Thesis Update April 21st-28th — Putting It All Together

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been putting together Strawhat’s interview footage with some of the b-roll that I’ve shot at TCNJ’s tournaments, and while trying to fit it into narratives I came to an interesting realization: I actually do want to format this like a documentary, and not just a series of interviews. The good news is I have an idea of how I want this to be done. The bad news is that I’m not sure if I can get it all done in two weeks. At the very least, I might be able to get a section of the episode done. Due to it being formatted as a documentary, I can now also do a section on King, if time permits. I plan to cut out the intro that I had already made and take more of a “show, don’t tell” format, gradually revealing Strawhat’s identity. You can look below for a sample of the work I had gotten done before my decision to reformat, which will largely stay the same but be reordered slightly.

This episode of the documentary will go from the 2017 until now, beginning at Arcadian Ink and Big Blue and Gold #1 and ending at Stronghold: The Siege #3. The episode will detail how Strawhat’s track background applied to Smash, his dominance at TCNJ, his 100-day journal, and how he rose to become a top 10 Smash Ultimate player in New Jersey.

I am also starting to think about how I can apply this format to the other interviews: Evan “Evanem” Bianco has an interesting history at TCNJ, going from a lowkey multi-character main to one of the best players at the college, and Manuel “MoralAtheist” Disla-Ruiz has been slowly making a name for himself as one of the most helpful and enthusiastic members of the New Jersey Smash community.

I’ll have to work hard to make sure that this can at least get done in a basic form, but I’m excited to make the vision real.