Production Report

For my first production report, I am choosing to share with you part of my script that I will be later recording and embedding into my video. Because I have not decided if this will be just a voice over, or if it will be me talking on screen, I have just decided to share with you what I am going to say.

After a lot of consideration, I have decided to change my project. I will no longer be talking about how college athletes don't need to be paid. I am going to now focus on college acceptance and the admission process, and how getting into a good school doesn't just mean good grades.

Audience Questions:

1.
For this raw material, I decided to upload a script that I will be incorporating into my project. I am going to do a video essay for this, but because I haven't decided where I want this clip to go, and how I want to present it (voice over, or me on screen), I thought it would be best for me to just put up the script.

I know that video clips, voices, and sounds are a huge part of a video essay. It isn't just about what you're watching, it is about what you hear as well. I think I will probably end up going on screen and talking about this myself because I'm not sure what I would play for a visual aid with this, but I haven't completely decided on that yet.

2.
The production of this raw material has gone pretty good. It is a personal experience of mine so I just had to basically write it into a story. It was really easy for me to write it down because I have thought about it for a couple of years now. My next challenge is going to be figuring out how to present this. If I do it as a voice over, I have to find appropriate background pictures or clips that will be on screen during my voice over. If I chose to go on screen myself to tell this, I will have to stay calm, look relaxed and figure out something to do while I talk about this so my viewers don't find me awkward.

Content Outline:
Because I have changed my project, this doesn't really go off my project outline, but I am thinking that this script could be part of the opening because it is a personal story.  If I redid my outline this would be a personal story from when I was applying to college.

Raw Material:
All through high school, the number one thing that people told me was to get good grades so I could go to whatever college I wanted to go to. I was always pressured to stay focused in my classes and to get all A's so I would have a great GPA. People never really talked about how important extra carriculars were in the admission process, and they never told me how much playing a sport would really benefit me in when it came time to apply.

Throughout my four years in high school, I took honors and AP classes so I could get a good GPA and have a great academic transcript. I also played sports (for fun) and was apart of Student Government, other clubs, and did hours of community service. What I didn't know was that I needed to do even more than that, and I shouldn't be playing sports for fun, I should be playing them to someday make a college team.

When applications came around, I was confident that I would get into the schools I applied to. I knew that I wasn't going to be accepted into any Ivy League, even though I had over a 4.0 GPA, I just knew that I wasn't "smart enough" to make their 10% acceptance rate. My dream school was the University of Southern California, and I thought I did everything right to gain admission. Even my teachers and counselors told me not to worry about it because I was a shoe-in. Sadly I learned that wasn't the case, and I guess I didn't do enough to even be put on the waitlist. I just couldn't understand why that was the case and what more I could have done to catch their eye.

What really bothered me though was when my athletic friends got their acceptance letters. I had two friends go to schools that I would never even dream of applying to because I knew I wouldn't meet their standards. However, my friends, who had lower GPA's, test scores, less club actives, and community service than I did, got into those prestigious schools because they were wanted on their sports teams.

I learned the hard way that college acceptance really isn't just about doing good in your classes. Sure, you have to have good (but not great) grades to get into a great school, but there are other things that the admission teams look for on your application. Although they only say that extracurricular activities are important to them, they will never tell you how important they actually are and how you need to be a perfectly well rounded applicant. Colleges will never say that if you are good at a sport that their school offers, they will look at your application less, and your athletic skills more. They will never come out publicly and say that if you are a minority, a first generation America, a foreigner, a single mother, a less privileged scholar, etc. you will get bumped up in the odds of gaining admission.

Every year, I know that so many worthy applicants are turned away just because they don't have that one unique, or special thing about them. I know that so many people meet the requirements that the schools list on their website, but don't even get a second look on the application because they just weren't well rounded enough. I think it is so wrong to have an admission process like that. Colleges are for learning and should accept people that are academically successful, not just the people who are a minority of some type, or someone athletic. If the admission process really is like this, then we shouldn't be taught our whole lives that we only need good grades. We need to be told that grades aren't really all that matters, and sure they are important, but now, they might not even be the most important.