Documentary

Introduction

For this unit, the focus was to use documentary to tell an informative story about a non-fiction topic. We specifically had to convey a story about a person, place, thing, or event within our community. The unit explored the technical skills of how to make a magazine article with the program InDesign. We also had an emphasis on the skills needed to conduct an effective interview. In the process, we learned how to form the right interview questions that evoke quality responses, and also how to make transcripts of those interviews to use later in the formation of our final documentary products. I also learned how to film and also find online the most effective B-Roll for my film project.

Reflection

I actually really enjoyed this unit since I not only got to learn about new people and new things, but got to have a whole new experience of what it was like to film/write a documentary. We also dived into the complexities of interviewing effectively, and specifically how to get the most out of an interview subject in order to enrich your documentary on them. The unit was great, and as it turns out, documentary production is a very useful skill to have, and I am honestly the most proud of the final products that I created in this unit. I think that, at least compared to the previous units, this had the most quality work in it. I like my documentary film, I like my documentary article, and I like my documentary magazine article. All in all I think this was the best unit for me personally. I learned a ton in digital media; how to record and conduct an interview, make a transcript, use InDesign, use Dreamweaver to hack InDesign, etc. I think my skills in the area of digital media really improved. For English, the unit was actually a bit of a struggle. For the Profile Article project, I ended up changing my interview subject less than a week before the publication deadline. The project was supposed to span multiple months, but I ran into some technical challenges with the interview recordings and transcripts for my original idea. I the end, I made it about my dad who is crazy about biking, and I’m really happy with how my essay turned out. Film was also great because me and Charlie got to do some professional interviews, and I think the project we ended up with is pretty high quality and professional. Here are my profile subjects:

Profile Article

In English class, we did a Profile Article, where we chose a subject, did some research on what made them special and the importance today, and then conducted interviews to learn about who they are. We then put it all together in an essay documenting their significance. I did mine about my dad:

I ended up choosing to make a 6 page magazine article in Digital Media as well to go along with my Profile Article. To see what I created click on the image below:

Heres some behind the scenes of me using InDesign to create the newspaper style article you just saw:

Jon Madsen Bio

Jon Madsen has been with KLA for over 16 years and manages the
KLA metrology product portfolio including Overlay, Films, Optical
CD, CD-SAXS, SensArray (in-situ metrology), MRAM metrology, and
Resistivity and Implant metrology. Jon has held a variety of
leadership positions in general management, technology
development, engineering, program management and
semiconductor process development. Jon earned his Master’s
degree in chemical engineering and Bachelor’s degree in
Chemistry from the University of Illinois.

Interview Transcripts

Jon Transcript

Deidre Transcript

Film Documentary

For film, we also made a documentary project. To practice, in small groups we made a mock-umentary to practice the essential skills like Rule of Thirds, lighting, Audio capture, etc. Here was what me and my group made:

For the real documentary, I worked with Charlie. We did ours about the progression of VR technology. We did our main interview on the head of the VR Lab at Stanford, Jeremy Bailensen. We also interviewed a school friend named Tyler, as well as Dren McDonald, a Vr sound designer, and Don Hardy, a Film Director. In all, we had 4 interviews, and had to make sure the lighting, sound, rule of thirds, eye-lines, and much more, were all perfect. We also spent a bunch of time editing the film, and filling it up with B-Roll to keep the viewer engaged. In the end, this was our final product:

Special Thanks

I would like to thank both my parents for letting me interview them and being super available when I needed their help. I also would like to thank Charlie, as well as everyone we interviewed for that project. Also special thanks to Charlies grandpa for being a funny lad.