Documentary Assignment

When first given the documentary assignment, my group members and I had a general idea of what were going to do. We had to create a video that described the music, art, fashion, entertainment, technology, fads, sports, and architecture of a past decade. After a bit of discussion on which decade we should pick, we decided that the 60's would be our best bet.

When it was time to research, we found a lot of great information, pictures, and nostalgia on the 60's. We split up the sections and each compiled information into paragraph form for the documentary. Then we all looked for pictures to put into our video that represented that section. When it was time to actually film for our documentary, I dressed up as a hippie and we filmed some clips in front of the school where "1965" was written, to show that that was when our school was built. We filmed all of the footage for the "fads" section that day, and later in the week we finished filming all of the other video clips, including any narration and audio files that we needed. I would have to say that the filming was our most successful part, because not only were we able to get excellent audio and video quality, but it seemed that the project really came together that day.

All that was left was the editing of the video. This is where some problems started to occur. Since Jon edited it on a different, more professional program called Sony Vegas, the video needed to convert into a certain format. However, the program kept on acting up and it was unable to render, and we ended up completing it a day late. There was panic that our video wouldn't be playable at all, so Jessi and I had to create a whole new video on Movie Maker in one night, in case the other video didn't end up working. Thankfully, it did, and it turned out great. It was an extremely stressfull situation, but in the end we survived and successfully pulled it off.


I was thoroughly impressed with the videos done by my other classmates. I thought that they all covered the information on their decades very well, and I was kept entertained. I noticed that the audio and video quality in some of the videos wasn't the greatest, and therefore hard to watch/hear, but that isn't always the fault of the group. Every video had some weaker parts to them, as it is always a challenge to acheive perfection when given an assignment like this. Each documentary had their strong points too, but there were a couple of groups that stuck out in my mind. Some of the videos that I was particularily fond of were...

Alexis, Brittany, and Jesse: Their group did the 90's and I really liked the idea of how they dressed up as the characters from Saved by the Bell. I thought it was original and creative. I also liked how they used many movie/tv clips in their documentary, because it was a great visual to keep the class interested.

Thorsten, Raveena, and Keertan: Their group also did the 90's, and they made their video into a short movie with a script and characters. I really enjoyed watching them act as teens from the 90's. I thought that their idea was brilliant and extremely unique as no other group had thought to do a documentary of that style. It was humourous and very entertaining.

If you wish to view my group's final video, click the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13HhlwIf0Q4