Reflection on Essay #3

I really found the final project a challenge to do in the beginning. However, as I was editing and transcribing, I was really happy that in the future, I could look back and see who I was then. Starting this project, I had planned all the people I would interview, the clubs, activities and other programs that I was really passionate about. I think I had problems with finding the time to do some of my interviews because of other responsibilities I had. The interview with my mentor was really important to me but finding the time to travel there after my classes was the hardest. However, I finally made it there after thanksgiving. I filmed some of the robotics projects we did. I also interviewed some of my former teammates. I had to edit them out because, in the end I realized I had too many interviews. All the interviews were important to telling my story, but some of them portrayed more of what I who I was respects to my career decision. In choosing what different media to use, I definitely taught of the newspapers and magazines that I had been published in as a great way to tell others where my career began.

 Two weeks before the project was due, I noticed there were two important people who I had to interview who were not there, my dad and one of my best friend. I planned to tell the story from my parents view of how I had changed but in the end I had to use others to tell my story. I think I will definitely do a future project like this probably next semester to see how I'm doing. For my best friend, she had moved back abroad, so I used her voice in my video to tell my story. I guess the reason why she was important to my story was because she's seen me at my best and worst academically. Her words about me will mean a lot in the future. I did not write a script or even plan to do a voice over. Every part of my video was a one take shot. Whatever everyone said and did was a one take thing, especially for my interview. I wanted my story to be real and a true reflection of how I really felt not rehearsed. I had great help from my friend who helped me in choosing what questions to ask . I think the hardest part was editing my video, I did not realize the software I was using was more complex than it looked. Triming clips and transitioning were the easiest to do. However, when I had to sync the voices and put the background music, the software crashed and I had to do most of my work again (the extension really helped). In the end, being behind the camera (used a dslr camera for most of the interviews) was really exciting and fun. I was the director of my story and I loved it! I learned a lot about who I am, where I need improvement as person and in my career goals. I think in the end,  I hope my the video and will tell others of who I was in my first semester and a little before that.

Review of Roger Ebert's Review of The Up Documentaries

Roger Ebert was a movie critic born in Urbana, Illinois. His reviews were widely recognizable, one reason being his use of metaphors. In his review of The Up Documentaries, he shows how the lives of these kids tell us about who we are and who we are becoming. The Up Documentaries is a series created by Michael Apted in 1977. The series followed the lives of British kids from different classes from 7 to 56 years old. Ebert in his analysis of Neil, character in the series, says Neil's story is the most encouraging of all the episodes in "42 Up." When you follow the lives of these kids you either find a drastic change in their personalities as in the case of Susan. Ebert quotes Wordsworth's metaphor, "The child is father of the man," to explain how you can predict who these individuals will become by looking at their younger personality. In most cases that not, this claim was true, but the series did have a few surprising characters. 

Since the documentary was looking at the lives of kids from different classes, Ebert concludes an obvious truth, "

class counts for more in Britain than in America." Ebert concludes his review by saying that as a kid he wanted to be a newspaperman and he did become one. His review causes one to want to watch the series just to self examine themselves - find out where they are and where they are going. The questions, "why am I me and why not you? Why am I here and why not there?," is one that tells our story. The answer is found only in our roots, our culture, our family, our likes and dislikes as children and our perception growing up.