For my Zenith project, I chose to create a participatory documentary about my dad and his passion for flying. My inspiration for this idea came from a zenith that I had watched in my junior year, done by a senior named Marissa. She followed the story of a man who was essentially a police officer by day and drag queen at night. She compared his two different lifestyles and showed who he was with visually appealing imagery or b-roll over his voice. I liked her unique approach to documentaries and thought that it was interesting how different her project was from the documentaries that we, as juniors, had created at the time.
In my junior year, my first year at Freestyle, I learned so much about documentary through the unit and got to create one myself. I worked with Katherine to create a film about an important topic to us at the time of teenage vaping. This project was a relief to me after struggling with the junior narrative. I liked that it was more academic and I felt like I was more in control of the project. With narrative, I would often forget certain shots and have to return for them, or make many technical errors. I liked that documentary style allowed for more of the story to be created and discovered as it is being filmed. Even though I have some experience with documentaries, I was still definitely a bit nervous to start this project. I was worried about creating a larger scale project on my own, since I hadn’t done that before.
Some shots during my process:
Final Presentation with Video
My Zenith Reflection