Derek Harlow

Since I was unable to attend this semesters Capstones due to filming of my own project I got in touch with a classmate who I have worked with many times and was presenting his capstone this semester. Garin Grist is presenting his video project that he has been working on the entire year and he directed me towards his own blog entry for the answers to the first 5 questions.

1.) What has this week been like for you?

This week has been long and stressful. I finished and presented my capstone on Friday night. I was happy with how the piece turned out and I received some good feedback from peers and faculty. What a relief once the night was over.

2.) If you could change anything in how you did your capstone, what would it be?

Well, like many others I would have liked a bit more time. I felt as if I was very prepared coming into the final week before the presentation but I still found myself crunching to get stuff done at the last minute.

3.) How close is the final outcome to what you originally thought it would be?

I originally wanted to have a LIVE portion where people with questions would be able to call and talk to experts in different fields. This turned out to be too large of a task for one person especially with editing the video, building the website and all the other aspects of the project as well.

4.) If you had one more month to work on the project what would you do?

I would send my current version of the video to the Indiana Woman’s Prison for review. I believe that once they saw the video they would allow me to return and get additional b-roll footage that I think the video is needing. I was not able to get that b-roll due to all the restrictions at the prison.

5.) What advice do you have for me about working on my capstone?

My advice would be to not only choose a topic that you’re into but to choose something that has more meaning besides just entertainment value. I say this because if you crate something that has meaning then you’ll be more motivated to finish it and finish it with quality.

The rest of the questions I will be answering as a reflection on the N420 Class.

1.)Address the efficacy of the approach we took in this class.

Overall I was very satisfied with this class. I went from not having any idea of what I should be doing for my capstone, to then having a full blown project Idea and starting it during the same semester.

2.)Discuss whether or not the breakdown of the project development was advantageous.

The breakdown of the semester worked pretty well. I was able to utilize the first couple weeks coming up with an idea. Then use the rest of the semester of free time towards the project. I actually did not use the free time for the project specifically but having that open space allowed for me to open that night up for work scheduling for my job and that allowed me the time off on mondays and wednesdays to shoot at the academy.

3.)Discuss the advanges and/or disadvantages of the student guest speakers for forming your own approach to capstone.

The guest speakers were somewhat helpful but I kind of got the same answers from all 4 that the project would be stressful and there will never be enough time. It would have been nice to get a couple faculty responses as well. just to get an idea of how the process would work on their end.

4.)Were there any assignments that you thought were particularly helpful? Please elaborate.

The blogs were somewhat useful at keeping me on track. I think some sort of assignment to keep me in that Project mode mentality is a good thing and actually kept me productive. If i was left to my own devices for the rest of the semester I dont think I would have been as productive.

5.)Were there any assignments that you thought were particularly useless? Please elaborate.

I am not sure there was anything that stood out as being particulary useless but I do think a little more content should be added.  Something to keep us tied to the class a little more and keep us thinking about the upcoming capstone semester.

Almost immediately after deciding to partner with Jocque on our capstone project we were already hard at work. We have already put many hours into filming and have hours and hours of footage on tape and ready to sift through and begin forming our story.

I myself have not met with our mentor as much as I would like but Jocque likes to check in with mr. Lewis atleast once a week and I am updated on what is discussed and I usually am bringing up other topics that he might want to discuss with him the next time they were to meet.

Our timeline has not really changed that much since most of our timeline is based around the schedule of the theatre there isnt really much that can be moved around. We just have to show up and capture the events of the day and then show up to the next day on the schedule. Once the next semester comes around I see us having more of our own time to schedule for the post production portions of the project.

Since we have already started our project and gotten pretty deep into I have been seeing the start of next semester as the transition point between production and post production. Althought we will still be filming some things during the begining of the year most of our time should be focused on putting together our story and our film.

Nothing very significant has come up that has changed our project to much everything is going pretty smooth at the moment. But we have mainly just been filming to a set schedule so not much could happen anyways.

Our timeline for the Asante Children's Theatre was not to difficult. At first I started with the Academy's own Calendar and created milestones based of of important events in relation to the academy's timeline. things such as Rehearsals and show dates and cast parties. After that I went week by week alternating tasks that Jocque and I would need to complete. The first half of the year Jocque will need to create a log sheet of all footage he thinks can be used in the film. After the log sheet is created it will be my task to meet with him and get those tapes and log all footage and back up for safe keeping. Also I have given myself the task of creating 1 rough scene every couple weeks that might go towards the final product. At around the Christmas break point I have a hard start date for starting to compile for a final product. Filming will not stop until the beginning of march so Editing and weekly filming will continue for a couple months. The only other milestones that we added to the timeline were the backup interviews. We plan on having atleast 3 sets of interviews. One set at the start of the season. One in the middle, Probably just after Christmas break and the final one after the season or as close to the end that time will permit.

Primary Mentor

 My capstone is turning out to be a group project with Jocque Carey. We have discussed with our mentor that a "Fly on the Wall" documentary focusing on the students at a childrens theatre.

The mentor we have chosen and that has agreed to work with us on this project is Thomas Lewis. After meeting with him recently I have found that he will be a great fit for our project. He is enthusiastic about the idea and has a major interest in this type of media. His experience in the video production field will be very helpfull with this project.

If Lewis was not already agreeing to do this project with us I would look into working with Edgar Huang just because of how I have seen him working with past capstone students. He is very schedule oriented person and he would be good to keep me on task and organized. But I decided not to consider him because he may be a little to research oriented and scholarly that it might not be good for the outcome of the project.

Secondary Mentor

A secondary mentor should have a lot of the same responsibilities as the primary mentor. Although the secondary mentor will not have a lot of the same administrative duties like grading. Also a secondary will probably not be finding you for updates on the project. It should be someone for you to go to for extra support. secondary mentors can be outside of the school and could be anyone related to your project that could help you out in some way.

Inside the school I would like to have someone that would help out with the video production or the audio aspects of the project. Maybe someone else that understands the concepts of video like Susan Tennant or for advice on capturing the audio professionally someone like Mark Pfaff.

Outside of the school I think the owner of the theatre would be a great mentor not only because she will be the main point of contact through the entire concept but also because she has a lot of experience when it comes to producing.

Last week we had a lengthy conversation on what type of project is acceptable for a capstone. Beth had voiced some concerns on a few ideas based on some hearsay from other faculty members. She was waiting on a clarification of how the faculty feals on projects like films music videos and websites before giving a final say. There was a faculty meeting on friday and we will hopefully pick the conversation back up during the next classs with the new information. My feelings on some of the possibly shunned projects like the music videos and zombie films is that they should be allowed. But they should be allowed if the student plans on utilizing all of the skills needed to produce the video from scratch. such as filming editing ans mixing all audio themselves. I would understand a music video not being accepted if the student just shot a video and stuck a modern commercial song into the video. But if that student were to shoot a video as well as record and mix the entire song themselves that should be acceptable.