Thank You, Mrs. Viggiani

I was asked to do this project nearing the end of my senior year in high school. The teacher for my "TV Production and Digital Communication" class received an email from the counseling department looking for a student to secretly help workshop an idea for a video to celebrate the occasion of this award. I was volunteered and given the opportunity to work on this instead of the final project for the class. I think this came out better than what I could have made at the time.

During brainstorming, there was not any type of guideline that should be followed. All the counseling wanted was some sort of video. I thought that it would be a good idea to get a personal account from the people that Jennie interacted with, both on a day-to-day basis and even reaching out to students of the past. Over the next month, I took time out of my lunches and contacted people to sit the down for a short interview. Having a mix of group interviews with personal interviews gave me a greater understanding of who Jennie was since I never had interacted with her, and I think coming into this blind gave a fantastic experience to really highlight the pieces of her character that an unbiased person might gloss over. The editing of this, however, was very tedious. I had multiple hours of footage to comb though and a project that just seemed to be growing and growing in watchtime. With the inclusion of a small musical bit, student interviews, and coworker interviews, there was too much to cut without making giving the recognition she deserved. 

Working on this project was one of the best things that happened to me. It taught me a very human lesson: that there is more to a person than what you see. And yes, this sounds cliche, but I started to understand my peers a lot more because of it. Many of the people I interviewed were in my graduation class, meaning that I had known them since I was 5 years old. With 12 years of knowing a person, opinions form and the way you perceive them becomes solidified. Listening to these people's stories about how that expectation I had of them was actually hiding something a lot more personal, something about that really stuck with me. Since then and because of this project, I strive to treat people the way I did while learning that people are more than just what you can see, and because of that I say Thank You, Mrs. Viggiani.