Capstone Origins

In Shepherd University's Communication and New Media Department, there comes a defining moment for every "comm. kid" to embrace what they have learned in span of their studies. This moment all comes together in a class commonly known as Capstone. Throughout my student career at Shepherd University, I have produced many projects. Whether they be music videos, political campaign advertisements, websites, or motion graphics projects; they have all required me to sacrifice quite a bit of time and effort.

As we all know, many softwares take an extended amount of time and commitment for one to consider themselves proficient. That being said, I am willing to do anything and everything it takes to show the University and Department of Communication that I can be professional by meeting deadlines while producing a completely original project that will not only leave a lasting impression, but keep my audience wanting more.

photo by: Christine Walters

In Capstone, I will embrace the resources that are available and take on the challenge of creating a clear, well produced, and professional project. Not only do I want to show everything I have learned in Communication and New Media; I want to project that I am indeed someone who is dedicated to becoming an employable candidate for a potential job.

Luckily, I had already been streaming through
 various ideas as to what I would like to produce as a Capstone project. I thought it through in previous semesters. As I took the trail to discovering what I really enjoyed throughout my career here at Shepherd, I found that there really wasn't anything in the Communication and New Media that I wouldn't enjoy doing. I truly enjoy each and every kind of project that I have been assigned to do. That being said, I enjoy each project in its own unique way. But then one day, it hit me. Even as a teenager, I always wanted to produce some type of documentary film that would explore a particular area of study.

Early last semester, I rooted through events that took interest to me in the daily newspaper. A few of them were cheesy, while the others were just plain boring. One day, I was driving to school past the Antietam Battlefield and stopped for a coffee. In the shop, I found a local paper for Sharpsburg, Maryland that featured previous pictures for this reenactment event that occurred a few years back. I grazed through and found an advertisement stating that there was an upcoming Reenactment of The Battle of Antietam which would occur on a local farm field minutes away from where I live. That's when it hit me. I have always found not only the people, but the culture of reenactments to be very interesting.

For the next few days, I worked on contacting Barbara Mowery, the Media Coordinator of the 150th Battle of Antietam Reenactment which was to take place in September. She was very sweet, but also strict as she originally intended to charge me $760 just to document the event as a spectator. I nearly gave up, but then remembered that there was always my good friend and teacher, Todd Cotgreave from WSHC (the campus radio station). He and I worked with Barb through email and negotiated getting me a press pass as he offered advertising the Reenactment through the station. To my surprise, Barb agreed to make my presence as a videographer free of charge with one stipulation. All I had to do was write her a two page proposal stating how and why I wanted to document this event. She was truly impressed and embraced the idea that I wanted to study the Reenactment and make a film about it.

On the days of the event, I went alone to Manor Church Farm. The farm was literally only a few minutes from where I live. For those days, I documented footage on my experience. The event was literally like being in a completely different world. Not everyone in this world gets that close to re-living a realistic, historical event. I feel very privileged to have experienced what I did those two days. I have over 6 tapes (hours) full of footage that I will be using to document my research. I want it to focus on the semiotics of reenactments and how these semiotics generate meaning. It will basically be a project involding reenactments as memorializing or cultural communication theory.

Not only will this project appeal to history majors or civil war buffs, but also to those of you who do not know what it is like to experience a Reenactment, yet alone talk to a reenactor. The culture is truly captivating and so far I have learned quite a bit. The challenge for me will be going through all of this footage, logging and capturing, and figuring out exactly which clips I would like to put to use. I also want to include some type of voice over.