MadisonBlakeHawkenProjects2021

     When first thinking about what to do for a Hawken project it was troubling to think if I wanted to do something related to government/ modern events or something more laid back. I then realized that I would never really have the chance to do something so meaningful in such a short amount of time so I decided to go for something more powerful. Rishita Lena and I have never really had classes together in high school and always knew we wanted to do projects together. They had the same thought process as me about wanting to do something meaningful and what is more meaningful than expanding upon the politics of our youth and coming of age through high school. We immediately clicked and worked really well together and made sure that everyone’s ideas came through and that each person was being heard. We knew that we wanted to do something with politics but didn’t want to make it boring and not interesting for viewers or future students at Hawken to watch. We then decided ...

  Our documentary is finalized and we are now just waiting for it to export off of Rishita’s computer and into our presentation submission area. The film is about 9 and a half minutes and it looks almost exactly like we thought it would. The way in which it is different is we have no interviews of an older generation. It kind of worked out for the better though as having the interviews be solely kids made our coming of age film more “coming of age.”  Something that has been a tad annoying on this film is the process of exportation. It takes about an hour for the film to upload and sometimes things go wrong so we have to start over. However, it definitely has had us work on our patience! Right now we are creating google slides for our presentation tomorrow at 3. There are 3 other presenters in our room and I am excited to see what they accomplished over the past three weeks as well. We are keeping our presentation short as it cannot be more than 10 minutes and our film is alrea...

  For the past couple days, we have been going to Rishita’s house to work on the documentary. We like to go to her house because she has the same computers/ computer set up as the Cleveland Film Factory did. It is very easy to work on the larger computers as we rotate chairs every so often to switch off who is editing/ finding other footage/ writing the script. We are in a good routine now as we are getting better with Premier yet still are a tad slow with it.    We have a lot more release forms now so it is easier to add in interviews without being so worried and it is nice to actually have people willing and excited to participate and be involved. Making this is taking more time than we thought but it is still coming together at a reasonable pace for first-timer editors. It is fun to be at her house and working together as we are able to balance fun/work time well and get things done. Normally we meet from 9-2 or 10-3.  Some advice I would give to future Hawke...

Today Rishita Lena and I went to our mentors’ studio in downtown Cleveland. We were there all day and learned a lot about the professionalization of a documentary. We also did a lot of our work on their big computers and were able to actually start to piece together our interviews. We do not have all of the consent release forms yet but are putting together the ones we have so far and double emailing people whose we need to be turned in. Going to the Cleveland Film Factory today was very interesting as it had a very modern and artsy vibe to it. They are still in the beginning of their factory being developed but so far is a very fun place to work in. The picture below is what their outside looked like by their front door. Cool art like this was found everywhere inside as well and there was always something to look at and observe.  They also showed us their past work and what they are currently working on. They showed us how they made their welcome video for Hawken and how they are ...