Global Warming - AYZ

Now that the documentary is done, I now look back and see that making this movie for class was a real growing experience. I learn how to speak with random people freely on the street, how to organize things, make contacts and set up conferences, how to better work in a group, and feel what it is like to be given a project and let loose to do it on our own; which is just like how life will be outside of school. On the actual video and educational part, I learn a ton of new facts about global warming and how or where to find resources and information for a documentary film (free ware for images and music, SIRS, and NPR). Blogging on “Edublogs” was a new thing that I enjoyed and it enabled me to bounce ideas and learn more about the ever growing online world. Lastly, I learned more about myself in how I do my work, my opinions on certain issues, how I utilize my time and effort, and just overall how my mind thinks things over. 

Okay, so today is Monday, our video is suppose to be done now, well every groups segment that is. In class today, we will be putting together our videos into one big video. My group’s video is basicaly done, a little chop but works. I personally did the conclusion and introduction for the entire video, but still needs to add narration. I really think the video will turn out alright, but with more time it could have been much much better. On our final day, thursday, we’ll premire our entire finished product to the class and an audience we are in the progress of inviting. So yeah, I hope everything goes well.

okay, so my group has been working on end to get this project done by monday. So we’ve edited interviews down from hours into less then 5 minutes (our whole segment can be no more then 5.30min). What we are in the process of doing in finding transitional clips while forming our narration to go over the clips. We’ve met after school, during other classes, and at home (well I talk to Brandon over the web) trying to get this done.

As for I, I am in the proccess of creating the conclusion and introduction for the entire documentary and am looking for help if anyone is interested.

Okay… I’m basically going to go all out here and let my mind speak out about this whole “project” that we’re doing.

In replacement of a big, now I mean big (like over 10 pages), essay that all other sophomores have to do, our class is doing this video (which we fought over and debated on the topic which ultimately came to be Global Warming). Now the first thing that comes to my mind or any teens mind is, “Sweet, we don’t have to do an essay… a video ought to be easy!” But no, a video IS NOT EASY… I mean seriously, we are basically doing exactly what an essay is requiring on these … time consuming BLOG POSTS with all this research and opinion stuff, all we are missing is an introduction, conclusion, and a couple transitions in there; we are do A LOT MORE WORK because we have to take what’s written and creatively spend hours shooting, editing, and consulting one another. I seriously am aggravated by the idea of being genie pigs for this project. No it’s not one of those teenage act ups where we all get mad because we aren’t doing good in it; like if you die in a shooting game you hate that game or if something doesn’t work you hate that. No this hate is nothing like that. I just hate how this whole thing was carried out and the fact that it’s being weighted so hard on my grade. I’m in the REGULAR English 2 class and I feel like I’m in HONORS English 2 right now (of course how do I know what honors is like, well I was in honors last year so ha!). Back to my frustration at hand, so our whole class thought this would be a fun filled project at the start, but it’s turned out to be so irritating and troublesome that I truly would rather do a paper now. Here’s some tips of when you wanna try out something new on your students: First don’t make the project assignments so much and big that you are unable to grade everything you assign (that’s how everyone in the class gets like C’s, D’s, and F’s and pissed off because you can’t possibly check all the work at once and you don’t know what the work is titled either; of course you gave us the chance to fix our grade, but that just a ton more work for us to figure out where that work is. In my opinion this project should be an effort grade as long as a good product is produced, unless they really slack off and don’t do anything barely which some people are), Second, please, please plan things more time efficiently and clearer (…making a video takes a lot a lot of time, so we need more then merely a few weeks to pull it off. Also you have to think what’s important to teach them when making the video and what to cut out, teaching the class how to work a program for a whole period is very boring and unnecessary especially if you personally don’t know how; kids these days are very up to date with technological gizmos), Lastly, this sort of group work is fairly non-functional (everyone in the class wanted to do different topics, so why not do more then one topic? blah, filming can be last seeing that the school is too poor to buy even those cheap things from Wal-Mart; why waste money on tapes and fire-wires when digital is more efficient. Also, group work in unfair seeing that mostly 1 or 2 persons actually do real work to make a GOOD product).

Oh, if you’re reading this, you HAVE TO read my reflection on street interviews if you haven’t already. (I’m not done with that one yet neither)

Okay Here’s some more. OUR PURPOSE OF MAKING THIS DOCUMENTARY HAS TOTALLY GONE OFF TRACK OF WHAT WE SHOULD REALLY BE TRYING TO GET ACROSS TO PEOPLE. Yeah yeah, so what, a bunch of whacked out interviews from random nobodies and even whatever experts, but what do people care. In order to get something across to a person you must to get their morals and emotions in the game. When I was pounding hours over making the conclusion for the video this Saturday I realized that really pictures and touching environmental clips made a much larger statement then those boring I don’t care about random interviews. NO NOT VISUAL METAPHORES WITH THINGS ON FIRE OR STUFF DISAPPEARING OR MOVING!!! Things like dead fish lined on the coast which I clips earlier on my own, bridges and electrical wires invading environments, pollution and trash all over streets, hundreds of cars relentlessly polluting the air, and animals all caught in the middle of everything. Basically, the conclusion I made has no audio words yet, but has music (which is a universal thing that connects everyone) and lots of clips and pictures in a detailed and well thought out order which really need no words if your smart enough to see what I’m implying into the whole thing. With the thing everyone else is doing in the class, it’s a joke really. No, I know I’m not any kind of professional being a nut-case to everyone, this is my opinion on this video. What are we really going to get across with interviews from people and also the areas we are covering are child’s play in this subject of enormous proportions in importance; “what is it? how it’s impacting? why should we care?… OH PLEASE! I mean you can’t tell me people are gonna have any change or lift a finger to aid global warming when all we tell them is it’s bad and you should do some of the stuff you probably already knew but whatever.

Documentary Thesis: “Global Warming is a worldly concern in which people must unite and make change all in the goal to prevent current and future devastations of its climate change upon the sole surface of what we all so dearly take for granted and require to survive.”

Group Thesis: “The only way any difference can be made on the issue of preventing the impacts of global warming is to merely inform the public on how or what they can change in their life and community to make a difference and for what to look out for as far as environmental hazards.”

Title of The Documentary - “Shade in Green” or “You, Me, and A Whole Lot of Nothing”  

Introduction -

Okay, for my group (which is the topic of “preventing” global warming)… I’ve written below questions I’d like to ask and scenes in which will serve as filler for our sections

Things to Obtain From Interviewee

• Full name
• Re-liable Phone Number
• Address (opt.)
• Their General Opinion On G.W.
• Any Leads To Other People Who We Could Interview
• Any Things/Places To Check Out We Don’t Know Of
• A Cool Catch Phrase (opt.)

Questions (If G.W. were to be real…)

1. What are you willing to change in your life to make a positive impact on the issue?
2. What have you already seen in society which is positive impacting the environmental issues?
3. How related do you thing the environment, G.W., climate change, and pollution are to one another?
4. What do you think will happen if nothing is done about the issue?
5. What or how should the political leaders act in order to make change for the issue?
6. How should the prevention of G.W. be approached?
7. What do you think is the ratio of amount of people aware of the situation and those who don’t… and also do you think those people know what to do as far as to reduce pollution gas emissions?
8. What have you done that is environmental friendly?
9. Why do you think we are making this documentary?

(remember *less is more) - For our video segment is only 5 min in length. I’m suggesting at most 3 experts (college professor, environmental activist, and polition -  *mayor*) and a minimum of 5 different street interviews. (we need a variety of races, ages, and both sexes)

Scenes (look at the post I wrote earlier, the story board, because it was what I am considering to use)

Extras

• Music (classical)
• Transitions?

Sierra Club Eastern Missouri Group (website)

• Sierra Club Office
  7164 Manchester Ave.,
  Maplewood, MO 63143 314-644-0890
• 4/20/2008, 11:00 am - 6:00 pm
  Forest Park
  St. Louis Earth Day Festival

St.Louis Area Weather Statistics (site)

Ways to stop Global Warming in St.Louis (site)

St.Louis Area Meteorologists

• KMOV 4 News Channel - Kent Ehrhardt (site)

Script For Contacts

Hello, my name is Andrew and I attend Parkway North High School. I’m calling on behalf of my english class for we are doing a video documentary on the issue of global warming. We think you would be a valid recipiant for the topic and we would like to set up an interview with you if interested. If you have time right now, would you like to set up a time and place for the interview if you are interested? (allow them to discuss and talk… if no then say thank you and don’t push. If yes… then ask for the best and most convenient times and places to meet and set a future date.

So what our class did last thursday?… was that we walked up to a semi-busy intersection up the street from our school (with stores, gas stations, business districts, all sorts of things) and randomly picked out and interviewed people. We went in our designated groups (mine being how to prevent global warming) and were basically let loose to roam the area scavenging for interviewees within the 90 minutes alloted time for the class.

Truthfully… I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of interrupting people as they were spending quality time with close family and or friends outside of restaurants enjoying the smacking of their lips as they eat most likely not heart friendly food and taking in the sweet aromas of truck engine fumes before we all totally just barge in and made a scene in the area; most likely annoying the heck out of them with our teenage ways, papers flying everywhere, un-professional looks, and very unorganized methods. (If you couldn’t tell I was being sarcastic)

With the actuall interview itself… well first off, trying to “snipe” people around the area was brutal, but gave a rush. Groups competed against one another trying to get people right when they got out of their car or right when they came out of the store… we literally ran across parking lots to try and stop people for an interview, so it was very irretating when they stall for like 10 minutes and tell you “no thanks I’m busy”, “not now I have to take my dog to the vet”, “MAYBE NEXT TIME” (I mean when is next time), and also the worst of them all, “I don’t know… maybe right after I go in here and do something because … yeah… ” (and walks off and doesn’t ever come back out). Otherwise, apart from those akward situations, it was fine finding interviewees, even though it was a dreary sky and very windy with rare amounts of people. When we actually did the interview… well I basically just hated it. For one… we NEED TRIPODS OR A LONG STICK… because clips are fairly un-steady. Two, it was very weird having 4 or 5 guys standing around a person who is in a hurry most likely (since your from a school and are kids they might not say their in a hurry) and just overflow thier mind with possibly repeditive questions or confusing ones. (KEEP THEM SHORT, EASY, AND INVITING… I mean what kind of question would you like or expect if someone all of a sudden just comes up to you and asks you a question; most street people don’t think too thouroughly after drinking a slurpee). Third… I saw the whole scene as “sketchy”. I mean 5 groups roaming the same parking lot strip-mall area with some asking the same person twice, holding a midget camera with only like 2 or maybe 3 people in the group actually doing anything (you really only need two people; a guy to hold the camera and listen and the questionaire), holding that ugly god for saken microphone which I found you truly didn’t need because Edward and I went to the lake and the wind was going 100mph, but we could hear fine, and having wires everywhere made the whole thing a bust. 

Don’t get me wrong here, but we did get a ton of great photage and material to use in our video, I just thought there was a lot more we could have done better (like rent a small bus up there).

Well… since I wasn’t at school today… I don’t know what my group did, so I can’t reflect upon it. So yeah… I’m posting for credit right here.

1. Glass cup with water and ice put in the microwave
2. A cartoon of a person sitting in a clear pot of water which is slowly getting hotter untill it boils and soon dies
3. A body of water which slowly starts drying up
4. Dead animals or animals struggling to survive
5. Clip of green area with lush flowers, grass and trees which then turns into dry yellow grounds (favorite)
   1. I think this is my best clip for it shows how the world will change if nothing is done to decrease the rate of global warming. From green to brown.