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Greg Whiteley's Cheer

I'm currently making a video project surrounding the topic of women's golf because I play golf. Originally, the project was going to be a short documentary on the history of the LPGA. The idea has changed over time, and now my video will be a short documentary on my final year playing competitive golf and my team. A documentary that has inspired me is the recent Netflix docu-series Cheer, directed and created by Greg Whiteley. Cheer focuses on a college cheerleading team and their preparation leading up to competing for the national championship. It focuses on a few key characters as they tell their story and what cheering means to them. Whiteley is able to make the audience really feel for and connect with these people. This is series, so it features 6 episodes. Obviously mine won't be that long, I'm looking to be under 5 mins., but I like the way that the trailer for Cheer is edited.


The trailer has very quick cuts and is only 2 minutes long. Although the the clips are super short, you still get a feel for the characters and the intensity of the sport. Whiteley uses action shots, focal shots of key characters, some dramatic clips creating a tension build, a few interview type shots, and a fade to black with title sequence. Basically for two minutes you get a complete overview of the documentary. What I like about the series is that you really get an inside look into cheerleading and the best team in the country. Before watching, I had never understood how intense and dangerous the sport really is and I now whole heartedly believe that cheerleaders are elite athletes.

For my video, I'd like to give an inside look into the world of women's golf because it is a sport that I believe is highly misunderstood, much like cheerleading. I am going to film as much footage as possible of practice sessions, tournaments, my teammates, my coach, road trips, and the many hours spent out on the course. Once I have a lot of footage I am going to try my best to create a short trailer-like video about our experience. I will use the footage that I get to find the narrative about my last year playing and how it all feels now that this huge part of my life is coming to an end.

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