What is life like for Winnacunnet alumni?
Interviewer, director, producer, editor.
March 2022 - June 2022
(3 months)
I produced a 23 minute long documentary interviewing various alumni from Winnacunnet High School about their high school experiences and current careers. I aimed to show students that life after graduation was diverse and that they had the power to achieve their goals, even when it feels like they aren’t in control. This documentary was screened publicly to the Winnacunnet community.
During the fall semester of my senior year, stress amongst my class hit an all time high. What were we going to do after we graduated? Were we going to college? Where? For what? What are we doing with our lives?!
The future was unpredictable. But perhaps, that isn’t so terrifying. Maybe there’s a certain kind of freedom that comes alongside knowing that where we are isn’t where we’ll be.
At the time, I was heavily involved at the school’s film department and was brainstorming ideas for my final project. After hearing my friends’ anxieties about the road that lies ahead, and experiencing an unhealthy amount of that same anxiety myself, I decided to investigate for myself what postgraduate life looked like for Winnacunnet alumni.
I worked with Linda Libbey, the President of Winnacunnet’s Alumni Network, and Derek Roberts, film teacher and my mentor, to find alumni who were working in the area. I reached out to multiple people using LinkedIn and cold emailing to see if they would be interested in participating in the project.
Luckily, I was met with enthusiasm from many, and I ended up interviewing nine people with varying careers and graduation years.
The final cut of the documentary was 23 minutes long and screened to the Winnacunnet community.
Undoubtedly, The Alumni Story was the biggest project I had ever worked on. I learned all kinds of new tricks, from compiling a shot list, to sound mixing, to how to interview people minus the awkwardness. I struggled with tight deadlines, technical difficulties, and feeling like I was way in over my head. Ultimately, I am grateful for the opportunity to learn every part of the production process through hands-on experience and to be able to say with pride, “I made this.”
More importantly, I learned that postgraduate life is so vast. I met a local alum who took over his family’s golf course, and another who was living in London while running a plant-based food company. Some loved high school, some couldn’t remember anything from it. At the end of the day, their core commonality was that they looked deep within themselves and sought out to do what they loved.
I screened this documentary to my school in hopes to give others the same feeling I got when talking to all these different alumni. The future is so uncertain. Isn’t it exciting?
While I worked on the majority of this project independently, it certainly would not be the product it is today without the help of Derek Roberts, who oversees the production of Winnacunnet’s news show, WHTV. While I was working on The Alumni Story, Drob helped me refine the story I wanted to tell and helped clear the multiple creative and logistical roadblocks I ran into. He was my advisor throughout my four years at Winnacunnet and is still a dear friend today.