I started filming for this project at the end of September. Currently, I’m in a research class about the Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace. One of the things we were interested in is how the Haudenosaunee navigate conflict resolution and how lacrosse is a part of that. I’ve played lacrosse for a long time, so it was really interesting to get to know the history of the game and how different it Is now than how it is played by the people who created it. I set out to tell the story of the wooden stick festival and shed light on the fact that the Onondaga nation is still here and still thriving. It seems silly to say, but a lot of people do not realize Native American tribes exist and are living their lives. I think it was important to highlight this event to show the students who will take the WRT 209 class we developed in this research project what the Onondaga Nation looks like and how they integrate their traditions with modern aspects.

As I was working on it, I began to realize how tough it is to set up the camera in the right spot. With a traditional video camera, all you have to do is point it at a subject and shoot. I kind of thought of it as though 360 degree video is the honest version of video; you can’t hide anything. A lot of times a child would run through the shot, or someone would get up and stand next to the camera, so you just have to scope out a better spot and hope for the best.

When I began editing the video, I wasn’t really sure where to start. I had to lay out the structure I wanted it to be in first, and the Indigenous Values Initiative’s website helped with that a lot. I took notes on the event but after discussions with university faculty, I discovered that the deeper story of Native American lacrosse history is not for me to tell. So I wanted to make sure anything I did say about lacrosse was okay, which is where their website and descriptions came into play.

The biggest issue I had was figuring out how to do captions on the video. I could not have made this video without the help of the sandbox.video site from McClatchy and the previous student we interviewed. He helped explain Skybox VR tools and how to use them. Because the background changed so much, I decided I would do boxes of text. Also, I couldn’t get the text to go on the sides of the video without looking stretch or rotated funny, but I noticed images I put in didn’t have that side effect. I created the separate caption boxes in Photoshop and then uploaded them.

If you’re inspired by this project – amazing! I think it’s important to share stories of people that we are not taught about in textbooks, especially if their history is crucial to where you are geographically! Again, I stress not stepping on toes or speaking over someone, so make sure you do your research. Also, be conscious of where your stitch lines will be.