Assignment/Activity
Title— 1960s Interdisciplinary
Year— Freshman
Skill— Creative
Portfolio
Category— Media & Comm.
For the 1960s interdisciplinary
project, I was in Mr. Bustillo’s group. In his group, we focused on producing a
live news bulletin (hence the media and communication categorization), based on
a part of the 1960s – like drugs, fashion, or the Vietnam War. Gabe, Ethiopis,
and I focused on sports in the 1960s.
To prepare for this project, we had
to do a lot of research. In our research, we found three major athletic
events/people from the 1960s. The first person we researched was Muhammad Ali,
finding clips of him to use in our show. We also found Jim Brown, one of the first
football stars in America who made the sport well known. To finish the project,
we researched the Battle of the Sexes, a tennis match that took place between
female player Billie Jean King (in her early 30s) and male champion Bobby Riggs
(in his 50s). This event was widely publicized, and was a touchstone of the
1960s feminism movement. After researching and finding appropriate clips, we
had to write the script. This didn’t take very long.
Then came the actual filming.
Normally with documentaries, you find or record clips and edit them into a
final project with sound, narration, pictures, or whatever you need. Not so
with live shows. On a live show, you have to be constantly adjusting and
communicating. You don’t get to cover up mistakes, or edit things out, you get
a few takes that have to be good. We each assumed a position for the other
groups’ filming – camera men, audio technicians, graphic operators, etc. And of
course, one person in the group of three became the director for their show.
In our show, Gabe assumed the role
of the director while Ethiopis and I hosted. After watching previous groups
film badly, or have difficulties, we were somewhat nervous. As we filmed,
however, it evidently went very smoothly. We took three takes, and throughout each
the clips functioned, we got our camera cues smoothly, and the teleprompter
functioned well. And when we finished, we got out of the studio confident we’d
done a good job.
However, the day of the
interdisciplinary, we were told none of our three takes were playing. We had to
film again at lunch, and the shorter timeframe was compounded by the impatient
BNC crew that needed the studio. We ended up reshooting two takes, with some
amazing last minute/on the spot script editing by Gabe.
Although the final project didn’t
come out as well as we hoped, we learned some important lessons. Not everything
in life is going to go as planned, and everything is fluid. Sometimes, you have
to accept what has happened and do your best to move forward. This project showed
me that aspect of life clearly.
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