 So, the final project for this class has never been a traditional final. I don't think any of the professors have actually ever taught it as a traditional final. It made more sense as a final project. And for a very long time, I had the students record a vlog review of their final, and they could choose any film in the class, including the short films. And the only requirements were that they were not allowed to just talk about the story. They actually had to talk about other cinematic elements that they had learned throughout the quarter. So, as I've been changing and moving and shuffling, I've always kept that option for students as a final, just because then they're not feeling so overwhelmed, like, oh, I've got to get cameras, I've got to get a light reflector, I've got to get microphones. They can just very quietly write something down, record it. That way they have that process handled, upload it to a host, cite their references. It's really a simple process for an individual. I started adding group projects on, and the group projects were different kinds of scenes, artistic scenes if they needed to be, or a documentary style of film. Most of the students who were creating the vlog, the individual option to have their own voice in their own space, were generally feminine or non-traditional students, whereas other students who were often white affluent male or female often would create the scenes, the more creative works. They would definitely mimic some of their favorite directors, like Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino. However, once I changed this process and started really thinking about who was writing the articles, who was narrating the video tutorials we were looking at, and which films we were watching in class, I instantly noticed that we had more feminine voices creating scenes. We had more non-traditional students gathering together and creating scenes, but it's a different view, it's someone doing something other than just mimicking a director that we've already seen, Adnazium. And what's really important about that is it's also giving voice to a group that didn't necessarily feel they had a voice, and you can see it in their productions. They're gathering together, they're renting equipment that they never would have rented equipment for, and they're coming up with ideas. For the most part, that's really exciting to me because now we're starting to have a different voice, a different view. Which we all say we want to have, so how do we start creating that? How do we give those students, those people, a platform to begin that journey? I think we just have to change how we teach, and we have to give them heroes to look up to that aren't the traditional heroes that we've always idolized in the media. So we find them new ones, and then they go with that. It's difficult for students to understand what sources mean. They're so used to being taught, I used this quote from this article and so I must cite this reference. And they don't understand that really they're taking in all this information. So I've had students create a blog or a short scene or a documentary, and I've docked them points because they didn't have their sources referenced. And they said, well, I put, you know, I sourced the music I used, and I said, that's great. However, comma, you also didn't source all of the articles that we had in class about documentary, and you created this documentary. So them being able to see how this process unfolds and how none of us have these original thoughts for ourselves. I mean, we may connect dots in different ways, but we're all pulling from each other's ideas. And it's how we teach those other ideas for each other. So for them to understand that I'm sourcing my references the entire time and teaching them how to do so, so that they're recognizing that it's not just a song that they used in that scene, but it was someone else's thought process, someone else's idea, and seeing a piece of art that influenced them. So it starts at these base levels. And it keeps us all in check, which is not a bad thing. Being humble in our academic understanding is not a bad thing. And being aware that we aren't these golden entities that just shine out knowledge that we just kind of sucked in. I think it's really important, and I think it's time. There's no reason to not do these things. We have the resources. And it's so easy, because nobody can tell that story exactly the same way they tell it. So they may have read this article about direct cinema, and maybe they watched Grey Gardens because they were feeling pretty spunky. And then they went and created their own documentaries. So they at least understand that they've had some influence from some outside source. And that feels really good. It's empowering to know that you were able to take information and process it in a different way and create something new with it, which is kind of the arts anyway.