Alex-Filming Techniques & Aesthetics; Citing Evidence/Thesis

This speaks to the quality of the teaching we have had here in this program, but in watching Vimeo's “10 Steps for Shooting Your First DIY Interview,” in realized that we had already learned everything they were saying! The only real piece I got out of that video was that it is a good idea to "ask your subject if there is anything they would like to add" at the end of the interview. This makes a ton of sense to me, as the interviewee will at this point know what types of information you are angling for and will doubtlessly have a few pieces of information that you had no idea ever existed and that would be valuable towards your project. I found Michael Moore's article  well... a bit crass but nevertheless extremely informative. One of the most intriguing and helpful pieces in his article was how to use your viewers emotion to your advantage. Emotions play a huge role in your documentary, in his words, “They don't care whether you make them cry, whether you make them laugh, whether you even challenge them to think -- but damn it, they don't want to be lectured, they don't want to see our invisible wagging finger popping out of the screen. They want to be entertained.” You could be making groundbreaking revelations, but if they come through dry as bones they will never matter to the audience. Emotions directly correlate to memory, that's reason you can always remember those embarrassing moments, those explosive fights, those moments of hilarity, it’s because emotion will always have a place in your long term memory. With thin knowledge in hand you can create a story that encapture the viewers. While Michael Emphasizes the value of laughter, it is not appropriate for this subject, but another emotion he mentioned is, anger. Anger is never forgotten, anger spurs action. “Depressed is a passive emotion. Anger is active. Anger will mean that maybe 5 percent, 10 percent of that audience will get up and say, "I gotta do something. I'm going to tell others about this. I'm going to go look up more about this on the Internet. I'm gonna join a group and fight this!" This subject is perfect to trigger anger in others, humans are hardwired to care about the young and so to hear the shocking issues plaguing the children in our story will bring up the anger and therefore cause others to take action. As a parting thought, “take the audience someplace they haven't been. Show them something they've never seen.” This issue is mentioned again and again on the radio and TV, but you know what? they are beating the same ideas to death, if we bring new and unheard information to the eyes of the viewers, we will be able to truly capture their attention.

With my interests spanning the entirety of this subject, I am open to looking into any/all of the stories, but seeing as two on my compatriots are angling towards the stories of the foster families and the children in the system, I would like to look more at the system itself, how it functions, and the stories of the caseworkers. As Adrienne said in her recent blog post,  “At one point, Vermont’s legislature voted to cut the budget of the DCF, which forced them to cut down their staff. This included social workers, so the cases of those who left the Department were distributed to other social workers. Outside of the DCF, Vermont’s opiate crisis was boosting the number of children removed from their parent’s custody. This put strain on the social workers, who already had too many caseloads.” It is things like this I would like to focus on, the dangers of the job, the stress and the fear for safety. With this in mind, I am very interested to hear the answers Adrienne gets from her interview with St. Albans DCF Director. We all have been contributing potential interview questions on a group email so that everything we want answers on is asked in this interview, and I cannot wait to we the responses.

Moore, Michael. "Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films." Michael Moore's 13 Rules for Making Documentary Films. Indiewire, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 13 Dec. 2015.

Hayek, Daniel. "10 Steps to Shooting Your First DIY Interview." Vimeo. Vimeo, 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2015. <https://vimeo.com/64729691>.