Challege #4

Today was horrible.  It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’ve never felt so sick in my entire life.  I’m not sure what it was because I’ve never had that combination of different pains all over my body before.  It hurt so bad I was up nearly half the night crying with my mom by my side. But there was nothing she could do, she wasn’t sure what it was either. Then she thought it must be an anxiety attack.  She’s had them before but not to that extent.  I might have looked like a fool rolling around on the ground but I just couldn’t sit still.  It felt like someone was stabbing me in the back, then in the chest, then it would stop for five seconds and start up again.  I just wanted to rip my chest out.  I couldn’t breathe, I felt like puking, I wanted to puke. I wanted to jump off my balcony to end it, so that the pain would stop.  Is that saying too much? Maybe it’s dramatic but crazy things run through your brain when your in pain.  I didn’t jump off the balcony but the pain didn’t stop either.  I laid in my bed the rest of the night tossing and turning, trying to relax, but it’s obviously pretty hard to relax when you’ve got knives in your chest.  Finally I fell asleep.  When I woke the next morning I felt fine.  Like nothing had even happened.  I went through the day with no pain.  I was however terrified it would happen again.  I was scared it was going to come out of nowhere like it had before.  What if it happened during school? What would I do?  I couldn’t bear to go through that pain again, and especially not at school, in front of people.  That night I was terrified to go to bed.  What if it happened in the middle of the night again? I thought that maybe if I didn’t sleep, it wouldn’t happen.  But I had to sleep.  And I did.  I was fine. The bizarre and random attack was a one time thing.  After that night, it hadn’t happened again.  I often think about that night and the pain I felt.  I’m no sure what I would do if it were to happen again.  I don’t know if I could handle it again.

Challenge #3

It was the summer after senior year for best friends Anna, Maggie, Shasha, and Annika. They were all going to needed one last adventure, one last night together that they would never forget. “Lets go on a camping trip!” Anna exclaimed. Everyone else agreed that camping would be fun. So the four girls packed their bags and headed north to Itaska for their last trip together. The Drive was long but the girls were just happy to be together. They knew this trip was going to be a blast and couldn’t wait to set up camp once they arrived. Before they knew it, it was dark out so they decided to build a fire, eat s’mores and just relax. To their disappointment, it started to rain. The fire that they had just built quickly faded to nothing and the girls were forced into their tent. “Lets tell scary stories!” Maggie said, in hopes of making the night more fun. So they went around in a circle as each girl told the scariest story she could think of. As the night progressed, the rain fell harder and harder, smashing against the tent creating a loud echo that was impossible to fall asleep to. Finally the rain subsided and the girls fell asleep. It was only a couple hours later that Sasha awoke to the sound of crackling. She immediately woke the other girls in fear that it might be an animal outside their tent. They slowly opened the screen window to check what the noise was. “Look at the fire!” Annika said in shock. Their campfire had started back up. “That’s impossible. It was raining so hard, there’s no way that fire could have started itself. Someone needs to go put it out.” Said Annika. Anna, being the bravest in the group, decided to go put out the fire. Anna dumped a bucket of water over the fire and as she did, it became pick black out. She had forgotten how dark it was without the light of the fire. “Where are you guys? I can’t see anything.” She whispered as she started walking toward what she thought was the tent. “Anna, Were over here. Where are you? It’s so dark.” Maggie replied. But there was no response. “Anna…Anna…Anna where are you. This isn’t funny.” Said Maggie. The girls were terrified. Time passed but Anna never responded, she never found her way back to the tent. The girls wanted to go looking for anna but were too scared to leave their tent until it became bright out. They held onto each other, wide awake the rest of the night, in hopes anna would come back, but she didn’t. Finally dusk drew nearer and the girls decided to leave the tent and search for Anna. As they opened their tent they saw a red streak that led to the campfire. They looked inside and there was Anna, cut up into tiny pieces were her flesh and bones. There was blood everywhere. The Girls all screamed and ran to the park ranger station to report what they found. They were never heard from again.

last blog!

I think my group is at a good place in our documentary rigth now.  We have all the clips we need and we're going to try to get one last interview but if we don't get it we'll be fine.  We're almost done, we juts have to add a few pictured and some music and maybe a little more b-roll but we plan on doing that today and finishing up on sunday.  It's been hard for our group to find times that we can all o to mtn, and I feel like theres usually one peson not there so it would be nice if we could have all been there everytime we edit so we could have everyones imput.  It's also hard when there's only two people because if there's a disagreement, there's no third person to settle it with a vote.  Besides that, I think my group has been working hard and we're getting better at working together. we've put in a lot of time and I think it'll pay off :)

Blog #7

1. Last night was the Third Thursday event that we are making our documentary on.  It was really exhausting but we got all the footage we needed and interviewed a few people at the event.  It was pretty awkward asking people if we could interview them and even more so when they said no... but the people we did get were really great!  I don't think we need to film any more, all we have to do is edit. 

2.   I think the poem starts where it does because it shows that this man getting beds is making a difference, even though it might not be the biggest gesture, he's helping people and so the beginning shows that people heard about it and understand how he's helping people.
I think the narrator says things like "it won't change the world" because he's just one man doing a little thing to help a few people, but little things like that really make the difference and if everyone did that then it might actually have a large impact. 
I don't think service is about changing the world, I think it's just about helping people.  In the long run if everyone helps out a little it might change the world but I don't think that's why people give service to others, it's just to make a small difference to benefit others.

Reading/Blog #5

1. My group has finally been able to contact the person who organizes the event we are going to shoot.  He has agreed to do an interview and help us answer some of the questions we have about the event.  He seems very excited about our project so I hope that reflects in the interview.  We have written out all our questions for him and also people we will interview at the event.  We still need to go to the MIA to get b-roll but we are hoping we can do that when we go to interview Alex.  I think we still need to do some brainstorming on how we will compose our trailer but I think we're on track and headed in the right direction with it. 

2. I think the instructor gives this assignment because he wants the student to write about something true, about his feelings and who he is as a person, and he want it to come from his heart.  I think the student states his differences because he sees that as a part of him.  That he is looked at, first by the color of his skin, and second by who or what type of person he is.  It's like how he says his page will be colored and not white because although he likes "the same things other folks like who are other races" people still just see him as "colored". 

Blog #3

1. Right now my group is in contact with the someone in public relations and are working to make sure that we can bring in a camera to the event and also to interview people.  She say's everything should workout but she's going to double check with some people to be sure.  It was hard getting hold of her at first but we kept at it and finally she got back to us.  I think we need to figure out  a lot of the little details of the documentary. we have to start thinking about our shots and the event and people we can interview.  I'm still wondering how we're going to make each shot artistic in it's own way but I know we'll figure it out.  I think we've all been working together to get things done and at this point I feel like we've got a good start and we should start preparing for the night of the event.

2. I didn't realize there were so many lurking variables to think about while filming and researching and how in depth you can get into a story.  I was surprised that so much research had to be done in order to create a film. I thought a lot of it was based on previous knowledge.  This article shows how the film is no good without research.  I had questions on what kind of things we should take into consideration while making our documentary and the article gave me plenty of questions that I need to answer for myself while creating the film such as "what can I find that is little known on the subject?" or, "What information can I gather that would aid the filming process?"  I'm satisfied from what I learned from this article.  It gives a lot of information I hadn't considered before and made me realize I might need to go further in depth with my project for it to be a success. 

Blog 2

1) My group has finally come up with a topic for our documentary.  We will be attending the minneapolis institute of arts third thursday event and document it, the atendees and the people who organize it. 

2) Before the reading I haden't realized that documentaries were so often used to "manipulate reality".  I thought they were usually more mellow and informative and not so "toxic".  I was surprised to learn that people can be so confused as to what a real documentary is.  I also didn't know that  when a movie starts with "based on a true story", that is could be actually extreemely far from the truth.  Maybe I'm just naive though :(  I have experienced the feeling of wanting to be "fooled just for the fun of it". Like in horror films for instance.  Sometimes it can be fun to be fooled. I think the article makes it seem like people who indulge in these types of movies are rediculous.  I think it's ok to like movies like that, as long as you really know the truth.