Techotic

Jason Voight made this social networking documentary for his Documentary Media class in Spring 2007.

So what’s the documentary about? I wanted to focus on the current trend of online social networking. This was for a class (Documentary Media), and I ended up getting an A in it, partly because of this project. After Dr. Murphy okayed my topic, I went ahead and made a list of what I was going to cover in this film. This was only going to be 13 minutes, which was the limit. I knew it would be tough to cram it all into one, but I think that I did it.

Choosing the people to interview was easy. I immediately drew up some names, such as my friend Liz from the radio station (she likes Myspace for the bands), my friend/co-worker Marc (who likes to meet people through groups), and one of my past professors Dr. Tom Foster, who was one of the very few faculty members that used Facebook. Just about everyone agreed to be interviewed, except for Mike Turk, for the obvious reasons. Everyone that I interviewed on-camera provided great nuggets of information, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to include all the great quotes. I realized that this was always a director and producer’s common tough situation, which is choosing the right stuff. I remember doing an interview with Dr. Foster, and it lasted 20 minutes, in which he provided some great details. However, again, I wasn’t able to include everything. Maybe I should make a deleted scenes version?

Getting some of the b-roll was another fun part, as I logged in many miles of footage and in my car. I went from Greenville College to Alton to the loop to Larry Flynt’s place (which comes with a funny story, by the way). Sneaking the cameras into the mall was not too bad of a challenge, either.

Social Networking Online - Part 1

Social Networking Online - Part 2