Blog / Reading Response #4

In this last week we have really stepped up and settled on a specific idea of what we are going to do for our documentary, I feel that we are going to have a well rounded view on what we want to do because two of us have played hockey almost our entire lives and we know personally some major details of the topic we have chosen. The reading this week was helpful because we are planning on getting a major interview with the founder of the Minnesota Pond Hockey Tournament, which is such a honor cause i have grown up watching this tournament and having my dad even play in it once. The article talks about choosing your questions wisely and not repeating an question to multiple people because there is a big chance that you can end up with the same answer from more than one person, you want a wide variety of answers so that you have a lot more to work with when editing your documentary. We are looking forward to making this documentary happen in these next couple of weeks, and even though its a little chilly out we are keeping our hopes up and venturing out to film

Doc Blog TREE

We have fell onto a really good topic and we have chosen to keep on with this idea. We have a  very good connection with the founder of the Minnesota Pond hockey Tournament, and we plan on using that to our advantage. We went out and shot some B-Roll footage last night in the cold and it looks like we are going to have a good documentaryt on our hands.
What i got from the reading was that if you do more research on your topic before filming and stuff you will have a stronger and more full documentary because you will be more in touch with it. Because if you are more informed on your topic, you will be able to ask better questions. Some say that there are circumstances where not knowing that much about your topic can help, but not all of the time.  Because my group is now into the part of our documentary making that we are starting to research more in depth about the tournament the article really showed me the finer points of what i want to find and i how i want to use the information after i have found it. Another thing that the article has done for me, has been that i have begun to think about the different stages of research that we are going to have to do throughout the entire process of making this documentary. Overall it was a profitable reading and i plan to use what i have learned from it during this process of making THE BEST DOCUMENTARY EVER!! WOOOO MS HODGE

blog post # 2 / reading response

We have accomplished the worksheet given to us that is a guideline of what we need to do, and when we need to do it by. this was a helpful outline for us to actually visualize what we need to do and how we need to do it. Noting has really been challenging yet, but seeing as we need to present a pitch next tuesday we need to lock down this idea and set it up pronto. We have a good group and i think that we will do well and not screw around as much as other groups have been already. We have high hopes still on making a strong documentary and hopefully impressing many by what we can accomplish.

There wasn't much that i didnt know in this article, but i really enjoyed how Scott writes about "Mr. Brainwash" as he or she puts. How the person behind the viewfinder can be put up to blame for sometimes fraud. It had me thinking about how powerful these documentaries can be to people, and how they can influence the human mind. I also got sucked into thinking about the art of the piece as the author talks about on page 5. The author is talking about getting frustrated trying to find the art in the piece or even just finding the point of the documentary. I feel that we need to take more of a artistic approach at this documentary instead of "just aiming a camera at something thats happening and calling it a movie" I dont want our film to just be another recording that will get looked past by hundreds of people. We have a chance to make something great and I plan on pushing to exactly that. On a last note i liked how the author ends the piece with two questions; "What did you see this year? And more to the point: What do you believe?" It somewhat leaves the option to create your own ending and even leaves the idea of thinking about that days after when you run into a documentary or even a tv show that can bring you back and make you think about the article, thats something i really enjoy in reading well done articles.


  Overall very good piece of literature, Dope

Blog post/ reading response #1

- so far we have gone over a couple ideas for documentaries including The minnesota wild, Northside hockey, and possibly hip hop culture in the twin cities.
-trying to find a good idea that we can actually make happen.
-we have a good group so we all can agree on something easily.
-we need to hurry and set our idea in stone.
-If we start doing a documentary on the Minnesota Wild , will we be able to get enough people to let us come and talk to them that are in the program.
- Yes i believe we are, because we are good friends and we have the same interests.
-We have only started our process a couple of days ago so i guess so far it has gone swimmingly.
- we need to get the ball rolling, we need to sit down and pick a topic.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 - I learned about OBJECTIVITY: a idea that documentaries are used to balance opposing points of view.
- Something that surprised me was that when they were talking about directors and how they perform their jobs, they rely more on reflex instead of conscious deduction, because you would think that these people getting millions of dollars to make a movie would be alot more planned out about what they do as to making the movie.
- I didnt have that many questions from the reading that weren't opinion based, questions that could go either way in a sense.
- we dont really have any bias or opposing points of view to expose if we do a documentary on the Minnesota Wild. But not all documentaries have to have a conflict as one of our speakers in class said. So we can still have a good documentary without one.
-Thats a tough question because there are some situations that have similar parts to them but its hard to put those occurences into words, but it was somewhat cool connecting big movie producers to some of our everyday life in humpreys.