Audrey Gyolai

Space: The Final Fund-tier
I believe that Space exploration is important because it creates jobs and interest in STEM fields. This helps motivate young people to go into STEM fields, which is currently a growing field. Space exploration helps fuel changes in technology and helps power innovation here on earth.

Making a documentary is a really daunting task. The process from idea conception to final project is a loooong process. This project took countless hours of research, script writing and editing, storyboarding, filming, editing, and even traveling. I did a lot of assisting and proofreading. I read over the script and worked with Liz to make the script coherent and relevant. I worked closely with Jan Wittry (Media relations, Glenn Research Center) to schedule interviews with Gen. Stringer (Director, Plum Brook Station) and Nicole Smith (Director, Orion project). I had to work with Jan and my team to set up a date that worked for all of us. I also helped with the filming aspect of this documentary by being in the film and by helping my teammates film by holding up a huddleboard.
The person that showed the most grit in this project was definitely Elizabeth. She was responsible for editing the film. Unfortunately, neither Bryce nor I had a Mac, so Liz did all of our editing. She had problems because her computer didn’t have enough space for all of our footage and because iMovie kept crashing. She fixed these problems by moving some of her file onto an external hard drive and by downloading another movie editing program. Another way our team showed grit was when we came in on Martin Luther King Day and worked for five(ish) hours. We spent that day focusing on finding B-roll for our video.

For me, the hardest part of this project was focusing our topic on an issue. As we did more research, we realized that funding for space exploration and privatization of space travel aren’t problems. We ended up altering our project and changing our focus to encouraging more spending and encouraging more youth involvement.

I was lucky to have partners that challenged my general determination. Both of my partners were really good at striving to finish ahead of schedule and always double checking our work. Good is never good enough for either of them. Their determination helped make me conscious of my pacing and pushed me to make a better product.  Likewise, I think I did really well on goal striving on this project. My goal for this project was to receive a C-SPAN award. I frequently checked up on the StudentCam Twitter to look at what other teams were doing and to determine what my group did better and what my team could improve on.