golfmom

[golfmom]

Project Documentation

Artist Statement: This is a documentary about the Kansas Honor Flight, a nonprofit all-volunteer organization that works to Honor Kansas veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War by providing them with an all-expense paid journey of honor and remembrance to visit their memorials in Washington, D.C. The reason I chose to document the Kansas Honor Flight is because I love their mission, and I wanted to help spread the word about this very important organization. I specifically wanted to capture the significance of the trip and the welcome home event. My hope is that after watching this documentary the viewer will consider volunteering, donating, attending a welcome home event, or recommend this program to a veteran. Our veterans have done so much for us, and the Kansas Honor Flight is one way to honor them.

Here are a few photos of the installation as well as a link to the documentary: https://youtu.be/27XBK57sHsQ

[golfmom]

Yes Men

I thought the Yes Men documentary was very intriguing. The documentary is about these two men who, from their perspective, are trying to make the world a better place by creating hoaxes to get people to think about deeper issues and make things right. These are brilliantly designed hoaxes and I do agree that they get people thinking, but are they really making a change? I’m not so sure. 

I thought their most elaborate hoax was when they went on BBC news and posed as a DOW representative and then interviewed in front of millions of people watching the news. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of a hoax on this type of scale. How embarrassing it must have been for the people at BBC to realize that they had let in an imposter and broadcast a fake story to millions of people. I do feel bad for the people getting caught up in the hoax such as the Indians. I can’t believe a company would just leave a disaster like that to affect hundreds or thousands of innocent people. 

I’m certainly not daring or have enough guts to go about fooling the government, or high paid executives. I do give them credit for wanting to create change in the world and doing it on such a large scale. It seems like their political stance is more on the democratic side where they are looking for the government to control the free market or the government to control the housing crisis when Katrina hit.

Although their hoaxes failed and they did not end up getting the change they had hoped for, perhaps this is how you get people thinking about the larger issue and get them talking about change. 

[golfmom]

Project update

My last interview is complete. I now have two veteran interviews to include in my documentary. I think both have great content. I’m excited about starting to put the video together, but also feel overwhelmed. There is a lot to learn about film editing. On my to-do list this week is to finish transcribing the interviews. I’ve done 3 out of 5 so far. I also hope to create an outline/storyboard for my documentary, as well as starting the actual film editing. 

Also, I have decided that this will be a informational documentary. I chose to do an informational documentary because at the end of the day I know it’s important for people to support veterans, but I think it’s more important to get Kansas Honor Flight’s information out there. I want to be able to give them the rights to this video after I’ve finished the project. I feel it is more important to create an information piece so that they can continue to spread the news about this wonderful program. 

[golfmom]

Midnight Traveler review

First I will start by saying that I loved the documentary. Even though it was filmed on a phone, the footage and audio were still fantastic. The musical score was also wonderful. One of the things that I liked about this film was the children’s perspectives and how it affected their lives as well - children are incredibly resilient. I can’t imagine putting my child through such a risk. Speaking of risk, this film was incredibly risky for them to produce and put out into the world. I still fear that there will be some type of retaliation from Afghanistan or the Taliban on the film makers or the people that helped smuggle the refugees into other countries. I’ve never seen a film from the refuges perspective and how awful it was for them to be homeless, stateless and in the hands of countries. The process of getting into another country legally is extremely difficult and if I were in their shoes and my life and my children’s life were on the line, I would have probably fled the country as they did.  

My takeaways from this film are: 

-We are lucky to live in a country where you have freedom of speech and not fear retaliation from groups like the Taliban

-A better understanding of what refugees go through - at the end of the day they are human beings just like the rest of us

-Great documentaries can be made with a phone!

[golfmom]

Tallgrass film - Zero Gravity

I chose to watch this film because I was once inspired to become an astronaut. Zero Gravity is a documentary about California middle school students who competed in a robotics world-wide competition. The students are theoretically writing code for satellites to orbit Mars one day. What’s even cooler is that the competition takes place on the Space Station and is conducted by astronauts. The point of this program is to develop coding skills in kids at a young age so that they might find a passion for it when they’re older. The world is relying more and more on technology and is running on code, so they want to teach students these skills. The setting takes place in San Jose, CA and focuses on three students. I love that they chose to follow students from different backgrounds. One was from a Hispanic family; one was from an Indian family and the other was from a White family. The program is for marginalized and disengaged youth and end goal of the program is to hopefully see diversification of the coding pipeline one day.

When I was 12, I went from Hawaii to Mountain View, CA to attend Space Camp for a week. It was the most amazing adventure filled week. We learned how to make and launch rockets, go in the zero-gravity chair, simulate a spacewalk, and even had a dance competition where we danced to Men in Black by Will Smith. This film brought all those memories back. We even had a great leader named Eddie for our group and he reminded me of the teacher featured in this film. It was really touching to see a teacher that was passionate about teaching these kids and bringing out the best in them.

Some of the things that I loved about this documentary were the different perspectives from the teachers, students, parents, and astronauts. The footage was also incredible. They used footage from space shuttle launches, footage from the Hubble telescope, footage from the Space Station, the moon, and much more. It was also visually stunning. Music played a large role in this film as well. I think the music plus the emotion from the film made for a very touching and inspiring documentary.

My takeaways from this documentary are to try my absolute best to incorporate into my documentary by making sure to include music, good film footage and inspiring/emotional material. In my opinion, when all of these aspects are included they make for a great documentary.  

[golfmom]

Project Space Proposal

My vision for my project space is to present my documentary film on a TV screen with at least two headphones; so more than one person can listen at a time. I think projecting it would be too obnoxious and having audio the entire audience can hear while they are looking at other projects could be very distracting and would take away from the other students work. As far as the dimensions, I think I would like a space that is about 6’ wide and about 5’ tall. I imagine the TV would be about 36-48” in length, and I would like to display the Kansas Honor Flight banner either above or below the TV. I will also plan to have patriotic balloons to put on either side of the TV. I had also though about providing Kansas Honor Flight flyers for visitors to take home.

I think the only things that I will need the department to provide for my project is the TV, headphones, and a headphone jack. The TV will need to be able to have a USB port as well as a headphone jack. If I bring flyers, I may possibly need a pedestal to set them on.

One other thing to consider is bringing Clorox wipes to sanitize the headphones after each use. An additional consideration is to find a thumb drive that is large enough to fit my film on it.  

[golfmom]

Project Update: 10/8/21 KHF Welcome Home Event

[golfmom]

Project Update

Well I thought my interviews went okay until I got home and realized that I only got half a recording from one interview and one interview was missing completely. I reached back out to the lady whose interview did not record and she is willing to do it again. I also still need to interview Lavonna who is also a KHF volunteer. I’m hoping I can do Lavonna and Pat’s interviews together.

I also went to another Kansas Honor Flight and got more footage. I will show some of this footage at the next project critique. My goal for this week is to get the other interviews scheduled. 

[golfmom]

Project Update

I met with Jray and Juan this week. We talked about my concerns with the current interviews I have scheduled. I only have one veteran that I’m interviewing and the rest are all volunteers. We decided that I will see how these interviews go and determine later if it’s missing anything. I’m hoping to attend at least one more Kansas Honor Flight so I can also get more/better footage now that I know how the Welcome Home event works. My interviews are scheduled for next Thursday, so I’ll need to start practicing my interview questions and also send the interviewees the questions ahead of time. 

[golfmom]

Project update

I’m fairly pleased with my progress on my project this week. I reached out to Connie with Kansas Honor Flight and told her that I will be focusing my entire documentary on them instead of focusing on three veteran non profits. Connie then connected me with another volunteer named Lavonna. Lovanna also seemed excited about my project and we had a good conversation about what I was looking to include in the documentary, as well as what type of interviews I was looking for. I told her that I wanted to bring emotion and great stories to the documentary. She mentioned that someone popped her mind immediately, which is a good sign that hopefully I’ll have some good material to work with. She is also going to look for a couple more veterans for me to interview. I told her I’d like to interview three veterans. Lastly, I sent her my schedule and let her know I’d like to have at least two interviews done by October 10th. 

I’ve also started thinking about what sequence I’d like the documentary to follow. For example - what type of introduction do I want to open with? Do I want to share a little information about myself first or do I want to open with something more dramatic? I’ve watched a documentary recently called “The 100 Foot Wave.” Of course the opening scene is a very dramatic. It starts with a giant wave and you can hear that this wave is truly a monster by it’s shear size and the way it roars on the screen. It was a pretty powerful opening scene. I’d like to have a dramatic opening like that, but I don’t know what that will be yet. I also wondered if I should narrate the documentary. I’m not a huge fan of my voice and not the most articulate person, but I also don’t want to inconvenience anyone. On the other hand it may help me grow as a person to step out of my comfort zone. In fact, this whole project is out of my comfort zone, but I hope at the end I can learn from this experience and produce something I’m proud of. 

[golfmom]

Project Update

To do list: 

1. Make a list of interview questions for veterans and a separate list of questions for volunteers

2. Send interview questions to JRay

3. Email Connie with Kansas Honor flight and ask her to arrange interviews with veterans and volunteers

4. Watch videos on 3 point lighting and rule of thirds

[golfmom]

Ear Hustle Podcast & Nigel Poor’s San Quentin Project

In this podcast I could tell that the relationship between the two hosts was a friendly relationship. Even though Earlonne is an inmate I think Nigel respects him; and you can hear their playful banter as good friends will do. I wasn’t quite sure who the intended audience is for this podcast was. I thought perhaps it was for anyone with a curiosity of what prison life is like, or maybe for people interested in prison reform. The stories are being told from men who spent decades in solitary confinement or SHU. I definitely empathized with the inmates. People more now than ever have had a very minute taste of what it’s like to be in confinement or quarantine. It’s no where near the scale of what confinement is like in prison, but I think we all realized how important human interaction is. They are real people who have real emotions so it’s easy to sympathize with them too. I think this podcast is different from common stereotypical media representation because it’s a collaboration between outsiders and inmates. 

Regarding Nigel Poor’s San Quentin Project, I think the most striking photos (and not in a good way) are the murder scene photos. Some of the photos give the viewer a sense of how dangerous prison can be, but then there are photos that display a sense of humanity. For example there were photos of prison weddings and Mother’s Day. Does this challenge my perception about prison? Not really. I think we’re stuck in a rock and a hard place. There have been studies conducted about other ways to rehabilitate felons rather than putting them in prison, but at the same time you don’t want serial killers living among the general public either. I think the answer lies more in prevention, social/racial change and mental health awareness. 

[golfmom]

Project Display Idea

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Kansas Honor Flight video 4

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Kansas Honor Flight video 3

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Kansas Honor Flight video 2

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Kansas Honor Flight video 1