Portfolio project- Documentary

Documentary excerpt 

magazine article

social media page

These are the links to the three components of the portfolio project. With "______American" we really wanted to create a piece that we could relate to and that Generation Z as a whole could relate to as well. The magazine article conveys the inner workings of our minds and the question and answer format allow the reader to get a better idea of where we are coming from with this project. Similarly the social media page reflects reaching out to our target audience and develops the episode format of the project including clips from the series not included in the excerpt. Also the social media served as a great form of distribution. 

Critical Reflection

The docuseries “Blank American”, stylized as “________American” is meant to explore the various ways that people, specifically Generation Z, maintain aspects of culture without living in that culture. The perennial immigration story is given a twist here because the series explores the life after immigration and focuses more on the children of immigrants rather than immigrants themselves (although two of the subjects did immigrate from other countries to America they were very young at the time). The series explores the overall use of the mediums of food, art, and technology/media to maintain a cultural identity in America.


In order to properly create a docuseries, researching existing material that had a similar topic or target audience was crucial. The docuseries “Ugly Delicious” achieved something close to what the desired accomplishment was with this project. They used one medium throughout, food, and explored different cultures and methods of cooking one food while this series is using various mediums to maintain different cultures. We incorporated several elements from “Ugly Delicious” in “________American” including using multiple subjects instead of focusing the documentary on one person/culture. Another docuseries “The Toys That Made Us” used a lot of b-roll when mentioning the past but kept it engaging by making the cuts fast and having a variety of visual stimuli instead of a few old photos. “________American” definitely emulated this during the history/context portion of the excerpt where the voiceover about the history of immigration in America is played over a diverse group of images that are copyright free.


However one way that the project challenges documentary conventions is having two narrators instead of just one. “________American” has two narrators to make the project even more engaging because one narrator might have been too monotonous. Now in hindsight this may confuse the audience more than grasp their interest but the intention was to try and subvert conventions in a way that would help gear the project further towards a younger audience. Another convention that was somewhat subverted is the use of music or background music. No music is used in the excerpt, purposely, because the focus is supposed to be on the subjects and what's on the screen stead of the music. The point of this subversion was to not detract from what was being said and have the focus truly be on the answers to the questions.



Technically, another way the project challenges conventions is the use of a singular angle to film the subjects the production was restrained by the circumstances of the pandemic so software like zoom and Microsoft Teams had to be utilized to attain the level of diversity that was necessary for the project. The audio for some of the interviews is mediocre and one way to fix this was to get microphones but then again because only two subjects were interviewed in person, this would’ve only fixed the audio for a small portion of the excerpt. The camera quality is also quite poor because we had to rely on the webcam of the subject’s laptop while really only one subject was able to have quality footage, free of grain.


Because the target audience, which is Generation Z, has such a short attention span, including a wide variety of images and videos interspersed with the interviews was one way the project sought to maintain interest. Usage of stop motion videos to add variety to the project helped to diversify the shots and kept the excerpt engaging. Stop motion is unique in that the subjects are represented by chess pieces and props were created to better visualize what the subjects are saying. Since they discuss complex ideas and situations, breaking down the nebulous idea into a more palatable or bite size format helps drive home the message of the project and keeps the integrity of the message while also giving the younger audience the opportunity to better understand it.


The subjects included in the project are a testament to the diversity of Generation Z and the commitment of the series to showcasing several identities and maintenance of various cultures. “________American” was able to include a variety of races and ethnicities even though only five subjects are utilized. Representation and diversity was really important to the project because the idea was to create a docuseries that would represent a multicultural generation and show how hybrid American cultures were becoming more commonplace. However one critique of the representation is the lack of male representation but perhaps this accidental/circumstantial exclusion can provide a refreshing view since documentaries are dominated by males.


“________American” is a docuseries geared toward Generation Z. That is why there are so many visuals, they keep the excerpt engaging so that the target audience is not bored. Generation Z has a notoriously short attention span, that is why our episodes were planned to be 20-25 minutes at most. Generation Z is the most multicultural generation in history, so using a diverse group of subjects allows “________American” to appeal to a wide audience. Although the target audience is skewed younger that doesn’t mean that older age groups wouldn’t relate to the series. Since the topic is almost universal and personal to millions of people around the country/world the series is easily marketable.


Integration and continuity of the brand identity between the social media page the magazine article and the documentary excerpt showcase the cohesive nature of the brand. Since the stories told by each subject are so personal and the questions asked are so deep and thought-provoking the idea was to create a digital scrapbook. Because subjects refer to their memories and their past as well as their present, a scrapbook best represents looking back at the past but also pages can be created to commemorate the present. This was maintained through the beige background of the title cards in the excerpt and the beige background of the social media as well as the name plates included in the excerpt. The tape graphics used in social media all work together to perpetuate the scrapbook idea.


Even though the excerpt is not perfect what it really breaks down to is time. Although even if we did have even more time I’m sure there would still be beautiful imperfections that hamper the effectiveness of the excerpt. The diversity of the subjects is both a strength and a weakness because while various races/ethnicities are represented we did not have any male subjects. The social media integrated the scrapbook theme with the excerpt and the magazine article also emulated that aesthetic with its background. Overall, I am proud of the work my partner Shreya and I were able to create.

Alexa play "End of the Road" by BoyzIIMen

 So we've reached the final moments of our portfolio project for A level. Honestly I am really proud of what we were able to accomplish while being secluded in our homes due to the pandemic. I know that if we had been able to be more mobile we would have done some things differently but I am truly pleased with how the documentary excerpt and the other components came together. 

This past week has included a lot of zoom calls most of them in excess of 2 hours and a lot of editing on my part since we can't share the editing responsibility. Overall, Shreya and I work really well together and that is why we've worked together on both this year and last year's projects. We are basically done with the project at this point, just a few more edits to iron out and Shreya is finishing up the social media. The excerpt will be up in 48 hours 👀so show it some love when you get the chance!

It's the Final Countdown

 The Final Countdown

And so we are heading into the final week of our portfolio project. I am happy with where we are at right now. I am currently editing a lot of the content we have curated through our interviews and the intro we want to do. I think I am about 40% done with the excerpt. I really have been working on the meat of the project, the middle of the excerpt because I felt like that was the best place to start with all the footage I had to go through and stuff like that. 

I think are on track to finish by Friday which is my goal. Shreya sent me her recordings for the intro today and I recorded mine as well. The clip I have right now is at 2:15 and with the intro we will probably end up at around 4 minutes maybe less than that. I really think that we won't be able to include more than one more subject (I have two edited together right now) maaaayyyybbbeee we can squeeze another one but it would be hard to keep it under time. 

Shreya is working on the instagram and we need 20 posts. She is using canva to complete it and she is making great progress. We haven't posted anything yet but I think I might start promoting the account on my personal instagram account to give it more visibility and followers. 

Stop!(motion) In the Name of Love

 Bringing back my (nonexistent) stop motion skills just like I'm bringing it way back with this reference to a Supremes song. I used to be quite adept at using different apps on my phone for stop motion since I did several projects in that style for Film class in middle school, and let's just say its been a hot second since I have used this technique. Shreya and I wanted to ensure that our docuseries would be visually engaging, and because some of the subjects talk about abstract ideas like religion, we wanted to visualize what they were describing. We decided to use stop motion because we found it would be a cool and fun way to spice up the doc but it is not exceedingly simple. 

The hardest part about this stop motion for me was finding the right space to do it. I really wanted to find a space in my house that had a plain background but it just wasn't working out. I tried to create my own with blankets and that didn't look good at all. Also the baseboards on the walls made the floor less of an option to me. I ended up using a book shelf and honestly I might redo the stop motion I completed just because i want to make a better background. 

In the interview, Dani spoke about how christianity and catholicism were bug parts of her parents way of maintaining their hispanic heritage. I visualized that with some things I had around my house and I will include the short clip below. 

C'mon VOGUE

 Let your body move to the music, move to the music

ok ok i'm done 

This might be a stretch for the title but I am going to make it work anyways. Basically I am trying to say that we have finished the magazine article component of the project. How does this relate to Madonna's 1990 smash hit you ask? Well it is quite simple really, Vogue just also happens to be a very famous arts and entertainment magazine, precisely the kind of medium our article would appear in to be marketed. Does that all make sense? Ok maybe I took it too far with this one 😂.

Our teacher gave us some feedback on the article and I was able to complete all the subsequent edits Shreya and I came up with. I will include it below. 

magazine article

Check On It by Beyoncé feat. Bun B, Slim Thug

Ooo Boy you lookin' like you like what you see

Won't you come over check up on it, I might let you work up on it
Ladies let em check up on it, watch he while he check up on it
Dip it, pop it, twerk it, stop it, check on me tonight

^this has been playing in my head recently because Shreya is going to check on my work on the magazine article haha

Anyways Shreya and I met yesterday and I was able to send her a zoom link so we could share our screens and show each other our progress on what we have been respectively been working on. She said she felt bad because she felt like I was doing work and then she was just criticizing what I had done but that really wasn't the case because her critiques will make the final product better. Her suggestions weren't condescending at all and I really appreciated her taking the time to thoroughly digest what I had accomplished and offer suggestions. 

Shreya said that I should reorganize the flow of the questions which is something I had mentioned in my blog post about making the questions. She also suggested that I remove one question and replace it with a question about our subjects to show our gratitude and talk about our reasons for choosing who we chose. I will include the updated article below, however there are some placeholders because I want to include a screen grab of the doc itself and we aren't far enough along for that yet but we will be soon!

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT

 Breaking news!

I think I am 90% done with the magazine article component because I decided to make it just one of the creators of the docuseries being interviewed. I have some placeholders for photos that I will update later but the meat and potatoes are done. I just answered the questions I had created myself because I felt like I was the person who knew what I was looking for in an answer. 

Shreya and I will meet tomorrow to discuss the project and moving forward and I will show her the component and ask for feedback to see what she says. I will post an update soon with what she says about the component. 

Second Semester Seniors Part 3

 Today we had another round of group meetings although the were much shorter than usual because we had instructional time the first half of class. It was really helpful to visualize what the critical reflection essay should look like because I was apprehensive about how to approach that process. In the group meetings we actually spoke a bit about how comforting it was to have some examples and ideas of what the final product should look like.

I mostly spoke to Jen for the rest of the period and it was cool since we are both working on the documentary option of the portfolio project. She seemed receptive to our _____American idea which was a relief because it is nice to see someone who hasn't interacted with our project before almost instantaneously understand what we are trying to accomplish with minimal explanation. Similarly, Jen's documentary about the University of Miami dance team sounds amazing! I can't wait to see it. She mentioned some problems she was struggling with but I wasn't able to offer a solution beyond what she had already tried. I did make some suggestions about other components of the project like using Canva to create the magazine article. 

Canva: Baby I'm Back by Popular Demand, ***** I'm Back by Popular Demand

 Soooooo yeah, I am using Canva again BUT after it burned me while I was attempting to make the title sequence I was worried it wouldn't be as useful. I decided to give Canva another chance since there is no other platform that I know how to use that has extensive templates and media resources. 

Part of the documentary option of the portfolio project requires you to create a magazine article to promote the documentary. Now, to me this was kind of vague and I wasn't sure how to create it at first, that's why Shreya and I asked our teacher awhile ago about what it should look like (that is pretty much where we got the q&a idea from) and I also made a blog post about the questions I wanted to use in said q&a. 

Originally I got carried away and was thinking we might need to create some sort of interview video but then I remembered it specifically said magazine, so immediately I thought of Adobe InDesign and I tried looking for templates on there but there wasn't anything that was really sparking my imagination which is why I came crawling back to Canva.  I will insert some of the different templates I am considering using for the project below. 

That's so Raven, it's a future I can see. That's so Raven it's so mysterious to me-e, yeah-eah. Yep that's me!

 Ok so I am noticing a trend with all these shows from my childhood being referenced in the titles of my blogposts I mean we just did Maya and Miguel but I think I did Phineas and Ferb a while back too. Should I try to keep this running? I don't know maybe if the post really relates to what I talk about but I think thats dishonest because honestly I think some of my post titles have nothing to do with what I talk about there is such a harsh transition everytime, with that said.....

Today's post is about the future! OoOoOoO (hence the reference to the tv show about a teen psychic)

Next week Shreya and I will be in crunch time pushing through this project so we can finish on time. I really want to have a rough draft of the excerpt by saturday the latest. To accomplish this I think what we need to do is start editing midway through the week after regrouping and further planning on Monday. Call me Raven because I think I just had a vision of us celebrating getting a lot done this week, so let's make it happen! :)

It's Maya and Miguel, brother and sister and best friends as well!

 Again if I have to explain what this title means like what were you doing as a child (assuming we are a similar age). Maya and Miguel was the show you guys, and maybe it is just now I am realizing this but I was exposed to a LOT of hispanic children's shows in my childhood: Dora, Diego, Handy Manny, Maya and Miguel too. Maybe my parents were trying to get me to see the only main character brown kids on tv at the time? I don't know. 

Anyways this post is about how my sister will be interviewed for the docuseries. I am not sure if we will use her interview or not but it is better to have the footage instead of wondering whether it would have been useful when we sit down to edit. She is the youngest person I know who can understand and properly answer the questions and we have a relatively young target audience. I have booked her for the thursday after we come back from break because i get that she wants to relax too and she is busy on literally every other day but we will make it work. Shoutout to my sister thank you for saying yes. 

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N in the Summer Sun!

 Ok yes I know it is SPRING break and not summer but it feels hot enough to be summer and I guess I was looking for an excuse to reference this Connie Francis classic. I listen to A LOT of music and I have gone through successive phases where I listened exclusively to music from a certain era (middle school me thought this was mindblowingly cool). Connie became a favorite of mine during my 50s phase, "Stupid Cupid" and "Among My Souvenirs" were also replays for me. 

ANYways the point of this post is to say that I will betaking a necessary break this week although I plan to be somewhat productive I do not think I will be anywhere near my pre-break levels. I am glad I will be able to relax and destress and I think I will come back from break with a renewed focus to get this project done and start editing the interviews we have so far ASAP. I am not sure what class will look like our first day back, but I hope Shreya and I have time to regroup and get our minds in the editing zone.  

Wow that's a great question, I wasn't expecting that question

 Well in our case, while our subjects weren't exactly expecting all the questions we asked, they were definitely informed about the parameters of the documentary. As of this blog posting we have completed 3 interviews which is great because we will have a lot of footage to choose from and different subject's answers could be better depending on how the intro goes. We have also scheduled two more interviews just to cover our bases.

 Shreya has contacted Amy, who can speak about Irish culture. We were planning a lot of stuff for the documentary that her interview would be crucial for and by chance she was in Shreya's group meeting on Wednesday so she had the perfect opportunity to ask Amy if she could be interviewed and Amy graciously said yes. I reached out to Alyssa who can speak about Nigerian culture. Although I do not know her personally I messaged her on Instagram and she agreed as well. I think she will be a good subject because she would be able to promote the doc if we asked her to since she is a model now. 

Quiet on set.....PLEASE!!!

 

Today Shreya and I interviewed Chelsea, one of our subjects for the docuseries. We used Zoom so that Shreya could be on the call while I interviewed Chelsea in person since she lives close by to me, this way we were able to get two angles of Chelsea which will add to our shot variety later. I filmed the interview on my phone and I changed the settings on my phone's camera so that it should have really high quality video. 

There were a lot of problems that dragged out the filming process, the majority of it being noise caused by my family (ugh). My parents were working upstairs and I had informed them previously that I would be filming yet my dad still came bounding down the stairs and interrupted Chelsea mid sentence. My sister, who was downstairs and could clearly see me doing a project, used an electric sharpener to sharpen her pencil while we were filming (I shut down when I heard the whir of the sharpener). And to top it all off my dog started whining, loudly, because he had been put away so he would not interfere with the filming (this was my breaking point). Luckily I was able to regain my composure after taking a five minute break and there weren't many obstacles after that. 

Second Semester Seniors: The Sequel!

 Today we had group meetings pt 2 and I think it went pretty well. Again even though we are second semester seniors it felt like we were all still hard at work, not slacking, still giving our all to create this final project for media studies. My group this time around was more specific than the last one, I don't know if that is really the right word to describe it but what I am trying to say is that most of the people in my group were doing documentaries as well except for 2, Annika is doing a music video and  Sara is doing a short film. 

I felt that everyone gave really good advice about what to do for the opening and I appreciated everyone's input. Annika mentioned the app ProCreate to create eye-catching animations for the intro but all that was playing in my head was "Status Quo" from High School Musical where they sing "stick with what you know.... we can do it...hip hop hooray....she has got to go" basically I am saying that I was nervous about trying a new software this late in the game, sticking to the status quo might be best plus the app costs money. 

I think I was able to give meaningful input when I could and I think Lucia's documentary about BLM will be really interesting I gave her a subject I thought would be perfect to interview and she had actually also thought of that person and had contacted them already but hasn't heard back yet. I think what she should do for b roll is put out a call for help on social media so that people can send her videos of any protests they went to so she can include it in the documentary. 

Script Scrapped Start Over

 So we have been working on our introduction script and it has been through a few different iterations but I do not think it has finished evolving quite yet. Shreya and I met today and we were able to discuss our visions for the introductory speech that will set up the context for the rest of the excerpt. Below is the rough draft I wrote and Shreya edited. 

Generation Z or those born between 1997-2012 are the most multicultural generation the world has ever seen. This is largely due to the massive amount of globalization that has occurred during the second industrial revolution (tech revolution) as well as increased connectedness that allowed for far more intercultural connections. 

The land of immigrants, America, has seen the rise of different communities like Chinese-American, Indian-American and Mexican-American. Migration has been around for thousands of years, it is what made the world what it is today. 

But what makes the present so special is the duality of gen z, being raised in two distinct cultures, pockets of this generation are attempting to preserve their family culture while living in another one.

I am iffy about this introduction because I think it is unfinished which is correct. I think a really important detail to include is how cultures that arrived before more recent ones are more mainstream and have an easier time maintaining culture. Like Italian culture is celebrated through widespread consumption of pizza and lasagna. It is a work in progress. 

Keep Being Curious Keep Asking Questions

 Yes the title to this blog post is a TikTok reference.....but I swear I'm not addicted. I have not opened the app in 2 weeks and I feel pretty good, even if I spend the time elsewhere like on tv or movies I feel like I'm learning more than if I was using TikTok, I feel more fulfilled even if I am still allocating the same amount of time to do homework. 

Anyways, the point of this blog post is to talk about some of the ideas I had for one of the components of the portfolio project, the media article. Right now I am thinking that a Q&A would be perfect because it will allow people to see our thought process. I have seen other films do it this way in order to get publicity but honestly I do not find Q&As enjoyable to read, but there must be a reason it is continually used and I won't let my personal opinion affect the quality of the product. SO obviously the questions should be targeted towards me because right now I am brainstorming questions in terms of my ideas and my experiences so I have an idea of how I'd answer them which would make the creation easier.

Questions:

Q: What made you want to create a documentary about culture or specifically the maintenance of culture?

Q:What do you hope the audience to take away from this production? What's the central message?

Q: Are you planning to do more seasons?

Q:What makes -American unique and different from other docs focused on culture like Ugly Delicious?

Q: What was production like during the pandemic?

Q:Who do you hope to reach with this project? Why?

(the placement of these questions is not set in stone I think I'd organize them differently but I'm not sure)

MOOOOOMMM Colin's making a title sequence *guitar chord*

 Who doesn't love a little Phineas and Ferb? (Candace was the best character let's not lie)

 I started working on the title sequence a little bit today and I am not sure I like it as much as I thought I was going to like it. To me it feels like it needs more, I haven't shown it to Shreya yet though so we will see what she says. It is missing an element of complexity right now it feels too simple and maybe I'm being too much of a self-critic because it is only a rough draft but we are trying to get the ball rolling, I don't want to trip us up on the little things. There are some aspects like music that I haven't even thought about but I am rethinking using Canva for the intro just because it isn't as flexible time length wise as I would like it to be. Don't get me wrong the animation is engaging but the problem is that it is briefly engaging, the movement of the different flags is quite literally 2 seconds. Now I've tried to slow it down but it isn't transferring as well as I want it to transfer. I might attempt using actual stop motion with printed out flags, the problem is I do not have colored ink so I think I am stuck with this for now. I could do the animations in iMovie itself and do it that way but we will see what shreya says.

Can-va's Back Alright!

 If you didn't sing the title of this posting to the tune of 'Backstreet's Back' I don't know if we can still be friends >_< JK jk haha. But in all seriousness I have once again turned to Canva for all my graphic needs. 

I first started using Canva at the beginning of this school year although I have been introduced to it before this is the first year I have used it so often. The school newspaper got a premium Canva account which I am using for this project, it gives me access to loads of elements and options that my free account doesn't. In a previous blog post I mentioned that we had decided on a working title, "-American," and we've actually progressed a bit from there. When we did group meetings someone offered Shreya the idea of doing an intro using the flags of different countries in a stop motion way and I really liked that idea. I tweaked it a bit and used Canva to make a page with a bunch of different flags at different sizes, kind of like a scrapbook/collage of flags of the world. I am not sure where to go from here but I did add an animation to make it cool and visually engaging. It is really fast and I can't figure out how to slow it down yet but I think my only option is to use iMovie and slow it down. 

Meeting

 Today Shreya and I had a meeting where we discussed our plans moving forward with the project. We discussed the people we would like to interview and we broke it down by picking people we know are parts of different communities so there is not a lot of overlap and instead more representation of a variety of communities to broaden the people who might watch the documentary. By offering a wide variety we can attract more people instead of narrowing our culture topic to one geographical area. 

We also spoke about general logistics but we haven't come to a decision on how to format the interviews, because we are thinking of interviewing one of my neighbors and my sister, I have easy access to them and safely interview them in person but with other people we do not have that option. There would be quality inconsistencies but I think that variety it would provide would be nice. I also mentioned how I looked into Instagram handles for our project and I found one that will work but I haven't set it up yet. 

Sooooooo we have a title...maybe?

 Recently we have been using the term -American (read dash American) to better condense the term we are trying to say, essentially generalizing the idea of someone being of both American culture and another one. This term allows us to be general and gives us flexibility. Recently I have been pitching it to Shreya and we both agree that this should be our working title moving forward, but if something changes or one of us gets a sudden inspiration I have no problems changing it. 

Because our target audience has a short attention span having a long title that is complex would not be received well and might be considered boring and "work" to watch not something for enjoyment or entertainment. Also the short title could easily be designed using canva so we could design a logo for the show. Personally I think that this title really encompasses everything that our doc is about it has the perfect amount of simplicity without being too vague. 

TTTTTTTARGET

 So I've hinted to it in previous posts but in this one and one more next week I will be explaining our target audience and the decisions that we have made accordingly to fit their wants. As soon as we started brainstorming for this documentary, Shreya and I knew that we wanted to create something that we could relate to, something that we had some personal knowledge about. Subsequently, we decided that because we were picking a topic that we related to, a lot of our peers and those younger than us would probably relate to it as well. That was our though process behind choosing gen z to be our target audience. 

Generation Z or those born between 1997-2012(about then there is some debate about the end date) are the most multicultural generation the world has ever seen. This is largely due the massive amount of globalization that has occurred during the second industrial revolution (tech revolution) as well as increased connectedness that allowed for far more intercultural connections. Shreya and I both relate to this because our families have immigrated from other places to America and we both have family that still live abroad and not in the United States. We want this generation which has such a unique understanding and arguably more tolerance for other cultures to be interested in a doc like this because we believe they could see themselves in it. We are planning to include a variety of shots including the interviews, graphics, and animation to keep the doc visually engaging. 

From The Top

 So Shreya and I met this week to discuss the specifics of our production because we really want to get the ball rolling next week (crossing our fingers that we will be prepared enough to start filming). Early on we decided that the excerpt that we choose to do should be the first five minutes of an episode, not something from the middle of the show or near the end. We just felt that this would be the best path forward for us because it would allow us to do so many different things creatively. After really fleshing out the gist of each of our episodes (news alert we've planned for there to be 5, following our teacher's advice to have an odd number of episodes) we decided that the best way to start is from the very beginning, the first episode, so we don't have to worry about context for the other episodes. 

The general structure that we have so far is:

intro- 20-30 secs

History of recent immigrant communities in America (brief)- 2-3 mins 

interview #1- 1 min

interview#2- 1min 

^interspersed with graphics and maybe animation(simple canva) 

We aren't really sure which interviews we are doing yet but we have some ideas. One idea that I had that kind of changes who we are going to interview is that we should interview younger people like teenagers and young adults to see how their identity is maybe different than that of their parents or grandparents. This would make the production more relatable to the target audience. 

The Past is in the Past........Let It Go

 We were briefly considering trying to include a lot of different people's immigrant experiences during different time periods. Our reasoning was that we could show how people who have been in America for longer/shorter have connected to their communities without physically being there. We soon realized that this was getting wayyyyyyy off topic and it wasn't our original idea of exploring how gen z is affected by having a complex identity as the most multi cultural generation in history. We decided to let it go and let the past be. However we are still including a bit of history in our excerpt because we feel that this is a great way to provide context for the documentary. 

We know that our interviews aren't going to cover this topic so we will have to do some kind of voiceover interspersed with b roll or archived footage of our subject's family immigrating to the United States. We are also going to try to use Canva to make animated graphics and graphics to visually represent what we are saying in the voice over and keep the production visually engaging. The voice over has to be engaging as well and I've been critiqued for my unenthused voice before so I'm not sure I'm up to the task. I think we should think about outsourcing this part of the project to a friend or someone we know with a good speaking voice. 

Second Semester Seniors (A Break Out Room Production)

Because everyone in A Level media studies is a second semester senior at this point it was nice to talk with other people who are going through the same things you are. It was cool to see people passionate about their projects but at the same time bemoaning the difficulties of other classes like math.

 We recently met with other students in our media studies class in order to help each other and offer advice on each other's respective projects. It was cool to see the mix of projects people were attempting. We started the meeting by briefly explaining what our production ideas were for our project, and it was clear that some people were further along than others in terms of how fleshed out their ideas were for their project. My group did not really have any major issues that we discussed because we were all fairly comfortable with where we were at in our productions. Some of the advice I was offered included: broadening the subjects of the documentary to include as many groups as possible. I really liked this suggestion even though the production was leaning that way anyways, to have someone else verbalize something you weren't confident in was very reassuring. Someone else suggested localizing the production to Florida and interviewing local indigenous tribes about their culture. While this was a cool idea I think it is too hard for us to execute because we do not know anyone we could interview and getting ample subjects would be difficult. 

A Little Research Music

 'Little Shop of Horrors' is one of my favorite broadway shows so I couldn't help myself with this reference to 'A Little Dental Music' from that musical. But that's not what this post is about, in this post I'm going to discuss some of the research I have done so far after speaking with my teacher about the project last class. 

I watched one episode of the docuseries 'The Toys That Made Us' on Netflix. This series is interesting because of the way they did the episode breakdown. By focusing on one toy each episode it allows the production to continue for as many seasons as it wants, it gives the concept longevity instead of limiting it. The episode I watched was about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it was interesting to see the mix of archive and new footage. The episode was on the longer side, about 45 minutes and I definitely found myself losing interest in certain parts of the piece. This showed me that for our target audience we really need to follow the advice of keeping the episodes short. I also would have liked to see more visuals, for example they spoke about the insane sales for the TMNT toys after an episode would air and it would have been nice to show that frenzy in graph format or something along those line. 

I also looked into the Instagram page of the documentary film 'Meru' to get a better idea of what our social media page should look like. The page included a lot of shots from the production as well as photos of celebrities with the directors. It seems like the Instagram was used to tease the different scenes of the documentary by showing a few different mountain climbing shots. This tells me that even though we are only filming an excerpt of one episode maybe we should create a still image or staged "shot" to embody each episode and post that on our social media page. 

We Need To Talk

 Today in class Shreya really wanted to speak with our teacher to discuss our ideas and ask for help because we were struggling with figuring out how to research our ideas. Since our topic is kind of unique, searching for appropriate information that could inform any creative decisions we make has been hard. Initially I was hesitant to speak with our teacher because I wasn't sure we were prepared enough to speak with her in terms of having a fleshed out production plan (what to do for the excerpt, what to do for the social media etc.) However, after the meeting I realized that Shreya definitely made the right call because meeting with our teacher actually helped us make decisions and quelled the fears I had about not being prepared. 

We got a ton of helpful advice so I want to run through specifics in this post so in future when we are working on the project I can refer to this post for help. Our teacher recommended formatting the episodes as shorter like 20-25 minute episodes to better suit our target audience, generation z because they have short attention spans. For the same reason she suggested including a wide variety of images and media in the production to keep the audience engaged. In terms of research she advised us to check out some docs on Netflix/Prime Video and their corresponding social media pages to get a better idea of what ours should look like. 

And Now It's Time For A Breakdown

For some reason when I began thinking about how to organize the different episodes of the docuseries Shreya and I are creating an excerpt for, this snippet of My Lovin' by En Vogue just kept replaying over and over in my mind. So like that song lyric and the title of this posting, I'm going to do a breakdown. 

Obviously there are various ways and methods of how to divide a documentary into episodes especially with a topic that is so broad like ours. Culture is a behemoth topic so narrowing the focus of each episode is essential to creating a cohesive direction so that the production doesn't feel like the same essential information is being regurgitated every episode. That is one reason why we wanted to have our topic be specifically about maintaining a cultural identity without actively living in that specific community. One idea that I came up with is to view maintaining culture through a distinct lens for each episode.

 For example, one episode would be about technology and in this episode we would delve into how people use social media to connect with family living in a different country or how WhatsApp/FaceTime enables connections that otherwise wouldn't be as possible or occur with such ease.  Other episodes could be about music or media, and another one could be about food. Shreya liked this idea too and we will talk with our teacher to see if this idea is a good approach to the project. 

Tentative Schedule

 Shreya and I wanted to make a schedule in order to stay organized and hold ourselves accountable for project progression. This rough draft of a schedule is similar to the one our teacher made for us, but we have tweaked it a little bit to better suit our needs. Honestly Shreya and I are both usually procrastinators but when it comes to media studies projects it is much wiser to finish filming as quickly as possible to start the editing process as early as you possibly can. Shreya and I both have rudimentary editing skills and switching our main editing software this year has taken some getting used to. Although we are somewhat proficient in imovie as it is kind of self explanatory we are still rusty with it after becoming accustomed to WeVideo. Anyways, this schedule should match up with the topic of my blog posts moving forward, but obviously this schedule is subject to change at any time depending on how smoothly everything goes. :)

Week 1: Ends on 20th

Genre

1 idea each for 5 min

ex. of idea

Schedule

Week 2:

• Research culture education 

• Target audience research 

• Who we want to reach (Gen Z)  and why (most multicultural generation)

• Which theme should first episode be

Week 3:

• Start fleshing out title 

• Production specifics (how many episodes etc.)

• Social media page

• Decide on how to start the excerpt specifically

Week 4:

• interviews

• start B roll 

• Finish filming

Week 5

• Film if needed

• Start Editing

• Plan/Finish magazine article

• Start ccr planning 

Week 6

• Finish editing

• Finish Magazine article

• Research for CCR

• Start CCR

Week 7

• Continue critical reflection

• Research for reflection

Week 8

• Finish critical reflection

Colin and Shreya in the Moooorrnnning!!!!

 Hello everyone, we are back at it again! (and yes that was a Community reference, I binged the first three seasons these past few weeks). Yes the resuming of this blog means that we are beginning our portfolio project for A Level media studies. Shreya and I decided to work together again because if something's not broken why fix it? This partnership has proven pretty fruitful in the past and working on previous projects produced a strong bond between us (wow that was a lot of unintentional alliteration, but I am kind of here for it). 

This time we are creating a documentary series excerpt. There are several components but we are confident that we can do the social media and magazine article pieces well, however as always we are slightly nervous about the filming of the documentary itself. Since it is a series and not a short doc we have to decide how many episodes and how to begin the excerpt. Our tentative idea is doing something with culture because both Shreya and I come from families who are maintaining a semblance of culture while also merging with American values/society. It is going to be a fun and maybe but hopefully not too stressful ride and I hope you all enjoy seeing this close up process.