Documentary Essay

The decision of choosing a topic for the documentary film assignment was not an easy one. My group members and I considered many other topics ranging from the homeless to the food industry. We finally decided upon music because it is a common interest among us all. We created a short film delving into the impact that internet has made on musicians and artists and how it has both helped and hindered their careers. Even after finishing the assignment, I am still very interested in the topic and I hope to keep learning about it and I do not regret choosing music. In my opinion, the freedom to select the topic made the whole process more enjoyable and fun.


The most enjoyable part of the film making process for me was the interviewing and how much I learned just by talking to people in the industry. For example, the most surprising thing was learning that many artists actually greatly appreciate the internet and attribute much of their success to internet advertising. Kip Berman of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart talked a lot about this topic and says that the internet has allowed his band's music to be distributed far and wide. Although artists cannot make much money, they are happy to share music and do what they love.

The biggest challenge was time management and also staying true to the theme. Not all of my group members had the same lunch as I do, actually none of them do! So, time was a major factor as we had to do most of the work during class. And then the second challenge was that it was hard picking quotes from our interviews to use because we had a lot of good substance that just did not really relate to the central theme of our film. We had to cut a lot of it out because it was not relevant.

We also worked really hard to not make the film boring or typical. We stayed away from voice-overs and still photos because we did not think that it meshed with our topic. Instead, we used a lot of music from the bands that we interviewed and made a beginning sequence of many classic artists such as my favorite, The Smiths. It was fun to do and fun to watch. And Kyra made a slide for our title, Caught in the Web, that we all designed.

If we could do the project over, I would want to have a clearer idea of where we are going before we interview. That way, we would have better quotes and more footage to choose from. Also, I would want to film more b-roll because I think it can really add more interest into the film. Our teacher, Mr. Mayo, gave a lot of feed back and help throughout the process. With his guidance, I think our project turned out well.