Up, Up, and Away
Final Project
Submitted December 10, 2013
Self-Critique and Analysis
For this project I was to make an ethnographic film of my classmate and friend, Caitie. Her self-portraiture project really stood out to me with regard to what her lens is. I focused most of my film on this project of hers because I felt that it genuinely reflects Caitie. My intent was to have Caitie read her poem and it play along with her images from project 3. I then asked Caitie in an interview to tell me what the poem and pictures says about her. Her answer during the interview was in my opinion, very insightful. I felt that she successfully portrayed her idea that within all of us, there is multiple versions of us. She also successfully conveyed her dreams in her poem and images, which is why I felt it was a crucial project to use in my ethnographic film. Here are some screenshots of her page that inspired me:
Just like all of my projects, I attempted to make this film as simple and to the point as I can. I was mostly inspired by Caitie for this film. The song playing in the background is Don’t Panic by Coldplay. I chose this song because it is one of her favorites, and I felt it set the right mood for the film. I was hoping to incorporate her other favorite song, ‘Put On Your Sunday Clothes by Hello Dolly, however I felt the Coldplay song fit better in the film, and was a better choice in trying to reflect Caitie. I tried to make the film match one of Caitie’s styles of one of the versions of her, as she described in the interview.
I think the most challenging part of this project for me was fully understanding what an ethnographic film is. I think what help me to understand it best was discussing the topic and project with Caitie. I kept struggling with the thought of ‘correctly’ portraying her lens, but Caitie reminded me that its about how I see her lens.
I had some difficulty with iMovie, but was able to solve my problems with the use of online help. The following is a screenshot of one of the issues I faced, but was able to figure out:
Other than the time spent exploring through Caitie’s blog to try to understand her lens on the world, my production process for this project was rather simple. After brainstorming and interviewing Caitie, I came up with a set game-plan and was ready to film. I filmed a casual conversation/interview with Caitie, asking her questions specifically about her project 3 and what it means to her. To get an even better idea of each others’ lens, we decided to grab lunch at Taco Bell when we were done filming. I think this help both of us because not only did we become friends from the process, but it was a way to explore each others’ lens when in a laid back situation, and just being yourself. We also discovered that we like to get the same thing at Taco Bell.
I can honestly say that I am excited about all of my project, and I do not seem to have many disappointments. If I had more time to learn new techniques, I would have added a stop-motion clip of Caitie in my film. The snap-motion film we had watched in class is what inspired me to want to create my own. If I were to do it differently next time, I would add more content regarding Caitie’s interest in birds. I did not get to touch on this topic in my video because I had been inspired to go down a different path, and it just did not fit in with the rest of the content I wanted to portray in my film. However, one of the many interesting things I learned about Caitie was that she really likes birds, which I find to be a very unique interest/hobby.
My main goal of this project was to reflect Caitie’s lens as well as I could, and I feel that I was successful in doing so. For the title of this project, I was inspired by Caitie’s blog title:
Caitie’s ‘About Me’ page on her blog also inspired me with regard to how to go about making my ethnographic film:
I think it’s safe to say that this was my favorite project this semester. I say this for many reasons. One, I already had some experience using iMovie before this project, which made the production process of this project much easier. Two, the classmate I was paired with was someone that I genuinely clicked with; I do not feel as if my video is ‘random’; I find it to be a successful reflection of the lens of my classmate Caitie’s.
Fresca Anc 