Talking in his sleep

We talked to about 15 people throughout the course of shooting material for the video. In the interviewing process, some people gave us very good answers and others didn't exactly answer the question. So all in all, we ended up choosing the people who gave the best answers.

One of the most enjoyable guys to talk to was a freshman student named Chris from Jordan High . His picture is on the right.

Jordan was the first place we went to for interviews.

At first we had started to talk to students right in front of the entrance, until we were chased off the front by one of the administrators who said we needed to ask their parents permission and that we had to give them notices that let them know we were using them.

So we went down to a park not too far from the school. We saw a young man who was sitting on the bus stop. He looked as if he had just woken up. He talked very sluggishly and still had crust in his eyes.

Nevertheless, we got some very good answers from him. He said that the high school is divided into two campuses, one strictly for the ninth graders and the other for 10th, 11th and 12th graders.

He gave a very detailed break-down of the racial divide of Jordan. He stated where all of the different races/ethnicities hang out; the blacks hang out by the stadium, the latinos hang out by the cafeteria, the samoans hang out by the stadium,etc.

I forget what question we asked him, it may have been something to the effect of "What can people do to ease racial tensions at schools?"

His answer?

"People just need to stop gangbanging, stop killing and stop hating on other races. If you don't like 'em, just leave 'em alone."

The statement was so simple, yet so profound. I and the rest of the team wanted so badly to include it in the video. It was probably one of the best interviews we collected. But when it came down to editing, we found that his answers weren't as good as others.