And so the story goes

Hello out there...whoever may be reading...

I continue to update about my lack of progress with capstone here on my blog. For better or worse I have yet to officially capture any video, although I have shot good filler video for the documentary, I haven't gotten any insight from former or current members. I have been watching documentaries from all different aspects. So therefore I have made some progress about it, in some aspect, and that is I am beginning to slowly mentally piece together how I would like to see this thing completed.

When I started I wanted to have some sort of time line within it along with interviews, which may be possible after I begin conducting interviews, but as of right now that has been put on the back burner. If there is one thing I have learned about documentaries is that you cant bull shit 'em. The best one's I've seen are ones that bring out some sort of emotional response from the viewer. No body wants to sit down and watch an hour about something they are mildly interested in, they want something to capture them and make them need to know more. Although they don't necessarily pertain to what I doing, I have seen a decent amount of this one series on the biography channel entitled "I Survived". It dimply interviews and re-enacts life or death events that make you say "I have no idea what I would do..." or "That simple would be a horrible way to die". One was about these guys shipwrecked on an island somewhere near California with no food or water for three days. Another was a guy who's neighbor said he had to borrow something from the guy and then closed and locked the door and said "God told me to kill you"...What kind of response do you even have to that? But still the worst one yet was some lady who was beaten nearly half to death by someone, I believe her husband (I came into it about a quarter the way into the show) and then shoved into a trash container. The way she was shoved into it she couldn't escape for some 24 hours, during the winter. I'm getting off topic a bit but the moral of the rant it, if I want this to be any good I need to find a way to appeal to peoples emotions. Not like the show "I Survived"...But somehow, when people who know what it's like watch it, just laugh and say "Haha yeah I remember that", or "Yeah that's typical of those titan crew people. But the question continues to beckon me....How.

Progress will be made, not a question of if but when. More happy blogs to come!

Capstone...The Begining

Well, another semester at school, and being a senior brings its responsibilities...and that responsibility is called capstone. Senior capstone, for those of you random readers whom aren't aware, is a class seniors must complete in order to graduate. This class, a lot like a senior project in high school, is supposed to be the accumulation of all that I (the student) have learned throughout their tenure here at Westminster put into a project, paper, etc. to prove to the faculty within the major that we are prepared to move onto the real world. My capstone project: documentary.

I have yet to formally begin my 5-7 minute documentary (in which I have little to no experience creating) about our live sports remote broadcasting truck and its ever excitingly fearless leader, Chuck Chirozzi. Chuck is our department's chief engineer/schools jack of all trades. Now why would I be as foolish as to pick something that I have no experience, credentials, yadda yadda yadda with? Very simple, because Titan Crew, as we refer to it, is my life. For better or worse, almost every Saturday morning at 9 I roll out of bed, in my drunken/hung over state and prepare to go to work. I direct the show, involving around 9 people to successfully complete, and I am going on my second year of doing so. This has been the greatest experience of my short career in communications, and for some odd reason...I love it. Now if you refer back to the aforementioned chief engineer, he is going to retire after this school year. Whether you like him or not, he is a large part of both out department and our school and not one thing has been done to record this or honor him, however you would like to refer to it, and I think something along those lines is in order. The only problem is...where the hell do I begin?

I begin this Saturday, shooting footage, figuring out how I will get interviews, and pulling my hair out to complete this. Needless to say...lets hope I graduate. Stay tuned for my saga. All the ups, downs, and hopefully completed project...