documentary reflection

8/18/2019 Documentary Reflection

1/4

Victoria Stewart

Professor Tonya Wertz-Orbaugh

UWRIT 1103-011

April 18, 2016

Documentary Reflection

I. Reflecting on digital storytelling

In order to produce this Holocaust documentary, my group members and I had to work

through a process. We met in the library several times and emailed one another with information

and ideas. After our initial meeting, we decided to create a documentary based on life in the

ghettos. Later, we decided to condense our topic by focusing solely on the Warsaw ghetto. Each

of us decided to research specific questions that the group had about the topic and share our

findings with each other. Then, we searched for pictures and videos that would be able to depict

the information we wanted to share with our audience. Since one of our group members was

incredibly “tech-savy,” we sent our findings to her and she molded it together seamlessly into a

video.

Since I have never done a project similar to the Holocaust documentary, at first I was

worried how well the project would come out with so many different people working on it at

once. Luckily, my experience with my group members was pleasant and almost effortless. It

was easy to find resources during my research. I turned to testimonies, articles, and

documentaries for information. I would use all of these sources again because I felt as though I

was able to absorb a sufficient amount of information on the Warsaw ghetto and I felt confident


2/4

in my ability to create something to share with my classmates. I especially found the testimonies

to be useful because they were firsthand accounts of events that happened in the ghetto.

II. Reflecting on technology

When it comes to technology I would not consider myself a professional when using

programs, but I am capable of figuring out how to do things. While working on this project, I

learned about various programs that can be used to aid in making a documentary. I realized

through not only this assignment, but also through our previous multimodal project, that I have

skills when it comes to cutting music and coming up with ways to produce a fluid film. I would

like to work more with various programs to improve my skills on being able to cut films with

more ease. One specific problem my group members and I ran into was with pulling videos from

certain websites. In order to overcome this, I helped research different programs that would

enable us to get what we needed for our documentary.

III. Reflecting on learning

This assignment opened my eyes up to what life was like within the Warsaw ghetto.

Prior to working on this project, I was unaware of how poor the conditions were in the ghettos

and what the residents were subjected to during their time there. There are similarities between

creating a documentary and writing a paper when it comes to researching information, thinking

about your audience, keeping your purpose in mind, and making sure that you have a final

project that meets the assignment requirements. However, there are obvious differences such as

thinking about what media to incorporate into the digital composition. If you were simply

writing a paper, you can only use written word to express what you are trying to get across to

your audience. With a documentary you can use videos, pictures, music, captions, voiceovers,


3/4

and many more tools to display information. I believe that a digital composition is better suited

for a group project on this subject than a group paper would be. In my opinion, everyone has a

unique writing style and to try to create a cohesive paper would be much more difficult. I think

that collaborating on a film is much easier because everyone can tell whether or not something

looks fluid and makes sense.

The most enjoyable part of the creation of our documentary was the excitement each of

my group members displayed about our final project. We knew we worked hard to craft our

video and we were proud about the results. When you have to work for something, the reward

seems much greater. Our goals remained the same throughout the project; to make something

that would be able to intrigue our classmates and educate them on our topic. I noticed that our

group worked incredibly well together. I feel as though we communicated effectively and all

made contributions to the project. Personally, I feel that I spearheaded much of this assignment

and I kept us on track. I think this was a good opportunity to hone my leadership skills.

IV. Reflecting on the final product: documentary

Overall I was pleased with our Holocaust documentary. I particularly enjoyed our use of

testimonies to spark an emotional response from the audience in regards to our video. If there

was anything I could change about this project, it would be the length. I feel as though I learned

so much through my research and I wish I was able to share more with the audience.

Unfortunately when we went to present our project to the class there was a watermark on the

video and it was a bit frustrating because I was afraid it would distract from all the hard work we

had done. Aside from that, this work did meet my standards. I feel as though our documentary

was informative, emotional, and enjoyable to watch which is what our goal was the entire time.


4/4

In addition, the documentary met the goals of the assignment because it stayed on topic and was

geared toward an appropriate audience. We met each small requirement that was assigned

whether it was something as small as choosing a project editor to making a storyboard. I

thoroughly enjoyed creating our documentary and collaborating with my group members.

documentary reflection

Documents