Is This the End?

20-time has come to an end, and I am proud to say that we have completed our project. It is a documentary that tells of the impact that distracted driving had on one high school system's life. We were pretty successful in making the documentary; however, it was not an easy road. We ran into a lot of issues and we were not able to complete the documentary how we wanted to. Nevertheless, we accomplished making a documentary with what we had. Throughout this process, we learned a lot about ourselves. We learned how to manage our time and how to take set backs and change them for the better. As well as learning practical skills, we also learned a lot about ourselves through this project including our procrastination downfalls and our limited iMovie skills. Although we were pretty knowledgable about final cut, we did not have very much knowledge about iMovie with made editing quite difficult. 

If we were able to have one more semester with our project, we would organize our time better in order to get more interviews so that we could expand our documentary and make it more impactful.

All in all, we are very proud of what we were able to accomplish...

Until Next time, be careful, be safe, and ask yourself.... Is it worth it?

~A and N

Are We Done Yet?

Over the last two weeks, we have done quite a lot! We have edited the whole video and started making it into a movie. We are very happy with how everything is turning out. It definitely has been a   stressful week trying to get this documentary done in time. We planned at the beginning to interview cops and firefighters about distracted driving, but have run out of time to get that far. It's much harder to interview and edit a video clip than we thought. We're happy to say that we are almost done with the documentary!

There has been one big complication while editing this documentary. We filmed our interviewee in the middle of the quad. The lighting looks great on camera, but there is a lot of background noise. It was also filmed on a windy day, which adds to the background noise. It has been very hard for us to edit the talking out, but we're working on it and we hope to get it done before the video is due!

This project has showed us success and failure. It has been a wonderful project to work on all semester long and we cannot wait to show our final project!

-A&N

Where has the Time Gone?

Blog Post #4 

Coming into the 8th week on this project, we have realized that time is a main issue. We have one interview completed and edited, but we still need to complete a couple more interviews. The editing process is also more complicated than we have thought. It's very hard to make several clips into an interesting movie. We have about 20 minutes or interesting footage, but only about 10 minutes for it in our movie, not including all the other interviews and b-roll we need to add as well.
This process of creating a documentary has been a lot of fun for us. It's amazing to see the amount of people affected by distracted driving in our city alone. So many people have amazing stories that you wouldn't know about unless you dug deep into their personal lives.

-A&N

What is Next?

Blog Post #3 

As you know, we have completed our first interview and made great headway on our editing; however, we don't know what direction to go in now. We think that the best next move would be to interview cops about what they have seen and possibly get a ride with one to see how they respond to these tragic affairs. Anyways, so far we have learned the terrible consequences of distracted driving and continue to research its repercussions. Our only setback has been the direction in which we wish to go as I stated above. As we keep looking forward though, we can see the strength that people have. By digging into people's personal lives, we have been able to see the raw person behind the facade put up for high school. It is fascinating to see how people have come to cope with how distracted driving has left them.
In the weeks to come, we plan to strive to complete our general outline and idea for the rest of our documentary. Hopefully, we will be able to tell others' stories effectively and shine a light on the dangers of distracted driving to a wide range of people.
Till next time.....


-A&N

Are We Making Progress?

Blog Post #2

Throughout this process of making a documentary, we have discovered that many people have been affected by distracted driving... more than we even know about. We have learned that one time of distracted driving could change your whole life around. We have only interviewed one person so far in this process, but it has made us realize that every day of our life is very important. One setback so far may be the quality of our first interview. We filmed it outside on a windy day, so there may be a lot of background noise. We can solve this problem by editing out the excess noise and try to keep only the noise of the interviewee. We hope that this will be our only problem so far! Next, we need to set up more interviews. We plan to interview cops and hopefully find someone else in our school that has been affected by distracted driving. After the interviews are over, we must edit the clips all together to make one long, impacting documentary. We have learned, from listening to other people's stories, to not take life for granted. Appreciate what you have in the moment because you never know how it's going to change tomorrow.

-A & N

Why Genius Hour?

Blog Post #1

Genius Hour, also known as 20 Time, is a school project where students spend 20% of their class time working on any project of their choice. We have decided to make a documentary that illustrates the effects of distracted driving. We have chosen this project because many of our friends and family members have been affected by distracted driving, and we believe that we can inform others in order to prevent accidents from occurring in the future. In order to achieve this, we are asking our audience members, "Is it Worth It?" Through this documentary, we hope to tell stories of past accidents to emotionally draw in our audience and show them how their choices can effect themselves and other people. 

Our goal is to complete this documentary by its due date, including the filming and editing. We also hope to get this documentary shown in the Health and Driver's Education class at our school. We hope to be done filming by the end of March and early April, giving us time to edit and have the project done by the beginning of June- by finishing the tasks by their allotted time, we will be able to measure our progress and achievements.

-A & N