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One academic article that I found to be related to my project is an article referencing what music documentaries are and their effect on people. According to the article, musical documentaries are not some new idea coined recently. In fact, Music documentaries have been prevalent within the documentary scene since the early 60’s. Still, nobody really knows this because of the lack of attention that these types of documentaries have received over the years. In this article, the author then goes on to explain one potential reason: viewing these documentaries through the eyes (or lens) of a fan rather than a viewer, taking away the validity of the project. The article explains more in-depth about the history of these documentaries, and what they mean for the future.

This contributes to my project because it helps go over the history of music documentaries which I was not previously familiar with. Knowing the background behind how these documentaries were shot as well as the thought process that went into shooting each scene has helped change the way I think in regard to how I would like to shoot my own music documentary. Providing that context also has helped me start thinking about what types of shots and scenes can be beneficial for the audience and what scenes are not. It all comes back to the message I would like to convey.

I have not made any progress. Frankly, I’m stuck between doing a music documentary or pursing my app business plan that I created last year. I plan on solidifying my idea in the upcoming weeks so that I can begin working on it.

Chanan, M. (2013). Music, documentary, Music Documentary. The Documentary Film Book, 337–344. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-92625-1_38 

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I don’t have an idea for how I want my project to look so it was more challenging trying to find a piece of media that relates to what I want to create. I landed on a media project I created and completed in 2019 for my internship program. The project was a short film encompassing the 2019 Washington DC Pride parade in which we had to capture footage of the parade and use that to convey any message we would like, using whatever audio we liked. We had decided to focus on the fashion aspect of the parade. The skills I would need to make a similar project are access to any form of camera that records video and editing software needed to cut and blend the footage together. We also had permission to use any song we wanted as long as we made sure to put we didn’t own the copyrights to said song. I’m not sure if that same flexibility would be allowed for our current projects, but having the freedom to choose any song I wanted for the project is what made the project fun for me. Choosing audio and songs that I want for different projects is something that I enjoy doing and would want to be the basis for my project.

The background knowledge that I would need to complete my MA project is background knowledge in knowing how to operate a camera and potentially a microphone for that camera as well. Also knowledge of how to work in editing software as well as knowledge of conveying the message that I want through music.

Griffin, C. (2019, June 11). Pride fashion-2019. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWTKVPytpyw&t=48s

Connor G Blog Week 1

The brainstorming assignment really helped me gain an understanding of how to think about and effectively create my MA Project. As for the first week, I am still ironing out the details of what my project will look like, however, some ideas that I have right now are to frame it toward music whether that be an album or a music documentary of some sort. I was also a little confused on how to phrase my core questions but at its base I want people to understand that audio plays just as much of a significant role as a visual component. For right now, I am still deciding on whether I would like to work on music from Chicago to the world or work on the music scene on the East Coast.

I could not find a link to more music-related works, but I did find a link to a podcast that primarily relates to the audio aspect of my work. The podcast was centered on African-American football players and the response from different sports commentators on their performance on and off the field. This audio from the podcast itself was a very clear and concise quality making it easy for the listener to enjoy. As for the content, there were a lot of examples of the disparities that took place in regard to how African-American athletes were discussed only in terms of athletic ability, while their white counterparts were discussed in terms of intelligence, leadership, and virtue. The podcast goes on to highlight how this is still a problem in today’s sports world.

Citation: tu, mkasznel. (2019). Masters Doc Mixdown. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.