Blog Post #4

I. I really learned a lot from this article about interviewing! The most important thing that I learned was about the way you ask questions. I learned that you shouldn't ask everyone you are interviewing the same question because you may end up getting the same answer over and over, so it's good to come up with creative questions after asking the normal ones to get more creativeness in your documentary! I also learned that just asking questions that will end in a yes, no or i don't know response make the documentary boring if used, or make it hard to put together in the end result. This article was very helpful, and I will be using it throughout the process of my interviews.

II. My group is doing very well with this project, we have gotten a lot done in such a short amount of time and I'm really proud of us! We're ahead of the game as far as I know and it really makes us feel good! We are close to starting our Trailer making process and I can't wait to see how the interviews turned out!

Blog Post #3

I: The reading...it was so overwhelming. I feel like there were SO many questions in the first pages that I don't know how to put into my own project. But in other ways I felt really confident when reading this article because I know my group is really working hard, and we already have most of our interviews and filming done, we are already talking about what we'd like our trailer to be everything! So this article was very helpful in making me and hopefully my group confident in what we are doing! I also really liked the post-it idea, it seems very helpful, and may become useful in deciding which shots should go where!

II: My group, which is finally whole, me hannah and mariah, have been VERY successful in our documentary project thus far. Which is really shocking to me because I usually have a hard time at the beginning of group projects but so far this has been going along smoothly. I can't wait to start putting all of our shots together and seeing how successful this film will be! By the way, thank you Ms. Hodge for dealing with my drama with this project and Josh's crazy lies in class everyday, you are AWESOME!

Blog Post #2

I. Recently my group, which was just myself, has been changed. I guess I have to be in a group of two, so finding partners now, is a hard process. Especially because I already have a documentary in mine that I would like to do. I feel like I could still do my previous idea, the pond hockey tournament, by myself because I would be finishing it early but if I NEED to have a partner I'm willing to do that as well.

II. When reading "How Real Does It Feel," I never really thought about how Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project are portrayed as "documentaries". But in actuality, these films are no where near what the real definintion of a documentary is. A documentary is a film based on ACTUAL true events, and you can see the event taking place in most documentaries, or interviewing people who witnessed the event/idea. They can put "inspired by true events" or "based on a true story" to in a way "fool" the audience into thinking it's real footage that has never been edited or scripted, but most of the time it's the exact opposite of how it's portrayed. I also like how they brought up the film Catfish in the article because I did go see it, and I was thinking that it was going to be a scary movie, just like Paranormal Activity because the trailer for the movie said "The last twenty minutes will send you on a emotional rollercoaster ride." and that's what got me hooked. After I saw it, I was upset that I wasted ten dollars on it. The movie took a quick turn to being a really bad movie. I found myself wanting to leave because I was no longer interested. This article took the words out of my mouth about how Trailers to movies can mislead you. I really enjoyed this article.

Blog Post #1

I. For the documentary project I decided to take on this task by myself. I loved working in a group for the PSA but I feel like I can get things done quicker and not having to worry about getting together with other people will make the documentary process much easier for me. So far I'm really between topics, I either want to do the progress of the MPLS parkboards, which I am a part of because I work at Nokomis Community Center, or I was thinking about doing a documentary on the Pond Hockey Tournament which is taking place at Lake Nokomis and has been a tradition for many years. The only problem with doing the Pond Hockey Tournament would be that I would have to do my filming right away and make sure I get everything I want and need to make my documentary successful. It's happening on January 22nd-24th. I'm leaning towards the Pond Hockey Tournament just because it's something that I've been to several times and I'm really interested in it. That's all that I have in mind right now, and I hope this project goes really well for me!

II. The things I learned from "Introduction" Directing the Documentary by Michael Rabiger was to make sure that it's very important to plan ahead when making a documentary. You don't really want to jump right into because you may not end up getting all the information that you want necessarily. I also learned that there are so many different things that you could do your documentary on, whether it was recent, or something from the past, you can really take your subject to the next level to teach whoever about a subject you're most interested in. What really surprised me is how many different ideas and such you can use to make an actual documentary, there are so many different ideas and point of views out there in the documentary world. Reading this just made me that much more excited to get started with this project, and to see every ones final drafts!