English 569: Digital Documentary Project

This assignment asks you to invent and create one documentary project in digital spaces and one written reflective/review essay on your experience creating your documentary project.  You need to consider the following:

• This project will be about a subject of your choice.  
  
  
• Your project must capture original material. You will find and capture material (facts, interviews, original photographs/audio/video, creation of "documentable" situations) that will enable you to create a short, nonfiction story that adopts an angle that is new, interesting, and refreshing to your audience.  Your project, when applicable, can also be reflective in nature, meaning that it can explore the intersection of documentary and personal narration/reflection. 
  
  
• The success of your project will be directly tied to how you think about your topic and how you approach that topic.   You need to think less about big projects, journalism, facts and information, traditional arguments, and hard research, and you need to think more about small stories, interesting questions, and personal profiles.  
  
  
• NEW!!! You do not necessarily need to think about creating one singly sustained piece of media. Instead, you might want to think about creating media assests, small story pieces that, when viewed collectively over time and space, might tell a complete story. These media assests could be made up of many different file types: images, audio clips, video clips, transcrips, flash movies, print, already available resources, etc. Typically, you will still need to edit these media assets. However, you will not need to edit them into a single, linear piece. You will, however, need to "house" them, and the obvious choice for that would be a single or small collection of web pages. You will find creating these web pages to be very easy to create--easier than any other media composing we've done this quarter--and I would be more than happy to work with you one-on-one or in small groups to learn the software. For examples of this approach to your project, see:
  
  Picture Projects: Toward a New Documentary > > >
  (See "The Sonic Memorial Project" and "360degrees" (html version))
  
  Tracked in America: After 9/11 > > >
  
  
• You must be able to secure permission to use every element of your project.  You will be required to submit written permissions with your final work. 
  
  
• Collaborative projects are encouraged. Please see me if you'd like to work collaboratively on your documentary project.
  
  
• Your final reflective essay should be 3-5 double-spaced pages. Your job is to reflect on your experience and your process of creating your documentary project. Your job is also to review your final product. What are its strengths? What are its weaknesses? A critical, honest approach to this reflective/review essay is key. You are encouraged to reflect and review positively; at the same time, you will not be penalized for drawing attention to that which may not have resulted in your most effective work.
  
  
• You will also submit a project proposal. You will receive further information about this part of the assignment.