Back before the winter break and the PLP exhibition and everything to do with it, the entire PLP 10 class went down to Seattle. We went down there to learn about crazy people what does crazy really mean. By crazy, I don’t mean some sort of maniac, I mean a revolutionary, a visionary and a world changer. In Seattle we investigated people like Bill and Melinda Gates, Jeff Bezos and other truly “crazy people”. With our newfound information we were split into five groups and each group was to shoot a video on crazy and what makes crazy person crazy.
Before we left on our long haul to Washington we did a lot of thinking. Thinking and examining the traits of a crazy person and what the definition of crazy was to us. Based on what we came up with we chose three people off of a list of twenty five that we thought would be interesting to do further research on. My group, which consisted of Luca, Adlih and Melika chose Melinda Gates, Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos. We chose these three people because they all had some kind of roots in Seattle which would be useful for research on the Seattle trip. After all of the preparations were done, it was finally time to head down to Seattle.
The trip down was very early. I woke up around 4:30. After the waking up though, things went very smoothly. I fell asleep on the bus and when I woke up we were close to the first stop of the Microsoft visitors centre. At the centre we had a guide that essentially told us the entire history of Microsoft and how it came to be. This stop was very important for my group because the wife of the founder of Microsoft, Melinda Gates was one of our “crazy” people. At the centre, our group got lots of great footage for our video. This was also the first stop that I really started to realize what crazy meant to me at the deepest level.
The next really important stop for me was going to centurylink field. At this stop we got a tour of Seattle’s own NFL stadium. We got to see all of the ins and outs of the building, how it was built, why it was built, the cultural significance around it. We even got to see things like the rooms where the game gets broadcasted from and the actual NFL change rooms. This was really an amazing stop to me because it helped me see the outcome of a large part of Paul Allen’s crazy and what his hard work really amounted to.
One more stop that was really deeply interesting to me and really stayed ingrained in my memory was the mopop. In the museum we got to see so many displays on different things that are tied so close with the North American culture. We also got to see another side of Paul Allen. A huge amount of the things at the mopop were privately owned by Allen. The fact that Allen put these on display for the world to see, really shows his effort to create a legacy and create a positive lasting mark on society.
When we got back me and my group finished the post-production aspect of the video. Post includes editing, sound, voiceover, music, etc. I would say in this part of the video creation process I helped a lot in editing. Luca and I edited together and we each taught each other different editing tips and tricks. In the final draft of the video, I think our ideas and editing styles came together quite nicely.
With all of the places we went and especially the places that directly impacted my groups “crazy” people we gots lots of video clips, pictures, interviews and experiences to take back for our video. All considered, even though our accommodations were fumbled around and it was quite chilly outside it was one of my favorite field studies ever. Partly because of the destination, but mostly because of the topic we went there focused on.