I’m going to try to keep this post positive in an effort to send out good vibes. First off, my ideal team will work together. We will all understand that everyone is busy with their respective lives but this project has to get done so everyone will put in an equal amount of work. There is no clear leader in our group. There is no sole individual who reaches out and makes sure logistics are sorted out. If someone cannot make a shooting they will give substantial notice and make up for the lost time in some other way. In my group, no one person adds ideas to the documentary. We will all contribute to the direction of the film and all be heard. My hope is that everyone feels like the project has a purpose and puts 100% of their effort towards it and is not just looking to get it done. No one person should be motivated by another, the motivation should come from the passion brought by the individual herself (or himself). For me, I hope that the group is able to face on set problems head on and roll with the punches. As someone with little film experience, I hope that my group will teach me the ropes and that I can contribute in every way that I can. Finally, we will all lift each other up even in the event that something goes awry.

In general, because these projects are broad there is going to have to be someone willing to compromise in order to keep the project moving and the group dynamic stable. With that, the person compromising should not be the same person because sometimes you have to stay true to your ideas and beliefs.

Lafarm is a multifaceted project that adds sustainability, educational, and nutritional resources to the Lehigh Valley. Even though this resource is doing so much good for the community in which it’s in, it often goes unnoticed and therefore isn’t valued like it should be. We, as a group, hope to shed light on ignorance of the surrounding community members about the incredible project that is Lafarm with the hope of making it a more recognized project.

In KJ’s documentary, The Above she plays with the parallels of seeing and being seen. In order to achieve this idea, throughout the short film, KJ tries to show the similarities and difference between her camera and the blimp. By having the blimp always in the shot, whether as the focal point or indiscreetly in the back, she shows the contrast between invisibility and visibility. Just like her and her camera while she is filming she is never fully invisible like the blimp. She conveys this by always having the blimp in the shot showing that while some may forget that it is there, it still sees what is going on. Unlike her where people can tell her not to film them, they can’t-do that with the blimp. The blimp is always in the sky. That is the biggest difference that KJ tries to make. While she may also be considered a foreign object people still have agency over her in the sense that they can ask her to stop filming or ask her what she is doing. I also thought it was interesting how she captures the blimp in many different angles showing the many different perceptions and opinions of the blimp. I thought it was odd because KJ is appalled by this foreign blimp in Afghanistan but yet she parallels herself to it. What is her main goal with this idea? Is it for herself, a reminder that her work, directly and indirectly, effects people?

Kirsten,

Let me start by saying that I have no words to describe how incredible your documentary was. I have never truly laughed, cried, felt heartbroken, loved, and been angry all in one sitting. I’m the type of person who reads a book or watches a show once and that’s it. I never re-read or re-watch anything but I can guarantee I will re-watch Cameraperson more than just a few times and learn something new about documentary and myself every time.

Already I have told numerous people about the life-altering documentary I saw Monday night and when asked to describe it, no matter how hard I try, I fail miserably at giving the documentary the justice it deserves. After the film, you talked a lot about sounds versus picture and I found that very profound. No one needs to see the photos of the boy getting dragged behind the car because the sound of the chain was enough to send chills down everyone’s neck. This idea of sound reminded me of Grizzly Man where just the shot of someone listening to his death was enough to make you cringe. The documentary also made me think a lot about perspective. When there was a really intense scene of you in Afghanistan or with the angry women whose mother killed herself I was always thinking about you, the person filming, the scene. I know that’s the point of the movie, to think about the cameraman’s perspective, but it really showed me that there is a human on the other side of the lens sacrificing many things in order to get the shot. The act of seeing those intense situations was much more meaningful than just having been told about it. The question it brought up was what’s the line and when has a line been crossed?

Overall, an amazing documentary, I aspire to be as creative as you.

~Grace Veghte

From reading the title of the potential project topics the ones that stuck out with me are ‘What the Frack is Going on?’, ‘Learning to tattoo’, and ‘Bad to the bone.’ Reading just the titles and being inspired by many shows how a catchy title can make or break who is inspired to come see the documentary. After reading through the descriptions I am really intrigued by ‘On the rise’ and “saving the shad?” Breaking these down into overarching topics I would say there is an environmental issue, the growth of Easton, social justice, and gifted people. If I had to pick two topics that I am inspired to further explore it would be environmental or social justice. I think the “Many beliefs,” “saving the shad” and “what the frack” have similar intentions about highlighting an environmental issue within Easton and therefore should be combined. It would be good for each group to have one film and media studies major. Having one film and media studies major is important to each group for technical purposes. Everyone in the course is very creative and will be able to come up with a great idea, but the execution is what is important and FAMS majors hopefully will be able to help gear the execution in the right way.

General Reflection:

After class, I thought a lot about what was shown throughout the class and what was discussed and I realized just how important perception is. For example, how someone perceives the class homework, what someone thinks are human sounds versus made sounds, how someone interprets an Instagram video, all of these differ because of people’s perception. When I did my Instagram video on perception I contrasted the viewpoint of a human versus a farm animal, but perception can be so much deeper than that. Perception can change the way one views a subject and therefore how one presents it and creates the biases we see in media today. We have talked about how all media, even documentaries have a vantage point or something they are trying to argue, ultimately perception shapes these ideas and biases and is the ground for most creative work.

Cameraperson Reflection:  

“Images filmed by any individual on the planet impact all of us…” this quote from Kirsten Johnson was the most powerful to me because as the world around us becomes increasingly more globalized and connected documentarians can touch many more lives more easily. Compared to years ago when getting a message even across the country was hard, now it is easy to get a message around the world within minutes. With this ease comes many more responsibilities because more people’s lives are affected at a quicker rate. Anyone with access to post any type of media needs to keep this idea in mind as their actions can affect many. Realizing that your work is going to impact many people, even people who are not your intended audience, is something that seems like common sense but may often be overlooked. Johnson realizes that all of the dimensions that she lists come together to impact herself and her audience and makes her decisions off of those dimensions.

Point of view 

Photos Taken from Flickr

9/4/2017 Reflection:

Monday’s class was interesting, to say the least. Had someone told me that I would be creating a minute thirty documentary about a politically charged topic such as DACA, I wouldn’t have believed it. The idea of being in front of a camera talking about anything is intimidating, add in that I would be talking about a topic I am not well versed in and it seemed impossible to me, but in hindsight was an amazing experience. I learned things about my four group members faster in that three-hour class then I could have imaged. It surprised me to see how all of our traits worked so well together. We all had weaknesses that were complemented by another one of our strength, making this stressful assignment a little less stressful. I believe I was able to learn about my group mates strengths and insecurities because the situation forced us to be vulnerable almost immediately. I would say the hardest part about this project was balancing what we wanted to put in our video versus what we had to put in the video in order to get a good grade. In our mind, Andrea was our story that we wanted to highlight but everyone in the group had to be on tape. What we grappled for most of the editing process was how can we utilize the other members of the group to heighten Andrea’s story. See we all wanted to A, but at one point in editing, we saw the story loose its impact because of such grade requirements. While it was hard in the end, our group was able to work with all the confines of the assignment to create what we thought was an intense 90-second video. It warmed my heart when Luke pulled Andrea aside to tell her that her story is amazing and he wanted to acknowledge that even in the midst of getting this assignment in on time. I was really proud of our final product because everyone was so candid and encouraging.

I thought it was interesting how a lot of the other groups chose the pet option and while they did have the same topic all of the videos had its own direction. Even though those films were had the same topic none of them felt repetitive because they had their own twist on the subject.

Week 9/28/2017 Blog post.

As a documentarian, I’d say that I am still young, with little experience. Which makes answering these questions intimidating. I question if I am qualified to even talk about what I want to document, how often I want to, and what I get from it because I have so little experience. What I can do is talk out what I intend to do, what I think I will get out of it, and who I hope to touch the world. I would like to document like the guys in grizzly man because his passion for the subject was very apparent.

I hope to combine all my passions through documentation. I want to be able to show raw scientific evidence for climate change, species extinction, and genetic variation decline in a way that no matter what discipline you are you have impacted you and will understand the problem. From biologist to teachers, to financial analyst, I want to inspire all to take action. I hope to show that there is no other excuse for the things that are happening to our planet, we cannot sit by and just wonder what is going to happen in 2100, we have to be certain.

As a biology major, I see everything from the deer in your back yard to the fungi under your porch to the coral in the sea as alive contributing to everyday life. This makes issue such as global warming and species extinction mean more to me then maybe another audience member. With documentaries, biologists can reach a wider audience and be able to show, in more tangible ways, that these issues are not only real but also need to be paid attention to. A lot of people know of conservation biology but don’t know that it is a crisis discipline that often won’t have all the information before action is necessary, that’s why getting what is known out to the public is important. Hopefully, through documentaries Biologist can make this clear and hopefully convince skeptics to take action.

During the thirty-minute frame exercise, you could say I felt uncomfortable. Not only was I walking around campus with a piece of cardboard up to my face but I was also uncomfortable because I saw how the frame really does matter. How big or small the change is can alter how the audience sees the scene. It was interesting to think about how the shot can be manipulated to show part of the story or the full story, giving the director a lot of power.