Harris Institute Students Shoot Documentary in an Hour

With no lighting kits, or boom mics the students had to pull out their cellphones to make some movie magic happen.

The Digital Culture students at the Harris Institute got a lesson in guerrilla film making, as they were asked to plan, shoot, add music and edit a documentary—all in under an hour.

With no prior warning, students showed up to Kathleen Farley’s ‘Digital Culture’ class and were told they had to produce a documentary about “Life at Harris Institute” in sixty minutes. As if the time constraints weren’t bad enough, they also found out they could only use the equipment they had on them. So, with no lighting kits, or boom mics the students had to pull out their laptops and cellphones to make some movie magic happen.

They ended up shooting a series of sit down interviews, as each student talked about the culture at Harris, the workload, their journey there and the Harris staff.

“The staff is really cool. They’re a bunch of highly intelligent and quirky and interesting creatures from all over the place,” said Hussain Dossa, in his interview.

The idea behind assigning the Instant In-Class Documentary was to teach students about the reality of working within time and technical constraints and how limitations can provide focus and spur remarkable creativity.

Schools mentioned: The Harris Institute