Happiness Before Death
Produced by Connor Childs
“Happiness before Death” is a documentary asking the question, “Can overall happiness be achieved after being given a terminal diagnosis, if so, what are the chances?” This 11 minute documentary is designed to guide the viewer through how the solution to such a question was solved. I wasn’t sure how this documentary was going to be laid out at first. After all I was developing the answer myself as I was trying to film it. As soon as enough information could be attained though, I knew how I was going to format it. There are four chapters, each covering a specific topic. Chapter 1 talks about Randy Pausch, the author the book I read called “The Last Lecture”. It explains what Randy taught me and what I took away from it. Chapter 2 is about the Kubler-Ross model. I use my mentor, Lori Drieth, and a few other sources, to implement how the Kubler-Ross model plays into developing my solution. Chapter 3 gets controversial with assisted suicide and the afterlife. Is evaluates whether these two topics benefit or hurt the chances of a terminal patient dying happy. Chapter 4 is where I reveal my solution and my final thoughts about the overall project. I filmed and edited it at the same time, so as soon as one chapter finished filming, the next chapter was not started until the previous finished editing. I used software called CyberLink PowerDirector 10 to edit the documentary. During my few months producing this documentary, I benefited from it by figuring out ways to channel all the information I was collecting into an understandable format that would guide me and anyone watching in how the solution to the question was obtained. It helped me organize all that I was learning rather than smacking all the data and facts onto many PowerPoint slides. It keeps the viewer engaged while ensuring they learn the maximum amount of knowledge about the topic.