History from Above Silent FilmOUR PROJECT
AS THE SYRIAN REFUGEE CRISIS WORSENED IN 2015, MANY HISTORIANS BEGAN COMPARING WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY IN SYRIA TO WHAT HAPPENED IN EUROPE DURING WORLD WAR II. IN OUR CLASS, WE DID THE SAME. WE ASKED, WHY ARE SIMILAR PROBLEMS OCCURRING TODAY AS THE PROBLEMS THAT OCCURRED 80 YEARS AGO? THIS LED TO FURTHER, MORE UNIVERSAL QUESTIONS: WHY DO PEOPLE PERSECUTE OTHERS? WHY DO PEOPLE FOLLOW CRUEL LEADERS? WHY DO PEOPLE SEE OTHERS IN NEED AND DO NOTHING? WHY ARE CIVILIANS TARGETED IN WAR? WE CREATED BLACK AND WHITE SILENT FILMS TO EXPLORE THESE QUESTIONS AND TO DEVELOP EMPATHY FOR THE PEOPLE INVOLVED, BOTH FROM THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. THE FACES OF THE FILMS ARE OURS. THE SITUATIONS ARE NOT, BUT THEY COULD BE. SINCERELY, THE KINGS AND QUEENS
In this scene we are showing how every 3 out of 4 people join ISIS because encouragement from friends and family. We are showing how a lot of ISIS members are ISIS members because of peer pressure from people they are close to.
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These are Syrians working trying to make money and the unemployment rate has increased because of the Civil War and they get laid off from their job. In this scene we want to show how difficult it is to find a consistent job in Syria.
With this footage we are helping the last scene by showing when the people are walking away, they are going to become ISIS members. We feel like this is good stock footage to show that those people are going to ISIS.
Here is my group's Festival Del Sol poster for Humanities
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cupyWQabjy4_SPpkGfmFXlaJOns2YhD1Tk7dida810Y/edit Here is the link to my research paper
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z2HM92vpAaCPBe_BCsuRZoN-_YkAPV0wYxfe4sqBaII/edit 1. My group members and I all wrote research papers based on our group question. Our question was "Why do people follow crazy leaders?" When writing our research papers each of us had to write it from a different perspective. I wrote mine as if I was a historian, Sam wrote hers as if she was a psychologist, and Trinity wrote hers as if she was a political scientist. When making scenes for our film we wanted to make one scene for each of our perspectives. We created 3 different scenes that relate to each of ours. When creating our film I contributed some stock footage, acting, and cinematography. I tried to stay away from working with Wevideo because I knew I wasn't good at using that website. So our film is filled with scenes that are related to each others perspectives.
Exhibition
Last nights exhibition for humanities was set up really well! When I came to the humanities station for my rotation, the way we set up was incredible! Our exhibition was set up in the middle school commons and we had four films going on at once while our group posters were posted up on tables for everybody to read and enjoy around it. I totally felt a whole different vibe when I entered that room and that vibe really helped me with my mood when presenting. At exhibition our station was kind of hidden and we didn't have as much viewers as the other exhibitions going on, so when I got there Ms. Janna assigned me to go outside of our exhibition and invite more people to come to our exhibition. My job went from describing my role in the project and what I did to describe our entire project and what our whole team did to try and get people interested and visit our exhibition. I was most proud of the way I presented with a lot of confidence. It felt really good because it was hard to get people's attention as it was when they are walking by to get somewhere but when you do and they go visit and enjoy the exhibition it felt really good. I feel like the people I had a chance to talk to went to the exhibition because of how I knew my work and what I was talking about. So in conclusion my knowing of the work my team and I have done and confidence about it really was what I was most proud of. I would want to advertise it a little more before the day of exhibition just so we had more viewers come and check out our excellent work. Learning In this project I learned a lot about many different things. Lets start with WWII. My understanding of WWII before exhibition was atrocious compared to now. All I knew was the Axis, the Allies, and Pearl Harbor. I got to learn about the specifics of that war like for example what happened on Normandy beach also known as D-day! The battle began on June 6, 1944, also known as D-Day, American, British and Canadian forces landed on five beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the heavily fortified coast of France’s Normandy region. This project really put me through an adventure with all the similarities going on today with Syrian refugees and what happened back in WWII with refugees. America back in WWII put the Japanese American citizens in camps because of the relationship with America and Japan at the time obviously. America also didn't accept refugees to enter the country because of the chance of international spies that could possibly have been disguised as a refugee. That same problem with not letting refugees in is happening today with Syrian refugees. I also learned something interesting about human nature that is very obvious yet I didn't realize till this project. In most situations if there is a choice to be made one human will go with the choice that has a majority because fear of rejection which was very interesting to me because if you think about it and open your eyes to it, it's fairly obvious. I also learned a bit about writing a good research paper. I learned there are a lot of little requirements that slip under the radar and you don't realize you need to do when writing one. If you don't include those requirements at the start it is a pain to go back and adjust it. Well when doing our film what made it good by going off our genre was of how we used our body and actions as props while showing no emotion. I also know it's very important to capture the scene from certain angles to give the audience a certain feel during that scene. For example someone's mood can change based on if the scene was shot from the right or left from it or from a POV(point of view) shot which is a shot from the point of view of one of the characters. |