TMA 680 Goals for the Course

While it's tempting to state that my goal is to survive this course, and primarily the next two weeks, I promise they do go far deeper than that.

First and foremost, I know little to nothing about production.  In our last class, I created pieces and I could tell that the technique wasn't great and by the end of this course, I would like to rectify that situation.  I would like to figure out why things don't look or feel right in the films I create and then rectify the situation.

I would like to learn to not be so literal in the creating of my pieces, but rather to develop a clear storytelling technique that is interesting and accessible.  I (think) I am able to do that with the pieces that I create on stage, but I would love the opportunity to learn how to translate that into film.

I would like to learn how to edit; different types of cuts and edits, instead of my usual use of imovie - which really has served me well.  I want to walk away from this course knowing how to properly light a shot, different types of shots, and how to incorporate clear and appropriate sound and levels.

I would like to be able to see what in my life and surroundings makes a compelling subject for film.

Because I am quite interested in incorporating film (likely documentary) into my thesis project with my students, I would like to develop the necessary skills to feasibly see the incorporation of docu-drama and media into a stage production.

In essence, my goals are to learn the skills necessary that I can more fully integrate media education into my drama classroom through creation of activities, lesson plans and assessments.  I want to be able to use this class to help me teach in the real world.

Metamorphosis: Living and Leaving High School, My final project

Film can be found at: http://youtu.be/40FPBFvIfFY

In my eight years at Lehi High School, I have seen so much change.  I struggle each year as a group of students with whom I have become incredibly close transitions and moves on to their next journey.  I believe that high school students are intelligent beings that can add much to our understanding of the world through their simplicity (their belief in dreams and possibilities) and their complexity (specifically in their understanding of human emotions and depth of feeling). 

Often, high school students feel like they aren’t heard.  It is my belief and mini-attempt through this short film, to help them feel empowered to take ownership of their own journey.  Throughout the filming and editing of this piece, it became clear that this project was an opportunity for me to really listen, to reverse the roles and have the teacher be taught by the life experiences of the students.  Utilizing principally the participatory mode, I gathered and facilitated both private and public interviews.  These students, for the most part, are very comfortable talking to me and having a camera in their face.  They trust that I will represent them well, and I hope that I have. 

I took a portion of my inspiration for this project from Chronicles of a Summer and the Up Documentary Series.  I am fascinated by the idea of letting people tell their own stories.  Though at first they may need some help, perhaps a question or two to get them going and the necessity of trusting the filmmaker, indeed something powerful can happen when a group of people is given a voice and a task. 

One fundamental of the documentary idea is the chance to give a voice to those who are not often questioned or listened to.  I turned on the camera and I just listened and let them talk.  By the end of the project, I had hours of footage, more than I could ever hope to use in a short film.  But I found, as I centered on what it is like for these students to really live and experience high school and their assumptions, dreams, and fears about leaving and encountering the world ahead of them, that I needed to give the audience an essence of who these students are as I have been fortunate to see them.  I needed to add the pictures highlighting a bit of their senior year; to let some of their poignant and important moments express themselves in free form and let their voices supplement the story they are creating.  I concluded that perhaps this listening would make me a better teacher.

My students expressed how difficult it was for them to be in this space of limbo, the pre-adult and post-adolescent phase, where the expectations placed upon them don’t match and they are left in a space of ambiguity.  Where they are told to (quoting one student) “choose a career, but save their hall passes so they can go to the bathroom.”  I found, in interviewing them, that their life experiences up to this point shaped their vision of the future.  While it is tempting for me, at times, to interject and say that their expectations are impractical; is that really my judgment to make?  One of the lessons reinforced from my students during this project was that everyone is a unique individual with their own journey to forge. 

These kids are speaking for themselves as individuals, but upon reflection, after watching the initial film, they spoke as a group.  It was very much a “we talk about us to you” approach.  While attempting to still give them autonomy and their own voice, as the filmmaker and their former teacher, I still chose what clips to feature and how the voices were arranged.   My voice is heard in the piece, but I tried to compose it in such a way that I didn’t make judgments on what my students felt or said.  Learning from the director of the Up Documentary Series, Michael Apted, who stated: “I've made mistakes on it and had to correct those mistakes. You know, particularly I got into a situation, I think, early on where I became judgmental about people — that if they didn't agree with my standards of success, failure, happiness, whatever, then I would feel they were the lesser for it….And I think what I've learned all the way through is the less I do, the better." (1)  It would be easy for me to state that some of their dreams aren’t realistic, or sink into my teacher mode and attempt to try to steer them in the direction that I want them to go with their lives.  But the ethical dilemma of “what to do with people” prohibits such an action.  Instead it informs my understanding of how I can interact with these students and encourage thought and reflection. 

I feel like this film was high collaborative.  I gave the students the opportunity to choose what questions they wanted to answer, to watch their responses and amend as they wished.  I sought their thoughts on what the piece should be about.  The innovation of digital technology allowed for this process to be succinct and collaborative.  Filming initially with my iPad, I was able to show them their footage immediately.  Granted, the camera was essential in facilitating the conversation, but the students were comfortable with talking to me while the camera was present.  While I wish, in some ways, that I could have asked more probing and deeper questions, it was more important for me with these relatively young people, who trusted me, to respect their boundaries.  There were a few things initially shared that the students didn’t want published on YouTube, so those didn’t make it into the final cut. 

For me, this film was a tribute to a group of students who have supported me through this very difficult year.   The social actors involved are a part of my life.  I think some aspects of the film function within the realm of a personal portrait.  We are able to view some private as well as public moments.  Snapshots reveal charismatic youth that are about to encounter the real world.  But there really is no solution offered for the problems they have faced or will soon encounter.  They mention their frustrations and fears, but also add in their realization that sometimes, you just have to go out and do.  You have to actively live.  These social actors surmise that success comes after you have come out of something hard and tackle whatever was thrown at you.  It is the metamorphosis, the changing itself, that allows for possible growth, living, and leaving for the next phase. 

1. (http://www.npr.org/2013/07/26/205760044/michael-apted-aging-with-the-7-up-crew) 

Doc Mode 3 – Autobiographical

Project can be found at: http://youtu.be/gG8iaWFTGwQ

Representing myself is terrifying.  I tried repeatedly to find something else to do for this doc mode, and I think, even in its approach, I played it a little safe.  Fox stated that "baring oneself to a public is at the heart of the autobiographical mode. The emotional and personal life experiences of the producer become the documented reality." (Fox, 41) As I attempt to construct, and sometimes reconstruct, my documented reality, I don't want this to be a naval gaze, because I think it does examine a larger societal problem within the Mormon culture...the ever pressing question, "what do we do with these mid-singles who can't seem to get it together and get married?"  Fox also states that, "when successful, the example of the self is a means of assessing political and historical questions of larger social relevance. At its best, the autobiographical mode not only closes the gap between the photographer and the subject but also the space between the filmmaker and the audience." (Fox, 41)

I know the church is coming at this out of a place of love, but they don't know what to do with my demographic.  If we could just get married, they have a nice little niche for us.  If we were just younger, they would have plenty of advice and counsel.  But, as it is, they (those within the church who are trying to help us toward our own salvation) encourage us to go online and meet someone - focusing on marriage as a final destination as opposed to a stop along the journey.  They want us to get together and do singles activities in an effort to pair us off, but get frustrated when we do too many group things and not enough one-on-one dating.  It's a constant conundrum – “a mid-singles phenomenon,” written about in church and layman publications.  And perhaps the most tricky and painful part of this exploration, our families can't help but make comments that are rather hurtful, though well-intentioned.

I think for that reason, creating an autobiographical piece was so difficult for me.  I don't want anyone to know how much it hurts, not to be single, but to be constantly looked at and referred  to as incomplete or broken because of my state of being.  Shedding further light on the mode, Fox asserts that "autobiographical works use the life and views of the filmmaker as the subject matter, putting his or her existence under scrutiny....the use of self serves as an access point to political and historical questions of a larger social relevance." (Fox, 233)  For this piece, I chose to use a variety of images from my current situation, as an exploration of what a mid-single active church member deals with.  My experience is by no means universal, which is really at the heart of the problem.  We are all individual and need to be addressed as such.  But our situation needs to be handled with a bit more compassion, if it is ever to be addressed in a helpful manner.

Online Response 8 Autobiographical and Essayistic Mode

Every morning, as I get ready for work, I watch the news.  It's like my outlet into the outside world.  I await the weather report and updates on what is happening with the latest conflict, and all of those things become real to me.  But it is a muted or distant reality.  I rarely remember the names or faces of the stories features and only comment on the seemingly sensational.  But there are times, that even after I have turned off the box on the shelf in my  bedroom, I sense an immediacy to what is going on in the world.  When it affects me directly and the stories become a tangible reality.  Fox speaks of how the distance has been reduced with the innovation of technology, especially that of video.  This "collapse of the delay" has created the "ability for reflexive mirroring and constant reassessment" in the realm of documentary.  (44)

Several months ago, I heard the the freeway was shut down one morning because someone had been hit.  Wondering what on earth a person would be doing trying to cross the freeway at two in the morning, I left early for work to deal with the delay.  Later, I received a text that the person killed was a young man in my ward who committed suicide.  Suddenly that distance became very fragile and I struggled with how to contextualize the story I has heard that morning with the family i had talked with two days prior.  My mirror into myself, and my perceptions of life and family and security and sanity were jolted.

Fox further states that "searching for one's mirror - in culture, in others, in history - is a necessary means by which we construct a full sense of self." (45)  By following his journey across America with the nightly news guiding his destination, McElwee sets out to reveal and discover not only the stories of a people in turmoil, but perhaps also to examine that reflexive mirror and reveal his own turmoil.  His journey begs to close that aforementioned distance created by the news, from the victim and the audience, and thereby join stories of struggle together in a sense of community.  The filmmaker himself notes that initial distance when he observes that stories are being shared after hurricane Hugo, that those about whom the reports are centered, will never even see the stories about themselves, due to lack of electricity.  He calls into question the concept of reality, especially within the realm of the news, film, recreation, etc.  

McElwee's film utilizes a variety of modes in his storytelling.  There is certainly an expository look into how the news treats people like commodified information as opposed to human beings.  Observationally,  he shoots the newscasters shooting the story and the children playing and only interacts if they first (reflexively) approach him.  Centering around the participatory mode, he interacts with his characters, interviewing them and immersing himself in their worlds, if only for a bit of time.  

We see his son, in a time where most outside people are not allowed around a newborn, 

we see his friend Sharlene in an intimate and candid moment.

And, of course, throughout the certainly autobiographical piece, he shares his worries with us, his intimate family moments, and even his hotel room.  

He doesn't know quite where this journey will take him, and neither do we.  But we are along for the journey.  If he had, perhaps centered solely on one clearly defined mode, I wonder if the piece would have the capacity to affect its audience and be accessible on so many levels, like it does now.   In this way, his piece reflects a part of all of us, on our own journey, as we try to understand the world and define our reality.