I expected this weekend to be a weekend where we worked a lot on our projects, practiced with our media kits, and listened to a couple lectures, and though you might say that’s exactly what it was, it was also fun and exciting and new. In between the work and lectures and practice was laughter, achievement, and new experiences. Getting to work with a video camera, watching the editing process of a video, figuring out how to make a script, and realising we weren’t going to do all the interviews we expected. Of course there was still learning, assessment, and reflection, but it wasn’t like normal school work. There was discussion and realisation, something you don’t often do when working in school. Another thing was actually reading some of the stories of LGBT people, some stories were happy and nice, others unfinished, messy, and sad at times.

I was told not to do a reflection of the weekend segment by segment, so I won’t, but I will say that we did work, then listened, then worked, did some more listening, and then proceeded to do more work on the project. That’s not a timeline, that’s a description. I also asked a lot of questions, something I don’t normally do, and not just about the work, but about other people, so you could say I was “social” this weekend, compared to my normal everyday interactions with human beings. Oh, and I also learned about the gender unicorn. Yes in fact it is as exciting as you would expect. Don’ forget the rule of thirds and and camera positioning, one of the most riveting lessons of the day. It is key to doing interviews, but you are still sitting there in an uncomfortable chair listening to a person do a lecture on it. A lot of things we learned are vital to a documentary with interviews, but like many would say, the learning process isn’t always the fun part. This weekend was still a lot of fun and eye-opening, and though we still have far to go, our group has come a long ways since a month ago.