Social Media!

 Social Media

UPDATE! POSTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA!

IN this blog I will be showing how my sister and I have started to post on Instagram.

Initial process:

- For planning social media the first thing we wanted to do was research and see what "vibe" we wanted to go for. This was also because we were still not fully done figuring out the "vibe" or aesthetic or our documentary. BUT after the animation portion of our episode got done (IT IS DONE AHHHH) we knew what to base our social media off of. We wanted to incorporate patterned backgrounds and use the animation consistently in posts. 

Some inspiration that we wanted in the posts came from the backgrounds in the animation sequence.

Structure: 

- After taking notes on what social media we should include, (picture  below), my sister and I made sure to keep this in mind when deciding how to structure how we want our social media to look like and how we want to tell the "story" of our documentary series. In a way, we are using our social media structure/order of posting to tell the audience what they should know in order for them to understand our messaging. For example, we aim to post different information that build the audience's knowledge of the topic of our doc: so posting messaging correlating to community and connection. 

POSTING!

SOoooo, for the actual posting now! We knew we wanted a big introduction to our docuseries by having the title take up big space as the first post. Using Canva and the "remove background" task to play around with posts, we ended up creating this:

We used Canva and made three different slides that all would match up to create this (when images posted alongside each other). We debated on whether or not making it colorful but we wanted to start our account with a "blank slate" and have the color be one shade so the title really stuck out and so that we could build color with the other posts. In addition, the color black is made up of all the rest of the colors, which also represents this initial post as a sum of all the doc episodes(in our eyes and color theory👀, just a tiny detail). 

INSPO:

Some inspiration that I've mentioned in my earlier social media post was the doc series's Instagram Abstract. This account posts quotes that some professionals or interviewees have said, along with an audio of them saying it, for example;

We thought this would be a great way to introduce our documentary series's main topics and also reveal some people involved in our episode. So, we decided to publish a post defining community and giving an enlightening quote from the psychotherapist I interviewed:

OVERALL:

Overall we are really happy with the aesthetic and types of posts we have done. I do think we need to keep posting and hurry up (I think we should've started earlier) but we are creating now so that's all that matters!!....

CCR pt. 2...

 CCR PLANNING

Lets move on from the social media/filming part of the project and move on to the ESSAY PART!

CCR: Regarding the CCR, it is influential to look at my previous CCR to see what I did good or could maybe work on.

Previously I had made a CCR on a documentary! So it will prove to be more compatible with what I am making now, as compared to a CCR on a short film. Here is the CCR from a couple months back:

 The documentary Impact focuses on sparking hope and initiative for positive change in its audience through the use of various technical elements. Honing in on the process of initiating an environmental school project, this documentary highlights the negative effects of plastic pollution and shows a team combating this issue with perseverance.

    When commencing this documentary, researching the central role of a documentary played a vital part in deciding what the documentary would focus. Initial research consisted of class notetaking on the definition of a documentary: "a slice of life". Familiarization with the key aspects of a documentary started the conversation about creating a documentary on environmental awareness. There was a final conversation about creating a documentary on the initiation of the Recycle Beyond the Bag project at Cypress Bay High School by Interact Club, which the initial research helped come to. (Notes on "slice of life" realization to right )

Attaining the topic of the documentary led to researching the genre conventions of a documentary. Class notetaking brought more knowledge in learning about indirect/direct interviews, B-roll, usage of archived footage, etc.. Much of this research is anecdoted in the Doc: Research blog post (https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1230255472652070084/3199987192783195247) Extra research was done to get more comfortable with the conventions, such as interview styles and steps to conduct one. A repeatedly used source was: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-documentary-interview-top-interview-techniques-and-tips-for-documentary-films-and-tv 

Choosing which conventions to include and utilize came after researching specific documentary examples and attaining a visual image of how the documentary would look like. Viewing examples of documentaries helped in seeing what conventions to include and which to abandon. The documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop was deemed helpful in showing how documentaries can be sequentially led through the use of interviews. In American Promise indirect and direct interviews show how personal interviews can contribute to a documentary's tone shift, and how B-roll can be integrated to form a story. Lastly, a documentary series on Netflix called Abstract: The Art of Design provides several examples of how staged B-roll can provide authentic exemplification of certain tasks getting done. Viewing examples assured which conventions would be used in Impact. Overall this documentary used the genre's conventions such as indirect and direct interviews, VO of interviews over cutaways of B-roll, staged B-roll, and music. Using traditional conventions in the documentary helped in progressing the story and making content reflective of as much as the truth as possible (with the staged B-roll). Research on what each genre convention does assist in its usage, for example, hand-held shots of B-roll creating realism and VO narration that helped progress the story of the process of the environmental project. This documentary doesn't challenge conventions due to the necessity of focusing on the information given. This film is supported by the understanding of logos given by certain interviewees and is meant to replicate reality in every aspect. If this film became too unconventional or surreal, then the message of environmentalism and plastic pollution would get lost within the piece.

While research was important to making Impact so was establishing a target audience to connect to. Impact's target audience is any person from 12-30 years old, who is interested in the environment and/or making a positive difference in their community. This documentary uses specific technical elements like music, B-roll, and indirect/direct interviews to facilitate connection and engagement to the target audience. Because this is a younger audience, different measures need to be taken to engage if targeting older audiences because of the narrower attention span of 12-30 year-olds. So, including music in the background of longer interview segments is something that not only creates a specific tone but adds something new to what is being watched, which helps engage individuals for longer. For example, when providing silence from a previously long clip with background music, a certain auditory continuity is broken which can reignite the audience's attention (shown in this video clip)

In addition, the addition of varying types of B-rolls worked to engage this audience and to resonate with environmental lovers/ project lovers. The B-roll shown varies from videos of plants and nature landscapes to videos of multiple people contributing to the project. These changing videos over the VO of the interviewees keep audiences engaged and allow for the individuals to actually SEE, not just hear, about the steps being taken to make this environmental project happen:

 

Lastly, indirect and direct interviews played a key part in engaging with audiences. Indirect interviews are utilized to make information more "bite-size" and easy to grasp because using just answers allows for the content to flow nicer and not be as dragged out. This is useful, especially for this younger audience. While most interviewee segments are indirect interviews, a critical interview towards the end is direct on purpose. From the above video clip shown (with the absence of music in one portion), the use of asking this question and inserting it to the documentary was to grasp as much attention as possible on this area of the documentary. As this is the "resolution" or "final thoughts" on the interviewees's views on the global plastic problem and the benefit of this project, there needed to be a big focus and understanding on this part. Also, the idea of vulnerability and emotive responses attracts audiences, especially younger audiences, as they can resonate more deeply with the documentary and become more attentive to the purpose. 

    The main social issues represented in this documentary are plastic pollution (explicit) and global health (more implicit). The main topic of discussion of this documentary is the creation of a recycling project to help combat plastic pollution and its effects. Plastic pollution is represented through two different POVs and facets that assist in showing the different scales in which it can be seen: day-to-day encounters with plastic pollution, and how it is created on a global scale. With Boswell and Margarita, examples of how plastic pollution is created on a bigger-scale are explained through interviews of both of them explaining how plastic spreads so easily, and with Margarita showing the different types of plastics that end up in landfills or spreading. On the other hand, the B-roll of plastic in the grass and in school surroundings shows what to many are the unnoticeable homes of plastic pollution. This was represented to give audiences a clear view that even if one doesn't see it, this pollution is all around at all scales. To add on, the other social issue represented was global health. This issue was mainly represented through logos given by Margarita in her interview, where she explained that plastic pollution isn't only an environmental issue, it is a big human health issue that effects everyone. This conversation also bleeds into the health effects this has on poorer communities who are more affected by this issue, alluding to social inequality.

Overall, Impact works towards engaging audiences through visual and auditory elements to inspire them to strive and work towards positive change in caring for the environment and overall health. By showing the initial process of starting a club's own project, this documentary shows how others can do the same.

Things that appeared good! 👍

• Multimedia Use: I remember a big emphasis on multimedia when my teacher was explaining what to include. Using not only things like videos, audios and pictures, but also using specific media that supports and reinforces what one is saying is significant.
• Directly answering questions: I think while length of the paragraphs and essay is important (especially because of the 1,000 word count), focusing on answering the questions directly is just as, maybe even more, important. In this practice CCR we only had to answer three questions as opposed to four, but answering the 4 questions must be the FOCUS!! Making sure to hit specific things like discussing genre and conventions in the first question and mentioning target audience of the docuseries in the second question is essential.
• Transitioning: I know this isn't an English class but transition words and transitioning between questions smoothly is important. 

Things that could be improved 👎

• Insightfulness/depth of info. I think that spending more time on the CCR is important so I am able to elaborate on information in depth as much as possible.

Animation!

ANIMATION Opening Sequence:

Now onto the opening sequence! If you are coming from my last blog post, hey ;) that was alot of information that I hope made sense!

But in this blog I am blogging about how we actually got the ANIMATION portion to be a possibility. I am so ecstatic. And thats not sarcasm.

SOOOOO....

I was casually scrolling on Instagram reels one day -as one without tik tok does because it makes her feel less guilty and addicted- when a video popped up (yes the universe was trying to get in contact with me😅😅) It was a reel about different animation sites that this animator used throughout her animation journey

I attempted to search some of these up, but most of them I had to pay. So, I headed to the comment section. And found rina.0fficial saying:

Hey me too Rina. This was enough for me to go to and download flipaclip to try it out. I watched a couple of the tutorial videos the app had to offer, leading me to create this cinematic masterpiece:

 

 which then led me to realize that I am not going to be able to animate this and make it look good!

So, while I did find an easy app to use, my sister and I now had to find someone that could assist us with this animation sequence. And thankfully we have our friend named Cecilia Bolanos.

Cecilia is one of our best friends, and she has a hidden talent of being able to draw really well, which is amazing because that was our main concern. We approached her with this idea and asked her for the favor

SHE SAID YES!

We spent the rest of the call giving her our vision, but we also trusted her to take her own creative liberty because we know hee type of drawings and like her creative inputs.  Here is a video of us on facetime

We wanted to have us animated (like said in the last blog post, this is going to be a 30 sec story of us going through a mob of antisocial, tech people and then us meeting the five groups we will be documenting), and this is what she came up with 😁 

OVERVIEW:

When thinking about the animation, we didn't just want to unintentionally make an animation sequence. We chose to make an animation sequence because of one, a stylistic choice, and second, we wanted to engage the younger age range of our target audience and we thought presenting the information in this unique way would assist in doing that. This way of presenting the information also helps reinforce the idea of looking at society and connection from a different perspective, by presenting the information in a different way too. Overall, we are very happy we are able to complete the animation sequence :)

W

Structure for 5 mns

Finalizing Structure of 5 mns ….

I know I know… I've said this before… 

STRUCTURE. STRUCTURE!

STRUCTURE!.. StRuCtUrE.

CONTEXT:

We’ve done this before! There have been different posts elaborating on what exactly we want our five minutes' structure to be. And it seems straight forward, but we have made it a bit harder on ourselves by making what we are creating. the beginning of the first episode of our whole docuseries. We decided to do this because we wanted to incorporate an intro that would elaborate on what our documentary is attempting to discuss (which would only be shown in the first episode, like in the docuseries “Ugly Delicious” where a skit- like introduction serves to give context to the rest of the series). But, there was the "in-between" clips that led into the main interviews that we didn't consider.

ROADTRIP

So I sat my sister and I down on our way to Orlando, and we finally condensed our splattered visions.

What we had to figure out:

-1: our opening sequence

-2:introduction to group

-3:time ratios for intro clips to interviews

1). Mrs Stoklosa had mentioned to us (thankfully) that our documentary episode had to include a title sequence. We knew this, but to be frank we weren't thinking about it when discussing our five minute segment. So the question rose up... WHAT THE FUDGE DO WE DO FOR OUR OPENING? - to keep it PG ;)

We had been sending each other some cool animation Instagram Reels that we knew we wanted to incorporate but didn't know how. So we realized this was the right place to do it. (Now we are currently in the process of deciphering how to actually animate, so I will get back to you with this for next blog). We know that we want this portion to be an animated sequence of us walking through an "antisocial" and "disconnected" crowd (with technology and without). Then we will be led to the five groups of people that we are documenting, and then the title will appear. Throughout, there will be credits, which we are taking inspiration from how the docuseries "The Mind Explained" does theirs. In this opening, we like how the credits are dispersed and how there is an aspect of animation to it. In addition, the docusieres "You Are What You Eat" has a cool animated logo that we are taking inspiration from. We estimate that this opening will be about 30 seconds.

2) Now... we also had to think about what needed to appear after this opening sequence, how we would transition this opening to our interviewees. We knew even from before that we wanted to have a montage type of video showing the location of where the RC pilots drove their airplanes. This would serve as an introduction to where the group met and what the group was really centered around. And, after watching the opening of the docuseries "The Mind Explained", we had an additional idea that the transition between the opening sequence and the interviews would be specialized to each episode. In this Netflix docuseries, each episode has a segment specific to the topic of that video. We thought that, like our montage of the airplane field, these are both good ways to introduce the topic and establish (context-wise) what will be seen shortly. So, after the opening animated sequence there will be a 30 second video introducing what the group is centered around (more destination centered). 

3) Lastly we had to establish how we would spread out the time we had with all we wanted to include. So we split up our different "segments" or parts onto a notes app and calculated how much time each section should be to have enough time for the interviewees:

OVERALL:

I feel very relieved to have done this because now we know EXACTLY what we need to still film and capture. I think we could've done this earlier in the process, but we have it done now!

Pilot Interview 2

Pilot #2 Filming:

HEllOOOOO EVERYONE! I hope you are all doing well. I just got back from a States drama trip, and we still managed to film today 👏 (kind of "we"). We got back at around 7:30 AM and we were scheduled to film for later that day around 6 PM.

INTERVIEWING SITUATION/CONFUSION:

So basically with the interviewees, we were confused on whether we wanted two or three. We didn't think we would have enough time in the five-minute documentary to cover three interviewees, especially due to the 1 min 30 sec introduction. But, we still needed three interviewees to have in the short montage introducing the interviewees. So, we filmed a full interview for the previous interviewee, Armando, as an extra one just in case we would need it, along with the short introduction that we did need. But the full interviews we wanted to get were Camillo's (this interview) and  Luis's (my dad's).

We had been planning to film Camillo for a while. The first time we scheduled it wouldn't give us enough time to film because we wanted to film in his airplane warehouse. This time around, we would have to film before 6 PM which Victoria ended up doing.... I didn't end up going to film this time because I was asleep and exhausted... BUT that doesn't mean I didn't contribute of course 😶😮. 

We had already generalized the types of questions we wanted to ask and what we wanted to film because of the previous interview to this. Filming Armando's interview (which we wouldn't be using fully) served as a test-run to what we should film and include on the next recordings.

So my sister headed out and got to filming! (Which I had done before by myself too so she better not be complaining on her blog 😑)

While there, she filmed a lot of shots of the warehouse and the tour Camillo gave, as well as the interview. This interview would be one of the two pilot ones that we would use in our 5 mn segment💪

Problems/Solutions:

- Victoria forgot to put a mic on the camera so the interview sounds like SH!T (also because the camera was very far from Camillo (interviewee) ). But she said that she did a voice memo of him speaking so I really hope she pulled through! If not..... lets just say twins will have a BIG problem.

-SOLUTION for future... so we can't really fix it now if it is a problem, but I would add the mic and record for a test trial to then see how it sounds.

CCR PLANNING

 FIRST CCR POST:

A momentous occasion indeed... my first CCR post. And being honest, the first time I've even thought about the CCR since this project began! 

I did create a CCR a couple months back on another project:

This was a practice. But now it is the real deal which means I got to start planning.

First step: GO OVER WHAT CCR CONSISTS OF 

These are my detailed notes from our class lesson on the critical reflection (i am so happy it is an essay now and not two videos 🙏🏻🙏🏻)

Second Step: APPLY CURRENT PROJECT TO QUESTIONS OF CCR

FIRST QUESTION- Apply genre and research. Here I would discuss my research on documentaries, specially episodic documentaries and specifically ones that have a psychological approach to them. I could talk about how we did research on different documentary series like Ugly Delicious and also a documentary series on Youtube be that is psychological (seen in research blogs before). In addition, I then discuss how this research and research on conventions informed my decisions in what I made or chose to not include and why. So doing things like how I got influenced auditory and visually are what is being looked for.

SECOND QUESTION:

How do products engage with audiences? Here I would NEED to mention target audience and what the target audience is for the documentary. In addition, mentioning how my product engages with the specific target audience is the key. So for example, on social media if I post a trailer or clips of the documentary, I could talk about how my target audience engages with my product digitally. 

PROBLEMS- CONCERNS:

- My only questions regarding the CCR have to do with the last questions. For branding and question three, I feel like branding is such a vague word and I am afraid I won’t answer the question if “branding” sufficiently and accurately.

- Finally, for the last question, I am not sure if we actually have to do it. I think we do but I am confused on how to answer the question. It asks how does my product represent social groups or issues. I think my documentary represents social groups well, when relating to different people coming to one markham group, my whole doc is about community and groups. But, I don’t know what them being represented means exactly. I think I just have to continue to develop the branding and from there move to the next questions. If not, I will continue to discuss this with my sister or ask a friend :) 

Shooting Pilot Interviews:

 Shooting Another Interview! #2

Dear blog stalkers and readers, 

today I am deciding to write in a letter format because I have realized I structure all my blogs the same way and it is really starting to trigger me. I don't want to sound too redundant, so I am narrating today's productive events through a letter (also imagine this is in a British accent). I want to make these interesting and why not have fun anecdoting ❔

Sitting in Aice Media A Level class at Cypress Bay, it was the second period. Senior students Sofia and Victoria Di Lauro organized their thoughts on what they wanted to get done later that day. That is when they came up with this:

What is that scribbled nonsense you may ask? HA! I may respond. It is notes, intellectual jotted-down ideas for title names (for each documentary episode), and documentary questions. During this AICE Media class, they started to do all the little things that needed to get done. As they discussed what they would want to film, it would soon turn to later that day..

INTERMISSION.

Normal Sofia again, I wanted to quickly explain what my sister and I were going to film later today. We had previously storyboarded that we wanted to get our interviewees to say their name, age, and occupation. We wanted to film a montage-type of sequence of all of them as an introduction to the interviewees. After that, we had just developed interviewee questions regarding the hobby of RC airplane flying, but we mainly wanted to focus on questions regarding the Markham Park group.

Now where was I... Oh yes! Filming! The two passionate, riled-up students arrived at Armando's house and got to filming! They had him set up a chair in front of his RC (which they later learned meant remote control) airplanes and started to film his interview! The twins debated on whether or not he should speak in Spanish (his native language) but Armando insisted on it being okay that he spoke English, so they did just that! 

After he answered questions, he gave a tour of his office and work area:

The interview was done and the twins went home. This is the equipment they used to film that day:

 Overall:

Normal Sofia again: Overall, this was a good first time filming the pilot interviewees. I would say we did a good job of planning the encounter and with asking a plentitude of questions. I also realized that we needed to ask more questions because he wasn't really giving us the full answers we were seeking. So as a lesson for interviewing it is about asking more questions or being able to improvise and come up with questions on the spot. Thankfully it is me and Victoria which makes this easier.

Storyboard- SCENES DONE

 FULL STORYBOARD (SCENES)

Hey guys... welcome back. 

My sister and I finally fully have a pretty good idea of what our whole documentary segment is going to look like!

We had done a storyboarding plan before (here is a picture of a previous blog in which I detailed it):

BUT,

now we actually sat down and discussed certain parts of our 5 minute documentary segment:

1. What our message is (being able to break down intention with doc to one sentence)

2. How we are attempting to show message within five minutes

3. What we have left to film

This is our new updated storyboarding scene list for our 5 mn doc extract.

Since we are making the first five minutes of the first documentary episode, we are choosing to make an opening segment showing the current world's state with connection. This is where we have the therapist interview planned to be, but I was confused on one thing about this segment: are we trying to refute the way the world is? Are we trying to take a side? (The world is connected, the world isn't, the world is connected but differently than before?)

And after talking to Mrs. Stoklosa, I realized that we didn't have to take a side. That initial segment serves to show how society's state of connection is like, and then we can choose to accept it as truth, because it is, but it isn't the whole truth. It is about showing that although connection has decreased and changed to digital, there is still a large portion of the world that connects in person, and forms in part of communities around things they love.

I was writing some notes about that here:

In addition, back from the blog where we had the group meeting discussion, one of my group members, Megan recommended we ask all the interviewees (ones who drive planes) the same question in the beginning of the episode and at the end. Because we are trying to show how people from distinct backgrounds are choosing to come together to one group in the name of community/forming connections. So, what my sister and I plan to do is:

At the start of doc where people are shown: "State your name, where you are from, and your occupation"

At the end of the doc: "What has joining this group done for you/brought you?" "What does being a part of this group mean to you?"

We are hoping this emphasizes differences in the beginning and similarities at the end, to show that message that no matter how different we are, we all feel very similar feelings/have similar wants (universal connection).

Finally, now what we have to focus on for filming it getting those pilot interviews and finding more B-roll for the intro segment😲😜

OVERALL:

- In conclusion, being able to understand what we are trying to support/reiterate in the documentary, specifically for that intro segment, is very important. I am really happy I could discuss it and narrow down our meaning.

Interview Filming...

 FIRST INTERVIEW SHOT??

Yup! You heard it right folks. We got our first interview shot 🙌 It feels surreal but we did it...

So for our documentary segment we were seeing if it was possibly to get some information from a psychologist's perspective (because our subgenre is sociological and it would help serve our intro's purpose). We thought it would be fitting for a professional to state how data and the information they've seen supports how communities are today. From isolated to connected, we wanted an accurate understanding. So..... lucky for us, I have a personal

THERAPIST!

On the day I took the daytime "establishing" Markham Park shots (previous post to this), I had a therapy session right after. So, I texted my therapist about the possibility of being able to take up 15 minutes of our session to film an interview, and she said YES!! My sister and I were so static. But first, we had to come up with documentary questions: 

After we did this, it was just about filming it! This is me right before my session:

So I set up my tripod and camera and asked her the questions!

LESSON:

Through the process of asking her the questions, I realized she wasn't giving me the answers I needed that would make the B-roll correlate to the VO of her interview (we already had B-roll we knew we wanted to use). So, I improvised and on the spot asked her a couple of extra questions. Also, I think it would've been way better if my sister could've come with me because I was trying to look at her when she was responding to me, while also seeing if the shot that was being taken was in check. But overall, I think it went well and I am excited to see how we will edit it in 💪

Filming Pt. 2!

 FILMING Pt. 2!

Hello fellow blog readers! I hope you are all doing well. Today I am here to announce that......

WE HAVE FILMED AGAIN! 😁😁💥

To be honest, I was a little scared about filming and seeing when we would have the chance to do it, but so far its been really productive! For this time filming, we needed to get some specific shots that we had shot listed for a segment of our documentary segment. It would be the segment in the documentary that introduces the setting, the place where the community hobby was done or where they met up. 

This is what that segment looked like on paper:

We mostly wanted establishing shots of the flying field, the hut where the airplanes were being fixed, and of Markham park. In addition, we really wanted to get some airplane-inspired shots from "Top Gun" the movie. So, when deciding what day to film, my sister wasn't able to go on the day that we had to film, so I ended up filming by myself... Which looked like this:

We weren't too worried about my sister not being there because we trust each other to get the shots we need, and we both have a similar mindset when shooting.

Below is how the flying field and airplane station looked:

I went shooting with my dad and was able to get some cool shots of his friends flying the airplanes. I wanted to get a lot of shots of airplanes because this segment of the doc is the one that introduces not only the people of the group, but the hobby they all do. But, it was also important for me to get the people that fly the planes, which I did. I was able to bring a tripod (mini and big), while also shooting a lot of shots free-hand (I like to be able to quickly adapt to any shot I see is worth the opportunity).

OVERALL:

Overall, I am very happy with how the shooting went. I think I got a variety of shots (i overshot just in case), but I hope the shots I took are going to be able to be used for the segment we want. The process of filming was easy, and the fact that everyone there was facilitating me getting certain shots made the process go by way faster😄

Meetinggg

 HELLOOOO EVERYONE!

In today's special of WEEKLY BLOG, I will be talking about the amazing, collaborative, and HARMONIOUS first group meet-up I had. It really was as good as I am making it sound.

This meet-up is something my teacher, hey Mrs. Stocklosa (I am breaking the fourth wall to you right now cause I know you will read this :))), prompted for us to do as a way for us to get outside perspectives on our projects and make any adjustments we see fit. This type of meet-up is a good way to measure out and see where one is with the project, as you will give a breakdown of the current state of the project to other students.

GROUP:

This was the group I was with 😆 (from left to right: Megan, Martina, and Zach. Go check out their blogs their projects are going really well so far!! Yw for the plug..)

My sister and I, my partner in this project, were separated from the groups, enabling us to get separate insights on the same topic, which we would then share with each other. 

We took turns, about 20 mns per person, discussing our chosen genre and concerns we had for the projects. Each group member then gave a response as to what a solution could be. While this was happening, I made a document with all the solutions I would propose for the group members, as well as the suggestions pitched to me:

-            Martina: Would be cool to have other people’s thoughts voice over, not just main anxious guy

-            Social media: cool ways to get fan interaction. Have fans state what their favorite way to handshake is, make it a cast-fans interactions experience (type out most embarrassing handshake experience)

-Zach: Has beginning and end of story

Middle thoughts: could make it more of a mental trip (Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Minds)

I am going to recommend Zach “Secret Life of Walter Mitty” it is everything he is wanting his film to represent

-            Megan:

-            Dystopian AI: Introduces robot (that looks like human) and trying to get him to replicate human emotion

-            I really like the thought put into mise-en-scene elements and editing choices (music/sound when robot is getting more human)

 

 

My project feedback:

-            Ask same questions see how differ in answers

-            “In beginning people come from diff backgrounds)

-            “Why do you do this” (same responses)

Hi my name is … and I am a truck driver….  (montage of all three) then go into all three separate, be more involved me and vic (narrating over B-roll to move to first interviewee)

 

 Font (Montserrat)

Graphic ( a graphic dora map flying to each interviewee like plane)

 

MEANING: go with each episode being about connection with group, and have macro analysis be about connection with everyone, universal feelings of wanting connection and it’s a possibility all around us

For my project, the main concern I had was how to get the message across. I showed them some ideas for logos/ Canva visuals I had made for the social media and asked if it made sense with our theme and message. The main concern was that I couldn't concentrate what I wanted the documentary to represent into just one phrase, but now after discussing some main points for my doc, I think I am ready to make the social media posts and advertise effectively.

REVIEW:

Overall I really liked this experience. I allowed me to gain knowledge not just on my project, but let me reflect on solutions given to other projects. This is a supposed "transactional experience" on paper, "you give me feedback on my project and Ill give you feedback on yours", but with everyone collaborating and intertwining it feels more like a fluid conversation that simultaneously helped me in answering some questions I had about my project. So... 10/10 experience!

Filming Day 1

 Filming Day One!

We made it! Out of the page and into reality, we finally FILMED!

So, after we completed that vague scene-shot list (seen in the last blog 😏), we were trying to find a day to start filming. Because my sister and I are both doing Pippin ,we were having trouble finding a time to film. So, our plan was....

• take Sofia's Sony camera to school for a couple of days and see when we could film
• ask Julia Amigorena (one of twin's best friends ;)  ) to borrow her tripod
• ask my dad when he was going to Markham Park so we could go with him

And that's what we did! I remembered that my dad had dinner at Markham Park with his pilot group every Thursday late-evening. Thankfully rehearsal didn't end up running late that day, because we asked our dad if we could go film with him and he said yes!

ARRIVED: MARKHAM PARK PILOT DAD AREA.

 The first photo (not just an ordinary sunset). We got there and there was such a pretty sunset that it gave us ideas of a shot we could do with it and our title card.

The second photo. This was where the crew met up every Thursday. Behind this little house (which was a bathroom...) was the airplane runway for the miniature airplanes.

1) We started off by first filming the sunset and setting up the tripod to film the atmosphere around the actual group. Videos of the sunset, nature, cars/bikes driving around were collected. In addition, voice memos of environmental sounds were taken which could later be used when layering sound. 

(PICTURES BELOW)

2) Then we made it to my dad's friend group and lets just say they didn't leave us bored at all. Not only were they very entertaining and good sports about filming, but they gave us choripans 😍 (one of top Argentinian foods). 

Here are some BTS pictures of me recording. These are also going to be later used on the Instagram social media page!:

These are some extra fun pictures...

OVERVIEW:

Overall, the filming went really well. We were able to get all the B-roll we needed for these specific scenes. We are going to have to come back when its more day to get some airplane shots, but I am happy we have started and are continuing to get stuff done!