My group and I came up with the idea by sharing our photos, things we love, and our deepest fears. Turns out, we all feared death in some way or form. Yet, the exercise required the formation of a question and we ended up with “How should we face death?”

We figured that asking people about would make for some interesting material. We picked three people sitting outside the class, and asked them if they would like to participate. They agreed, but were still hesitant, so I tried to light the topic as much as I possibly could (we’re talking about death after all). It is very important for the interviewees to feel comfortable as that affects their entire performance on screen. Once they felt comfortable, they were challenged with figuring out their answers as some of them never thought about death to that extent. Another challenge was the lighting and audio quality. To find a place with good lighting meant compromising on good audio and vice versa. We decided to priorities lighting as film is a visual medium predominantly. I still had to use my flashlight to make the shot better, which was a fun experience.

Overall, I learned that a good project could be achieved if you had dedicated people working on it with you regardless of time and quality constraints, which fortunately was the case for my group. We were inexperienced and rushed throughout the whole experience, but we made it work with intensive discussion and planning beforehand.

As a person inexperienced in documentary, this week’s reading was important to understand. I never realised that documentary films are as creative and diverse as the cinematic ones. To me, documentary was confined into one particular form – expository. Furthermore, I’ve always thought documentaries are supposed to mirror our existing world. Instead, it’s the infinite recreation of our existing world.

-Anhar Al-Shameri

This studio was my first preference and I’m ecstatic to be enrolled in it. My previous studios focused more on TV Production and radio production, so I decided to finally do something different i.e. making documentaries. I wanted to diversify my studios and make the most out of this course. Also, working in a studio that has a greater motive like empowering communities and people sounded idea to me.

I hosted and interviewed multiple times on my last two studios and that taught me a lot about working with people in an interview environment. I know how to make people feel comfortable, which is very important as their performance is negatively affected on the screen.  Hopefully, I get to contribute that skill to my group. Moreover, I did some behind-the-scenes roles like producing and directing, which improved my leadership, organizational, and delegation skills. I had to make runsheets as time is very critical to live broadcasts.

Both of my studios were collaboration intensive, more so on my TV production studio than my radio one. I worked in a group of 10 to 20 people in my first studio. Whereas, I only worked with three other classmates on my radio studio. Fortunately, I had good experiences with both collaborations, we had instant communication and a shared dedication to make the projects as good as they can be. I always found connecting with group members helped us work better together, rather than just focusing on the work we have to do.

This semester I hope to unravel more truth about myself by exploring as many options as I can. I hope to know what I’m good at, what I suck at, and ultimately what I can do with these revelations.

– Anhar Al-Shameri