Documentary

With our final unit of Junior year, Freestyle students chose a topic, person, or group to interview in detail. Collecting data and information from both primary and secondary sources which were further used in our project to create a more detailed and specific perspective on the subject we researched. We then tried to connect our subject to a bigger picture in the world today and why our subject matters now. For each in our classes we used our main subject and research for different connecting projects. For English we wrote a Profile Article, for Digital Media an online magazine and intro video. And for Film, we created a mini documentary movie based off all the collected information from the other classes.

My Project

For my project topic, my partner and I chose to investigate and research more about how the isolation and technology of quarantine affected body image and eating habits. In general I feel that when it came to quarantine, everyone had faced struggles when it came to their own personal wellness. However how drastic those struggles were, I was not sure. My partner and I hypothesized that the isolation and constant viewing of social media and technology led to peoples mental health and eating habits struggling. I personally had dealt with eating habit struggles in the past and I knew from my own experiences in quarantine that it was difficult to try to keep fueling my body the way that I should’ve without feeling insecure or guilty. Once we did research further, we realized how right we were. We decided to interview three different people: two high school students as well as a nutritionist who works for LifeMoves, Melanie Tate. With each of these perspectives we were able to narrow down what specific angel we were going to use for our English Profiles. We then further researched the topic using reliable sources to learn more about how technology has harmed mental health, especially over the last year. When writing the Profile Essays, we included multiple sources, including at least one if not all of our interviewees perspectives and stories as well.

Our Interviewees

As I mentioned earlier, my partner and I conducted three personal interviews. Two with high schoolers and one from a licensed nutritionist. To know more about their stories, let me tell you a bit about them.

The first person we have is Amar Srivastiva, a soon to be senior at Gunn High School. Outside of school Amar is an athlete and musician. Before quarantine Amar was on Gunn wrestling team, however due to safety reasons this year he was unable to participate in the team this year. He also with two of his friends, created the band named The Purple Hearts Club. They mostly focus on rock and metal music as well as released some songs over quarantine.

The second person we interviewed was Amanda Gamble, a soon to be senior at Los Altos High School as well as a Foothill college student. Amanda is also an athlete, who is on NorCal rowing team rowing about 6 days each week to train. Outside of athletics she enjoys spending time with her family and friends as well as hiking out in nature.

Our final interviewee was Melanie Tate, a licensed nutritionist who has been working in Nutrition for a little over 20 years. She became more interested in nutrition and kinesiology during college when peers were struggling with eating disorders and she wanted to try to help her peers as best she could. In the last year, she has changed jobs to work for the company LifeMoves. LifeMoves is a company which works to assist people back into stable living, by providing housing and education on things such as nutrition and how to eat to last a life time. Melanie has worked with many different people, including youths when it comes to educating in healthy eating habits and food choices. Overall, Melanie inside her career as a nutritionist and out has helped many lives become healthier and happier

English & Digital Media

To begin this project, we had to start with learning more about the subject we were focusing on. As well as how exactly to write a profile article. In English class we learned the basic outline of a profile: 1) Anecdotal lead, a story which connects to the profile which also hooks the reader and makes them want to know more about the subject of your article. 2) Nut Graf, explains to the reader why exactly they should be reading this article. Why is this subject important now? How is it relevant to the world today? 3) Scene 1, using details the author allows the reader to observe and get to know the subject of the article, how who they are or their story is makes this an important subject to learn about. 4) Chronology, talking about the subjects past using facts and quotes which connect and add to the profile. 5) Scene, more details about the subject which allow the readers to know more about them and their importance. 6) What Lies Ahead, talks about what will happen in the future with this subject. Do they have any goals? Expectations? If so what? How will they full fill those expectations or goals. 7) Closing quote, the final words of the article that will (hopefully) tie the whole profile together.

While we learned about how to do a profile outline, we began to research our topics to gather more facts and information about our topics. For this, I researched using about 4 or 5 different articles and highlighted and annotated using Diigo.

Once I finished researching, I began writing my profile essay. For mine I decided to use all three of my interviews as well as my research to try to create the profile. This, in my opinion was rather…. challenging. But I think all in all it went okay. After creating the profile, I was able to start Intro Video. For this assignment, I had to use Pro Tools to create the voiceover by recording audio and adding SFX and music. After that, I used After Effects to ad visuals to the voiceover which matched the mood of the profile and voiceover. This was final product:

Another project we made in Digital Media using our Profile Article was creating an online magazine. For this, we used Indesign to create the pages of our magazine using the tools we learned from the Indesign lessons. With creating this magazine we also included our own photos related to the profile, as well as adjusted the layout of our essay so it would be more appealing to readers in the magazine.

Film

For Film, how we began our documentary was learning the basics of how to frame and capture our interviews for the final film. Some very important things to know are 1) both eyes should be showing in the interview, but the interviewee should not be facing directly at the camera. 2) Have the right lighting, if there is shading in the wrong areas of the face, it can elongate it and make the person have different features than they naturally do and the shot may not look as appealing. 3) While filming, you should be close enough that you can see the light in the interviewee’s eyes. However, still give them head room so they aren’t cut off. 4) B-Roll should take up majority of your film. Make sure the B-roll is also connected to what the interviewee is talking about in the film 5) Do not have a distracting background and try to get some space between the interviewee and their background so the film has more depth.

After we learned about how to conduct a proper interview, we had a fun mini assignment to test our skills and see how we actually do trying to make one of these films. In class, we got in groups or worked individually, and made a Mockumentary with the topic of our choosing. This was my groups final results

After we completed our Mockumentary, it was on to filming our final Documentary Film. This is what my partner and I’s turned out like:

Overall I would say that Documentary was the unit in which I learned the most new things. In each of my classes I had to try something I had never done before which was both stressful but exciting. I think if I were to do it again, I would organize my time better. Although I enjoyed doing all of these projects I think if I gave myself more time to perfect them, they would have turned out even better. I am however very happy with the work that I have done so far. It was all very new and some things were more difficult than I had expected. But in the end I learned a lot and feel that I have grown a lot in my abilities after Documentary.