Enjoy - thanks for the great semester!
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Yet Another Class
I added another interview and edited out some sh-tuff. Happy letter writing and Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, November 15, 2013
More Happiness.
I convinced the computer to work!
I am finishing the rest of my interviews over the next week or so. Then begins the extensive editing process. Whoo!
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Video Fail
I spent four hours late last night editing the video. Only for the blog to tell me it's "too large." I don't have time to figure that out before class, but in the meantime, here's a short clip!
Stupid blog.
Not even sure if this worked. But here it is! Hannah is a Children's Librarian at Miles City Public Library.
Stupid blog.
Not even sure if this worked. But here it is! Hannah is a Children's Librarian at Miles City Public Library.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Happiness and Stuff
Obviously, this video is a work in progress. I have decided to interview people from Miles City and the surrounding area, which is where I grew up. I find it interesting to think of how a rural setting can influence one's ideas of "happiness" and "jobs". The brunt of my interviews will be taking place this upcoming weekend when I go home. I have arranged video interviews with:
Debbie Phelps: Custer County District High School Counseling Center Secretary
Natalee Phelps: Barista at Unique Creations, Photographer
Birch Drew: Walmart Assistant Manager, Photographer
Hannah Nash: Children's Librarian, Miles City Public Library
Scott Elder: Owner, Great Grains Health Food Store
Geneal Bott: Stockman Bank Secretary
Debbie Smith: Owner, Gone to Seed
Drew Smith: Seasonal Construction, Traveler
Lewis Carlyle: 5-year-old Kindergarten student, Seasonal Iron Man
John Wilhelm: Retired Mechanic
Tracey Gierke: Co-Owner, Blue Moon Casino, Silver Star Casino
Delbert Moore: Professional Cowboy, CT Feeders
Cody Weyerbacher: Owner, Weyerbacher Farms and CT Feeders
Toni Weyerbacher: Stay-at-Home Mom
I think these interviews will prove to be incredibly enlightening. I know the video editing will take a lot of time, but I truly think that this project is best illustrated in video format.
P.S. The slight joke concerning academic papers and Kirk's name was meant to be funny. Not offensive.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
On Happiness and Hard Work
Hoeing sugar beets sucks. I mean, taking a sharpened garden hoe and standing in 102 degree heat in June to weed out unwanted plants from rows and rows and rows of planted sugar beets is not something I would suggest for a fun summer vacation. We weren't child laborers. We were paid. A little. We were part of a farming family. Working in the summers, even when it sucked, was just something that we did. Everyone had to help, so we did.
I had it easier than my older siblings. I was born amidst a change in agriculture. By the time I was of age to really help on the family farm, the beet company had shut down in our part of state and the farmers in our community were struggling to survive. We had recently acquired a feedlot and were planting as much alfalfa and silage corn as we could, in attempts to service the 5,000 cattle we fed each winter. I grew up struggling to place a foot on both sides of the farmer/rancher divide, hating riding horses and loving to drive the 4-wheeler to irrigate after dinner.
I saw many a farmer lose entire crops to a bad summer storm. I watched ranchers lose herds to terrible blizzards and strange disease. I watched family's come and go - struggling to stay afloat in a world where Agriculture meant imported produce from Mexico and Chile and no one really knew how to pay the bank back the hundreds of thousands of dollars they owed in debt. But, I also saw the simplicity with which these people lived. I saw the happiness on their faces as they watched a small seed grow to a record crop and a bum calf grow to be a prize heifer.
I ran out after high school, with flames under my heels, determined to get away and "make something of myself". I was determined to make a living for myself outside of agriculture and escape from the chains of debt and small incomes. I ran so far away that I forgot about the smell of sagebrush in the spring, the sound of crickets while irrigating at dusk and the way you could actually see the corn grow in July. I found myself stumbling home the summer after my freshman year of college, working for the government in the most rural areas of Eastern Montana. And I found a sort of happiness in the work of the people that I met. I saw a contentment that I hadn't seen anywhere else. And I envied them for it.
The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to love your job. On the brink of graduating college and storming the world to find a career, I find myself fortunate to have come from a family where the word "work" and "lifestyle" were synonymous. I was taught to do what I loved, even if it meant I would be poor the rest of my life. And I have never been more proud of where I come from.
For this project, I have been compiling videos of people from my community concerning their views of "jobs" and "happiness". For research, I have found articles such as Benjamin S. Caunt's "Exploring the Causes of Subjective Well-Being: A Content Analysis of Peoples' Recipes for Long-Term Happiness," and watching Michael Pritchard's "Happy" documentary.
I had it easier than my older siblings. I was born amidst a change in agriculture. By the time I was of age to really help on the family farm, the beet company had shut down in our part of state and the farmers in our community were struggling to survive. We had recently acquired a feedlot and were planting as much alfalfa and silage corn as we could, in attempts to service the 5,000 cattle we fed each winter. I grew up struggling to place a foot on both sides of the farmer/rancher divide, hating riding horses and loving to drive the 4-wheeler to irrigate after dinner.
I saw many a farmer lose entire crops to a bad summer storm. I watched ranchers lose herds to terrible blizzards and strange disease. I watched family's come and go - struggling to stay afloat in a world where Agriculture meant imported produce from Mexico and Chile and no one really knew how to pay the bank back the hundreds of thousands of dollars they owed in debt. But, I also saw the simplicity with which these people lived. I saw the happiness on their faces as they watched a small seed grow to a record crop and a bum calf grow to be a prize heifer.
I ran out after high school, with flames under my heels, determined to get away and "make something of myself". I was determined to make a living for myself outside of agriculture and escape from the chains of debt and small incomes. I ran so far away that I forgot about the smell of sagebrush in the spring, the sound of crickets while irrigating at dusk and the way you could actually see the corn grow in July. I found myself stumbling home the summer after my freshman year of college, working for the government in the most rural areas of Eastern Montana. And I found a sort of happiness in the work of the people that I met. I saw a contentment that I hadn't seen anywhere else. And I envied them for it.
The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to love your job. On the brink of graduating college and storming the world to find a career, I find myself fortunate to have come from a family where the word "work" and "lifestyle" were synonymous. I was taught to do what I loved, even if it meant I would be poor the rest of my life. And I have never been more proud of where I come from.
For this project, I have been compiling videos of people from my community concerning their views of "jobs" and "happiness". For research, I have found articles such as Benjamin S. Caunt's "Exploring the Causes of Subjective Well-Being: A Content Analysis of Peoples' Recipes for Long-Term Happiness," and watching Michael Pritchard's "Happy" documentary.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Living
I've decided to change my subject. I wonder how many times we'll do that? Anyways, I've decided that I am seriously interested in creating a video project that revolves around how people choose to live. So, here goes:
1) Ever since I was little, I've had a fascination with people that choose to live in extreme ways. It is still a major life goal of mine to debut in a Jackass movie. For reals. I devoured videos of extreme sorts icons, like Shane McConkey and the neighbor up the road who toured Vietnam on a motorcycle and established new climbing routes in Patagonia. I wanted to travel and learn how to live life unconventionally. My greatest fear was (and is) living a life without really living at all. While my skiing and mountain biking skills are all but exceptional, I wanted to embody the people I watched in those videos who my dad called "crazy." I started wrecking motorcycles and accepting dares that lead to more skinny dipping endeavors and uncomfortable social situations than I would care to remember. I ever broke any bones other than the ones in my toes, but I walked away with enough scars for my mom to call me "accident-prone."
I want to explore the minds of people that live this way. Through interviews and research, I think it would be fascinating to explore this topic. What drives people to BASE jump off of buildings, antennas and cliffs? What motivates people to drop out of college and become rambling adventurers? What made Jack Kerouac take to the road and Christopher McCandless disappear in the Alaskan wilderness? Why do we love adrenaline?
I think the first form of research will be interviewing people. I want to video conversations with people who live in an extreme way, as well as people who work 9-5 job. I want to ask: "What is your greatest fear?""If you had 30 days to live - what would you do?" "Are you happy?" I want to be surprised by people's answers. I want to understand what drives us to live the way we do. And I want to better understand my own desire to live a life full of living.
Through videos, documentaries, iconic books and other mediums in which the sense of "adventure" is explore, I mean to better understand this idea. I know my idea is a big one as of now, but I know that with research, my project will become more focused. For now... I'm going to go watch a movie about climbing in Chile...
2)
My idol, Shane McConkey, died in 2009 during a 2000 ft cliff jump in Italy, when a parachute malfunctioned. Shane lived extremely. He was a professional skier and BASE jumper, who worked for Red Bull, Sessions, K2 and many other extreme sports brands. He appeared in countless Matchstick Productions videos and commercials, spurring my young self to decide to do stupid things like jump off the roof and onto the trampoline with my skis (Mom still doesn't know about that one)... I think that looking at how Shane chose to live his life, despite the struggles and risks that came with it says a lot about the importance of truly living. As his wife, Sherry, mentioned in the movie, "McConkey," Shane's biggest fear wasn't dying. It was having to work a 9-5 job.
Sarah Burke was a professional skier, who died in 2012 in an accident on the mountain. She pioneered the way for women to be a part of the skiing culture that exists, including fighting for the women's halfpipe to be a part of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Her face plastered mine and my little sister's walls, where we looked to Sarah for inspiration on how to ski. For years, my little sister told people, "When I grow up, I wanna be a ski bum." We lived in Eastern Montana, 3 hours from Red Lodge and almost 5 from Bozeman, where skiing was accessible. We started skiing at a young age, but only went a few times a year - meaning we never became exceptional skiers. My favorite part of this video is when Sarah says about the mountains, "It's where we met, where we play, we live and hopefully where we'll die." What about that lifestyle on the mountains draws us in a way that makes it worth dying for?
1) Ever since I was little, I've had a fascination with people that choose to live in extreme ways. It is still a major life goal of mine to debut in a Jackass movie. For reals. I devoured videos of extreme sorts icons, like Shane McConkey and the neighbor up the road who toured Vietnam on a motorcycle and established new climbing routes in Patagonia. I wanted to travel and learn how to live life unconventionally. My greatest fear was (and is) living a life without really living at all. While my skiing and mountain biking skills are all but exceptional, I wanted to embody the people I watched in those videos who my dad called "crazy." I started wrecking motorcycles and accepting dares that lead to more skinny dipping endeavors and uncomfortable social situations than I would care to remember. I ever broke any bones other than the ones in my toes, but I walked away with enough scars for my mom to call me "accident-prone."
I want to explore the minds of people that live this way. Through interviews and research, I think it would be fascinating to explore this topic. What drives people to BASE jump off of buildings, antennas and cliffs? What motivates people to drop out of college and become rambling adventurers? What made Jack Kerouac take to the road and Christopher McCandless disappear in the Alaskan wilderness? Why do we love adrenaline?
I think the first form of research will be interviewing people. I want to video conversations with people who live in an extreme way, as well as people who work 9-5 job. I want to ask: "What is your greatest fear?""If you had 30 days to live - what would you do?" "Are you happy?" I want to be surprised by people's answers. I want to understand what drives us to live the way we do. And I want to better understand my own desire to live a life full of living.
Through videos, documentaries, iconic books and other mediums in which the sense of "adventure" is explore, I mean to better understand this idea. I know my idea is a big one as of now, but I know that with research, my project will become more focused. For now... I'm going to go watch a movie about climbing in Chile...
2)
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qfTTesptRk
My idol, Shane McConkey, died in 2009 during a 2000 ft cliff jump in Italy, when a parachute malfunctioned. Shane lived extremely. He was a professional skier and BASE jumper, who worked for Red Bull, Sessions, K2 and many other extreme sports brands. He appeared in countless Matchstick Productions videos and commercials, spurring my young self to decide to do stupid things like jump off the roof and onto the trampoline with my skis (Mom still doesn't know about that one)... I think that looking at how Shane chose to live his life, despite the struggles and risks that came with it says a lot about the importance of truly living. As his wife, Sherry, mentioned in the movie, "McConkey," Shane's biggest fear wasn't dying. It was having to work a 9-5 job.
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U87cReyC7a4
From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq32prjmwLw
Rory Bushfield, Sarah's husband, talks about the death of his wife. I think it's profound that the spouses of these people who died living in such an extreme way are so sure to accept that "they were doing what they loved." Sherry McConkey, Shane's widow, has said many times that she would never have asked him to stop, even though they had a young daughter. There is something in living a life this way that makes it worth dying for.
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