DISCLAIMER
I plan on having the completed text in the second draft. This draft shows the format im using. The idea is to have the text explain the overall process while the audio will go deeper into my feelings and thoughts on the cretin aspects of the project. Similar in the way "The Olive Project" lets viewers go deeper into what interests them.
Initially the community story project made me quite nervous. I had never conducted any kind of interview before. Let alone record, edit, and present one. The perceived challenge isn't what caused me to worry. It was knowing that if i didn’t succeed i would be doing Mom Elizabeth, my community partner, a huge disservice. With any other assignment i would have been responsible only for my own grade. The community story project charged me with properly delivering the incredible story of an incredible woman.
Left with no other choice, i swallowed my anxiety and set about preparing. While i was not asking the actual questions during the interview process i knew it was important that i educate myself as much as possible so i could help construct meaningful questions. Knowing that we would be covering sensitive information i wanted to present it as professionally as possible while taking extra care to address the concerns of the refugees themselves. The classes talks with Sana Mustafa and Chanda Womack where extremely helpful in both regards. They helped me to realize how important it is to avoid portraying every refugee as a tragic vagabond without a home. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story” reaffirmed this conclusion. Americans often view refuges with a single story, a story of lost huddled masses fleeing some horror in their homeland. I wanted our video to have a more empowering message similar to what Sana & Chanda spoke about.
*Audio on conducting interview & meeting Mom Elizabeth*
After completing the interview the bulk of my work began. Much of my initial concern was lifted, Mom Elizabeth gave us such a moving interview i knew we would be able to make a worthy piece. Originally we thought to tell Mom Elizabeth's story as a chronological account of the hardships she faced. While this made for a more straightforward story, Erin Anderson’s “The Olive Project” showed us that chronology is not always necessary. With “The Olive Project” as reference we decided it would be more effective to keep a rough chronological format in the beginning of the video that segwayed into a different focus at the end. The ending portion of the video we focused on how Mom Elizabeth was able to recover from the traumar she experienced with her deep faith and aide from the Higher ground foundation. My partner and I spent hours sifting through our footage trying to find the right clips to create our film. Something i was not prepared for was the difficulty of choosing what fits and what go’s. My partner needed to reign me in more than once with reminders of what we learned from the “Keep or kill” & “Your baby’s ugly” chapters in ‘Out on the wire’. I had to remind myself that to deliver a strong message we needed to keep it concise.
*Audio portion on what i learned about story structure, editing, and how i apply it elsewhere*