heslava-uhwoacm

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SENIOR CAPSTONE PROJECT LINK

Please proceed to my YouTube link to view my Senior Capstone Project— DocuSeries “Teachers in the Pandemic”!

This series investigates issues specific to our public education system in Hawaiʻi through conducted interviews with former teachers and administrator, focusing on their insight and personal experiences in the Hawaiʻi Department of Education.

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FINAL REFLECTION (Week 15)

We are almost reaching the end, giving you my final thoughts as we are sprinting forward!

Mahalo piha kākou for following + supporting me on my Senior Capstone Project journey <3

This is just the beginning.

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Pre-Production + Production (Week 8 + Beyond) Pt 2.

Part 2 of my most recent update!

A clip of b-roll from when I filmed for my Intro Episode with the assistance of one of my classmates.

The intro episode consists of my introduction to my research + topic overall, a recap of my paper if you will. If you would like a deeper explanation to my research, please go to my Tumblr profile and see my pinned post! Pinned is my presentation on my findings + what my plan was for the following semester (SP 23).

FIlm day took place at a high school, and it took a couple hours as I kept messing up my lines. Took a long time but glad this part got done!

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Pre-Production + Production (Week 8 + Beyond)

Hi all! It's been a long time since I've been on here to provide an update. I missed a couple Tumblr Update Assmts but I'm finally back! I'm definitely going to overload on the updates, as so many weeks have passed by, and we are practically at the end, the HOME STRETCH y'all!

Struggles + Transparency—

First things first, y'all know the drill!! I've had a lot of hurdles to overcome as I worked on my Capstone Project. It has been quite a journey for me move into the production phase for a previous reason mentioned in all my updates; slow respondents. My aim was to interview 3-4 people.

In the duration of the past few weeks, one of the interviewees (retired HIDOE teacher) that initially agreed to interview with me never got back to me on meeting up with me. I contacted her + we spoke, but she never called me back. At that point it was way too late for me to even follow up with her, so I tried to find someone else instead.

Another interviewee of mines who I ended up interviewing, it was hard to align our schedules. I scheduled an interview with her early this month of April, but it got pushed back 2 weeks later. It definitely was stressful as I barely had time left to be in the filming stage of my project.

Another interviewee of mines who I also ended up interviewing, it took a while to get connected with him. And after connecting, it was also difficult to align our schedules since he's very busy and is now teaching outside of the HIDOE, in private school.

With these struggles, it has put me on such a strict time crunch with a week left in the semester. Not sure if I'll make it but I really hope I do.

Currently—

RIght now, I am editing my episodes amidst all the other late work + finals I have for other classes. It took a while to merge my videos to my audio wav tracks recorded through my lavalier mic, since my lav mics cannot be synced during recording with my camera.

Aside from what I am currently doing, things I have accomplished are conducting all of my interviews and filming.

Connecting + Reaching Out—

During the past weeks, as mentioned, I reached out to all my interviewees so that we could finalize our meeting dates, and record the interviews. Aside from that, I also asked a retired teacher if he could interview with me, and he is different from the original retired teacher I was supposed to interview. He agreed and we kept in constant contact for a week to figure out the best date, time and place to interview.

I was able to interview the retired teacher + now private school teacher in the same day. One in person and the other via zoom.

What's to Come?—

So now as I continue editing, I am taking off time from work in order to get all of my work done by the due date.

Once editing is complete, I will have to submit all of my episodes to Sharla. Fingers crossed I get it done!

[heslava-uhwoacm]

Pre-Production (Weeks 6-7) Pt. 2

PART 2—

Struggles + Transparency—

It isn't new by now that slow respondents has affected the progress of my project. Though at this point, I think I have to come to terms with just settling on the interviewees I have already for the time being.

One of my interviewees though, has been kind of hard to communicate with them on when to meet up for our initial meeting. It is because she is an instructor as well as a specialist/coordinator in the Education department at UHWO, so I don't really expect her to respond to me so quickly. But because our initial meeting is on the same day she teaches an afternoon class, I had to find a time that would work for her so I wouldn't be more of an inconvenience to her schedule. 

Being halfway through the semester, I am in serious PANIC MODE. I mentioned this to Sharla, and even though I try to reassure myself I’ll be okay, I definitely cannot get past how far in we are. I’ve definitely been feeling anxious about everything especially when I hear that others are making more progress than I am. And this is the case too because of how slow my progress was in the first couple weeks.

Currently—

As of right now, I am changing up my approach in how I’ll work towards production. I’m gonna be tweaking my interview questions a bit based on suggestions I was given.

Speaking of production, I am trying to push forward into partial production of my introduction episode. In the intro episode, I will be introducing myself and my topic, why I chose it, the whole background to it as well as re-capping my Pre-Capstone experience. I have been going back and gathering videos of me working on my research paper and just doing research in general. I am also creating a tentative script that I’ll be reading off of generally on things to cover in the intro episode. Aside from that, I of course will be at least creating a shot list for the intro episode

Connecting + Reaching Out—

In Week 7, I was able to meet with one of the CM instructors Sam Farinella. We met in person on Thursday (2/23) afternoon, so that I could look to her for guidance with my DocuSeries. Our meeting was quite short as I came from work prior to our meeting, and had to return back to work by a certain time. Despite our short meeting, Sam was able to give me a lot of suggestions from the interview aspect to filming as well. One of the best suggestions she gave me was to ask the same questions to each interviewee regardless, because you never know if one person might have a great story about one thing over another person. Since the meeting was shorter than I wanted it to be, I will be meeting with her again consistently throughout. Might be meeting with her again this week.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 2/28) afternoon, I will finally be meeting with Stephanie Kamai. In our initial meeting, I intend to try and get to know more about her and her background in the HIDOE. I will also discuss my project in depth so that we can both see how she can contribute best towards my project. And I will also be able to get a better feel of what topics regarding the HIDOE she can discuss in my DocuSeries based on her personal experiences or even experiences of those around her during her time she had spent as a teacher and administrator.

What's to Come?—

As mentioned in the above section, I will be meeting with Stephanie Kamai tomorrow afternoon.

Aside from connecting, I will be pushing into production of my introduction episode. It will just be filming of myself and having to get b-roll shots. May or may not shoot on campus for b-till but will have to do release forms for it first.

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Pre-Production (Weeks 6-7) Pt. 1

Whew! Digged up this behind-the-scenes of me working on my Pre-Capstone research, to use in the Introduction episode of my DocuSeries. Been doing quite a lot of digging of the documentation I've had of my journey through the CM 489 Pre-Capstone course.

Reflecting back a lot on last Fall 2022 semester and trying to get fully in tune with my topic as I prepare to partially move into my Production phase.

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Pre-Production (Weeks 4-5)

Struggles + Transparency—

At this point of the capstone project, I wasn't that much productive in Weeks 4-5. Still having slow respondents has put me at a halt which has been quite discouraging and has personally shifted my mind to focus on my other classes, and away from capstone. This has especially been the case as I have had back to back deadlines for projects in other classes.

Aside from other academic responsibilities, my work flow was quite thrown off and disturbed as my workspace at home was taken over by family who came in to visit for over a week. I did my best to still input my time primarily into homework to stay on track, but unfortunately that effort did not do so much for me. Moving my entire workspace entirely temporarily, as well as sacrificing some time to spend with my family that came in pushed me off schedule not just for capstone, but for all my classes as well.

In the duration that I had family visiting, I also was dealing with a lot at home. Without going too in depth, I have been dealing with the mental illness of one of my parents for quite a while now. It definitely was difficult to be away from my workspace at home where it is peace and quiet, and move to a room where I had to be around that parent more. This constantly is a worry for me when thinking about passing my classes, as life happens.

Currently—

I continue to await responses from my contacts. Aside from waiting on responses, I am continuing to create questions and laying out my plans for my DocuSeries. I am trying to breakdown what I would like in each episode. Realistically looking at my timeline, I am now planning to pivot away from the initial 5-7 episodes I had proposed last semester. I am now planning to have just an introduction. episode and possibly 3-4 episodes following that. As I try to lay out plans for my DocuSeries, I am continuously researching about documentaries and watching a variety of them as well. Being in the CM 402 class right now is quite helpful, as I am always watching documentaries and archival footage, therefore giving me ideas for my own film.

Connecting + Reaching Out— 

A bit of good news is that one of the capstone students emailed me and offered a possible contact. In the email, I was informed that this classmates wife is an elementary teacher. Upon reading this email, I responded and thanked him for his email. Additionally, I provided information about my project including my thesis and plans for my deliverable (DocuSeries), as well as the slides of my proposal presentation.

Another bit of good news is that I had someone else offer me some support in finding a contact, I am hoping that gives me some progress.

I will also be sending out an email to an important contact. It is projected to be sent out by tomorrow. I had to show my email for revisions so that my email did not contain too much information regarding my project. I try to avoid overloading information in my emails when it is just an initial email.

Whats to Come?— 

In terms of contacts, as mentioned earlier, I will be sending out an email to an important contact by tomorrow, and at the latest by this week Wednesday (2/15).

In the planning for the production of my DocuSeries, I will be reaching out to one of my teachers Sam Farinella for guidance, suggestions, and support. I am currently taking her Web Doc Series course (CM 322). It is helping my process in researching documentaries as well as my filmmaking documentaries skills.

In general, in these upcoming weeks I will be doing my best to get back on track as I am definitely behind right now. Will probably be stepping back from secular work to have additional time to catch up.

Although I will be doing my best to catch up, I will also try to give myself some recovery time due to what was explained in the ʻstruggles+transparencyʻ paragraph. Definitely the point made in last class about being kind to myself is for sure taking effect in these upcoming weeks.

[heslava-uhwoacm]

Week 2-3 (Pre-Production)

We have now come to a close with Week 3, so where are we at now?

During Weeks 2-3, the beginning phases of planning has begun.

— Workback Plan

During the completion of the workback plan, it served like a timeline and a checklist for me for the entire semester. I was able to lay out the goals to achieve towards succession and completion of my capstone along with *tentative* deadlines. It is also indicated whether the goal has already been completed, in-progress, or still need to be started/to-do. I inserted detailed notes for me to refer to for certain goals, to serve as a reminder for myself on what entails this goal, and what may hinder me.

— Production Equipment List

One of the tasks on my Workback Plan was a Production Equipment List. This task is currently in-progress as I have to include additional equipment/gear to my list as I continue to solidify my ideas for my DocuSeries. Though, as I worked on this list, I was able to break down the required materials and equipment for the production of my capstone project by sections. I have it broken down by; Materials, Software, Video Equipment, and Audio Equipment. Each listed requirement is also indicated in which phase of my project I will be utilizing it (Pre-Production, Production, Post Production). For some items, it is to be used in more than one phase. It also indicates the amount of that item I need and whether or not I need to rent or purchase it, if not already owned by myself.

— Connecting + Reaching Out

Beyond laying out my plans for the project, I began to try and connect with people who maybe would like to be a contributor to my project, and be my interviewee. I have been constantly discussing my capstone project with others in just about every aspect of my life. When discussing my plans with coworkers at James Campbell High School, one of my coworkers had told me she has friends that were former DOE administrators and teachers. She told me that they had experiences that could be supportive to my project, and that they may be willing to be my interviewees. She is reaching out to them first to see if they would be interested to work with me. So currently, I am awaiting a response. I am also going to be reaching out with a contact I was given last semester. I have been working on curating an ameil to her.

What's coming up?

From here on out, I will be completing the curation of my email to my contact as well as possibly create emails to any new contacts that I hope to interview.

Also, since I will be creating a DocuSeries, I will continue to research and view different documentaries to deepen my knowledge and understanding of documentaries. I will be attempting to brainstorm what I want my film to look like as I look at different documentaries and figure out what I like. Since I am in the Web Doc Research course this semester with Sam Farinella, I intend to reach out to her for support with my DocuSeries. Run my ideas by her and see what kind of input or suggestions she may be able to give me.

[heslava-uhwoacm]

Hi everyone!

Just posting a Youtube link to my proposal presentation presented last semester for the Senior Capstone project! A bit more in depth to what my project is about + my plans.

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"Teachers in the Pandemic" Precapstone Proposal Presentation FA 2022

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UHWO ACM INTRO

Hi everyone, this is my intro! :)

Its nice to meet y'all and I hope to get to know everyone and their projects better this SP 23 semester!

Photography | Film IG: h.eslavavisualz