Assignment: Step 2 Proposal (DocuShort on Beach Cleanups)
Write a formal 24 page, single-spaced proposal for a docushort you will create in partnership with:
- Partner: Justin Rudd / Community Action Team beach cleanups, Long Beach, CA
- Focus: Beach cleanups, plastic pollution, and their links to environmental justice and public health
- Intended uses: School environmentaleducation programs, volunteer recruitment, social media.
The proposal is a written pitch and plan, not the video itself.
What the Proposal Must Do
- Explain the resource
- It is a docushort (short documentary video, e.g. 815 minutes).
- Content:
- Personal stories from volunteers and affected community members
- Footage of cleanup actions and visible plastic pollution
- Expert context from Heal the Bay staff and/or Justin Rudd
- Uses: schools, volunteer orientations, and online outreach.
- Show that it is: useful, novel, substantial
- Directly address each criterion in a separate subsection:
- Useful:
- Addresses a clear need: an engaging, locally grounded, educational video that connects handson cleanups to plastic pollution, justice, and health.
- Helps the organization: recruit volunteers, educate students, frame beach cleanups as part of broader environmental justice work.
- Novel:
- A new, standalone docushort, not a tweak of existing materials.
- Combines local stories + expert explanation + simple data visuals + explicit justice/health framing, which they dont currently have as one integrated resource.
- Substantial:
- Comparable in labor to a 20page senior thesis:
- Research on plastic pollution, justice, and health in Long Beach
- Planning, scheduling, filming at cleanups
- Scriptwriting, storyboarding, editing, graphic creation
- Show that this is a complex, multistage project with significant intellectual and technical work.
- Preview visual and textual/written components
- Include concrete notes, outlines, or brief drafts:
Visual (all original)
- Planned footage:
- Beach cleanup scenes (volunteers, trash collection, before/after shots).
- Closeups of plastic waste, storm drains, shoreline, nearby neighborhoods.
- Interviews on camera:
- Volunteers (motivations, reactions, behavior change).
- Community members (impacts on recreation, health concerns, neighborhood conditions).
- Experts (how plastic reaches the beach, health impacts, policy context, solutions).
- Simple graphics you will design:
- 12 charts (e.g., types of trash collected, cleanup totals).
- Possibly a basic map of Long Beach cleanup locations and nearby communities.
- Onscreen text:
- Titles, speaker IDs, definitions (e.g., environmental justice), key stats.
Textual/Written (all original)
- Narration:
- Short sample paragraph (e.g., opening voiceover introducing Long Beach, plastic pollution, and the beach cleanups).
- Brief outline of narration sections (problem, justice/health links, community action, call to action).
- Interview questions:
- A few example questions for volunteers, community members, and experts.
- Onscreen text:
- Sample key lines and statistics that will appear in the film.
- (Optional) Mention any simple written companion piece (e.g., onepage teacher guide).
- Feasibility
- 1 short paragraph on:
- Why this is realistic in the course timeframe.
- Existing or planned skills in filming, editing, simple graphics/mapping.
- Acknowledgment that any new tech skills will be selftaught (no extra teaching from past/current instructors).
Structure & Style
- Length: 24 pages, single-spaced.
- Use clear headings such as:
- Introduction & Organization
- Project Description (Format & Objectives)
- Usefulness
- Novelty
- Substantiality
- Visual Components (Notes/Drafts)
- Textual Components (Notes/Drafts)
- Feasibility
- Tone: formal, clear, and reflective; first person (I will…) is fine