Reflection Essay

I never knew what all went into creating a documentary. Having to do this project really showed me just how hard it is to not only produce it but also showed me that by working well with others the final product can be a success.

Now that the project is all done with, I think that I am most proud of the footage that we got of the AcoUstiKats. Both the practices and the interviews turned out pretty well. Having no experience with filming, I was proud of being able to get high quality sound and image without being too shaky. 

I think that our biggest struggle as a group was narrowing our focus on one thesis. This was something that we all struggled with in our initial podcast as well. We originally planned on focusing on the group’s efforts of becoming better known around Lexington. But once we started doing interviews and planning out how we wanted to our end project to look we decided to take a different approach. We looked at how this group is not just a group of guys who can sing but also a group of close friends. We wanted to show the audience that being in this group has truly impacted their lives. 

After watching our final video I think the one thing I would have liked to change would have been to include more footage of what the entire group does, such as performing at the sorority houses or at an important gig. I think that if we would have been able to include that it would have really shown the audience how much the members enjoy being apart of this group and also how all their hard work pays off.

If we were given more time to complete this documentary, I would have loved to be able to follow this group even longer. I would have liked to follow them as they prepare for the Sing Off audition. I think that seeing them work together under pressure would really show how much the group means to the members. It would also show how close the group really is. I would have also like to be able to capture the memories that the group makes as they prepare and hopefully make it onto the Sing Off instead of just hearing about them to pull the audience in even more.

My job for this project was to film the practice and interviews as well as help think of the questions to ask each interviewee. I also helped create the overall script of the documentary. Working in groups is always hard but to help keep us all working well together we always made sure that everyone’s opinions were heard, and that we made all decisions unanimously so that we could all be satisfied with our final project. I believe that I really did my fair share to help create the documentary and I'm very happy with how it all turned out.