It Shouldn't Be This Easy
In recent times, we see gun violence making headlines way more than they should. This is why, more than ever, we believe that there needs to be dialogue about this topic. We felt that centering our piece on a subject matter that is prevalent in our times would be the most impactful. Fortunately, we have not had any tragedies related to gun violence here on our campus. However, being that San Diego is a highly militarized area, we wanted to take a look at how UCSD is influenced and responds to issues like this. The support (or lack thereof) that UCSD has displayed does not reflect how many students feel about those same headlines. With powerful students genuinely worried and advocating a push for gun control, we felt that our video was a perfect platform to showcase how students view the relationship between our school and gun violence by highlighting student activists who are doing their part in advocating for gun control reform.
We personally resonate with this topic because not only does it directly affect us, but also anyone currently living in this country; our friends, peers, and family members. Everyone is at risk as a mass shooting can happen anywhere at any time. Most importantly, we are aware that the change must start with us. Doing our part involves making our voices heard in an unfiltered and honest way. In order to create lasting impact regarding this issue, we must begin a movement of change within our own communities and encourage others to do the same.
Creative Approach
The process of curating this video was exciting because right off the bat we both had similar ideas and knew what techniques we wanted to include in our short documentary. Even though we faced some obstacles along the way, we adapted quickly. We felt that our message would be best translated through current students. Our interview subjects consisted of three student activists on our campus; one of the students arranged a walkout and another created an organization called "Students Demand Action." Several of the B-Rolls we included in the video came from the same walkout previously mentioned. Recently, there were stories about two students who got arrested for having a gun on them within days of one another. We decided to use the articles as B-Roll to give examples of the issue more specifically here on our campus. The video ends with a B-Roll of the flags at half-staff due to a school shooting that happened. We hoped that each B-roll would strengthen the video while giving the audience some variation in scenes.
Through this process, we learned that creating a 3 minute documentary is way harder than it seems. We found it hard to cut in between filler words and to curate a seamless story that featured three different perspectives. There were so many amazing answers that simply could not be cut down to fit into a three minute piece, mostly because they required a bit of context/set up. When curating the argument behind the video, we wanted to make sure that the video was not only a resource and call to action here at UC San Diego, but could be adapted to college campuses across the country. We tried to capture the heart and passion behind the issue, appealing to Pathos. The narrative that we were trying to tell was definitely structured in a more poetic way through editing, however many of the actual interview bites were quite linear and streamlined. It was a challenge to attempt to develop a potent and striking "poetic" documentary with heaps of chatty and not-so-poetic footage, however, we feel that the piece really does hold an evocative quality to it and we were able to overcome the challenges through the usage of lighting, coloring, overlays, B-roll, music choice, and motif.
HP Reveal
We wanted our HP Reveal to be in a location that is well known to anyone visiting our campus. The silent tree directly in front of our attention-grabbing Geisel library is where we decided would be best due its visibility and wide reach. Not only is this a landmark of UCSD, but it is also very significant to our piece as it was the place where the walkout occurred.
