My group: Stacy, Joe, and myself. Our group has decided on our topic, which is the difficulty of wheelchair access at South High school. We're going to start filming our interviews next week. An idea we came up with is to have the video camera on our lap as we try to maneuver through the halls during passing time to show just how hard it is for students in wheelchairs to make it to class on time. It's hard for students who have the ability to walk to get through the halls sometimes, so it must be ten times harder in a wheelchair. The accessibility issue is just as wrong as the time issue. Since students in wheelchairs have a harder time getting through the halls, it takes them more time. There is only ONE elevator in our school for three largely expansive floors. Students in wheelchairs shouldn't have to miss the first or last five minutes of class and education due to accessibility issues. It raises the question of fairness and equality. A wheelchair student is exposed to less education because they have less accessibility than other students at South High School. I still need to present this idea to Stacy and Joe, but it's where I'm hoping to go with our documentary. Stacy wants to put a lot of focus on students who don't care about it, or are ignorant/rude about it. Students that use the elevator who don't need to simply because they're lazy are possible interviewees, to make the documentary more interesting and more controversial. I also want to interview students who also believe the accessibility is an issue for students in wheelchairs, especially students who went to Michael Dowling Urban Environmental Learning Center for elementary school. I went to Dowling, so I actually might be one of the students interviewed for this piece. I hope we get done in the next week what we have discussed, so that we have plenty of time to edit.
Another path I'm taking in VOICES is doing my own documentary. I don't know what it would mean point-wise, if it would be just for fun, or another actual assignment, but I want to do two documentaries. In the Minnesota Original mindset, I know a fantastic artist by the name of Julie Greenwood, who lives here in Minnesota. She's down to earth, loves animals, has a great sense of humor, and creates breathtaking art. She works primarily with colored pencils, which is fascinating when it comes to the depth produced within her drawings. She did a series completely dedicated to endangered species a few years ago, and I want to interview her about her connections to Minnesota and how it affects her work and lifestyle. I want to know what her inspiration is, because she is one of mine. If it doesn't work out to fit the time requirements for the documentary project deadlines, that's okay. I'll do it as an independent project for the spring. I am hoping to do the interview with her in the next couple of weeks since I will be seeing her soon, before my sister leaves for Spain in a week. She lives in Burnsville, so scheduling a time that will work might be difficult, but I want to make it happen. I'm really excited about this piece.
The Chapter 1 Introduction packet that we read had some really great insight on what a documentary really is. I think it's interesting that the first sentence clarifies that everybody has a different idea of what a documentary really is, but then the rest of the chapter continues on to explain what a documentary really is. From the start, at least the reader understands the chapter is a point of view, no matter how objective the author tries to be. I never knew there could be futuristic documentaries. I always thought it had to actually document something that has already happened or something that is happening as they film. There is also the idea that documentaries aren't just informational videos, but artistic creations that are real. The chapter explains that the best documentaries are those that are made with passion and perspective. The idea that a documentary can impose an "order" of how things are supposed to work is an interesting idea that I don't completely understand just from this reading alone. I need examples to try to understand that idea. The article often mentions different documentaries that are different styles, and I want to see all of the titles they've mentioned so I have a better understanding of the different types of documentaries that can be made and how they fit into categories. One of the main ideas throughout the reading was that a large part of the process of making a documentary is to discover while you create, which I interpreted to mean documentaries are ideas as the open up, blossom, and become flowers. You never know what they'll be like until they're fully grown and finished. The turning point in the article for me was on page seven, second paragraph, "True documentaries are concerned with the values that determine the quality of human life, not with selling a product or service." Documentaries seem to be an intense learning experience, "Be prepared to grow from being wrong over and over again, and know that it sometimes takes great persistence to keep going, especially when you feel defeated," which I am very, very much looking forward to.
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