Documentary Project Reflective Essay

My colleagues, Nico Barbiero, Sam Merrill, and I recently completed our documentary about the music scene and culture at Montgomery Blair High School. The five minute film, which was a a media project assigned to us by Mr. Mayo focused on what we thought to be the four most influential musical acts at the school, the Flying Mighty, Ladle Fight, Publik Theory, and HA.V.O.C. Creating the project spanned multiple months and required extra time and effort on all of our parts but it was ultimately worth it after seeing the final outcome. We were afforded a lot of freedom on this project and ultimately our group was formed based on common interest and passion that all three of us had in music. It was the genuine fascination that led to the project's success. Although, initially, I had my reservations, I'm happy with my decision to follow through with this topics because this project was a great time and effort consumer and I wouldn't not have been as invested in it had I not had an interest on the topic.
In addition for my passion for music, this year I developed a passion for film and media. This is my first media project that I was invested in beyond just the interest of my grade. Throughout the pre and post-production process I found that this self-investment is necessary in order to have a quality outcome.
As a group the greatest challenges we faced during were that of a specific interview and of B-Roll. For the most part, the interviewing process was simple and smooth but for one act in particular, we realized late into post production that the video quality of the interview was insufficient and we were pressured to schedule another interview several weeks into the allotted editing time. Thankfully, we managed to get the interview and the issue was resolved. B-Roll was another problem. Whereas most of the groups had an abundance of B-Roll to choose from online, one group had very little and another group had none. For this group, Nico had to attend a show and capture some footage of his own. Using this and so e creative editing, we were able to work with the little we had.
The film as it stands is guided by a central interview of Adam Maisto, who is familiar with Blair's music culture. If I could I would have liked to interview more casual musicians as well as regular Blair students in order to capture what the a blair populace feels about their school's musical culture.
Throughout, this process, Mr. Mayo has been available, co-operative, and helpful. At times he seemed to be more excited about our movie than us. However, I think that he could have been less lenient on the project's due date. I can note three of the groups that applied to the C-Span Student cam co petition. They were required to complete their documentaries nearly two moths ago. All of these groups finished and got decent grades. I think that if we the students were more pressed to finish the films, we would have buckled down and finished much earlier. This would have opened up more time for possibly another project before we begin working on CAP Hollywood.