Blog Posts from last week

1. I never considered myself a documentarian. I always had this belief that documentarians were people who went out into the world and captured something on the scale of absurdity and I never considered myself the type of person to go out into the dangers or disappointments of the world, capture it, and bring it back to the people. But, after my first class with this course I realized that my definition is incorrect. I do spend so much of my day capturing my or my friends life. Social media plays the biggest part in me documenting my life specifically the app called Snapchat. Whenever I want to capture a moment I will take my phone out of my pocket, open the app, and start filming. Then I will either share it with my friends by sending the snapchat to them or save it in my snapchat memories. Sometimes when I lay in my bed to wind down, it’s nice to go back through those memories and rewatch all of those moments. I think what’s so special about them is they’re 100% real. The video obtains the power to transport me back to that moment, with those people, and those feelings which I think is a remarkable thing about life and a beneficial thing about the use of social media in my generation’s everyday life.
2. I am double majoring in Film and Media Studies and English with a writing concentration. I think I see the world with an open eye. I have always had a creative side and I think I have always been aware of it. When my friends would participate in “typical” sports I was always the outsider. I did all forms of dance, figure skating, gymnastics. I also got into singing and playing the piano at a very young age and that has been a part of me forever so I think I cherish the artsier side of the world more than others. I love music, film, writing, and art and have always had a deeper interest in those subjects versus science or math. I think my approach to issues and stories is very dependent on the specific issue or story. I think it is very hard for me to read the news frequently because I always find so much negative information and I don’t like to flood myself with negativity. I really try to shy away from that. Many people have their opinions about how it is bad for me not to know what is going on in the world, but really, if something is really important you will hear about it. News travels fast. I think what issues interest me the most is definitely animal abuse, destruction of the environment and global environment, and the issue of equality of women and men in the workforce and just mistreatment of women in general. I think documentaries are very useful and significant. I think they tell a story and spread a message with the goal of making their audience and an audience that may not be interested in the documentary aware of what is being shown. I think I would make a documentary about the horrors and injustice of animal abuse because that is something I feel very passionate about and am shocked that it is still an issue. I don’t know the Lehigh Valley very well, but maybe I would do a documentary on animal shelters or I am also interested in music so maybe find a music producer or label that is based out of the Lehigh Valley and what that might be like.

3.  Our first class activity was to find a partner that you did not know very well, get to know each other well enough in order to have your partner take an accurate portrait of yourself. Josh and I decided to be partners and we were unsure of how to start off so we just started asking random questions to each other. We skipped the small talk and asked the type of questions your best friend or family member would know the answer to. A few questions we asked each other were, “If you had to describe yourself using only 3 adjectives what words would you use?”, “What is your favorite type of takeout cuisine?”, “What is one of the weirdest things that you have ever experienced?” and so on. At first it was a little awkward just because we didn’t really know what kind of questions to ask and we basically just asked questions that would reveal a good chunk of our personality. We both came to a conclusion that a portrait didn’t fit our personalities well so we decided to take a silly selfie instead by a microphone to show that we both love music and that it is an important part of our lives.

4. Framing

I remember doing the framing exercise the first day of Making Media 1. It’s interesting doing it a second time around because I feel like I know what to look for or pay attention to. This time around I enjoyed realizing the power of the frame and how it singles out specific things in the shot. For example, when I took it out on the quad and faced it at Skillman Library, the library was the main focus of the frame and the trees were around it so I thought the frame helped emphasize the object being shown. With that said, as I stepped back, it was interesting to see all the other objects in the surroundings join in.