Jacks Senior Project

 Day 12 Today is our final work day. We traveled back to campus and continued to make final adjustments to the documentary and finish up our reflection essays. I also went around the dorm to show my friends and dorm parents our documentary and asked about their opinions. After chatting with a few, we changed the ending quote from "make love, not war" to "all you need is love," a song written by the Beatles. This quote better relates to our topic and resonated with the audience more. All in all, I am very proud of our team and am super excited for the Express Fest tomorrow.  Total hours worked: 88.5 hours

 Day 11 Today is a day of wrapping up. We made final touches on both the documentary and the poster, ensuring they are ready to present once we get back on campus. We also went to the art store to buy wrapping paper and tape to wrap up the poster so that we could safely carry it back to school. We also spent time writing our self-reflection essay and filling out the timesheet. We worked for a total of around 3 hours today.  Grace and Claire wrap up the poster Total hours worked: 87 hrs

 Weekend Reflection #2 After a week of hard work and dedication, we finished everything about our project, including the poster and the documentary, except for a few final touches that should not take long. I learned a lot about teamwork. There are many times when we fell into disagreement but were able to resolve them by each compromising and taking a step back. I also learned that editing is much more complicated and tedious than I thought. Precision editing is the hardest part of making this documentary: cropping the clips, dragging them around, and adjusting their volume is a pretty dull job, especially when I have to repeat it for every single clip (there are probably 100 clips in total).  To be honest, I grew bored of my job because of how repetitive it is. I was also frustrated as the weekend approached, worrying I won't be able to finish editing the documentary and still save enough time for revising and many of the evaluative work completed. However, when I heard my p...

 Day 10 Today, I finished everything for the documentary except for the final section and the outro. I am super excited to have it ready and present it to my peers, as these past two weeks have been significant to the three of us. Grace and Claire are pretty much done with the poster, saving us plenty of time to make corrections and final touches. We still need to decide on how we want this film to end. There are plenty of options, but we hope to settle on one that will satisfy all of us. After plenty of discussions and "arguments," each of our group members has learned to negotiate and compromise, two critical skills for all kinds of group work. However, this is a growth I did not expect at first but is positive and beneficial.  Grace and Claire working on the poster Me editing the documentary Total work hours: 84 hrs

 Day 9 The past two days were not very eventful. Because we were able to get most of the interviews and outdoor work completed in the first week, we spent time doing work indoors to get the tedious and detailed jobs done. This morning, we had a major debate on the rest of the storyline of our documentary. We each had different opinions, where some of us liked the initial interviews while others preferred the one from yesterday. It was hard to settle on one decision, so we decided to try out both. So, I made one version of the edit with the first couple of interviews, saved it, and made another edit where more recent interviews were used. To be honest, they are both excellent. And after a thorough review, we incorporated both and made a third edit that we all liked. Because of this change, Grace and Claire also had to adjust to the poster by taking out and adding some new characters. Though this occupied most of our time in the afternoon, we were satisfied with the change and are pr...

 Day 8 Today, we started off with working indoor. Grace and Claire finished on the scripts for our poster, while I finished editing section 2 of the documentary. However, when I reviewed the edits I have so far, I realized that I needed more interview clips for the documentary to make the storyline abundant; after all, the more the merrier. We spent a few hours under the Brooklyn bridge looking for targets and conducting interviews. After we are satisfied with what we have, we went to the Blick art store to get glue for Grace's and Claire's poster work.  Grace and Claire grinding on their poster work Total work hours: 67hrs

 Day 7 Today, we went to the Blick art store in Brooklyn since it is closer to us. However, after searching the store, they didn't have the materials we needed. So we went to the one in Manhattan and spent some time getting the materials. Meanwhile, I filmed more footage to be used as transitional scenes and ending scenes. After we got back, we devoted a couple of solid hours to poster work and documentary editing. Grace and Claire worked on the writing part of the poster while I worked halfway through the second section of the documentary. Later on, we reviewed my edit and had a group discussion of our progress. Together, we made adjustments to my work-in-progress edit, where they told me what they thought should be added into the intro and first section, as well as what should be taken out.  Grace working on the poster Total work hours: 58.5

 Work Day #6 Today we worked mainly indoors. While Grace and Claire spent a solid amount of time working on the poster, I spent my time reviewing clips and editing the documentary. I completed the intro and the first main section of the documentary. This section includes our interviewees introducing their names, ages, and backgrounds. I also started on the second section, where interviewees answered our first interview question. We also decided upon a piece of suitable background music.  Grace and Claire working on the poster. After an entire morning and afternoon of hard work, we decided to go out, have a walk, and film more b-rolls for the documentary. I collected many beautiful clips under the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as some footage, including cars and pedestrians passing by that, could be used as transitional scenes.  A screenshot of the iMovie project Total work hours: 50 hrs

 Weekend Reflection: Week #1 Throughout the past week, I learned about multitasking. Most times, I have to film the interviews while actively participating in interviews. I have to make sure my camera is steady and has the proper settings and numbers dialed. These are basic photography skills, but combining them with my constant focus on the interviews makes it stressful.  Though a challenging task, I do, however, enjoy what we are doing. It is a fascinating experience to capture a small snapshot of somebody's love story, which, perhaps, can be some of the most memorable moments of their lives. Doing our work, I feel as if we were collecting people’s stories like picking up seashells by the beach; however, differently from picking sea shells, we don’t get to choose which story we like. There is no way of knowing whether a person has a beautiful story or an ugly one; you can’t judge a book by its cover. Sometimes, a seemingly average person can produce a shocking and unusual re...

 Day 5      Today we did interviews again at Washington Square Park and Union Square Park. It is our last day of doing interviews for this week, and everything went so much smoother than the first day. Our group became more tacit; we no longer needed to decide who was going for the following interview; instead, we took our chances whenever we saw an opportunity.       We interviewed a group of two who were also working on a film project about love. Our group bonded with them very well, and they shared valuable insights about love that we all agreed upon.       Later in the afternoon, I spent time filming more b-rolls and captured some pretty cool clips.      We then came back to work indoors, where Grace and Claire did some poster work while I finished editing the documentary's intro. We made excellent progress today, and I am super happy with the responses we've collected; rewatching them and seeing how they can...

 Day 4 Today, we did interviews both in the morning and afternoon. Our first destination of the day was Time Square. We tried our best to stop pedestrians and ask them to be our project's participants. However, people in Time Square were just too busy to stop for a few minutes. They were always on their way somewhere, unlike the people chilling on benches we've met in the parks that had plenty of time for a quick interview. So, instead of "struggling" in the heart of New York, we took a subway back to Brooklyn in search of better "candidates." There, we were lucky to capture some interesting responses that are definitely going into our documentary. Though a rough morning, we were able to get back on our feet and regain our confidence to walk up to strangers. The Brooklyn Bridge Park in Dumbo We made progressive improvements to our interview techniques, including approaching strangers in an appropriate, friendly, and fluent manner. Our interviewees were all s...

 Day 3 On the second day of interviewing, we made satisfying signs of progress. We are more confident in being upfront with strangers, more fluent in asking appropriate questions, and more accurate in finding the right "targets."  As the videographer, I was able to jump into the conversation too, whenever I found the right spot to ask follow-up questions. Our schedule for today was pretty similar to yesterday, where we interviewed both in the morning and afternoon and held a group meeting after we got back. Because we grew more familiar with the interviewing process, we produced footage with higher quality than yesterday. I can feel a significant shift in our attitude as we approach strangers; we are not hesitant anymore, and it also feels natural. The responses from the respondents for today were different from yesterday as well. They were more enthusiastic and were willing to share details about their stories. Me filming b-rolls Interestingly, as we walked around Union Squa...

 Day 2      Today is our first day of doing interviews. In the morning, we spent some time conducting interviews at Washington Square Park and were able to get some solid responses. At the start, we were a bit nervous about approaching strangers. We also spent longer than we expected searching for possible "targets." We were mainly looking for young adults of all gender and sexual orientations but were able to get a few clips of elders too.  The second interview of the day      After a brief lunch in Brooklyn, we headed out to a park in Dumbo under the Brooklyn Bridge. After making solid progress this afternoon, we headed back to our apartment and spent time discussing, reflecting, reviewing clips, and blogging about our work today. We gradually warmed up to the interview process and were able to develop a relatively efficient system. We figured out minor details throughout the process, such as who was holding the mic, where to stand, who was aski...

Day 1  With excitement and anticipation, Grace, Claire, and I officially began our journey in NYC. The first day was primarily preparational work. In the morning, we discussed our poster design and came up with a material list. We then visited Blick Art Materials to get materials for our poster. Carrying a 30x40 canvas from the art store back to our "base" was not an easy task, considering the windy day and crowded streets.  Check-out at the art store We also visited the K&M camera store on the same day, where we purchased a microphone and camera accessories needed for interviews. That was a painful moment for our wallets.  Me looking at cameras at the store After setting up our workspace, we decided to jump right into some poster work.  The first thing first was to glue the background colored paper onto the canvas. Because we had to use glue spray, considering the large surface area we needed to glue, we had to figure out how to get the work done without filling...