The goal of the project was to make a video focusing on a topic with a concentration that each of us individually chose. While we all had to choose our own concentrations, we could still group up to a maximum amount depending on the concentration we chose. The concentration came with a topic that we had to come up with on our own. There were 6 concentrations we could choose from; News, Commercials, Weather, Short Films, Sports, or Documentaries. I chose to do a documentary on gun control. I chose to do this because I’m personally pro gun and believe that there should not be very heavy restrictions on the Second Amendment. I do think that there should be some restrictions within reason, like needing a special permit/ paper to own machine guns (which are legal to own in the U.S. you just need a paper from the government that costs a small fortune to get before you can even purchase a machine gun).

After my topic was approved, I partnered up with Shawn Polit and we made a list of ideas to incorporate in the script and the video itself. After we finished with the ideas, we started making a list of questions to ask two people that are on different sides of the gun control debate. We then started writing the script and revising the script. Once we had finished that, we started looking for potential candidates we could interview. I was to find a pro-gun and Shawn was to find the anti-gun. My first choice was the NRA, so I called their hotline and asked the operator if there was anyone in my local area that I could interview. I was then redirected to spokesperson Amy Hunter, who couldn’t do an in-person interview but could do one over skype. We set a date, conducted the interview on that date and we were finished. Shawn found the Louisiana Democratic Party and tried to contact them, unfortunately no matter how many times he called and asked for an interview, they never returned any emails or requests; so they were a bust. By the time we gave up trying to schedule an interview with them, it was too late to try and find someone else who was anti-gun, so we had to work with the NRA interview only. I went out to a shooting range with my mom to film her shooting. I then scoured the internet trying to find footage and music to use in the video. And all throughout this, we were recording the script and redoing parts that were broken. We just barley managed to finish it on time. The final video didn’t come out exactly the way I wanted it too (partially due to the minefield known as “Copy Right”), but it’s close enough and I’m satisfied with it nonetheless. The script wasn’t exactly up to my expectations and was missing parts, but I’m not the one who wrote it, Shawn did. But that’s one of the only parts I can really complain about. I liked the compilation of the people with crazy guns towards the end that I added for cometic effect, I’m personally very proud of that.

By choosing this concentration, I learned new things about gun control that I hadn’t known before. Things such as, a few hundred thousand crimes are committed with guns every year in the U.S. while around 2 million more crimes are stopped by civilians with guns, and most of them never even had to fire a shot. I didn’t really learn anything new in the filming field unfortunately. I wouldn’t choose gun control again because it’s a sensitive topic in the U.S. right now and I would rather have done something on video games, mainly because it would be easier for me to get B-roll on it due to the fact that I’m a hardcore gamer.