Caitlin
ABOUT ME
My name is Caitlin and I’m a freshman at DHS. My favorite subjects in school are history and English. In my free time, I love to read, listen to music, and watch movies. I’ve always been interested in what goes on behind the scenes of films- what it's like to write, film and, direct one. Another topic I’m interested in is psychology, more specifically the phenomenon of superstitions. Part of my family is extremely superstitious, while the other isn’t. This leaves me wondering about questions like where superstitions come from, why people believe in them in the first place, and how they’re passed down through generations.
my PRoject
I’m excited to be able to combine two of my interests for my Idea project. I want to make a documentary about the science and history of superstitions in our world. I am going to research, film, direct, and edit the documentary. There’s a lot of unanswered questions about the topic of superstitions that I want to answer during the creation of this film.
my MENTOR
Wendy Krantz is a senior producer for the ABC News/Hulu longform unit. She recently joined ABC News after 25 years at CBS News, where she produced, wrote and edited stories with top talent on nearly every broadcast, including 60 Minutes, and its weekly edition, 60 Minutes II.
Over the last two decades, she’s produced award-winning pieces for news magazine and hard news broadcasts, and primetime, covering some of the biggest stories of the day, including Columbine, 9-11, the War on Terror, Katrina, the death of Michael Jackson Sandy Hook, the Charleston church shooting, the Boston Marathon bombings, Parkland, George Floyd and the 2020-21 pandemic.
She’s the recipient of four Emmys, a Business Emmy, two Edward R. Murrow awards, a Dupont and a NABJ award.
Wendy is a married mother of three teenage girls living in Connecticut.
Final Reflection
Overall, I enjoyed my research on superstitions, and I learned a lot. However, figuring out where I really wanted to go with my project was often timely and stressful. It took me months to decide how I wanted to present my research, which made me procrastinate, which slowed down my project as a whole. While I did like the topic I chose, I wish I had taken more time at the beginning of the year to determine how I really wanted to execute my project and make it a more enjoyable experience overall.
PRP #5
PRP #4
PRP #3
PRP #2
For this round of mini goals, I mostly focused on research and finding a narrow focus for my documentary. I gathered a list of guiding questions and picked the ones that interested me the most and that really helped me make my project less broad. I ended up making my end goal more specific which will benefit me while working on my next mini goals. I think for my next mini goals I want to make them more ambitious because I now have a better idea of how I want my project to come out.
MINI GOAL #3
For the third round of mini goals I want to have a storyboard or outline for the documentary, pre-interview some people that I might want to feature in my project, and conclude my research by finding just a few more resources.
PRP #1
My first mini goal was to purchase the editing software I plan to use when the time to edit my documentary comes. I spent lots of time learning how to edit clips and use effects so I will feel prepared to edit in a few months. I left my expectations for this goal broad because learning how to use the software is something I plan on working on for most of the year. I want to have as much experience and practice with it as possible so that’s why I decided to start this goal early.
Mini goal #2
For my second mini goal, I have a few different goals: to start gathering research from websites, to create a rough storyboard that I plan to narrow down later on, and to maybe start filming.