When I began brainstorming what to do for my final project, I went through many different ideas. Most of my ideas were lighthearted and simple, like the projects I had done in the past. It wasn’t until I realized that I could create something based off of one of my roommate’s poems and use it to create a project with more meaning and depth. After talking to Jaidyn for some time, we realized that not only have we both experienced trauma caused by our fathers but we know plenty of other people who have gone through similar experiences. I decided to do my project on what it’s like growing up without a father figure and how it can affect one’s mental health. For me, I was raised half my life with a dad who was my knight in shining armor, it wasn’t until later on that he began losing himself and taking his anger out on his children. To this day I still reminisce about the days when he was a happy person. For many others, they never got the chance to experience a life with a father figure and instead had to go through the turmoil of trying to figure out who the other half of themselves are or what could have been. 

Once Jaidyn finished revising the poem, I was able to start recording videos. My main goal while recording was to capture moments in life that felt vulnerable and raw. I wanted my final project to feel like a home video, like the ones that make you look back on the good times. I used my Nikon D5600 while recording the videos, and the two clips from when I was a child were videos my dad recorded. I found the music off of freesounds.org and recorded my audio with a snowball microphone. 

While editing I knew I wanted to keep it simple and sweet. For the text I used keyframes and changed the opacity and placement of the titles.

By: Emma Lyddon