Introduction
Zenith, “the time at which something is most powerful or successful.” This is what defines the word, however there is a lot more to it than that. It was our last unit at freestyle and really an opportunity to follow the mantra of the academy by creating something completely personal. Students were essentially given an option on learning about any aspet of the industry, creating a production, and presenting it to our fellow classmates.
Normally you team up with another person that shares an Idea, but a couple others and I wanted to go “BIG” so we made a group of 4. We wanted to make something humorous, engaging, and special to look back on. After a little brainstorming and creativity, our Idea was created. And so… the Bigfoot Enigma Documentary was born.
Behind The scenes
Castle Rock – Los Gatos, CA,
Once we had our Idea it was time to Execute. After filming introduction shots and figuring out how we were going to begin our documentary, we traveled to Castle Rock. This is where the action really went down and we were able to film our “expedition”. To me, this was a super cool experience because it forced me and some friends to really execute our idea and devote time by making the long drive for the shots. On top of this, there’s a very rewarding feeling when you put in a lot of work and the quality of the product reflects it.
BTS – Interview Scenes
This was our final shoot day In which we filmed the documentary-style interviews and tied all of our footage together. It was personally a cool experience because we I got to practice my documentary skills in a similar environment as my JR documentary.
The Proccess
The prouct
Reflection
My group and I chose this project because we wanted to make something memorable and meaningful as a way to remember our experiences at the academy. It had to be funny, so that we could share laughter watching so we needed a silly topic, AKA Bigfoot. In order to incorporate film and bigfoot the perfect solution seemed to be a mockumentary, and so, our Idea was born. In order to research, we used a lot of existing bigfoot content and took note of the style. Lots of mysterious woods, exotic location, and passionate explorers. A lot of the videos that we would watch however, were not mockumentaries, rather actual documentaries and real bigfoot experts. Using this sort of content as our inspiration allowed us to add a “authenticity” to our mockumentary which make the jokes and humor land even harder. I collaborated with a group of four which was nice because we had enough people that we were all able to act and produce our film. With this group we were all able to improve our technological literacy, creativity and collaboration skills. By having similar visions for the mockumentary, we were able to really share ideas and build upon one another’s very well. Additionally, It was a cool experience for me because I was working with three other first year senior so I had a lot more film knowledge and was able to teach them a lot. I feel like being the only second year senior is what actually caused me to grow most. It gave me confidence in my abilities and solidified my learning by having to teach it to others. Even more than that it gave me another shot at making a documentary style film, which last year was my most valued piece of freestyle, and elevated my skills and experience. If I had the opportunity to do this project over I would devote more time and try to really immerse myself in the story, as if I’m really finding bigfoot. I felt like during zenith it was a very hectic time and I was overloaded with projects so it didn’t get as much attention as it deserved. Nevertheless, however, I am super proud of the work my group and I accomplished with the quality. One of the parts that really stands out is the diverse visual scenery we were able to do by actually driving up to boulder creek and castle rock to get footage. The colors of the forest and the nice equipment, we are lucky to have, went really well with the environment so the quality shines through in the final production. One thing I’d like for people to take away from my work is that if you have a vision it is never impossible to achieve, it really does just take one step at a time and a little initiative to get you started.