99 Seconds Reflection
This project is about striving for change by making an argument addressing an issue in a 99 second video. The issue that I chose was illuminating daylight savings (DST). We had to research our topic and then write a business letter. The business letter had to be persuasive for a real-world audience. As I think that California should opt out DST and stick to a year-long spring forward schedule, I wrote to Congressman Scott Peters. Then we had to make a two column script detailing how we would make our video. Which consisted of funny persuasive dialogue as well as supportive images. When the script was done we had to make a voice recording. The program we created it on was Audacity. We edited the pictures and our recording on Final Cut Pro. Finally, the video was posted on YouTube. This project was very valuable to me as I discovered more about myself and how to write a persuasive piece. The business letter can lend itself as practice for writing to future employers on why I should be hired. What helped me be successful in this project was reminding myself what do I want the audience to take away from this. Countless times I had the agonizing task of deleting useful information just because it wasn't short enough and therefore I had to use my time wisely. For future students partaking in this project it is imperative that you cite your sources. The majority of the time I researched I didn't cite till the very end and that made it even harder for me. The benefits of my teachers instructing me on this process was they helped me distinguish what was truly beneficial to my argument, and breaking down the intricacies of video editing. This project has made a tremendous impression on me and I thank my teachers for that.