On the first round of the third year at Liger, I was one of the members in the “Community Documentary” exploration (a type of project to explore new thing and find our passion). In this exploration, we were creating some products that would capture information and allow communities to share with future generations.
On the first week we were learning some basic skill, such as interviewing skills. We also thought about what kind of product that we want to create. We found that 4 products that suited our needs the most; podcasts, videos, blogs and photos, therefore we decided at the end of our initial investigation to utilize these products. The facilitators asked us to identify our interest level in each product in order to split us into groups. Each group would work on a particular product. I was one of the 8 members in the video team. Making videos was my second choice, however, I tried my best to make this product as good as possible. “I really want to be an agent for change in Cambodia and encourage people into education, I learned how to use a video camera and started to look at the process around making a documentary. By the end of the first week, I felt I was able to make a worthwhile contribution to the team.
Even though we had the idea of making videos but my team and I still did not know what topic we needed to focus on yet, so we had a pre-trip on the second week to explore the topics. We visited four villages in Kampong Speu; Srey Sompong, Tropaing Leap, Chrok Popul, and Prey Ansear. It was a two days trip and I felt really anxious the day before because I was not sure how to plan for this pre-trip. I found it harder in class than being in the real situation. Because our exploration collaborated with World Renew we were introduced to World Renew students as we traveled as we were working with them. Working with them was really pleasurable. During the trip, my team were very flexible and had a positive attitude, this made the trip more enjoyable and productive.. We received a lot of good information for each of our products from this pre-trip.
We started to gather all the information that we got from the pre-trip when we arrived at school the following week. My video team’s idea was to create three videos with three different topics. They are; education for Srey Sompong, jobs for Tropaing Leap, financial institution for Prey Ansear and Chrok Popul. We have made the decision of having one topic for two different villages because of these two villages have the same community bank, which let the villager borrow or save the money with 2 % interest. Next, two-day trips to create our products was planned, while we shared our knowledge of using cameras, video camera, creating blogs, and podcasts to World Renew students at our school. Our team had to ensure we planned our project very clearly as we were a large team so we wanted to make sure everyone knew what they were doing and when things were due.
The trip went to plan. We set up our equipment, then we divided into groups based on the products so we could interview people, as planned, with specific topics for each village. we had to walk a lot during the trip in order to collect information and images for our product. The main problem the video team faced was the fact we were not able to meet with the people we had planned to interview because they were out for farming. Fortunately, we have two World Renew students from our team, who could help us figure out a solution to that problem, by introducing us to different people that we can be interviewed. We also had meetings for each night during the trip, so we could discuss as well as sharing experiences with what we had done during the daytime trip. Even though it was a challenging and tiring day, our team still showed our optimism and enjoyment for this trip, consequently, the video team got a lot of good video and information.
All the videos, photos, and information were assembled by each team. The video team uploaded the video and picture that we needed from all the of the cameras. The next thing that we had decided was which program that we should use to edit the documentary video. Most of my teammates recommend ‘Premium Pro Adobe’ because it makes a good quality video and many of the team have prior knowledge of how to use this product. Even though I was not familiar with this programme I decided, I decided to use it because of most of my teammate’s agreement. I was not the only who did not know anything about Premium Pro, so we learned together as a team. “After we had become familiar with and learned how to use the programme each team member started the job they had been allocated to. with Premium Pro, we started to do our jobs that have roled for each person in the team. Cheta and I were editing one of the three videos which were for Srey Sompong, the topic was education. I gave a lot of ideas to Chetra for our video and felt a great deal of trust from working with Chetra. We had a lot of challenges since Premium Pro is an advanced program and one of the main problems was our laptops were not working well. Moreover, there was not enough information for our video, so we needed to contact the other team to create a better video. We have lots of comments as well as changes from our facilitator (Cindy) for our video as the result, our video was created successfully because of our hard work.
When we had finished this product, we had planned to show them to the villagers, so we planned our final trip on 3rd October. In order to show the villagers our product, we needed to prepare the materials for the presentation such as; projectors, speakers, blank sheets to project etc. For this trip, we divided our team (base on our product) into two because we were going to different villages at the same time. We needed to be on the bus at 5 am to be on time in order to present to each village. After we arrived there, we started to set up the materials to present. Unfortunately, I had not given the correct video to the other team, I took full responsibility for this and felt so bad that I had let my team down. As they arrived there, Chornson who is one of my members call me on the phone said that they did not have any video, so I swiftly took my USB from my bag that has a copy of Tropaing Leap village video to the driver, who drove back from Tropaing Leap to get the USB, so they can present. I felt so frustrated that time. However, my friends encouraged me by saying that it was not my fault, and it can be a good experience. when it came time to present, I did it well and was confident. After my team and I had shown the video to the people in Srey Sompong village, which was about education, it seemed like it was an effective video. They said they really want to have their children have a good education. They also told us that it was the right thing to do and encouraged us to keep doing it.
I felt really righteous to be a part of this exploration because I have helped to change people’s opinions by just making a video. I hope there will be future projects on community documentary exploration so we can keep helping our community. I really want to be an agent for change in Cambodia and encourage people into education