We were halfway into Quarter 1, and I still hadn’t produced a single minute of footage for my first video essay. At this stage in my project, my vision was to produce three informative videos in which I would explain a particular media literacy skill. This was somewhat in line with the project plan I had curated at the end of my Junior year, except then I had planned to produce twelve such videos — three each quarter, one one every month. (Yeah, crazy. I know!) I quickly realized at the start of senior year just how not feasible that would be.
Yet with only three videos planned, I still found myself struggling. Even three was still an ambitious project with an overwhelming workload. I wrote up a tight schedule in which I would research and organize a storyboard outline for the first week, record my voice overs for the second week, film all of the necessary shots the third and edit the last. I had reached a point of difficulty while researching for the first one and quickly fell behind. My research ran into the week I alloted for voice over work.
One Monday in class, I had an impromptu check-in with Sarah. I had hitherto been so caught up within the particulars of constructing the video essays that I had almost forgotten the entire point of my project. I embarked upon this project of producing informative video essays because I sought not just to inform Gen-Zers of the importance of media literacy, but to civically engage them and promote greater dialogue concerning the political and social issues they cared about.
I realized that producing a series of informative videos could only accomplish the first part of my three-pronged goal. That day in class, I had to stop and ask myself, “How much of a concrete impact could a couple of instructive videos over loosely-related topics concerning misinformation and propaganda truly have?”
It’s safe to say that by then my original vision was deeply fractured. I had to pause and revisit the reasons I started the project in the first place and revise how I wished to move forward. It was at this point that I decided to refocus my efforts for Quarter 2 on creating opportunities to directly engage my peers. I organized various events, from the debate viewing party held on campus one evening, to spreading the word about the Global Youth Climate Strike in Houston.
After a full quarter of interacting with my peers and soliciting their own perspectives on political literacy and sentiments regarding youth engagement in politics, I had an insight that totally altered the course of my project. I realized that I could leave a more impactful impression with my target audience (Gen-Zers) by documenting their own opinions and feelings on the topics of civics, media literacy and power rather than attempting to teach them about it. So that’s what I set out to do.
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