Jacob Popper

Period: 2

Documentary Reflection

            The Documentary project was by far one of my favorite school assignments, and definitely the one about which I am most proud. My group worked rigorously, and ultimately achieved our goal, of creating an informative, interesting, and most of all meaningful film. Throughout the making of the film I only became more interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and looking for ways to help create lasting peace in the region.

            The freedom we had in choosing our topics was essential for the creation of the film. Had we been limited to only Blair topics, we would not have been able to embark on the journey of analyzing a conflict that far surpasses anything that could happen at Blair in terms of importance to me. During this analysis, I learned many things about the true severity of the conflict, much of which I learned from watching videos of potential b-roll about the bombings in both Gaza and Israel. The sheer destruction and the people injured have the ability to send such strong messages about the importance of creating peace, a message that we tried to furnish in the film.

            The biggest challenge in the making of our documentary was by far the time constraint. The project was introduced in late December and the C-Span deadline was January 17^th. To finish our seven minute documentary in one month required a lot of extra time both during lunch, and after school. Because of all the extra hours of work we put in, we were indeed able to overcome the time constraint and produce a winning product. If we had this project to do over again though I would have started earlier to get more interviews and have more time to edit thoughtfully.

            To make the process smoother, I think an earlier start time would work perfectly. It would not only allow more time for those wishing to submit their productions into the C-Span StudentCam competition, but it would also allow more time to create longer, better CAP Hollywood productions which look as if they are going to be pressed for time this year.

            Overall it’s a great idea for a project, because a good documentary really can have a big impact. Also it can allow people to gain intelligence about a topic, which making an education film to help others learn. A final suggestion would be to have a screening because documentaries are useless unless they can be seen.