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.