Mini Documentary
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So far, 23 people have completed this assignment.
Create a mini-documentary about someone who is fascinating. Don't pick your best friend or a close family member. Find someone from your community with a great story to tell. Make this your BEST POSSIBLE work; we're talking broadcast quality (ok, maybe only broadcast on public access TV, but still you get the idea.)
Use the video medium to show us the essence of who that person is. Preferably, depict this person in their natural surroundings. Use an establishing shot to give us a sense of place. Use cutaway shots so we can get more information about how that person works and/or lives. Use good camera composition techniques to frame your shots. Use tight editing to keep things moving. The video should only be 2-3 minutes long, no more or no less. Your finished video should be compelling to watch from beginning to end, with no slow spots or down times. Use sound, type and transition effects wisely. Use appropriate music from a source like Freeplaymusic.com to help set the mood and tell the story. If possible, record audio separately from the video camera's microphone. You can use a lavalier microphone, or an audio app on your phone strategically placed out of sight, but near the subject speaking for recording high quality audio. If you use a second recording device for audio, clap your hands to help synch your sound file to your video file. Take your time, and be thoughtful about how your story should unfold for the greatest dramatic impact.
For an example of what an excellent Mini Documentary looks like watch The Story of Gerald Hersch on YouTube. It is less than 2 minutes long, but it takes us through a complete story arc that makes us want to know the person being depicted, as well as experience strong feelings as we view the film. Your film should do the same.
Do this Assignment
If you complete this assignment, share it! If you are signed up with a blog that feeds the main DS106 site, to have your example added below just add the following tags (or labels if you use Blogger) when writing the post on your own blog (You must use BOTH!):
If your blog is not connected to ds106, you can add your example directly.
Submissions So Far
The Story of Kate
For this assignment (5 stars), I decided to create a documentary based on my character, Kate. I started by thinking abut what I wanted to say. I wrote up a story and then found the pictures to go along with it. I started by recording the intro and then …
Complete 12 Stars
Motivational Poster!
That Bucket List Though
I believe Robert Neville’s bucket list would contain these:
Find another living human
Beat my depression
See his daughter and wife once again
Beat Alcoholism
Find the cure
While Robert Neville was alive he did not find another living human. He lost his family …
A Story of Rock n Roll
I was inspired to create a tribute to rock ‘n’ roll in collaboration with my family because it is important to preserve our stories, our personal and universal histories, for ourselves and for those who come after us. This is for Zach and Steven, and for You and Me.
The Story of Reverend Evadne Tuxhorn
This is my response to the Mini Documentary assignment. I had to create a short documentary about a person’s life, however, there was a catch: the person couldn’t be a close friend or family member. Given my shy and reclusive nature, I thought this would be a big problem at …
Riza McHale’s Life
For this assignment, we were required to create a 2 to 3 minute documentary based on someone important. I took this opportunity to expand on my western character, Riza. As someone who loves to create stories, I found it fascinating to create a documentary around a character I created.
To …
Mini-Documentary
This is the assignment that I was most worried about throughout the week because the assignment was to create a 2-3 minute mini-documentary about someone fascinating who is not a best friend or close family member. This made me the most worried because my 2 best friends and parents are …
Character Documentary
I completed the four and a half star Mini Documentary.
I applied this assignment to my character, creating a mini synopsis of the first third of his life.
I utilized Audacity and iMovie to create this movie.
With Audacity I recorded my dialogue and applied a song in the …
Mini-Documentary
For my last assignment of the week I did the 4 1/2 star mini-documentary on my character Bob. You can find all of the info on Bob here. For this assignment you had to create a 2-3 minute documentary. I did it on my character because I needed one …
Talie’s Documentary
This week I was to complete this mini documentary assignment . I chose to create this documentary about my western character, Talie. You can read more about Talie here. I focused on certain aspects of Talie’s life such as her job, where she lives, what she finds important, and …
Documentary
This is my documentary for the week. You can find the assignment at https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/mini-documentary/. While this was fun to make since I spent some extra time with Nate, It was challenging due to my lack of resources and some other things going on in my life this week. I …
The Aftermath
For 4.5 stars this week, I completed the Mini Documentary assignment, and used it as a way to get a better glimpse into the life of my host character, Sally Slaughterhouse. It kind of acts like a trailer for a longer film, if I were to actually create an entire …
~~Dan Hubbard~~
This week we had to do a biography of someone not obviously close to us. I decided to do it on Dan Hubbard who is a business professor at UMW. I’m currently in his Perspectives on Human Organization in Society class and am always interested in what he has to …
All About Morlium
Who is Morlium? This video gives all that we can share about him.
Putting together the video was an arduous task. I first had to outline how the documentary would transition, then find clips and pictures appropriate to the narrative arc. I was able to extract general clips from youtube …
Documentary
One of the assignment we have to do which was worth 0 star is to create a mini documentary. Because the professor suggest that we can link it to our host character I decide to conduct an interview with my host character. The lack of people to helps me made …
Dennis’ Story
This week I got a short interview with Dennis where we could quickly talk about his life motto. Dennis was nice enough to record himself however, he was quite vague. It must just be his thing. Here is the interview video enjoy!
This is a 4.5 star video assignment done …
The Real Dr. Oliver Thredson
For this video assignment I had to a mini documentary on someone. I decided to focus on Dr. Oliver Thredson from American Horror Story because he is such a dynamic character. I decided to focus the beginning of the video on the kind man who is portrayed through most of …
Blairs doc!
For this assignment I used movie maker to record my video. I then found the above pictures off of google to incorporate into my video. I searched on YouTube for a short sound clip and I liked the one that I attached in the video. After I was complete I …
Gary L. Close – A Documentary
This documentary is about Gary Close, a long-time friend and neighbor. Gary is a man of many talents and interests. He’s an artist, author, devoted husband and father. Gary is civic minded and a former Commonwealth’s Attorney. With a passion for history and preservation, Gary has restored old homes. …
Mini Documentary
This is a Video Assignment worth 4 stars. This assignment had the opportunity to follow someone and to highlight their life. I put a twist to my documentary and used my host character The Death Whisperer as the main character to follow. The challenge of this is that she is …
Spooksography (VideoAssignments1847 4 Stars)
The long awaited Spooksography. I want to keep Spooksy a bit mysterious, so I kept this pretty light. From the beginning I had in mind a picture of a baby eating himself, because that’s just so Spooksy. I wanted to touch on some of the parts about Spooksy that I …
Toby: A Dogumentary
Yes, yes you did just read that title correctly. I decided to think a little out of the box for this one. When I read the assignment I had one person on my mind that I thought would fit the description perfectly. Unfortunately, I would have had to go home …
Mini Documentary
This weeks video assignments included a must do mini documentary. My video for this features Kyle Hvisdash telling us about his favorite band of all time. The mini documentary on The Sun City Girls is a story of an eclectic style band so to make my movie in keeping with …
The Story of Kate
For this assignment (5 stars), I decided to create a documentary based on my character, Kate. I started by thinking abut what I wanted to say. I wrote up a story and then found the pictures to go along with it. I started by recording the intro and then …
Complete 12 Stars
Motivational Poster!
That Bucket List Though
I believe Robert Neville’s bucket list would contain these:
Find another living human
Beat my depression
See his daughter and wife once again
Beat Alcoholism
Find the cure
While Robert Neville was alive he did not find another living human. He lost his family …
A Story of Rock n Roll
I was inspired to create a tribute to rock ‘n’ roll in collaboration with my family because it is important to preserve our stories, our personal and universal histories, for ourselves and for those who come after us. This is for Zach and Steven, and for You and Me.
The Story of Reverend Evadne Tuxhorn
This is my response to the Mini Documentary assignment. I had to create a short documentary about a person’s life, however, there was a catch: the person couldn’t be a close friend or family member. Given my shy and reclusive nature, I thought this would be a big problem at …
Riza McHale’s Life
For this assignment, we were required to create a 2 to 3 minute documentary based on someone important. I took this opportunity to expand on my western character, Riza. As someone who loves to create stories, I found it fascinating to create a documentary around a character I created.
To …
Mini-Documentary
This is the assignment that I was most worried about throughout the week because the assignment was to create a 2-3 minute mini-documentary about someone fascinating who is not a best friend or close family member. This made me the most worried because my 2 best friends and parents are …
Character Documentary
I completed the four and a half star Mini Documentary.
I applied this assignment to my character, creating a mini synopsis of the first third of his life.
I utilized Audacity and iMovie to create this movie.
With Audacity I recorded my dialogue and applied a song in the …
Mini-Documentary
For my last assignment of the week I did the 4 1/2 star mini-documentary on my character Bob. You can find all of the info on Bob here. For this assignment you had to create a 2-3 minute documentary. I did it on my character because I needed one …
Talie’s Documentary
This week I was to complete this mini documentary assignment . I chose to create this documentary about my western character, Talie. You can read more about Talie here. I focused on certain aspects of Talie’s life such as her job, where she lives, what she finds important, and …
Documentary
This is my documentary for the week. You can find the assignment at https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/mini-documentary/. While this was fun to make since I spent some extra time with Nate, It was challenging due to my lack of resources and some other things going on in my life this week. I …
The Aftermath
For 4.5 stars this week, I completed the Mini Documentary assignment, and used it as a way to get a better glimpse into the life of my host character, Sally Slaughterhouse. It kind of acts like a trailer for a longer film, if I were to actually create an entire …
~~Dan Hubbard~~
This week we had to do a biography of someone not obviously close to us. I decided to do it on Dan Hubbard who is a business professor at UMW. I’m currently in his Perspectives on Human Organization in Society class and am always interested in what he has to …
All About Morlium
Who is Morlium? This video gives all that we can share about him.
Putting together the video was an arduous task. I first had to outline how the documentary would transition, then find clips and pictures appropriate to the narrative arc. I was able to extract general clips from youtube …
Documentary
One of the assignment we have to do which was worth 0 star is to create a mini documentary. Because the professor suggest that we can link it to our host character I decide to conduct an interview with my host character. The lack of people to helps me made …
Dennis’ Story
This week I got a short interview with Dennis where we could quickly talk about his life motto. Dennis was nice enough to record himself however, he was quite vague. It must just be his thing. Here is the interview video enjoy!
This is a 4.5 star video assignment done …
The Real Dr. Oliver Thredson
For this video assignment I had to a mini documentary on someone. I decided to focus on Dr. Oliver Thredson from American Horror Story because he is such a dynamic character. I decided to focus the beginning of the video on the kind man who is portrayed through most of …
Blairs doc!
For this assignment I used movie maker to record my video. I then found the above pictures off of google to incorporate into my video. I searched on YouTube for a short sound clip and I liked the one that I attached in the video. After I was complete I …
Gary L. Close – A Documentary
This documentary is about Gary Close, a long-time friend and neighbor. Gary is a man of many talents and interests. He’s an artist, author, devoted husband and father. Gary is civic minded and a former Commonwealth’s Attorney. With a passion for history and preservation, Gary has restored old homes. …
Mini Documentary
This is a Video Assignment worth 4 stars. This assignment had the opportunity to follow someone and to highlight their life. I put a twist to my documentary and used my host character The Death Whisperer as the main character to follow. The challenge of this is that she is …
Spooksography (VideoAssignments1847 4 Stars)
The long awaited Spooksography. I want to keep Spooksy a bit mysterious, so I kept this pretty light. From the beginning I had in mind a picture of a baby eating himself, because that’s just so Spooksy. I wanted to touch on some of the parts about Spooksy that I …
Toby: A Dogumentary
Yes, yes you did just read that title correctly. I decided to think a little out of the box for this one. When I read the assignment I had one person on my mind that I thought would fit the description perfectly. Unfortunately, I would have had to go home …
Mini Documentary
This weeks video assignments included a must do mini documentary. My video for this features Kyle Hvisdash telling us about his favorite band of all time. The mini documentary on The Sun City Girls is a story of an eclectic style band so to make my movie in keeping with …
Help Someone Else Do this Assignment
If you create a tutorial for this assignment, share it! To have your tutorials appear below, make sure your posts are showing up on the main DS106 site and that you use the following tags (or labels on Blogger) when writing the post on your own blog (You must use BOTH !):