Documentary Critical Reflection

 Our documentary In Action illustrates how the class and club, "Latinos in Action" has created lasting changes in students and communities. Within our documentary, we aimed to show why losing it would mean losing an opportunity for leadership, culture, and connection. 

To begin with, our documentary represents the social group, Latinos in Action, a student led organization that supports Latino students. This is done through leadership and cultural pride. Instead of portraying Latino students through a stereotype often used in the media world, our documentary aims to present them as motivated and actively engaged in creating a positive change within their school environment. For example, within our documentary, we interviewed four different students who are apart of Latinos in Action. Even with completely different questions, all four of those students in some way said that they have learned how to be leaders and have bettered themselves just from being in the club. 

I'd say that our documentary In Action does successfully represent the Latino social group, but it does lack some information on the issues revolving the club/class. Unfortunately, Latinos in Action is in the process of getting shut down in some countries because the U.S. Department of Education says part of the program may violate federal anti-discrimination rules. I feel that our documentary does not bring up this issue enough as it is something heavily important within our topic. It is really only brought up once or twice within the interviews and then also again at the very end within the graphic. When critiquing our documentary, Ryan Kearns says, "While the whole aspect surrounding how the club is facing being shut down is super important, I think it should have been brought up earlier to make the whole piece more centered around it." I completely agree with him. I feel that because this aspect is extremely important, it one hundred percent should have been brought up earlier in the production.

Moving on, our documentary is not only targeted towards the Latino community, but anyone in general who is interested in learning more about the club and its impact on people around the world. We ensure that our documentary engages this target audience by providing accurate and interesting information while being inclusive to everyone. For example, when interviewing the Manatee Bay student's mom, we of course wanted to have some Spanish in the documentary as that is a key factor in Latinos in Action, but we still wanted to include the non-Latin audience. To ensure we satisfy both audiences, we had the interviewee respond in Spanish, but we included English captioning for those who do not speak Spanish. This way, the target audience is larger. When critiquing our documentary, Victoria Duque says, "I really liked the interview with the mom in Spanish; it was relevant to your topic." Samara Hernandez says, "One thing I really loved was the interview of a parent speaking in Spanish, it really highlights the effects of this club." Even the interviews that are not in Spanish help engage the audience because they allow the members of Latinos in Action share their personal experiences, which creates authenticity, which ultimately encourages the audience to empathize their experiences.

Research played an important role in shaping our documentary, as it influenced how certain documentary conventions were used and how some conventions were challenged. By researching existing documentaries and looking more into how Latinos in Action is run, my group and I were able to make informed creative decisions throughout the production process. My research process included watching various documentaries such as, I Think This was the Closest to how the Footage Looked, Abstract: The Art of Design, American Promise, and Exit Through the Gift Shop. Watching these documentaries helped me understand the specific documentary conventions. For example, I learned the difference between a direct and an indirect interview because American Promise conveyed both. Another thing is that before doing any research on this specific topic, my group and I had planned to get B-Roll footage of some of the kids getting tutored at Manatee Bay Elementary School. After later research, we learned that it is an entire process that you need to go through in order to get permission, and it was too complicated to succeed in such short amount of time.

In conclusion, I'd say that my group and I did a good job at conveyed the importance of Latinos in Action in such a short documentary. It did of course have its flaws but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Documentary Post-Production

 The last and final step for making our documentary was the editing process, and I'm not going to lie...

this is my least favorite part :(

Editing has always been something that I struggle with. It was definitely something I struggled with last year in AS level. I tried using premier pro last year and let's just say I was never able to figure it out... it's just something about all of those buttons that gets me... stressed! Anyway, last year I used Cap Cut to edit all of my projects, so I decided to do the same thing for this project.

Originally, my group and I decided to each edit our own version of the documentary and then pick from there whose we like the most, but as the due date came closer, only my edit seemed to work out. 

I had edited about the first 3 minutes of the documentary and then all of the sudden, my mind when blank! I have no idea what happened, but I just could not think of how to continue the editing process. Thankfully, Adriana came to the rescue, and she continued editing the remainder of it. 

Something that I like within my portion of the editing was the intro. I thought that it was a cute way to introduce the club and begin the documentary!

Something that I wish I included within my portion of the editing was music!! I noticed that when my classmates critiqued my project, a lot of them mentioned how it lacked music (besides the intro) until the end.

With the instructions below, here are some critiques that my classmates gave my documentary regarding the editing specifically! (Some of it is from what I edited & some is from what Adriana edited)

Aneesa Bajaj says, "Instead of introducing music near the end, I would have started it from the beginning and just shifted the tone of the music as the tone of the piece shifted." 

-I completely agree with her!! I feel like music would have elevated the piece as a whole.

Samara Hernandez says, "When using the graphics about the shutdown of this club, I really liked the intention, but I want to see it a bit longer so we can read it fully."

-I agree! It was pretty difficult reading the graphic at the end so I feel like lengthening it just by a few seconds would be perfect!

Documentary Production

 Now it's the fun part!! Getting to create our documentary and make it come to life! ;)

The first thing that we filmed were the student interviews. For these, we went to the LIA classroom and found some students who were interested in helping out. After they reviewed the questions that we were going to ask them, we begun the interview process!

 

On this day, we interviewed 4 different students and asked each of them different questions.

We asked Emilio, "What's something you've learned working with the younger students in Latinos in Action?" and "What's something about LIA people don't see or know from the outside?"

We asked Isabella, "How has Latinos in Action helped you outside of the classroom?" and "How do you feel knowing the program may not continue?"

We asked David, "What's one thing you've learned being a part of Latinos in Action?" and "What kind of relationships have you built from this class?"

We asked Kamila, "Why did you decide to join Latinos in Action?" and "What do you think the school would lose if LIA ended?

After filming all of the student - interviews, we decided to get some B-Roll footage. We had three students sit at a table and "pretend" like they were working on something together. We decided to get three different shots/angles. I thought that this specific B-Roll turned out very good!! I'd say that we had a little bit of a difficult time filming the B-Roll because we just didn't have the opportunity/time to go to Manatee Bay to get footage there. Unfortunately, we did not get any B-Roll there, so I feel like if we had more time, we could have gotten it! That was probably the main struggle we had. My group members and I are all very busy (3 of us work + other extracurriculars) so it was hard finding time to film stuff that would work for all of us. We ended up just having some days where only two of us would film the interviews/ b-roll. For example, when we filmed Mrs. Rodriguez's interview, only Lauren and Adriana were able to go, and then when we went to film the guest speaker, Catalina, *click to see guest speaker* only Lauren, Adriana, and I could go. Fabiana was the only one who could get into contact with a Manatee Bay mom, so she was the one who filmed that interview. Adriana works the LIA social media account so she did have a lot of photos and videos that we included throughout the documentary so that helped add to the final project. I feel like despite all of the challenges working with a group brings, I still love it way more than working alone because each person in the group brings something else to the project!!

Overall, I am pretty happy with our production process, but I do feel like with more time, and better planning, we could have gotten more footage and better content overall.

Documentary Planning

 Sooo for our project, we were asked to create a 5-7-minute documentary about a topic of our choice. This topic of course had to be something interesting and easy to get footage/information on as we had to make it 5-7 minutes. 

For this project, I decided to work in a group. I worked with Adriana, Lauren, and Fabiana. The first thing that we did was try and come up with ideas for our doc. I'd say that this was one of the hardest parts as there are so many different things you can with this much freedom!! In the end, we came up with two topics. 

#1 Make a documentary about an influencer that goes to our school. Discuss the struggles that she has gone through, as well as the things she has achieved.

#2 Make a documentary about the club/class, Latinos In Action. Show the importance of LIA and how it impacts many people all around the world. Also discuss the possibility of it being shut down.

In the end, we went with the second option because not only were we able to get more information and footage on it, but the first option would just be too difficult to execute as it would be asking a lot for a teenage girl to spend majority of her time for two and a half weeks straight working on a media studies class documentary. 

Once we decided on our topic, it was time to start the planning process. Here is our planning sheet!

So, to break it down, the first thing we did was figure out the possible subjects that we wanted to interview. We ended up interviewing all of the people on this list except for Mr. Sanchez (one of the two LIA teachers) and the Manatee Bay Admin/teacher. We did interview one of the moms of the Manatee Bay students! We also had to break down our goal, what we wanted to achieve through the production of the documentary.

Next, we had to plan the B-Roll. This process was a little difficult because we weren't sure what type of footage we would be able to record as LIA involves little kids. With this, we were not able to film any footage that revealed the kids at Manatee Bay. We were able to film majority of this B-Roll footage even though we did not include it all. 

Finally, we were able to create our final outline! For this, we had to decide the order in which we show the B-Roll, interviews, etc. We ultimately decided on this:

Documentary Research

 Hey blog! It feels good to be back :)

In the very beginning of October, we began researching and learning all about documentaries because we later on created our very own (which I will get more into later)!!! 

It all started with some basic research on what a documentary is + it's key factors. 

Here are some notes I took in class!!

The first documentary that we watched in class was called:

I Think This Was The Closest To How The Footage Looked (2012)

For this documentary, a man recreates what he remembered to be the last day he had with his mom. The objects used each represent something. The man goes through the entire day using these random objects to show specific details. This was a very emotional documentary as it represents grief as a whole and not wanting to let go of the person you love. I really enjoyed this one.

The next documentary that we watched was called:

Abstract : The Art Of Design (2017)

Abstract, The Art Of Design is an episodic documentary (meaning that the documentary is split between episodes). Each episode is about a different form of art. Some of the arts documented include but are not limited to, interior design, digital products, architecture, graphics, and foot ware design. In class, we watched Ruth Carter's episode about costume design where it followed her experiences with different costuming that she has created. I really enjoyed this episode as it is something that I have always found fascinating. Unfortunately, I was not given the ability to sew or design in general, so watching an expert do it was so much fun :)

The third documentary that we watched is:

American Promise (2014)

This documentary was my personal favorite!! It was filmed over the course of 13 years as it follows the lives of 2 young men in New York. Overall, it shows their experiences (whether they are struggles or achievements) from kindergarten to senior year of high school. American Promise is very real and and heavy with emotions so I feel like it really hit me hard as I grew to really feel for the subjects, Idris and Sheun.

The last and final documentary we watched in class was:

Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010)

This documentary is a British documentary directed by street artist, Banksy. Overall, it tells the story of a French immigrant, Thierry Guetta who over serval years filmed multiple street artists, like Shepard Fairey, Invader, and Banksy. Thierry starts off by just filming these artists and tagging along with them but later on finds his "passion" for art and names himself, Mr. Brainwash. His journey is the central part of the documentary.

After watching full documentaries, we then watched two op-docs of our choice.

The first one I watched was: "Weekend Vacation" Opinion | Weekend Visits - The New York Times

The second one I watched was: "Roaches Lullaby" Opinion | Roaches’ Lullaby - The New York Times

Both of these op-docs really helped me when creating my own documentary because the docs we watched in class were on the longer side and these op-docs are on the shorter side, closer to what we had to make!!

I'm back!

 Hey blog! It's been a while...

I am so ready to get back into blogging and updating you!! This time, it's to document my journey through A level Media Studies.