introduction to documentary

 

The documentary unit was our opportunity to take the skills we had learned throughout the year at freestyle and use them to focus on something that was important to us. My documentary was about the rise of student activism at MVHS and around the world. As a self described student activist myself, I really valued this project because it gave me the opportunity to learn

Student walkout

and inform people about something I am passionate about. I focused on the rise of walkouts and the formation of political clubs, I was even lucky enough to get to sit down with the MVHS principal. We ended up with hours of footage and six different interviews which we cut down to five minutes.

Film

In film, we learned about the structure of a documentary, how to make it an interesting story people will want to listen to and learn from. Like our other projects we were partnered with someone we hadn’t worked with before.  In pre-production we decided what our subject would be and what style of documentary we wanted to produce. But like our narrative project, we started by learning and recording individual skills. The first project we worked on in this unit was our Mockumentary. A mockumentary or docucomedy is a type of movie or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictional setting, or to parody the documentary form itself. My group decided it would be funny to make a mockumentary about a fight club in the freestyle bathrooms. As funny as it was, it taught us what kind of shots to use during interview and how to record interview audio.

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It took months to produce our final product, but we eventually ended up with something that I personally am proud of. We had a lot of trouble during our interview portions, there was a lot of rescheduling and difficulty getting want we wanted. Ultimately we only ended up using three of the six interviews we shot, two of them being with the same person. But even considering all the trouble we went through in that aspect we did end up being very lucky with the timing of our documentary. There ended up being a nationwide climate change walkout right in the middle of production, we used this as a story opportunity. We framed the entire film around this walkout. we were lucky enough to get an interview with David Grissom a week before the walkout took place. We also got footage of the walkout happening and an interview with president of the MVHS Liberal action club Michael Love the day of the walkout. And the week after the walkout, we had a followup interview with Mr. Grissom which gave us a fantastic response/reaction interview. Framing the documentary around the walkout gave us a story, a distinct begging, middle, and end. All things considered, I’m very proud of what me and my partner Micheal Tucker produced.

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Heres a screenshot from Premiere Pro to give you a glimpse at the editing process and the complexity of post production.

 

Premiere Pro screenshot of documentary editing
Post Production

 

 

 

Interviewees

 

David Grissom headshot

Mr. Dave Grissom

Mountain View High School Principal Dave Grissom has been an educator for 25 years. His responsibilities include management and professional development of staff and teachers, representing the school at Board meeting, and interacting with the MVLA Foundation, PTSA and other parent groups. He is also involved with student support (504s) and athletics, mathematics and visual arts. Dave also serves on the District Leadership Team.

Dave spent many years of his career spent in the Santa Clara Unified School District, where he served as principal of the more than 1,800-student Santa Clara High School. He was appointed as principal at Santa Clara High in 2007, following five years as assistant principal.

 

Michael Love

Michael Love headshot

Michael Love is the President of the Liberal action Club at Mountain View High School. He started the club in order to create a space where students could come to voice their political concerns and opinions. His club promotes student activism by registering students to vote, organizing protests, and planning political events such as rallies and phone drives in order to promote certain political candidates.