Documentary

Introduction

The documentary unit encompassed most of second semester Junior year. As film students, we were required to create a short documentary on a subject of our choice. I did so with my partner, Elayna Parkhurst, and together we produced a documentary on Animal Assisted Happiness, a non-profit farm in the Silicon Valley that specializes in working with special needs children. Both Elayna and I are very passionate about animal rights and fair treatment, so we decided this was the perfect location to showcase both fair treatment and the meaningful impact of working with animals. This unit was incredibly beneficial, as I learned technical aspects of lighting, framing, and audio in film production. I also grew as a designer, as we were required to design a book from scratch using Adobe InDesign on our documentary subjects for print. Finally, I become more intuitive to communicating with others, as exercises in both my Film and English classes taught us how to ask meaningful questions in a sensitive and authentic way that would enrich our stories. I also learned to write a thorough research paper using reliable source material and formatting techniques. Many of these techniques were new to me, and I am grateful for the patience of my partner and my teachers in learning these new skills.

Paws: A Documentary Book

The book portion of this project was new and exciting. We had to use all the Adobe apps we had learned thus far, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. We had a lot of creative freedom, choosing color schemes and graphics that worked effectively in portraying our subjects. Ms. Parkinson was incredibly helpful in teaching us how to manage our time, use our skills effectively, and create something we were proud of. The process was time consuming. Many hours at Open Labs were spent working on our books, but in the end, I created something I as proud of and passionate about.

Junior Documentary