History from Above Silent FIlm

Project Description

As the Syrian Refugee Crisis worsened in 2015, many historians began comparing what's happening today in Syria to what happened in Europe during World War II. In our class, we did the same. We asked, why are similar problems occurring today as the problems that occurred 80 years ago?
This led to further, more universal questions: Why do people persecute others? Why do people follow cruel leaders? Why do people see others in need and do nothing? Why are civilians targeted in war?
We created black and white silent films to explore these questions and to develop empathy for the people involved, both from the past and the present.\
The faces of the films are ours. The situations are not, but they could be.

Silent Film Link

Purpose of our film & Screenshots/Blurbs

Poster for Exhibition

Research Paper

History from Above: My Experiences as a Group Member

Think about the moment groups were assigned all the way up until exhibition night. Write down all of the steps that you needed to take to complete the film. Who was mostly responsible for each of those steps? Who completed them?
If your group member were a superhero, what would their group superpower be? Write down one appreciation for each of your group members, something that you think that member did well.
In what ways do you need to improve as a group member in order to be effective in your next projects? Think of specific events that happened within your group.
Discuss how you think you worked as a group. What did you do well as a group? Think of specific tasks you did well together. What needed improvement?
If you had to do this project all over again from the very beginning, what would you have done the same? What would you have done differently?

1) In order to complete the Humanities project, we first started learning about the Vietnam War with the help of Mr. Botterman. After that, we started to focus more on WWII. When we learned information about WWII, we then started learning about the Syrian crisis that is currently happening. During the course of learning about these topics, we had multiple guest speakers come in and talk to us about their experience. The speakers mainly came for physics, but there was one man who talked to us about his experience on the USS Midway. After we learned about the different wars, we started to learn more about Hitler and see the similarities/differences between WWII and the Syrian Civil War. Then, we used our drone groups to pick a question to do research on. After you chose a question, you would choose what role you wanted. There was a Historian, Psychologist, & Political Scientist. With your role, you received a research binder and had to read/annotate four articles. With the four articles, you had to say what three reasons answer your question, and go more in depth about it. Throughout the weeks, you would gather more articles for your question and have multiple drafts of your research paper. After, we started to create Silent Films in Humanities. We had to write scripts and always wear a white shirt when acting. While filming, we were assigned cohorts to help us if we needed more actors in a specific scene. When our film was close to being done, we started working on our exhibition poster. For our poster, all we needed to do was add the information from our research paper to the poster and add pictures.
2) If Alé was a superhero, I think that she would be Robin. Just like Robin, he was first Batman's sidekick, and now he is equivalent to Batman and has the same amount of power. Also, Robin worked really hard to get where he is, and Alé is a very hard-worker. She works very hard to produce great work! If Estella was a superhero, she would be Superwoman. I say this because whenever Estella is assigned a task, she is very quick to get it done without any questions. She understands what she needs to do and when to get it done. In addition, Superwoman has a lot of strength, and that applies to Estella because she contains a lot of strengths as a group member, and always contributes.
3) As a group member, I think that I need to be less selfish. During the course of this project, I would mainly work on our Silent Film alone and not get help from my members. I didn't receive help because my group members didn't want to help, trust me, they were always willing to help. I didn't receive help because I wanted our film to be the way I liked it. My group members would always ask me, "Do you need help?" "What do you need me to do?" But I would always reply with, "No, I'm fine." "You can just work on whatever." Because of this, my group members were left with nothing to do. Looking back, I realized that I shouldn't be selfish and that I should always be open to asking for help. Also, I shouldn't take over on a project just because I disagree with my partner's work.
4) As a group, I think that we worked pretty well together. Since we were all friends, it wasn't really hard giving critique to one another. In addition, we all communicated with one another to see who would work on what. As I said above, some improvement would be splitting up the work evenly. Sometimes, one would be doing most the work while the other two would go talk to their friends and wander around.
5) If I were to do this project again, I would use my time wisely. Since I did not use it wisely, this resulted in me trying to get our film done on time. I would always push it aside and say, "I'll work on it tomorrow." "We have plenty of time, it doesn't matter." Little did I know that pushing it aside would result in me working my butt off to get it done on time for exhibition. Also, If I were to do this project again, I would try to film for once. For my scene, there was no acting needed, so I was unable to film for my scene. In addition, I was nervous about filming since I had never done it before. I was afraid of little mistakes that could've happened. Like the camera being shaky, my finger being in the camera, etc. But for one my group member's scene, no one wanted to film so we ended up having a peer do it for us. I would want to film so that I have experience and so I know what it's like.

Quotes from members

"I should've been a better member, and I felt like I sucked." Estella Fernlund
"I appreciate Anakarimhe because she would always get her tasks done on time, and help her group members." Paulina Guerrero
"We worked really and pushed each other to the best of our abilities." Alé Alaniz

Exhibition Reflection

Describe the Festival del Sol exhibition. What did the exhibition look like? Who did you talk to? What did you talk about?
What were you most proud of from exhibition? Why?
If there were a re-do, what would you have done differently to make exhibition even better? Why?

1) For Humanities, the Festival del Sol exhibition set up was very nice. We showcased our films in the K-8 Main Commons. We had tables set up with each group's poster and screenshots from their films. Also, we had three big projectors that showcased our films on repeat. Unfortunately, I was unable to talk to a lot of people due to the fact that not many people knew we were exhibiting in there. For the several people that I was able to talk to, I read them my question and explained the reasoning behind it. In addition, I also talked to them about my film and why we did it.
2) For exhibition, I am most proud of the information that I produced. I was very nervous before hand. I thought that I was going to forget all the information that was on the poster, and just go blank when someone would come up to me and ask me questions. But, that was not the case, I was able to present my work without any trouble and I was very relieved.
3) If there was a re-do, I think I would change the way of how the walk through looked to go to our exhibition. I would change it just because of the fact that not many people knew what was going on in there,

Learning Reflection

Content: Look over your History from Above Survey. Compare that to your research paper. In addition to that information that you already knew, what new learning did you acquire from this project? This could be specific information about WWII, Syria, psychology, human nature, how to write a research paper, etc
Filming: You explored a new genre in film. I call it, black-and-white-silent-film-comparing-two-historical-events-using-minimal-props-and-stock- -footage, or as Mr. Joshua calls it, “Experimentally Experiential.” What makes a good film using this genre? What from your film was well done?
Extracting from other films: Watch two other group’s films that you thought were well done. What did they do really well that you would have liked to incorporate into your own film, if you had more time to work on this?

1) From the survey, I saw a reason about countries denying refugees which is actually true. The reasoning was Governments are saying how, "We should be careful about accepting refugees because they might be terrorists." I wrote that reasoning in my survey, and now with the information from my research paper, it as a matter of fact, really true. A new learning was that I was able to understand more about the Syrian crisis. Before this project, all I knew was that there was a group named ISIS that took over Syria. But as the project progressed, I was able to learn why it started, who started it, etc. Also, in this project I was able to learn the terrible conditions that refugees go through.
2) I think a good film in that genre would be having actors that are serious and know how to compose themselves. In addition, I think that a good film would include different angles of your scene so you're able to view it in different perspectives. I think that from our film, all actors were able to compose themselves and act as they were told. In one scene, we had shots from different views, and I think that worked really well.
3) I thought that Sam and her group's film was very well done. I actually got the idea of having a compilation of the same scene but in different angles from her. They incorporated nice shots from different angles, and even though I was able to incorporate that strategy into one scene of our film, I would've liked to incorporate it into the rest of the scenes.