Final Project Proposal

(It looks like my proposal for some reason never actually made it onto the blog's page... Let's try again.)

For my final project, "The Magic School (Shuttle) Bus," I will explore the goings-on aboard one of the university's shuttle buses as it makes the rounds across campus taking students from their dorm rooms to the bars and then back again. On Thursday/Friday/Saturday nights, these buses are a veritable treasure trove of captivating characters and even better stories. I think it would be very interesting to see just what some of this university's students are up to on a random night out on the town. Having ridden on the buses myself, I can safely say that a couple of hours riding around will certainly turn up some classic and unforgettable scenes.

I envision my final project as having a mix of observational and confrontational scenes. I will include, for instance, long shots of the masses of people that crowd the buses during the night's peak hours. But I also plan on including video of actual interviews with bus riders to get a sense of who they are, where they're coming from, where they're going, etc.

Obviously, I do not yet know who I will speak to on the bus for this project. However, I plan on speaking to a diverse assemblage of people to make the piece as universal as possible. I do think it would be interesting to feature the bus's driver as one of the piece's prominent "characters," but that will ultimately depend on what type of person he/she turns out to be.

Since this is a "night in the life"-type story, I hope to achieve all of the recording in one night. However, that may not be possible, and I might need to do several nights' worth of work to make the piece complete. I do not know what exact date I will shoot everything, but I do not plan on covering it near the end of the semester.

As far as media is concerned, I am currently debating whether to produce a video/photo package or an audio slideshow. The former would be more lively and interesting to view, but also a logistical challenge given the cumbersomeness of a camcorder and tripod. An audio slideshow would be a simple but effective way of introducing the stories of several characters, but would obviously lack the impact a video piece could have.

I plan on renting the necessary equipment from Tawes. I own a digital recorder and could also borrow a professional camera from my parents.