Every year, the sophomore-level teachers in the Media Arts Program task their students with making 3-4 minute documentaries with the purpose of informing viewers about a local issue. The project is called “Be the Change.”
Sophomores interview numerous professionals in the fields of their given topics and create an immersive video using filming techniques and engaging text choices.
Payton Steffen and her group chose the topic of girls’ participation in sports for “Be the Change.” This intersects with her personal interests, as she’s a member of the varsity basketball and lacrosse teams. Her group members, sophomores Emma Williams, Kathy Bui and Dawson Yeh are additionally all members of sports teams at SHS (girls’ basketball, field hockey and boys’ volleyball, respectively).
“I think [this topic] is really important because we all have really positive experiences in the sports we play, and we want other people to have those experiences too,” Steffen said.
To focus on both local and global aspects of gender participation, Steffen’s group interviewed athletic director Rick Ellis and former athletic trainer Caitlin Steiding for more localized information, while also interviewing Christie Monger, president of WNBA team the Los Angeles Sparks, to get a more general view of the issue.
However, for students like Simone Moolchandani, the “Be the Change” topics can be very fluid. Moolchandani’s group, which includes Giselle Adams, Alaina Retamo and Anaya Shah, who originally planned to research the loss of ocean biodiversity. However, as the group started to conduct interviews, they switched their topic to focus on conserving ocean wildlife through stopping pollution as it was a recurring problem experts brought up.
Additionally, Moolchandani’s group conducted multiple interviews through Zoom meetings, as many of the biodiversity experts they met with were researching in the Pacific islands of Palau, near the Phillipines. Many researchers were open for a chat with the students.
“We just email the interviewees we have in mind and say, ‘Hi, we’re a group of documentary students. Can we interview you?’” Moolchandani said.
These projects, along with others from every grade in MAP, will be entered to receive awards at the annual SMASH’N event on May 30 in the McAfee Center. Students and family can attend this event to see the most acclaimed “Be the Change” projects.
“We’re all really excited to do interviews and make a project we’re so interested in,” Steffen said.
