Final Project Proposal

(This piece has yet to be titled)

Synopsis: For my final project I am going to explore the life of student activists of color on campus, specifically focusing on issues of racism and oppression and those whom have organized recently around action awareness week. I want to know what drives people as activists to do the work that they do. How do people stay in the movement and keep doing work when all the odds are against them? I plan on using footage from the most recent walk out as well as interviews, piecing together the interviewees words to creative the narrative weaving together a story that is built on the voices of many students not just one. Similar to the movement which also came out of several peoples stories and struggles. My piece will be about identity as it effects social actions, and the personal struggles with doing work that is so closely tied to identity. I want to show the faces and voices of a movement that has been happening here since Hampshires creation.

(In terms of exact story board this will be worked out more once i have completed my interviews)

Style/Aesthetics: I want this to be a serious but uplifting piece that sheds light on each persons story, even if there is only one moment of the story. I plan on having extreme close ups of the person i am interviewing. As well as focus on different body parts of the subject such and hands, arms, mouth, eyes hair, face. Each person will fade into the next person so that the characters mesh together to convey that these stories although unique are apart of a larger experience that many students of color go through on this campus. I want to experiment with light and use it to show the different extremes of emotion. Such as bright lights against a dark background with the subject in the center, so that you cannot avoid their faces and emotions.I want to use some of the camera techniques that can be found in 'Tounges Untied', for I think it inspires me to use the camera (angles/effects) as a tool to show emotion within my subject. This will read as a clip from a larger documentary about the lives of students of color on this campus.

Sound: I plan on having the spoken word poem "the revolution will not be televised" in the background. There will be some voice over inccoperated in this project and so the song will be playing very softly getting louder towards the ending.

Lights: I plan on working with a light kit to get the extremes that I am looking for in this project.

characters: Voices from source, i intend on getting 5 voices minimum.

place: Their personal spaces, my room in some circumstances.

Timeline/production:
April 14-21 shoot
April 21-28 edit

I am doing this project because I want to celebrate those of us who do activist work around issues of racism and oppression. I the audience to see that we each have a story or reason for doing it that is so personal and so connected. I want my audience to see that this work does not stop or end with one person that it is built upon student after student. And I am interested in it because I am personally effected by the isms that exist on this campus and that I am not alone and I want other students involved in this work, to know that they are not alone either.