PWI Schools - ID# 441

Maine South
Documentary
Entry Description

Students of color share their experiences attending a predominately white institution.

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

  • 4/28 9:01 pm - +Interesting and important topic, in need of more b-roll -Check camera focus, background for interviews could be improved. Right now it is a brick wall.
  • 4/8 8:48 pm - This was a fascinating documentary. I'm going to out myself here. I'm a teacher at Maine East. What is so interesting about this documentary and about our school district at large is that Maine South with its dominant white culture literally sits less than 3 miles from Maine East: one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse high schools in the country. KEEPERS: Really nice work piecing together all of the varous voices from the students. They all had incredible stories and they told them well. Kudos to the editing. It was well paced and again, the throughline of the documentary was very consistent. The cold open and 8mm look at the beginning was effective at hooking me in. The vibrancy of the interviews juxtaposed with the raw, log look of the broll was an interesting aesthetic choice. IMPROVEMENTS: I wanted to hear some natural audio of some of these interviewed students in and around school or at home. Or hear some sounds of the school itself. Just having sounds come from talking heads and music doesn't help tell the whole story. Let me hear the school as it is naturally. Use broll and nat sounds as transitional beats from story point to story point. Consider having each interviewed student be featured first in broll with nat audio and then we see them interviewed. Regardless nat audio should almost always been part of a documentary like this. It's a huge part of the storytelling. Use more than one music cue. This story has multiple emotional beats. Let Down is a great song, but it's not going to serve each of those beats. There should be at least 3 songs here to properly carry this story. Consider changing up your interview background. This is a minor note and I can understand why you might have wanted that uniform look but consider putting each of these students in an area of the school they find to be most comforting. The differing background would be a fresh visual change for the viewer. Also, whenever you interview multiple people, try to flip the frame, meaning put each interviewee on opposite sides of the rule of third line. Overall, this was a really impactful story and it was cool to hear these voices from a district I know very well. Keep telling stories!
Judge 1

Positives: -Good and topical concept -liked the sound and effects in the intro -got lots of great one-liners out of subjects -consistent sound throughout

Improvements: -i understand the stylistic choices at the beginning, however much more metaphorical b-roll would have been a lay-up, half the shots felt very irrelevant -stats belong more at the beginning and also don't feel the necessity for a comparison between 2010 and 2025, not much notable change

Judge 2

Positives: Great Job! really brought to light to diversity as an ever all pinning issues in the Chicagoland area. I thought the passing and the way the interviews were structured captured this very well. Also, great interchange of archival and b-roll to help tell your story.

Improvements: Your score is reflective on bonus points, which you had a lot of for the way you told your story, and remain relevant in the context of your experience (age being a factor) but though this is very good, you need to be careful with editing. there are some redundancies in your story telling. maybe next time have a bunch of people give you feed back just about the editing. Also, I would explore bringing adults into the conversation. How do you think everyday people in Chicago feel? don't microcosm the issue by keeping it inclusive to your school. look up to higher examples of the imperfect journey this country has had with civil rights and race relations, and amplify your school within that context. otherwise great job!

Judge 3

Positives: The dialogue from interviews was well edited to create an interesting story. The editing choices (visual and audio effects, pace, creative shots) also created support for the story in a really interesting manner. As a whole, the entire documentary was very well done and had heart and soul.

Improvements: The lighting in the interviews with the dark curtain seemed too dark. May it have been an aesthetic choice?

Judge 4

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Judge 5

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