Introduction
“How do you creatively and truthfully portray a significant person, group, place, idea, or issue in the community?”
The Junior Documentary Project was the culmination of over 3 months of hard work. This was definitely one of the most difficult projects we have done at Freestyle, but also one of the most rewarding. We started in English by choosing a subject to document and then writing a research paper, combing personal interviews and secondary sources. We then used the research paper as the basis for the text in the Design book and Digital Media article.
English Research Paper
In English class, we started by reading “Seeing in Silicon Valley” to gain a better understanding of documentaries. We began by brainstorming ideas and possible interviewees. After acquiring the interviews, we combined those with research from secondary sources to create the first draft of our paper. After many revisions and edits, the final version of the paper, which is attached below, was used in the Design book and Digital Media magazine article.
Design Book
In Design, we created the book using Indesign. We also used Illustrator to draw the graphic design elements and Photoshop to edit the photos.
Here are some behind the scenes photos of my process!
Magazine Article
In Digital Media, we also created a magazine article with the same text, photographs, and graphic design elements. I had to cut down the text so it would fit but the full version is above.
Interviewee Bio
Adeline (Addy) Kopp is a sophomore at Mountain View High School. She is the current president of Green Team and is passionate about preserving the environment. Addy is also a part of ASB and the lacrosse team.
Here is the transcript of the interview:
Reflection
During this project, I learned a lot of life skills I will continue to use in the future like how to be flexible, adapt quickly to problems, and surprisingly, how to be more confident when talking to people, especially strangers. While this project took very long to complete, it was definitely worth it and I am very proud of the final result.
Thank you
Thank you to Mr. Greco, Ms. Parkinson, and Mr. Florendo for providing guidance throughout all parts of the project. Also, thank you to all my design classmates for constantly encouraging me and giving (sometimes brutally) honest feedback. Finally, thank you to Addy Kopp for being my interviewee, and Green Team for letting me photograph a club meeting.