I have always found Holocaust Documentaries very interesting. I really liked that there was a reading paired with the documentary. I felt like the reading helped me understand the documentary’s goal and message. I noticed how old the style and quality of the documentary was which did not appeal to me at first, but after reading that it was one of the first Holocaust documentaries to ever be made, I had a new found respect for it. I had this respect because it did do an excellent job of portraying the significant facts. Since it was only 32 minutes long, I felt like it was useful since it portrayed very concise information, just the important information people would need to know about the Holocaust. The reading did an excellent job explaining the meaning and message of the film, but also some significant points about the Holocaust. The film did an excellent job organizing the information. There was a clear beginning, middle, end which is sometimes challenging to see through a documentary.

I am going to interview my friend Bobby. I chose Bobby as an interview subject because he may come off as a typical student athlete involved in greek life, but he is actually in a band and takes it very seriously to the point where he records his music and posts it on Sound Cloud. I wanted to interview Bobby because I think being in a band in college is more rare now than it has ever been and I think it is especially interesting since he is involved with more stereotypical college activities such as playing a sport and fraternity that many people would not assume he had his own band.

I am going to do an interview in Bobby’s room in his fraternity house. His room is completely decorated from wall to wall and it is very unique to Bobby’s personality. There are guitars everywhere and records hanging on the walls. I think interviewing Bobby in his natural habitat will portray his personality better. In terms of B-Roll, I am planning on filming his band and potentially his life in the fraternity and on the ice, but I am really trying to focus on the aspect that him being in a band is unusual and special in the current college lifestyle.

Knowing Bobby, I predict that this interview will turn out very funny and entertaining. He is super interesting and a jokester in general so he will definitely be making jokes. He is really passionate about his music and makes it a priority in his life even though he is very busy with hockey and his greek life responsibilities plus his academics as well. I am really excited to see how it turns out and I hope I am able to portray my goals in terms of showing the specialness of him being involved in mainstream considered cultures within the college culture, but also remaining unique and loyal to his love of creating music.

First off, I love the title of this documentary. After watching it, I concluded that it does a good job of describing what the movie is about in the way that it has comedic levels to it while discussing a serious and sometimes disappointing and heartbreaking topic. I love the added animations as well. I think it adds to the documentary because it makes it more childish and playful. One thing I thought was funny and clever was the way they would show the dogs reactions and purposely use his facial expression to hint at a funny or awkward moment.

Overall, I loved the structure of it. I enjoyed that it was separated into multiple episodes. I felt like it was very easy to follow, and I enjoyed everyone’s role in the film. After watching the last episode, I was upset because I found myself very invested and wanted to know if they were able to adopt the baby boy they brought home. I am looking forward to hearing about what happened with that situation.

Stylistically, it differed from the other films I have watched in this class. So far, my favorite ones that I have seen are Grizzly Man, Cameraperson, and now this. I think they all share a sense of character depth than the others. They’re all mostly character driven which I enjoy more than story driven.

Working title/(decided on): Easton: Win Lose Draw.

Our goal is to observe the change within the Easton community in terms of the growth, change, and overall development it has undergone recently. We will be specifically observing the recent addition of affluent restaurants in the community and the residents opinions on Easton’s recent developments. It’s no secret that Easton has been getting “fancier.” The restaurants are considered $$ or higher on Yelp. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I know myself, and some of my group members, have benefited and enjoyed Easton’s restaurant development, but we are curious to see how long time or short term residents feel about the recent developments and changes.

One Sentence/ Main Question (We plan on answering through out documentary): What happens when a community changes and develops? How do those changes and developments positively or negatively affect its community.

Specifically, we want to focus on the restaurant development in downtown Easton. Over the recent years, Easton has added very successful/profitable restaurants such as, and most recently, The Bayou, The Easton Public Market, and The Oak.

We would like to interview a range of residents within Easton to add commentary on these recent developments. Some of the residents we are considering interviewing are Natalie’s grandma who has lived in Easton all of her life, students of Lafayette College, State Representative Freeman, and more. It might also be beneficial for my group to interview some of the owners or managers of the new restaurants in Easton and the old to compare.

This documentary was very different in style compared to the other’s I’ve watched for this class. It was mostly interview based and driven. The style and content was not as exciting as Cameraperson or Grizzly Man. There was a decent amount of back and forth about who actually murdered woods and who didn’t. There was back in forth about who was driving the car or who was in the side seat. It related to the style of he said she said. It was interesting to see Adams and Harris speak in the film and I thought it was great that the film was able to include that footage. The style related more towards the documentaries I’ve watched in history class back in middle school. But, obviously the topic was more interesting than the topics those would have been. I found it unusual that they were so distraught and baffled by the question of who the killer was that shot officer Woods and that there was an entire documentary made about this one case. I found this interesting because I constantly hear about shootings and murders and maybe there are certain cases where the murderer isn’t identified, but I do not see anyone dedicating an entire documentary to a case like those. I think there is a huge cultural difference nowadays versus in the past about shootings/ murders and especially those of the death of police officers and I think this documentary shows that because it was made a long long time ago so the difference was obvious.

I admired Brooke Gladstone for beginning her talk by discussing the recent tragedy of the Las Vegas shooting. Part of the reason I admired it so much was because after a full day of classes, none of my professors mentioned it which bothered me. It made sense for her to talk about it since she has dedicated her life and career to the media. She added a comical twist to the subject when she discussed people taking to twitter and posting photos of missing family members. It was funny because it turned out they were posting pictures of random people such as, and this is one of the examples she used, a famous porn star. After a serious day, she made everyone chuckle that night. She then proceeded to talk about our generation and the generation that is involved in technology as generations that are buried in distraction. She backed up her point by providing evidence of a group of college students being put in a room with an electric shock button. Some were so bored that they pressed the button and received a shock. She went on explaining that it isn’t our fault and that we are just wired that way. Gladstone then challenged the crowd to do one simple thing that would benefit us, whether that would be deleting an app for a week that you used frequently and takes up time in your day or while your commuting (walking to class/ driving somewhere) try not to go on your phone. These examples contributed to her point about how we build boredom and I felt like that connected well with her point about distraction. A few other points I loved during her talk were, one her use of Brave New World and comparing it with the technology takeover. I thought that was a brilliant contrast, and if anyone has read the book you will agree that it is freaky, but somewhat applicable to our rising technological culture. She mentioned the thesis of her book, The Influencing Machine which is “the problem with the media is the problem with us” and it contributes to the idea that we make up the media and it is what we want to see because we create it. Last, and this was my favorite point, she made the claim that the culture we are living in now, and most of the generations that are consumed by technology, contain a lack of empathy. She said something about how if we just looked more people in the eye it would make a big difference and I think that point meant most to me is because I agree with her.

This short documentary was very interesting. Her choice to compare the blimp in Afghanistan versus Maryland was brilliant. The cultural differences were really obvious. I noticed she included a clip of her and the boy who lost one eye in this film, but which was also included in Cameraperson.  Most of the story focused on things that were in the sky. Obviously the main focus was on the U.S Military blimp, but there was also emphasis on balloons and even the ferris wheel. One thing that stood out to me was when the man was explaining his beliefs regarding to God and the balloon. It was interesting because you could tell he was deeply ingrained in his religious beliefs. He claimed that God is the creator of all things, God sees everything and knows everything, when the man is asked about the balloon he states that God made the man who made the balloon and God put the idea in that mans head. This interview was very significant to the documentary as a whole. It showed a point of view of someone living in Afghanistan and knowing that he is being constantly watched by a different country. He most likely assumes that the reason his country is being watched is due to another country’s lack of trust. I think the message is to show that there is privacy invaded all over the world, at least that’s how I interpreted it and that is the thought that is connected to my emotions about the documentary. I felt bad that this blimp is invading citizens every day lives whether it is in Afghanistan or even the United States. There is really no sense of privacy in the modern world especially with the rise of technology. Part of me disagrees with this method used by my country, but also part of me understand why some people who hold power in our government might think this method is necessary. I think it’s great that Kirsten was able to gather so many differently angled shots of the blimp and interweave them together, it made it feel like time was passing by when it might have all been shot in one day.

Going into the showing of Kirsten Johnson’s Cameraperson, I didn’t really know what to expect. It was definitely an experience. I thought the entire film was absolutely brilliant. Every single scene touched me and I just really enjoyed the entire film. I thought she pulled off her goal of wanting this film to be more like a visual memoir rather than a documentary really well. The sound quality in this film was incomparable. There was a shot of a thunderstorm and the sound of the thunder was so crisp I felt like I was outside with her. There were so many intimate moments that were shown between Kirsten and her subject that I felt touched me emotionally even though I was watching it on screen. Some of those moments included the boy with the one eye and how he started crying a little bit, the middle aged woman who throws all her mothers stuff around the room, they were just really powerful moments. There was also a recurring theme of hands which she discussed during the discussion time after the showing. She said that you can tell a lot about a person by what their hands are doing and I think that is very true. My favorite hand shot was when the young adult was in the pregnancy clinic telling her story. I thought it was moving because we actually never saw her face, but we could tell when she began to cry because you could hear it and see the girl moving one had to her face to wipe her tears. I thought that was a really effective and creative method to express human emotion.

After the showing, Kirsten came back into the theater and we had a discussion. The first thing I noticed was that not only is she really funny and smart, but she is really just a great people person. You can just tell she’s very good at dealing with people and talking to them which must benefit her career as a documentary filmmaker. One thing I took away from the discussion was her point about finding a way to represent death respectfully and with dignity. She tied it in to the scene where the baby is slowing going to pass away because the hospital is unable to get the oxygen he would need to have to survive. I was also able to tell when she was talking about that scene that she is still very distraught over it which obviously portrayed how she developed a genuine sense of love, appreciation, and fondness for the people she met while filming. Another thing Kirsten talked about that resonated with me was her point connecting with her subjects while she films. She explained to the class by saying, “I’m here and I can stay here” “lock in”. She stressed to the class that your subjects need to have trust in your and that it is good if you can develop a relationship of them and especially a relationship of trust since you could potentially be filming something that is intimate and personal.

I really appreciated the technique she used where she would show something that might have been difficult to digest and then she went to directly to a clip of her children or family members being silly. It was a great way to break up the dark scenes featured in her film. Lastly, her point about our relationship to other people’s pain was really fascinating. She discussed that it’s natural for us to be curious about how other people deal with pain. She said it was difficult not to immediately stop filming and comfort her subject in pain, but she knew it would be emotionally strong if she was able to capture the footage, and she was correct.

Overall, the showing and discussion was moving and a thought provoking experience. I really enjoyed her creative methods and styles. Overall, I really enjoyed myself.