Documentary Topics

Oh gosh, time for the picking of documentary topics. There were so many good ideas presented in class that I don't know which one I want to do yet. Maybe I should do a profile on my friend's dad who is a former NFL player and now owns an investment company. Or maybe I could do it on the conceptions of beauty, where I could go around and interview people in the school about what beauty means to them. Hmm, or maybe I could do it on the immense pressure that students feel to do well in school since that is accessible. OR I could do a documentary about how sports affect people's lives.

There are just so many things that I am interested in, that I can't decide on one topic. I can visualize what each of these would look like, but, unfortunately yet fortunately, I can't do all the topics. I guess I will have to decide sooner or later. But my top three are probably:

1. Profile on my friend's dad
2. Conceptions of Beauty
3. Pressure in School

Those aren't in any particular order.

Fallen Leaves

This is my Capture the Fall project. I had much more fun doing this project rather than the 5x5 independent film project since this one was more challenging and involved more creativity. This project gave me a chance to be artsy since it, to me, involved nature. I filmed it with a Canon T3 and I think it came out pretty nice. This is one of the first project/assignment that I haven't procrastinated on in a LONG time. I was actually excited to do this project since photography is a passion of mine, as is video editing. I also got the chance to play around with the video on my T3 which I haven't done much in the past.

The film spots ended up being random places I went throughout the time of the project. Since I take my camera practically everywhere, I was able to take it out whenever I saw an opportunity for a good shot. I filmed outside my house, at my mosque, at my cousins' house, and random places on the road. I had a lot of other shots that I felt were strong but I couldn't include them since they didn't have to do with leaves.

I used a video editor called VideoPad since I heard the YouTube editor was basic and I didn't like my past experience with wevideo. VideoPad was surprisingly user friendly and it gave me good results.

The ending of the project was a bit chaotic. I had started off using a song called New Soul, but then I realized I had to use Creative Commons. I hastily found a song to use and it actually ended up fitting in well with the video.

Overall this was a fun project, and I look forward to future video challenges.

End of Quarter Numero Uno

Quarter One is FINALLY over.



Many people have warned me about sophomore year and the stress that comes with it, but I never paid it much mind. Walking into it, however, was a completely different story.

The quarter has been extremely stressful, yet I could never pinpoint the actual cause of this stress. I did know, however, that school was definitely a part of it. No matter how hard I tried, I could never organize my schedule. I got home from practice at 6:30 but due to dinner and showering, I wouldn't be able to start my homework until 7:30, that being the earliest.

The end of the quarter was the most stressful. We had two days off due to the hurricane, and I only had three days to bring my grades up. In addition to improving my grades, I also needed to meet several deadlines, such as the Dystopian Trailer.

In addition to that, procrastination is also a problem I have. I tend to procrastinate more than I should, and this also added to the stress. Going into the second quarter, I need to learn how to better manage my time through Ms. Cullen's calendar technique and through to do lists.

I also need to find time to study and revise, as I find myself coming into tests without having had studied due to no time.

All in all, it was quite a quarter that I learned a few lessons from, that I will definitely apply going into second quarter... hopefully.