The final product of my 60-second documentary is completely different then what I originally envisioned for my project. Initially, I wanted to produce a documentary about an entirely different topic that would not have located myself physically in the documentary at all, along with myself narrating entirely from a third-person perspective. After studying the moral and ethical implications of doing documentary work and writing Documentary Analysis Paper 2, I decided to change my topic to something a lot more personal. I was already struggling to write my script for the first documentary since it was not as personal to me and would have required a lot more research to execute. As an alternative, I decided to produce a documentary about the sense of home I feel at Muhlenberg, particularly through the lens of living in Prosser Hall. I wanted to share my story living in Prosser as both a first-year student last year and a resident advisor in Prosser this year.
I decided to focus on my childhood home for the 60-second documentary to provide viewers with the background and context to why I feel a sense of home and belonging as a Prosser resident. After realizing that I found a sense of home living in Prosser from embracing and comfort in its imperfections, I thought about the imperfections at home growing up. I remember during my teenage years feeling so embarrassed and ashamed about my childhood/family home due to its imperfections, that I barely have any photos of memories from my teenage years at home. This is why I made a choice for the documentary to focus on particular childhood home photos, including myself, to share a more universal message about embracing your home and both the good and bad aspects of your life. I also raise questions about how societal expectations and ideals, such as materialism and the American Dream, have impacted my perception of what home is. How have these ideals, stereotypes, and expectations impacted other people’s attitudes towards what they do and do not classify as a home being? Do socioeconomic status and family backgrounds affect one’s opinions about their own home and the homes of others? Years of trying to hide aspects of my life have made it more challenging for me to look back and think retrospectively on my own history.
Ultimately, I saw the conclusion of this documentary as a transition to share a story about how I have redefined what home means to me while building a home and community for myself and for others at college. Locating myself by only talking in the first person during the 60-second documentary allows me to engage in self-scrutiny to a greater extent through explicitly showing how my own background (experiences of insecurities and imperfections at home) allows me to do the work that I do from a particular lens.