Here is my cut of the group project.

Hello everyone, for my final project, I’m planning on making a documentary-style video. It’s actually something between a documentary and a video essay. It’s about myself and a project I’ve been working on for the past couple of years. The project is called Happy Hills and it’s based on a universe my brothers and I came up with when we were kids. The story of the video essay centers around the motivations behind my interest in Happy Hills, which are all rooted in my childhood. I’ll be including footage of the making of Happy Hills as well as found footage from my childhood (which I have plenty of), and I’ll be narrating some parts of it. It will also include an interview with my brothers which is conveniently relevant to what we’ve been learning in class. I want this video to have a sentimental tone, as this is less of a story about the making of Happy Hills and more a story about why it’s being made!

-Luca Wagner

Our plan for the one minute short film is a team of four “professional” crooks working together to pull off a high-stakes heist. Each member of the team has a crucial part to play, which will be detailed in the film.

A driver, a reconnaissance master, a hacker, and a leader. Each person’s role will be detailed as their characters are introduced via montages.

They are setting up to steal a priceless painting from a renowned artist’s studio the day before it debuts.

The majority of the film will be the team going over the plan “one last time” before the mission, and the team providing concerns and rewriting the plan

We decided to follow a drink that has an adventure with the elements before meeting up with its original owner at the end. We used a few main pathways on campus and a few side ones to get the shots of the bottle and we had some assistance from a friend from another class as one of our actors besides myself, Jeremy, and Miryssa. We also used the cafeteria as our starting place since it made the most logical sense. Everyone that was in the background of the cafeteria shots all gave permission for us to film around them too.

Hello class!

It took me a bit to properly get around to posting my idea for the final project, but that was primarily because I had run out of ideas to implement… However, I was struck with a bit of inspiration from the last class example the professor showed us last class!

Here is how I would want the story to go: A student sits down to work on their final project for DTC 208. As they think through a concept, they manage to come up with one! And as they start filming themselves working on said idea, they only get about a day’s worth of footage due to procrastination and forgetting to keep filming. What’s worse, they used that concept idea and proved it efficient to turn in for a DIFFERENT final, and is forced to start over on the final for 208.

They repeat this process 2 more times: Get an idea, film working on it for a day, procrastinate, time passes, they use the concept for a DIFFERENT final, start over. By thanksgiving break, they’ve run out of both time and ideas, and decide to use the footage they DID get as a way to create a “video essay” surveying the life of a procrastinator during finals season.

This would serve not only as an interesting concept for a video, but it would also let me NOT procrastinate, as I’d have to film in real time and on a weekly basis in order to get the footage that I need in order to capture this idea properly!

-Jeremy Sauter

Hello class!

I’m a little late on this post, considering the footage for the rough cuts is due this Friday, but I do think the one-minute short that my group and I have constructed is gonna be enjoyable!

My group consisted of myself, Miryssa Casas, and Hailey Betts. Together we constructed a comedy sketch about a student losing a water bottle or purchased drink of some variety, but the bottle eventually finds its way back to said student through extreme luck.

The story goes that the main student purchases a drink and then sets it down to go get something else. It then gets knocked away by another student, then begins travelling far enough away that the initial student can’t find it, giving up and heading home. The bottle makes a really long journey all the way down to the parking lot where the first student is parked, meaning they find the bottle, confused as to how it got there.

The beauty of a sketch like this is that we’re able to film on site at campus, where it’s most likely the most convenient for everyone. And it has a cafeteria where we can catch footage of the actual purchasing of the drink.

The campus is also a good location thanks to a key factor for the filming: gravity! We can use the bottle on the various hills around campus to simulate it rolling away and throughout it’s various stunts and tactics. We can also easily ask favors from any students who may be nearby while we work on filming in order to get some extra people if necessary.

-Jeremy Sauter

Hello, class!

For my interview process, one of my first thoughts was to interview one of my pastors at church. After I considered the thought, I started looking at church events to see what was coming up. With a great stroke of luck, I discovered that the week rough cuts were due, the church was hosting a rather large pastor/teacher conference! So I consider myself really lucky that I was able to capitalize on the opportunity!

I would say probably the biggest challenge is figuring out travel. The biggest challenge is that, while the church and conference IS local, it is also across the river in Portland, Oregon. I was able to get a ride down since my mom was going to help out with the conference, getting back up across the river was the difficult part. Thankfully bus transit exists, and with careful planning I was able to make it work.

I also had to check and double check that it would be ok for me to stop by the conference. It’s a limited event and it’s usually reserved for staff and registered pastors. But knowing this would be the best possible option to grab visual evidence of the pastor learning and supporting his fellow conference goers, and thankfully I got the opportunity to visit for a couple hours the first day. It allowed me to get some really good footage, even if the time was brief.

Overall, the experience was smooth and I had a really good time gathering everything I needed to make the interview work!

-Jeremy Sauter

Hello class,

Devil’s Playground by Lucy Walker is a very gripping and very interesting documentary, intending to be a commentary on the dynamic and differences between the Amish and normal English life, showing how difficult it is to transition between the two, especially for the Amish.

I think out of all of the individual stories that were told through the main character’s journey (who I assume is Faron, considering how much of the documentary was spent following him), the side story with Velda struck me the most. Velda chose to leave the Amish faith, causing her entire family (and her village) to publicly shun her and cast her out, leaving her to the whims of English society.

This is probably the story that had the visual evidence stand out to me the most. You can somewhat compare it to the main story of Faron, which gave a very active, struggling story with a LOT of visual evidence to support his rebellious, English life and it’s many twists and turns. Velda’s story, on the other hand, while there was less time spent on it overall, it told a more matured and grounded history point of view, showing the lifestyle of someone who committed to leaving the Amish faith after having committed to it in the past. It creates a great dynamic between someone who had to live with their choice of leaving, versus a growing teenager who is still learning and has an opportunity to turn back from his decisions and stick with the Amish faith.

-Jeremy Sauter