speaks a language of innovation. You can view the paper by clicking on the image below.

In Digital Media, I learned the basics of how to use InDesign. After a few exercises using the program, it was my task to take the paper I wrote for English and transform it into an article that could be printed in a physical magazine. You can view the completed article by clicking the photo below.

FILM

Mockumentary

After learning about the very basics of a what a good interview should look like, we were given one class period to make a mockumentary about whatever we wanted as long as it related to Freestyle. Considering we barely had any idea of what we were doing, this assignment ended up being a little wacky.

Documentary Film

Interviewee Bios

Wendy Chu, my mom, is a program manager at Equinix. Due to COVID-19 she has been working from home since early March.

Wayne Chang, my dad, is a software engineer at ASI. Due to COVID-19, he has been working at home ever since the first Shelter-in-Place order was issued.

Kevin Chang, my brother, is a sophomore at the University of Oregon currently studying environmental science. Due to COVID-19, he has been at home taking his classes remotely since mid-March.

Kuei-Chin Chu, my grandmother, is 91 years old and has been living with us for the past 10 years. Given that she is retired, shelter-in-place has not majorly affected her day-to-day life.