Doing this exercise made me realize how much people’s opinions on ethics differs. One of the papers I picked up said, “Not inviting subjects to your public screening.” I thought this should be in the lower middle because it was something bad but not as bad as other things. However, one of my team members thought it was just as important as the paper about making women look dumb. This caused a small debate among our group because we saw not inviting subject to your screening as not inviting someone to come see the film they had been included in at Buck Hall. We didn’t think about not inviting someone to something big like The Academy Awards like our team member did. This gave us another perspective that we hadn’t thought about. Another paper that I thought was important was, “Using music without permission.” A lot of people didn’t think this was a big concern but I thought it was. One, you could get yourself into a lawsuit like Michelle Phan did with her beauty videos up on YouTube. Two, it’s wrong because you’re using somebody’s hard work without giving them the credit they deserve. It’s as if someone used a part of your film in their film, or for their music video, and gave you no credit at all. I think it’s a bigger concern than most people thought it was. I enjoyed doing this activity because all of the scenarios on the papers were hot topics and I was able to see perspectives I hadn’t thought about.

I made my instagram video about my roommate, Silvia, who is hungry and then goes to Simons to get a sub. I was inspired by page 28 which states, “you want a story’s goals and heroes to be active, which means that you want your story’s protagonist to be in charge of his or her own life: To set a goal and then go about doing what needs to be done to achieve it.” Silvia gets hungry at the library, packs up her things and makes her way to Simons. She’s active about getting what she wants. Her goal is to eat and it’s accomplished by the end when she smiles and says, ”I’m full now.”

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7ork56axztqdk5sOUlTRFh6cG8/view?usp=sharing

During this political climate DACA students share their story and what it’s like to have basic human rights threatened to be taken away from them.

After making a short documentary on Monday about DACA students I was inspired to make something bigger. When I hear my peers, who have DACA, talk about it their pain hurts me more than my own. They have powerful stories and words that everyone should hear. I realized that they could be the people I give a voice to in the Lehigh Valley. It’s a way to humanize the issue and give a little bit of control to kids who feel like everything is out of their hands. I’m thinking about interviewing different students and capturing their story. I also want to film them right before and after Congress makes their decision because that will be a critical moment for all of us. Lafayette also plans on holding an event to help the community get involved with DACA which is something else I could film. It’s a topic that I feel so strongly about that I fear not doing the topic enough justice. I can let this hold me back or motivate me to make it the best I can. My goal is to raise awareness and put faces and stories to this issue. I look forward to starting this project and seeing what it becomes.

             I was fortunate enough to have a group in which we all worked well together. It felt like a safe space and we all shared different roles throughout the exercise. It was great to see that even though they didn’t know much about DACA they were willingly to participate and wanted to know more. I thought it was important to share my story because if I don’t raise awareness about what it’s going on they won’t ever know. Sometimes people care about issues because they’re trending topics at the moment. However, people should know about what’s going on because behind every political issue there’s real people and humans suffering for the ignorance of others. I think film is a great outlet to educate others and it’s part of the reason why I want to pursue film.

             I found the pet videos entertaining and I liked how every group went about it in a different way. Some of my favorite shoots were the close up of the legs shaking and hands fidgeting. Those shoots added to what the person was saying and made it feel more authentic. All the groups had amazing projects considering the time allotted and the fact that we just meet our crew.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1O0xULdLAqBNkNtWEo4djNnZXc/view?usp=sharing

I spent Saturday framing everything I saw and ended up seeing things I would have walked right past by. When I was simply holding my “frame” to the table at Five Guys I noticed some waste that I didn’t even see before. I saw how important it was to chose how I framed objects around me because it can change the story you are telling. For example while I was on the shuttle bus I was framing my bookbag, the windows, and people around me. When I was framing my bookbag I noticed that depending on where I placed my frame it could make things look awkward, too cluttered or aesthetically pleasing. By changing the distance of where I was holding my “frame” it dictated what was the main subject, the background and my message. I saw things in a different perspective and saw that everything around me could be another story told.

        I see the world as something that I want to keep on learning about. I have always been curious and growing up I wanted to be a million different things. However, throughout all my different phases I always liked holding up a camera and recording what was going on around me. I’m majoring in film and media but I’m contemplating double majoring in government and law or anthropology and sociology. I might end up double majoring and minoring because I like learning about so many different things.

        When I approach a story I want to know more about it and learn as much as I can. I would be interested in showing stories of the unseen, of filming with minorities and showing the injustices they have to encounter everyday. It’s cliche but I want to give people who don’t think they have a voice, a voice. If I could choose a place in the Lehigh Valley to tell a story at it, it would be at the women’s shelter. It would be interesting to hear their stories, find out how they ended up there, and find out their future plans. There are so many stories to be heard and captured, and I would love to be a part of that.

          I document my life all the time. I post videos and pictures about my life on social media outlets such as snapchat, instagram, twitter, and facebook. When something interesting happens the first thing that comes to my mind is whipping out my phone and documenting it. On snapchat I post a couple of times a day and on other social media platforms I post about once a week. I like documenting and saving those memories so I can replay them as much as possible. I can’t relive them but when I replay those memories it feels like I can. Recently, one of my hard disks completely broke down and stopped working. All the videos I had on it like the videos I took on my birthday were deleted. I almost started tearing up because those videos meant so much. Constantly documenting my life has become a norm and I can’t imagine my life without it.