Our studio focused on different stereotypes, such as gender, racial, and even lifestyle. After hearing the prompt of making a video depicting a stereotype or proving why stereotypes don’t apply to all people in a specific group, we began to bounce ideas off one another. Some of the ideas we had were very simply and easy to do; they mainly played off of other ideas we had seen and videos we saw in class. One idea that we really liked was almost interview style, asking other students and faculty questions about different types of stereotypes and cutting it to make an impactful video. Then we began to decide what type of stereotype we wanted to use and settled on lifestyle.

    Finally we decided to use one’s stereotypical nerd. The raw idea started with the stereotype nerds aren’t cool as they tend to stay inside and not play many sports. We then tried to decide how we wanted to prove thought wrong by strictly showing a nerd doing things a nerd wouldn’t normally be seen doing. After hearing feedback from others we wanted to show a transition from nerdy to cool and tell a story in the process.

    The original footage had poor sound so we were told to refilm it on a different camera; however, this footage turned out even worse so we decided to cut the sound all together. Trevor pieced together music to add character and emotion to our video. We thought this still wasn’t enough so we went back to our instructors who gave us the idea to add footage from other videos to make it more clear what was happening. Trevor and I watched many YouTube videos trying to find the perfect sections to add to our video. We found a minecraft scene show our nerd doing stereotypical nerd things, a few famous nerdy characters, a jock “dabbing” for our transition between nerd and cool, and a Tom and Jerry fighting to show our bullying.

Our video starts with Trevor as our full blown nerd complete with a nerdy outfit and doing homework and playing the nerdiest video game we could think of, Minecraft. Then the next day at school Trevor is confronted by a bully, William.  After we see William messing with Trevor and then even shove him on the ground, a jock, Fisher, walks onto the scene and helps Trevor off the ground and offers to throw the football with him. This is when Trevor first begins to transition into a cool nerd. We see him flip his hair, ditch the taped eyeglasses for sunglasses, and develop his cool walk. He then returns home and finds his laptop, takes off his sunglasses, and goes back to doing his homework and playing his video games. He goes back to being his original nerdy self to prove he doesn't need to change to make others happy.

Problem: Our studio prompt was to make a video depicting a stereotype or proving why stereotypes don’t apply to all people in a specific group.

Solution: We made a video showing a nerd transitioning between cool and nerdy to first depict a stereotype and then show it doesn’t apply to all people as he easily becomes what is considered cool before deciding to stick with the nerd lifestyle.

At the outset of this project, we were introduced to the idea of our studio via examples. Some of these examples included a humorous video that dissected stereotypes in a funny way, and the collage pictured above of "stereotypical" faces of different ethnicities.

During our brainstorming and storyboarding process, we weren't really sure what to do in response to the prompt. It took some feedback from our coaches and NuVu instructors, and our idea changed a few times. However, an important idea we settled on was the idea of creating something that reflected our local community. We decided to create a documentary, centered on the idea of talking about talking about race. We wrote a series of questions, including "who do you talk about race with" and "do you talk about race with friends." We grouped these questions into "threads." These threads included personal experiences with talking about race, the people an individual talks about race with, and the discussion of race in society.

After deciding on the overall direction of the documentary, we went out and began to film a variety of All Saints students and faculty around campus. The filming process took approximately 3 class periods, and we immediately jumped into the editing process of our captured footage. Using iMovie, we compiled the footage and structured the film around the best responses and interviews from our footage. It took some careful consideration, because some of interviews contained content that could seem controversial, particularlly when taken out of context (which would naturally happen in a brief documentary like this one). Our Studio Directors and a Nuvu instructor helped refine our edit, which resulted in a more complex structure that let us explore both personal and local issues, as well as broader issues relating to the media and society. We are all proud of how it turned out.

Link to video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9XGWvhLJ6NoT1JaY1RKX2RXS00

Attached to this post is our final video. We are all very proud of how it turned out.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9XGWvhLJ6NoT1JaY1RKX2RXS00