*I am required by my school to create this statement of intent to help understand why I have chosen this specific project for myself.*
Film has always interested me. In my years as I child I remember always watching movies multiple times to gather the most out of it and try to understand why each scene was added to the story, but as I grew older, my view of film changed. I started creating small video blogs for my drumline and the creation, work, and editing of a film really fascinated me. I became enamoured with documentary-style filmmaking and found that it is something I really enjoy doing and would like to make a career out of. This project will help me to discover new skills as it allows me to practice this craft.
I have worked to discover my personal skills within filmmaking, but I believe doing this capstone project will help motivate me to find the strengthen these skills and discover new ones while expanding my creativity. My blog is titled A Few Minutes With Mel in which I will post all my videos and blog posts explaining my experiences. I have chosen the self-development project strand because I desire to expand my personal creativity and skills. In this project I will create one film every two weeks allowing one week for filming and another for editing. My fieldwork will involve a longer movie project about the senior year of high school from a student’s perspective. I will be working with my mentor, Laurisha Cotton, who is a storyteller through filmmaking.
As a creator I am constantly trying to find new ways to present information or tell a story, and this project will allow me to expand that. I have two years of prior experience with taking videos and editing them to create a well thought out product. My youtube channel holds all of my previous work. I desire to strengthen my editing and camera-use skills.
In the future I plan to pursue a career in marketing through filmmaking. This project has the potential to give me a head start in understanding my craft before I enter my college studies.