It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. A six-minute video is probably a thousand pictures.
There is a tradition in the mathematics department of the University of Chicago whereby, at the end of each academic year, the second-year class organizes an evening of skits called “Beer Skits” (“beer” because the skits are accompanied by huge servings of beer). As part of the tradition, we decided this year to create a mocumentary (mock documentary) of life in the first year at Chicago. I had the original concept and fleshed out the main scenes, but a lot of the editing work before, during, and after the shooting was done by many of my batchmates, who all added their own insights and removed some of my original ones that would have been too abstruse.
Our six-minute video is a little funny, but it is also quite realistic, as those who have gone through a similar experience can attest. Okay, agreed, some of the scenes towards the end stretch the boundaries of realism, but almost everything we have is a slight adaptation of something that actually happened during our first year.
Below is an embedded Youtube video (you can make it full-screen for better viewing).
Download a high-resolution 3mbps DVD quality version in Windows Media Video format (104 MB).
