Documentary+Review

Documentary review: Solar roadways “Solar roadways” was filmed in 2008 and directed by Mark Dixon, the creator/founder of solar roadways. Mark Dixon also happens to be the main actor. The music played with the end credits is the YERT theme music created by Brooks White. The principal of solar roadways is to replace the roads of 48 states with solar panels that we could drive on. Even if these solar panels were only 15% efficient they would generate almost enough electricity to power the entire world. This idea first started to form in Mark Dixon’s imagination when he was only 6 years old. His parents had bought him a slot car and his idea was to have electric roads so that kids could drive on them too. Later in life he and his wife started to hear about global warming and one night his wife had an idea. She asked him, “What if your electric roads were made out of solar panels?” It was after this that he started to pursue his newly formed childhood dream. Mark Dixon is a man in his early sixties who grew up in the American suburbs. He comes across as a man with above average intelligence with a good understanding of how the world works. However, he also seems to be a dreamer and one wonders if his views for solar roadways might be a little too optimistic. This idea of solar panels that we could drive on is great, but unfortunately is also incredible impractical. It would be near impossible to  get the departments of transportation, energy and home land security to change their regulations and work together. And even if he could do that it would be a huge under taking to redo all of the roads in 48 states. A project like this would take years to complete and with the rate that technology is being outdated the difference of technology in the roads would unimaginable.  In conclusion, Mark Dixon's idea is a good one and is my top ten creative solutions for global warming I just don't see it happening for two reasons; one, because it would be virtually impossible to get permission to build these solar roadways and second, they don't really stop us from burning fossil fuels (with the exception of coal burning plants).

Nice Job Andy. Well Written. 22/24

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Fifty People One Question: In this documentary fifty people are asked "If tomorrow you could wake up anywhere where would it be?" The message that is being sent to us be through the film is that every person is different. This question helped illustrate that because it gave us an insight in to fifty different personalities. Some were hesitant or content and others described their own personal heaven. The director uses the soft flowing music at first to gain our interest and then keeps that interest by never remaining on a single person for more than a few seconds. Last Minutes with Oden: In this documentary we witness the story of a man's best friend (his dog) put to death. This man has been in and out of jail all his life and his dog was really the only thing keeping him going. Oden loved everybody the same unconditionally. We're slowly drawn into this story because we are slowly learning of the dog’s history in his owner's past. Once we're drawn into the story we quickly relate because we've all had a pet that’s died. It's than that we learn the message of how death is just as natural as birth. Unfortunately this mature and fairly graphic. The Black Hole:   This isn't a documentary so much as it is a Shorty story with a moral. The message is very clear which is impressive considering there are no spoken words. I personally believe that there are two messages and that one plays into the other. The first is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely this then plays into the second message karma because the greed leading up to him being trapped while stealing from his boss was inspired by his corruption. The director uses the camera's angle to bring us into the story and make us feel as though we were right there in this office. This then insures that we pay attention throughout the entire film.

The Bully Project:

 In this documentary the message is clear bullying shouldn't happen because it shouldn't exist. The pros of this documentary are that it’s something to which we can all relate, we sympathise with the kids and begin to question ourselves as to whether we've ever really bullied someone which at the same time helps to stop bullying. All these pros help to draw us into the story along with the camera angle (3rd person). I think that if they went into the physiology as to why kids bully other kids it would make it more interesting as well as it would give it another layer.