Lego Star Wars Adventure! And Blood Drive Experience...(Documentaries)

First Live Documentaries

Lego Star Wars Adventure!

     
     You may be wondering, "What is the Lego Star Wars Adventure?" My answer is the Lego Star Wars adventure is a documentary over the building of a Star Wars ship, made from Legos. We built, filmed, recorded voice overs and lastly edited out the final product of the documentary. The people who filmed this project is Brianna Correa, Wyatt Fowler and Markus Pecerra. Then the filmed bits were handed off to each of us individually so we could then edit and create our own documentaries.

Screenshot of Star Wars Lego box, the illustration on the
front shows a visual of what is being built.

Building Process:

    
     After picking our groups for this project, each group was given a Lego Star Wars box that inside, contained many pieces of Legos. Their were two people in each group, one person would switch off every time so that each person got two turns to build the Lego ship. The ship we attempted to build was the Millennium Falcon. The building process took quite a bit of patience. But there was an advantage that provided the group with a much simpler building process. That was when our group got to use a handy dandy instructions manual. This showed us step by step how to build the Millennium Falcon. After each of us had completed the build of the ship at least two times, we then had to take apart our creation for the next class to use.
 

What was learned: (Editing process on Blood Drive)

Step by step manual that was used to help the groups build the
Millennium Falcon.

    
     The main thing I learned throughout this process was how to listen to audio throughout your recordings to make sure you are picking up your sounds from the interview. I also learned how to hold the camera steady and get different shots from different angles to provide a better suited documentary. Finally I was able to figure out that asking interesting question and having the interviewed person answer in complete sentences is important. This is so the audience watching can comprehend what is being ask and it makes a documentary flow.

Things to pull from experience & do differently:

*Firstly, I would have asked better questions and more serious questions so that I could provide the audience with a better perspective on the video.

*Secondly, I would have had the people being interviewed speak up louder and respond to the questions in complete sentences so that there could be more to talk about in the video when editing.

     There are things that I can both learn from and use to enhance my next experience when I decide to make a documentary again. I hope this provided you viewers with an understanding of how one of my first documentaries went.

Finished product of Lego Documentary:

Link to video above on Youtube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWXbH6kV4p8&list=UUM0wnvFn5VK2G9dQ2SVn5Vg

 

 

Blood Drive Experience...

 

Clayton Daugherty about to get his blood drawn.

     On November 14th, me and Brianna Correa filmed the Olathe Northwest annual blood drive. This was a tricky task because it required going in and finding a blood donor who wouldn't mind sharing their experiences from the past and allowing us to view them through their blood donating process. After getting the film we needed, we then made voice overs to describe the process of the video.

Whole Process:





Picture of Clayton Daugherty from our interview with him.

     During Olathe Northwest's annual blood drive, we found a person who was comfortable sharing his blood donating experience and allowing us to film him on his adventure. The person we interviewed was Clayton Daugherty, a junior who had never donated blood before. First he had to get his ID checked and was asked questions to make sure that he was eligible to donate. After that, he was taken into a waiting room while he waited for a nurse to come get him so they could start the blood drawing experience. This was a tricky part for me and Brianna because there was so little room for anyone and one of us had to be kicked out. Another flaw was we could not get and filming of blood being drawn from the donors arms. After the blood was drawn, the donors were provided with iron rich snacks to help the donors maintain healthy iron levels. We were very lucky that Clayton had good iron levels because most people were not eligible to donate because a flaw went on or their iron levels were too low or too high or some just happened to pass out halfway through the process. At the end, donors could then sign a blood donor card to show that they donated.

What was Learned:

    
     During this process, we became more aware of what was suppose to be happening and what wasn't. When filming, it was important to give other people space and it was important to capture the films you wanted to get because you couldn't really redo it. This required get down in uncomfortable positions in order to capture you're shot. After the filming, we learned how to edit a documentary as one should be. This editing process required a ton of voiceovers that over lapped videos to make it an actual voice over. Before making voice overs, we had to create scripts and mark the videos we really wanted to use during the documentary and write down all of the sound being heard or said in the videos. After that, I created my voiceovers that I wanted to use and say during the documentary.When the script for the voiceovers was ready to be recorded, we went into our studio and recorded our voiceovers then edited. The editing required pulling a lot of sound bytes so the interview or the voice over could be heard. When the editing was done with, I then replayed the video to make sure everything was adjusted right and was ready to be watched by others.

Things to pull from experience:

*It is important to be ready at all times when filming a documentary. You want to capture all of the action that happens so you don't miss out when recording the live action.

*Always get uncomfortable and get the footage you want.

      I personally don't think this footage could have gotten any better. Me and Brianna were provided with a great blood donor that made our task much simpler.

Link to finished product of Blood Drive documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwDM-Xj7GYg&list=UUM0wnvFn5VK2G9dQ2SVn5Vg&index=3