The project that turned out to be an even bigger success for me, however, was my final project for the semester. My first idea was to create a documentary on religion, which seemed to be about as far as my ideas extended. I had so many ideas going in so many different directions, that it would have been nearly impossible to create one project which encapsulated them all. I hoped that, somehow, the project would come together during the process of interviewing and researching the topic. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. The process I went through in order to reach the final product was frustrating, to say the least. The main problem I had was the combination of an overabundance of ideas and a lack of organization. I really had no idea what the final product would look like. Even after I figured out the question I wanted to answer with this video, I still had a lot of trouble answering that question and bringing it into its proper form.
The instructions my class received for our final projects were extremely vague. This loose instruction allowed me to express myself more creatively than would have been possible given an assignment with a more rigid outline. But the problem still remained. I had too many ideas to sort into just one project. I was dreaming too big. The issue of format was one that took me most of the semester to resolve. My initial intention was to create a documentary about religion on a college campus. When that idea went flat, I developed something else. I decided to create a module-based website with video interviews featuring students at MSU talking about their religious beliefs and experiences. The idea was to create a resource where confused teens and college students could search for "the answers," or at least learn something about what other people's religions are like. However, much to my dismay, this idea didn't work out either.
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