PSA-final assesment

Most of all, I have learned how much planning and time goes into making just one minute of quality film. We had to take the time to come up with an overarching theme or purpose of our PSA, as well as a target audience. Those two focuses would determine the language, facts, music, and visuals we would use. For the story board, we came up with three or four topics that we would cover in the minute long film with text. Each group member came up with background facts for a topic, and we compiled them and ended up narrowing our storyboard to just a few keys facts that we wanted to convey to our audience of voters in VT. It seems like filming was one of the easiest parts. Just one group member, Nate, took an hour or so to gather a group of people at his home, Slade, and filmed a live smoking scene. We will use just the one visual as background, and have our facts come across the screen one at a time. We really wanted to emphasize a group of people peacefully using marijuana in a pleasant setting, while pointing out logistical reasons why it has unjustifiably become illegal in society.
Our group worked together okay. It could have been more efficient and cooperative. We never met as an entire group outside of class, and so email was a key to communication. We were all really busy, and had conflicting schedules. The final product is due in two days, and we are not finished. I emailed my group members a few hours ago to figure out how and when final editing will take place, but haven’t heard back.
I think that we were effective in educating the public about an issue that effects the social environment of our state, and many places around the world. The key point is that, by making marijuana illegal: excessive time, money, and jail resources are wasted on a so called “crime” that is relatively passive.
Our intent is quite clear, because we state our intention at the end of the PSA and give resources for viewers to act upon what they’ve seen. It is educational because we use real facts that have an effect on real people in mainstream society. Everyone should be aware of the implications of marijuana legality. We didn’t really use props, movement is no too intense, and we haven’t decided on background music yet. My hope is that my group can agree upon a calm, familiar song that won’t offend anyone or give bad connotation to our subject matter. Media of any kind is certainly good for activism of any kind, including environmental, because the media is what people see on a daily basis in our society. The media is how messages are relayed to millions of people, across state and national borders.