Film

Weekly Report 12/16/2017 to 1/02/2018

Over winter break, I spent a lot of time working on my original work. I began by researching to consolidate the content of my film, and, in doing so, learned so much more about the rights of individuals, especially those that many people take for granted, like the rights to think and own property. I spent a lot of time reading through the hundreds of articles listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and was surprised by how many rights I had assumed did not need to be written out. I realized that, while these documents provide us with our basic human rights, your more specific, mostly legal rights in the United States are listed in the Bill of Rights section of the Constitution.

At the beginning of the year, I had been considering studying constitutional law due to my interest in the Supreme Court and the way that this court is able to judge laws in accordance with the Constitution. However, in meeting with multiple criminal defense attorneys, I realized that career path would not be the one I had imagined. As it turned out, many of the Supreme Court and “constitutional” cases stem from human and civil rights violations, which are disputed at the local, criminal level first. As the case progresses, it may climb up to the highest courts, but it does begin at the local level. This helped me to feel more excited about choosing criminal law, as that had always been my main area of interest. In learning more about all of the intricacies of human, child, and civil rights, it seemed to reaffirm my enthusiasm and passion for this subject.

As for the design of the film, my initial plan had been to film with a whiteboard, using lots of drawings to communicate the information. However, I decided to try something new and instead create designed paper cutouts in order to reuse my drawings and be more precise in them, using a combination of pens and colored pencils. This ended up being very successful and much more visually interesting, allowing my hand movements and stop motion effects to become a part of the film as well.

While I still enjoyed learning about my topic and finding innovative ways to communicate what I had learned, using visual art and videography to produce this product was the most enjoyable part of the project. It was not hard to force myself to spend my break time working on this project because of the artistic aspect of it that was involved. In my last entry, I wrote about my thoughts on possibly studying a more creative field in ISM two next year, such as graphic design, marketing, or even event planning. Of course, this is not to discredit the incredibly insightful experiences I have had this year; working on this product has simply given me a new perspective on where my interests and talents seem to align, yet allowing me to do so within the confines of my topic of law.