The Finish Line of Student Life: Motorgrad
"Motorgrad. The Story of Blagoevgrad Motorsport" tells about professional racing in Blagoevgrad. A collaborative Capstone project between seniors Viktor Kharyton and Yenlik O'Neill, Motorgrad resulted in a 25-minute documentary coupled with a multimedia digital story. The film had its premiere at the Dr. Carl Djerassi Theater Hall on Feb. 8.
Yenlik is from Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her major is Journalism and Mass Communication, and she is also going to graduate with minors in Literature and Integrated Marketing Communications. She is the Vice President of TEDxAUBG, a club she has been devoted to throughout her AUBG journey. Viktor, who comes from Odessa, Ukraine, is majoring in Political Science and International Relations and Journalism and Mass Communication. He is also Head of the Marketing department of the Rock Jamming Club. His first ride on a professional motorcycle for kids was when he was 10 years old. He then spent seven more years as a professional racer.
We talked to both students to learn more about the filming process, the challenges, takeaways and rewarding moments following the four months of hard work.
Please describe your Capstone project – what is the problem it tackles and how did you come up with the idea for the project?
Viktor: Motorgrad is a complex project. It consists of several media tools sharing the same idea throughout the pieces: there is professional motorsport in Blagoevgrad that people are mostly unaware of, and this is how it survives despite a massive load of obstacles for both racers and organizers. Due to the volume of work that the project required, Yenlik O’Neill and I were given an opportunity to join forces and bring Motorgrad to live, combining our interest in the sport itself, our academic preparation at AUBG and our striving for the best end result. The project’s two main products are the three digital storytelling pieces (two profiles and an explainer) and a 25-minute documentary.
Yenlik: My senior project is, in fact, a collaborative project, the idea for which was originally Viktor Kharyton’s. At the beginning of the Fall ’21 semester, Viktor asked if I’m interested in being a part of the production crew of, at that moment, his capstone project. Without any hesitation, I agreed. However, within the next two weeks, the whole situation changed - what was initially pitched as an individual senior project turned into a collaborative capstone - “Motorgrad. The story of Blagoevgrad motorsport.” The project consists of three digital storytelling pieces and a short video documentary that, together as well as separately, tell a story about the peculiarities, challenges, and sacrifices of motor sportsmen from the Blagoevgrad region.
Take us through the process – how did you plan it, what were the main steps?
Viktor: The preparation was quick as we needed to get to action as soon as possible to get the most out of the several races left in the 2021 season of the Bulgarian Motocross Championship. At first, the main goals were to approach the subjects, schedule the shootings, get all the necessary equipment, permissions, and funding. Then we went straight to production process following our subjects at their workplaces, racing tracks, trainings, etc. We travelled to Samuilovo, Zelen Dol, Sofia and around Blagoevgrad to produce our five main shootings, three of which were the whole days spent on the racing tracks. The post-production process involved sorting terabytes of materials, scratching, drafting, editing, polishing all the content we were going to use. Yenlik took over the documentary, while the written pieces became my core responsibility. At first, I tried to produce at least a draft per week, but later, as the articles were getting closer to their final form, I had to juggle around all three pieces throughout a single week. Finally, we prepared our defenses, and launched a promotion campaign, focusing our efforts on planning the presentation event for Feb. 8, 2022.
Yenlik: Once Viktor and I got a green light from the JMC Capstone Committee to pursue a collaborative project, we immediately sat down to plan the first shooting. We were very dependent on the availability of our subjects and on the motocross racing calendar since we had to attend two races – a traditional Grand Prix at Samuilovo and a stage of the national competition. We decided then to dedicate ourselves to the pre-production and production stages up until Oct. 31, and after that, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 14, to have a post-production stage. Almost every weekend up until the fall break we spent at shootings. Quite inevitably there were times when we had to reschedule some things or cancel them completely due to the weather conditions or other reasons.
In order to graduate with a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, every student has to either pass the Bulgarian state exam or to work on their own Capstone project. In 2019 there was a precedent for a collaborative project, when Aleksandra Manova ('19) and Aurelija Uzunova ('19) created Rolling Docs, a travelling documentary film festival in five rural towns in Bulgaria. In the fall of 2021, the Capstone committee saw another collaboration – Viktor and Yenlik pitched the project Motorgrad. Third-year student Anastasiia Mozghova joined them as the movie's sound director. The Talev Fund for Student Academic Research helped the three of them with the necessary budget to execute the project. There were also other students who helped with the translations, professors who mentored them, AUBG staff and external partners who helped with resources to make the project happen.
What were the challenges you faced and how did you solve them?
Viktor: Mostly, we faced basic exhaustion from the workload both during the shootings throughout the racing weekends and during the long days and nights shaping the final versions of the projects. The only solution to this was mutual support, tasks distribution and time management. I think that in the end we can all agree that this was pleasant exhaustion.
Yenlik: While working on our Capstone project, one of the challenges that we faced was the fact that the entire movie is in Bulgarian. Neither Viktor nor I know the language. However, both of us had to somehow communicate with the subjects and understand what they were saying at all times in order to create both the articles and the movie that would make sense at the end of the day. Quite luckily, with the help of some Bulgarian-speaking friends, Viktor translated all his interview questions in advance. After the interviews were conducted in Bulgarian (twice with an interpreter and three times by Viktor himself), we had to reach out to some native speakers to transcribe and translate those interviews for us. Although both Viktor and I learned some new words and phrases in Bulgarian as the project was developing, it was a very time-consuming and nerve-wracking process.
However, I have to admit that, besides this language-related obstacle, the biggest challenge was to create a high-quality project with a crew of only three full-time members. Why three if it is officially a collaborative project of Viktor and me? Well, simply because our friend, Anastasiia Mozghova, kindly agreed to step into the project as our Sound Director. She was the one to record and edit all the sounds that one hears throughout the short documentary. Essentially, it was Anastasiia in her headphones, Viktor with his question-list, and me with two cameras and additional equipment running around different locations in an attempt to get the stories. We worked very well as a team. However, this project certainly requires a bigger crew and/or more amount of time to complete it all. Despite the fact that I have some previous experience working long hours on the set, the whole project was mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting.
What is your expectation for the future of the project? What are your takeaways?
Viktor: The Motorgrad crew hopes to give more voice to the regional motorsport community. These racers are addicted to the gasoline that now runs in their veins and this is the kind of addiction that results in something so breathtaking to watch. We hope to get published further than just the platforms we used, and we hope to get our project to get covered by the media.
Yenlik: I’m absolutely certain that everything I’ve learned while working on this project is going to be useful for me in the future. The short documentary is going to be submitted to various local and international film festivals. It is now an important part of my portfolio, which I will submit when applying for jobs in the sphere of filmmaking and video production. Truth be told, I benefited from this project a lot. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet incredible individuals “with a gasoline in their veins”, to work with Viktor, Anastasiia, and many other AUBGers who helped with the translations and the subtitles, and most importantly, to grow as a professional in the field of filmmaking.
My main takeaway from this capstone is the following: ambitious doesn’t mean impossible. In order to make things happen, one will have to be ready to face a myriad of unpredictable situations, push oneself to the limit, and dedicate oneself to the project wholeheartedly. Since many factors and other people are dependent on you, you have no choice but to show up there, on the set, no matter what. Sometimes, you’ll have to put aside your personal problems, forget about the “I have no inspiration” mindset, and just work. Only then things will start falling into the place.
Is there anything that you studied during the years that you did not know would be of help, but it turned out to be valuable for this project?
Viktor: I think that when we pitched this project both me and Yenlik knew straight away that to ace it we would have to use every bit of skill we gained throughout the years at AUBG. And so it was.
Yenlik: I think that all the classes I’ve taken so far contributed in one way or another to the development of my personal vision of the world and understanding of how things work not only in theory but in practice too. So, I cannot think of one so-to-say useless thing I learned in the past that, surprisingly, turned out to be an incredibly valuable one for this particular project.
What is one thing you wished you paid more attention to or you wish you knew when you started your life at AUBG?
Viktor: Usually, I have been skeptical about group projects in any class I took. This time we fought for the right to share this Senior Project work with other students, and it worked out great. Maybe, it would have been great if I took out even more skills, experience, and, of course, fun from the previous group projects I had.
Yenlik: Looking back, I would say that I wish I realized sooner that I want to connect my life with filmmaking. Perhaps, I would have taken more film-related classes and pursued a film minor or a self-designed major with a focus on film production.
You can read the stories and watch the movie on the project's website and watch the movie on Youtube.