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.