Mahsa - Progress Report #2

We recently made progress on our schedule, stamping down how much we plan on finishing by certain dates. With our shoots set up and our interviews under development, I feel much better as far as preparation goes for the project. In our last meeting with Jo, we agreed on a documentary sort of feel for the video, with interviews focusing on the kids while still highlighting the mentors. We’re all very excited to get started on the shooting, which will lead quickly to editing!

I’m not sure what unique contribution I’ve brought to the group, but I do try to implement new ideas and different views on the process of our video. We all have a shared vision for this video, so I think it’ll be a very successful project!

Meeting the Client (Blog #2)

As I had said before; Andy, Mahsa, Jeremy and myself met to discuss some concepts to present to Jo the following day. We met with Jo last Tuesday and started talking to see what ideas she had (if any) and talk about what we saw. We presented her with the idea of needing some core footage of the kids and wanting some interviews with her as well as the mentors. We also discussed the idea of talking to some of the teachers who saw an improvement as well as the parents. Further on in the discussion, Jo talked about wanting to incorporate some other ideas but she wasn't sure if they were feasible for the length of the video.

At the end, we all agreed on a core idea for the video; emphasizing the kids and the mentors as well as being a positive, fun, and uplifting video. The goal is to show the return a person gets from being involved and contributing to this program. We will be getting logos and graphics from Jo. I need to send her an email reminder but all in all this is running very smoothly. I love my group and am very excited to start shooting.

As production manager, I've been the one organizing the meetings and setting up schedules. I also offer ideas since we are a very collaborative group but for this project, I'm mostly doing "paper work." I've come to discover that I really enjoy doing this. I always knew that I am good at scheduling (especially since I'm the one who always schedules events and hang outs between my friends and myself) I just didn't know that I could translate that to something like this. It's odd because I like doing the dirty work but I feel more comfortable doing this. So far, I like it.

~Amanda

Scouting

Andy and I went back to the church so we could get some ideas about shots and stories. We found many interesting directions we could take with shot lists and met more of the mentors to see what kind of background they had. I am very excited to start shooting and we should have interviews scheduled as soon as next week. Andy and I went to the second classroom where the kids take their tests and realized that it would be a great room to conduct interviews with staff because of the acoustics and background

Andy_Scouting...#2

Yesterday Jeremy and I met at the church. We just wanted to show our faces once more before we start to bring in the cameras. Once I stepped in the "classroom", a nostalgic feeling came back to me. Everything reminded me of when I used to be an Activity Leader for SAY San Diego. An Activity Leader is somewhat similar to a Mentor in this case. I noticed there were at least 6 mentors. The set up yesterday was, there were 1 mentor for every 2 kids. We asked the kids and the mentors some questions about the program and how things ran each day.

Andy_Met and Brainstorm...#1

Last night the group and I met at Starbucks near school. We discussed different ideas on which direction we would like to take. The first idea was to have the project be documentary style. The second idea was to have a scripted like style of video where we would have dialogues for the kids and staff to read. We agreed that one would be a bit corny. Another approach we thought about was to have a sad video for mentors and entrepreneurs to feel sorry for the kids and would feel obligated to lend time and money.

We figured we should have at least two cameras when we shoot in order to have multiple angles. According to what my partners told me about the setting location of the site, we agreed to take some b-roll footage of the parameters. We also thought we should interview 1 mentor from each age group, for instance 1 mentor from high school and college.

Mahsa - First Meeting

Our first meeting at the Emmanuel Faith Community Church went very smoothly. Not only did we get a chance to meet most of the staff, we had a chance to converse with some of the kids. They were very cute, and confident, which is perfect for when we get a chance to put them on camera. Some of the girls described their days, mentioning how they have fun at Stepping Up and learn at the same time. They admitted that they still didn’t like some activities, like math or reading, but that they were getting better at it nonetheless. One of the girls proudly mentioned that she wanted to be an astrophysicist, describing how she wanted to ‘study the stars’. Another girl shared that her favorite part of the day was coming to Stepping Up after school, where she got a lot of homework done and had fun at the same time.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of the mentors, but just talking to the kids I have a good feeling about this project. They’re very confident, smart, articulate and energetic. It’s going to be fun working with them!

Initiate Blogging Sequence...

Our group met at Starbucks and went over a few possible directions for the video. We all liked one specific direction but still worked our options so Jo can have some different ideas to choose from. So from here we started drawing out a possible structure to how the video would flow. We talked about having a cool intro using Flash and a possible ending using time-lapse. The group and I also wrote specific questions to ask Jo, the mentors, and the children so we can structure our video around their answers.

We also talked about the types of shots we would like to see in the video. We also talked about the music, realizing that the music would be playing a larger role in the feel of this video than we thought.

To be continued...

Jeremy York

Meet at greet

Last Thursday Mahsa, Jeremy, and myself went to Emmanuel Faith Community Church to meet with Jo Jones and see the Stepping Up program in action. I had such a blast meeting all the kids that were there. Jo introduced us to everyone and right away this little girl came up and introduced herself to each of us individually. It was so adorable. Each of the mentors were at a different table working with different group of kids. Jo explained to us that we had come on a quiet day when they have all the kids together and generally there are more kids around. Jeremy, Mahsa and I went around to each table and talked with some kids individually as well as the mentors. It was a nice introduction into the program and a way to wet our appetites. It's really apparent these kids like being there and I'm happy to be a part of this.

Tomorrow we meet with Jo and present our ideas to her to see which direction she would like to go. After that, Jeremy, Andy and Mahsa will go on Wednesday to do some scouting. I'm so excited!

~Amanda