Well, it's time. Welcome to my last post!
I hope you enjoy my Creative Critical Reflection.
Link: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/kassineysmith/episodes/2017-04-16T20_57_23-07_00
Have a good day!
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Final Project
Time for the second to last post!
It's been a fun journey and it has sadly come to an end. I hope you enjoy our products!
Excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMtJD18GhN4&feature=youtu.be
Poster:
Website: http://wearegenzproject.weebly.com
It's been a fun journey and it has sadly come to an end. I hope you enjoy our products!
Excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMtJD18GhN4&feature=youtu.be
Poster:
Website: http://wearegenzproject.weebly.com
Hallelujah!
We have finally finished and I'm a mess of emotions. On one hand I a SO relieved that we are done and all of it is over. However, this was our portfolio project which means the year is ending. My senior year is almost over and the end of this project is a jarring wake up call. Last year I had planned to take A level and was looking forward to the next chapter of the course. But now, it's over. After this last semester I'm done with AICE Media Studies. I have learned so much since the beginning of junior year and I'll admit it hasn't been an easy journey; although, growing and progressing never is.
This project truly challenged my creatively and it was a learning experience creating something a poetic documentary. Even though it was definitely not easy, I had a lot of fun brainstorming and filming all the abstract shots. It made me open my eyes to the world around me a little more. I walked around my house and challenged myself to create abstract out of what I had thought was the average and mundane. I'm also thankful for the experience with my best friend Cheyenne. I had little doubt we would work well together when we started this project. I'm glad to see my initial hypothesis was true! I know some friends can't work together but we surpass that. I honestly don't know what I would do without her. We challenged each other with this project and I'm very satisfied with the results. We managed to work around the obstacles we had to face while supporting each other.I'm so grateful for our supportive friends as well. Shout out to Laurel for letting us borrow her projector and all our other faithful subjects (haha peasants). Honestly though, they were true sports. I'm one of those directors that yells at their subject different scenarios to demonstrate what emotions I want them to show. I told Marina, "Feel depressed! You just failed Physics and Calc! Go!"Like true friends they took it all in stride. Just like last year with ESS, I got attached; this project became our baby and I'm sad to see it go.
This will be my final comments. Sorry for all the fans, but it's time to start anew! I'm grateful for this course, for the opportunity to learn from my teacher and to experience the curriculum. I can't wait to continue my journey in college. I have no doubt that I will carry the skills I learned in this course with me through the next several chapters of my life.
Goodbye for the last time!
Friday, April 14, 2017
Exploring
Hello everybody!
So I've begun capturing all the pesky abstract shots we need to fill our video with. I first tried to brainstorm by reading the script while typing whatever random images popped into my head. I'm a bit of a mess so I think it worked out pretty well.
abstract shots ideas:
So I've begun capturing all the pesky abstract shots we need to fill our video with. I first tried to brainstorm by reading the script while typing whatever random images popped into my head. I'm a bit of a mess so I think it worked out pretty well.
abstract shots ideas:
-kettlesteaming and making shrill noise
-zipper sliding down jacket
-red hoodie for heartache and maybe gravel sounds of person waling
-door closing *crashing sound -things falling in shower,,, hmmm
-soft focus of walking through crowd, or in crowd, tens, town center
-*noises, music? piano? someone playing?
-frustration sentence: calm scene of nature?
-spinning: filming outside world in car? roundabout? just straight street?
-choke: shower water sliding down glass?
-muscles: darkness, bed, under the covers? tossing and turning? dutch angle hmmm
-light of day: mining light peeping between curtains,
-resilience,persistence,kindness,liveliness, _DIFF FACE SHOTS
After a short and sweet breakfast, Chey and I took the liberty to film the kettle idea I had listed. Another idea that popped into my head was to get shots of objects at intense and less intense stages. For example, a shot of the kettle pre-boil or slightly boiling and a shot of the kettle boiling full blast with steam and everything. I thought it would be an interesting way to provide flow in our piece. I'll have to test out the idea and see how well it works with the script.
My second method of brainstorming was to just walk around my house and to really look at all the objects around me. I walked around my house and took shots using the lighter, candles, a fake plant, the light on my alarm system, and the numbers from a digital clock. Chey got some shots outside of the sky, the pool, and the wind chimes.
Alright it's time to continue shooting the rest of our episode by filming Chey. If you remember a little while back we talked about our first attempt at filming her and the crazy lighting setup we put together. Well, it's time to recreate our beautiful and very original lighting set. Hopefully, we get what we need from this attempt.
Bye ya'll.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Webby
Hello my party people!
Hey guys! So the reason you haven't heard any details about the website is because I've decided to do it all in one post. Don't be fooled though, this took multiple hours on different days to create this masterpiece.
Anyway, back to business. I got inspiration from several places to create this beauty. The two websites I looked to for inspiration were Melanie Martinez's and the website for the Miss Representation documentary. Melanie's reminded my of the march and helped me structure our home page. I also liked how she had a contact form on the bottom of her home page. Miss Representation's inspired us to use graphics and links to the streaming sites where our audience can access to documentary. I also took note of how they relayed the information about their different campaigns.
While I was creating the website I remembered The street team Fueled by Ramen (FBR) had from a music marketing campaign we did in AS last year. One of the ways FBR engaged fans of the bands on their label was by establishing a "street team" they could get membership on. I thought it was a great way to get our audience engaged. Plus Gen Zers, like most people, love free stuff!
We also decided to have a multitude of tabs as you can see in the screenshot above. We thought Merch would be another way to get our audience involved as well as make a profit. It would also help us establish our brand and spread our cause by word of mouth. The social campaign we started as another way to spread the cause. We know it would be successful with Gen Zers because they are very active on social media and technology oriented. Another characteristic of generation Z is that they enjoy being involved. The Street Team, Merch, and social campaign all cater to that characteristic. In case you didn't notice, our website uses the same colors as our poster. We hope to establish the brand and created a sense of consistency by using the same theme.
So I started researching TV stations and how to get our documentary on a station when it hit me: Not a lot of Gen Zers watch cable TV, they prefer streaming. So I went to my partner and we came to a decision to put our documentary on streaming services. To maximize our audience we decided to go on multiple streaming channels instead of exclusively on one.
See you sooner than later!
Hey guys! So the reason you haven't heard any details about the website is because I've decided to do it all in one post. Don't be fooled though, this took multiple hours on different days to create this masterpiece.
Anyway, back to business. I got inspiration from several places to create this beauty. The two websites I looked to for inspiration were Melanie Martinez's and the website for the Miss Representation documentary. Melanie's reminded my of the march and helped me structure our home page. I also liked how she had a contact form on the bottom of her home page. Miss Representation's inspired us to use graphics and links to the streaming sites where our audience can access to documentary. I also took note of how they relayed the information about their different campaigns.
While I was creating the website I remembered The street team Fueled by Ramen (FBR) had from a music marketing campaign we did in AS last year. One of the ways FBR engaged fans of the bands on their label was by establishing a "street team" they could get membership on. I thought it was a great way to get our audience engaged. Plus Gen Zers, like most people, love free stuff! We also decided to have a multitude of tabs as you can see in the screenshot above. We thought Merch would be another way to get our audience involved as well as make a profit. It would also help us establish our brand and spread our cause by word of mouth. The social campaign we started as another way to spread the cause. We know it would be successful with Gen Zers because they are very active on social media and technology oriented. Another characteristic of generation Z is that they enjoy being involved. The Street Team, Merch, and social campaign all cater to that characteristic. In case you didn't notice, our website uses the same colors as our poster. We hope to establish the brand and created a sense of consistency by using the same theme.
So I started researching TV stations and how to get our documentary on a station when it hit me: Not a lot of Gen Zers watch cable TV, they prefer streaming. So I went to my partner and we came to a decision to put our documentary on streaming services. To maximize our audience we decided to go on multiple streaming channels instead of exclusively on one.
See you sooner than later!
Poster Struggles Part 2
Hello!
Who knew making a film poster would be this rough? Not me! I of course suspected it would not be easy but life got in the way again and made it harder for Chey and I. After settling on one idea, we decided to do a large Z filled with words.
However, that was a lot more challenging to make then first meets the eye. First of all, neither of us knew how to make it. When I first searched on Google, the only way I could find to make it was with Photoshop or an Adobe program. Well, neither of us have Photoshop so that wasn't going to happen. Chey took the reins while I continued creating our website (more on that in the next post). By some miracle, she accidentally figured out how to do it. Hallelujah!
Then came time to format the actual poster. We decided to use Canva because it gives us a lot of options to work with and it's relatively accessible. I had to look at some other movie posters to help me figure out where to put what. I also had to create a free trial in order to upload the SteelTongs font. I learned that that's the font of the credits at the bottom of a movie poster. I got some inspiration from the That Awkward Moment movie poster. We liked the way they used two different colors of text for part of their title and other information, such as: the date and website.
One of the hardest parts in making our poster was probably figuring out the font we wanted to use for the subtitle. Oh my goodness! I don't think I told you guys we figured out the title! Okay well, we decided that We Are Not Who You Think We Are was really way too long. I mean come on, even the acronym is crazy. It was actually kind of an accident the way we figured out the title and the poster. We decided to name the documentary Z. As you can see in the poster above, they have a subtitle "When you realize getting some means wanting more." So we made our subtitle, "We Are Not Who You Think We Are." What we decided to do is make our overarching "brand" the We Are Gen Z Project. Then our documentary, Z, would be our current project. Our social campaign is #WeAreGenZ. The Z for our documentary stems from the whole Gen Z idea since our documentary is for and about Gen Zers. You can see more details about the website in my next post no worries!
Oh here's a fun fact! So while I was making the poster I had to create the release date. I decided to do the month, date, and year with periods in between. But then, I thought to myself, "Kassidy, does the date matter?" Since I could't answer my own question I believed a search on Google could. So I went to Google and I searched, "does a movie's release date matter?" The answer to that question is Yes!
"Traditionally, the beginning of the year is seen as a much quieter and lower-profile time at the box office than, say, the summer blockbuster season- traditionally between May and August- or the end of the year in November and December, when both blockbusters and awards season hopefuls appear."
That lovely quote is credit to the informative website I have linked for you here.
Bye peeps!
Who knew making a film poster would be this rough? Not me! I of course suspected it would not be easy but life got in the way again and made it harder for Chey and I. After settling on one idea, we decided to do a large Z filled with words.
However, that was a lot more challenging to make then first meets the eye. First of all, neither of us knew how to make it. When I first searched on Google, the only way I could find to make it was with Photoshop or an Adobe program. Well, neither of us have Photoshop so that wasn't going to happen. Chey took the reins while I continued creating our website (more on that in the next post). By some miracle, she accidentally figured out how to do it. Hallelujah!
Then came time to format the actual poster. We decided to use Canva because it gives us a lot of options to work with and it's relatively accessible. I had to look at some other movie posters to help me figure out where to put what. I also had to create a free trial in order to upload the SteelTongs font. I learned that that's the font of the credits at the bottom of a movie poster. I got some inspiration from the That Awkward Moment movie poster. We liked the way they used two different colors of text for part of their title and other information, such as: the date and website.
One of the hardest parts in making our poster was probably figuring out the font we wanted to use for the subtitle. Oh my goodness! I don't think I told you guys we figured out the title! Okay well, we decided that We Are Not Who You Think We Are was really way too long. I mean come on, even the acronym is crazy. It was actually kind of an accident the way we figured out the title and the poster. We decided to name the documentary Z. As you can see in the poster above, they have a subtitle "When you realize getting some means wanting more." So we made our subtitle, "We Are Not Who You Think We Are." What we decided to do is make our overarching "brand" the We Are Gen Z Project. Then our documentary, Z, would be our current project. Our social campaign is #WeAreGenZ. The Z for our documentary stems from the whole Gen Z idea since our documentary is for and about Gen Zers. You can see more details about the website in my next post no worries!
Oh here's a fun fact! So while I was making the poster I had to create the release date. I decided to do the month, date, and year with periods in between. But then, I thought to myself, "Kassidy, does the date matter?" Since I could't answer my own question I believed a search on Google could. So I went to Google and I searched, "does a movie's release date matter?" The answer to that question is Yes!
"Traditionally, the beginning of the year is seen as a much quieter and lower-profile time at the box office than, say, the summer blockbuster season- traditionally between May and August- or the end of the year in November and December, when both blockbusters and awards season hopefuls appear."
That lovely quote is credit to the informative website I have linked for you here.
Bye peeps!
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Poster Rant
Hey there!
So, I'm trying to make the poster for our film and it's been a rough journey, as it should be. My first idea was inspired by the Game of Thrones poster on the side. Instead in my poster it would be pictures of our subjects laid out like that with the words "We Are Not Who You Think We Are" where it says Game of Thrones. I'm kind of floundering between ideas right now. I looked up TV posters on Google to get some inspiration but it didn't help much. I'm just not sure whether or not we should have all our subjects on the poster or just one of them; or even if we should have a picture of the subjects at all.
I also had the idea to just have Chey on the poster but then I went back to my eternal dilemma of having her or all the subjects on there. After all, she is the third episode so it seems off to have her as the image on our promotional poster for the season because the audience won't be introduced to her until the third episode of the series.
So it just hit me that we decided against including Chey in the intro. This means that our intro won't feature every subject in it because we limited it to 5 people. Also, I actually looked up what a miniseries really is and found that #1 they are close-ended and #2 they are like extended TV movies. Considering the fact that we planned on having a second season I would say our documentary TV series is more of a limited series. A limited series allows us the flexibility of more potential seasons and the ability to have a smaller amount of episodes per season. Whew, that was a close misunderstanding. Conclusion: the intro subjects will just represent Gen Zers, the people we target as well as the people we are trying to accurately portray.
Here's a slight side note:
I actually told my father a little bit what our project was about and he disagreed with me. He believes what the media says about teens is correct and Gen Z's portrayal doesn't need to be corrected. My dad is the perfect representative of the traditional people and media stereotypes we're trying to argue against. The media portrays teens in an overwhelmingly bad light. I'm not saying that everything they put out there is wrong. I'm just saying that it's not an accurate depiction of who we really are. Yes, sometimes we can be lazy or overemotional. The truth is those are characteristics of any age or generation. I argue that we are not ONLY lazy or over emotional but that we are ALSO dedicated, motivated, inspired, appreciate, and aware.
Thank you for reading my jumbled mess of thoughts, see you soon!
So, I'm trying to make the poster for our film and it's been a rough journey, as it should be. My first idea was inspired by the Game of Thrones poster on the side. Instead in my poster it would be pictures of our subjects laid out like that with the words "We Are Not Who You Think We Are" where it says Game of Thrones. I'm kind of floundering between ideas right now. I looked up TV posters on Google to get some inspiration but it didn't help much. I'm just not sure whether or not we should have all our subjects on the poster or just one of them; or even if we should have a picture of the subjects at all.I also had the idea to just have Chey on the poster but then I went back to my eternal dilemma of having her or all the subjects on there. After all, she is the third episode so it seems off to have her as the image on our promotional poster for the season because the audience won't be introduced to her until the third episode of the series.
So it just hit me that we decided against including Chey in the intro. This means that our intro won't feature every subject in it because we limited it to 5 people. Also, I actually looked up what a miniseries really is and found that #1 they are close-ended and #2 they are like extended TV movies. Considering the fact that we planned on having a second season I would say our documentary TV series is more of a limited series. A limited series allows us the flexibility of more potential seasons and the ability to have a smaller amount of episodes per season. Whew, that was a close misunderstanding. Conclusion: the intro subjects will just represent Gen Zers, the people we target as well as the people we are trying to accurately portray.
Here's a slight side note:
I actually told my father a little bit what our project was about and he disagreed with me. He believes what the media says about teens is correct and Gen Z's portrayal doesn't need to be corrected. My dad is the perfect representative of the traditional people and media stereotypes we're trying to argue against. The media portrays teens in an overwhelmingly bad light. I'm not saying that everything they put out there is wrong. I'm just saying that it's not an accurate depiction of who we really are. Yes, sometimes we can be lazy or overemotional. The truth is those are characteristics of any age or generation. I argue that we are not ONLY lazy or over emotional but that we are ALSO dedicated, motivated, inspired, appreciate, and aware.
Thank you for reading my jumbled mess of thoughts, see you soon!
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Hooking the Fish
Hi friends!
Now that we have made some progress on the film side and we finally have actual film to work with, I've decided to look into the marketing for our documentary and website. I found this amazing info graphics (sorry I'm a Gen Z, visual-loving gal!) Gen Zers are not only not interested in advertising, but they also have very short attention spans. Basically, our advertisement has to be a short snippet that will hook them and at the same time not feel like we're trying to advertise. Gen Z kids spend about 15.4 hours per week on their smartphone. Of those hours, they spend them mostly on Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
I found Snapchat's advertising website and it gave a really good breakdown of the different ways to advertise on their app as well as success stories. Snap Ads not only gives you an up to 10 second video but you can specifically target, "Snapchatters by age, gender, geographical location, mobile device, operating system (Android or iOS), mobile carrier, interests, Snapchat's first-party audiences, lookalikes, and purchase intent with Datalogix segments." Additionally, Snapchat allows you to attach links to o your advertisement. For example, Snapchat Ads Article allows you to attach an article that can include text, in-line videos that auto play, animated GIFs, as well as images and galleries. You can run Snap Ads Article campaigns in Discover Editions and Shows. This would work for us because we could link our website to our advertisement.
More specifically, I was looking into how TV shows advertise on Snapchat. The Bachelor has had success advertising by creating a "show" on Netflix. The ABC Watch Party: the Bachelor series is two programs at once. It's produced in vertical video, like holding a phone upright, with clips from the previous night's episode of the dating reality series on the bottom of the screen. On top: a trio of fans on top sitting on the couch offering their opinions of the show. Watch party moves along at a Snapchat like fast-forward speed, and before you know it, you've watched two commercials and the show, and it's all over. Loire the photons and videos that get snapped and shared on Snapchat, the Watch Part episode disappears within 24 hours. There's no archive of past episodes available for viewing online, as with other mediums.
I'm loving Snapchat as a way to market our miniseries and target our audience. Other than an advertisement on YouTube, this would successfully garner an audience. I'm going to continue looking into some other ways to advertise. The marketing campaign project we did for a deck of cards earlier in the year has given me a lot of ideas for our miniseries. I'll go talk to Chey and continue working hard!
Until next time!
Now that we have made some progress on the film side and we finally have actual film to work with, I've decided to look into the marketing for our documentary and website. I found this amazing info graphics (sorry I'm a Gen Z, visual-loving gal!) Gen Zers are not only not interested in advertising, but they also have very short attention spans. Basically, our advertisement has to be a short snippet that will hook them and at the same time not feel like we're trying to advertise. Gen Z kids spend about 15.4 hours per week on their smartphone. Of those hours, they spend them mostly on Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
I found Snapchat's advertising website and it gave a really good breakdown of the different ways to advertise on their app as well as success stories. Snap Ads not only gives you an up to 10 second video but you can specifically target, "Snapchatters by age, gender, geographical location, mobile device, operating system (Android or iOS), mobile carrier, interests, Snapchat's first-party audiences, lookalikes, and purchase intent with Datalogix segments." Additionally, Snapchat allows you to attach links to o your advertisement. For example, Snapchat Ads Article allows you to attach an article that can include text, in-line videos that auto play, animated GIFs, as well as images and galleries. You can run Snap Ads Article campaigns in Discover Editions and Shows. This would work for us because we could link our website to our advertisement.
More specifically, I was looking into how TV shows advertise on Snapchat. The Bachelor has had success advertising by creating a "show" on Netflix. The ABC Watch Party: the Bachelor series is two programs at once. It's produced in vertical video, like holding a phone upright, with clips from the previous night's episode of the dating reality series on the bottom of the screen. On top: a trio of fans on top sitting on the couch offering their opinions of the show. Watch party moves along at a Snapchat like fast-forward speed, and before you know it, you've watched two commercials and the show, and it's all over. Loire the photons and videos that get snapped and shared on Snapchat, the Watch Part episode disappears within 24 hours. There's no archive of past episodes available for viewing online, as with other mediums.
I'm loving Snapchat as a way to market our miniseries and target our audience. Other than an advertisement on YouTube, this would successfully garner an audience. I'm going to continue looking into some other ways to advertise. The marketing campaign project we did for a deck of cards earlier in the year has given me a lot of ideas for our miniseries. I'll go talk to Chey and continue working hard!
Until next time!
Friday, April 7, 2017
Shots Fired
Hello guys!
So we finally finally finally filmed for the first time! It was a very close call because my Boss last mintuedly called me in to go to this workshop for work. Luckily I won't even be working there much longer so I worked my way out of it. This date is just super important because our deadline is VERY VERY close and we haven't got much to work with. Thursday was our first day to film and it was the only time we could do it because our schedules are so busy. We ended up filming 5 beautiful subjects for our intro. We forced our friends into our dark lair and told them to look depressed (at least for the first part of the intro). So in the first part we used the projector (shout out to Laurel) and the slide that I showed you in my last post.
She's so great! I really love how a lot of the film came out. We also recorded everyone saying all the lines that way in editing we can just pick and choose who sounds better saying what. We shot a multitude of different angles for every subject. For example, we had side shots (from both sides) and mid shots. We tried some low angle shots for the second portion to support the empowered content. The second portion is where the subjects look empowered despite the negative words surrounding them. The voiceover narration is gonna have the subjects each saying, "We are innovators. We are..."
We got a lot of good stuff and I'm so excited to go through it all and start piecing our documentary together. Since we didn't want to take up all the storage on my phone and my mac's disc is full we airdropped all of the videos straight to Chey's computer as we went along. In between subjects we got the chance to look at some of the videos and we had a teensy problem. It turns out our projector decided to be annoying and turn a yellowish color for some of the videos. It OK though! We figured out how to manipulate the color to better match the original color of our content. I have to admit it was slightly stressful realizing it turned a different color. But it was just another obstacle we managed to get around!
We shall soon meet again my friends!
So we finally finally finally filmed for the first time! It was a very close call because my Boss last mintuedly called me in to go to this workshop for work. Luckily I won't even be working there much longer so I worked my way out of it. This date is just super important because our deadline is VERY VERY close and we haven't got much to work with. Thursday was our first day to film and it was the only time we could do it because our schedules are so busy. We ended up filming 5 beautiful subjects for our intro. We forced our friends into our dark lair and told them to look depressed (at least for the first part of the intro). So in the first part we used the projector (shout out to Laurel) and the slide that I showed you in my last post.
She's so great! I really love how a lot of the film came out. We also recorded everyone saying all the lines that way in editing we can just pick and choose who sounds better saying what. We shot a multitude of different angles for every subject. For example, we had side shots (from both sides) and mid shots. We tried some low angle shots for the second portion to support the empowered content. The second portion is where the subjects look empowered despite the negative words surrounding them. The voiceover narration is gonna have the subjects each saying, "We are innovators. We are..."
We got a lot of good stuff and I'm so excited to go through it all and start piecing our documentary together. Since we didn't want to take up all the storage on my phone and my mac's disc is full we airdropped all of the videos straight to Chey's computer as we went along. In between subjects we got the chance to look at some of the videos and we had a teensy problem. It turns out our projector decided to be annoying and turn a yellowish color for some of the videos. It OK though! We figured out how to manipulate the color to better match the original color of our content. I have to admit it was slightly stressful realizing it turned a different color. But it was just another obstacle we managed to get around!
We shall soon meet again my friends!
Thursday, April 6, 2017
So Close But So Far!
Hey guys!
So this post is a tad off schedule but it's ok! I know we'll still have a great time. Let's start with the script for the content portion of the episode. That's been mainly written by my partner because it's focused on her and her life (not something I would know as well). I've helped by throwing in ideas now what the content should be about. For example, I would suggest that we need to say the problem at hand (misrepresentation) and how that has effected her. Then Chey goes and writes the personal bits that are super important. Also, we went through the script and did some editing because we realized that we had a teeny tiny problem. Since the documentary is poetic we want the content of our voiceover narration to be just as abstract as the visuals will be. So we ended up scrapping some of the previous script we had written. It's all good though because that's what progress is all about! Here's a tiny sneak peek:
"Muscles ignore pleads to rise from my haven of warmth, eyes shut tight to shield my heart from the realities of the world, dreams dance upon my eyelids, begging to see the light of day. 18 years of resilience. 18 years of persistence. 18 years of kindness. 18 years of liveliness."
I hope you're just as excited as I am for our documentary's debut!
Anyways, so we had to use a projector to create our Brooke Davis inspired shot. Here's a picture just in case you forgot. Luckily, our good friend Laurel had a projector we could borrow. I was in charge of creating the slide for it. I used KeyNote, it's the mac version of powerpoint. We had planned out that we were going to go for a similar image. Our idea was to use more general terms that are used to misrepresent teens in the media, that way it would establish the collective problem all of us Gen Z-ers face. It would also link together our subjects. By the way we want at least 5 subjects but we've scheduled about 9 just in case. So my slide looks like this:
The game plan is to project this beautiful image onto a blank wall in my room and then have our subjects stand in front of it. They'll need to look dejected for the parts where we have the voiceover (of each of their voices) saying, "they call us..(negative word).." Then, we'll have them looking empowered for the part "But they're wrong" and "We are..(positive word).."
Alright well tata for now! My next post will have the updates on how the shooting went!
So this post is a tad off schedule but it's ok! I know we'll still have a great time. Let's start with the script for the content portion of the episode. That's been mainly written by my partner because it's focused on her and her life (not something I would know as well). I've helped by throwing in ideas now what the content should be about. For example, I would suggest that we need to say the problem at hand (misrepresentation) and how that has effected her. Then Chey goes and writes the personal bits that are super important. Also, we went through the script and did some editing because we realized that we had a teeny tiny problem. Since the documentary is poetic we want the content of our voiceover narration to be just as abstract as the visuals will be. So we ended up scrapping some of the previous script we had written. It's all good though because that's what progress is all about! Here's a tiny sneak peek:
"Muscles ignore pleads to rise from my haven of warmth, eyes shut tight to shield my heart from the realities of the world, dreams dance upon my eyelids, begging to see the light of day. 18 years of resilience. 18 years of persistence. 18 years of kindness. 18 years of liveliness."
I hope you're just as excited as I am for our documentary's debut!
Anyways, so we had to use a projector to create our Brooke Davis inspired shot. Here's a picture just in case you forgot. Luckily, our good friend Laurel had a projector we could borrow. I was in charge of creating the slide for it. I used KeyNote, it's the mac version of powerpoint. We had planned out that we were going to go for a similar image. Our idea was to use more general terms that are used to misrepresent teens in the media, that way it would establish the collective problem all of us Gen Z-ers face. It would also link together our subjects. By the way we want at least 5 subjects but we've scheduled about 9 just in case. So my slide looks like this:
The game plan is to project this beautiful image onto a blank wall in my room and then have our subjects stand in front of it. They'll need to look dejected for the parts where we have the voiceover (of each of their voices) saying, "they call us..(negative word).." Then, we'll have them looking empowered for the part "But they're wrong" and "We are..(positive word).."
Alright well tata for now! My next post will have the updates on how the shooting went!
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Brainstorming Again
Hey guys!
So I never got the opportunity to share how the group discussions with our classmates went. There really wasn't much my group mates could help me with at the movement considering our biggest problems were the script for our piece and the title. While we do love the title, We Are Not Who You Think We Are it is kind of a mouthful. I mean the abbreviation itself is super long (WANWYTWA); is that crazy or what? My group mates agreed and recommended we do a shorter title as well. One of my group mates suggested "Perspective" and while it's good I don't think it quite fits yet. Clearly this problem is going to take some reflection and some analyzation of our piece. Initially, we figured we could come up with something after editing are project but now that we've start filming I was looking for some inspiration. Naturally, I went to Google to do some research and I found a couple interesting articles about how to create a title for our documentary. Some of the key things were: creating a short title, unique word choices for memorability, and easy accessibility of the title. I guess I'm back to the brainstorming!
See you later alligators!
So I never got the opportunity to share how the group discussions with our classmates went. There really wasn't much my group mates could help me with at the movement considering our biggest problems were the script for our piece and the title. While we do love the title, We Are Not Who You Think We Are it is kind of a mouthful. I mean the abbreviation itself is super long (WANWYTWA); is that crazy or what? My group mates agreed and recommended we do a shorter title as well. One of my group mates suggested "Perspective" and while it's good I don't think it quite fits yet. Clearly this problem is going to take some reflection and some analyzation of our piece. Initially, we figured we could come up with something after editing are project but now that we've start filming I was looking for some inspiration. Naturally, I went to Google to do some research and I found a couple interesting articles about how to create a title for our documentary. Some of the key things were: creating a short title, unique word choices for memorability, and easy accessibility of the title. I guess I'm back to the brainstorming!
See you later alligators!
Saturday, April 1, 2017
Lights, Set, Action!
Hello everyone!
I'm back and I've got news for you! So Chey cam over my house on Friday night to begin the film process. We also managed to schedule our subjects to film the intro next week. Lucky for us, we have good friends and although we only need about 5, we have 9 people coming for the shoot. Here's a video to show you a little behind the scene look of our lighting set up:
So as you can clearly tell we had to get pretty creative to get the effect we were looking for. I have to say though, the results were great! We plan on using this lighting and background for the main content of the episode. Cheyenne is our main subject and we're going to film a multitude of shots with different angles for her portion of the episode. We decided to use a voice over narration with music in the background and pair it with abstract visuals. Some of the visuals will be the shots we take of Cheyenne with this background and others will be "random" shots.
We also plan on using the same background for the projector shots in the intro. We have to test out the projector first and create the slide. That's for next week though, so more updates on that will come later. Anyway, we have picked out the non-copyright music we plan on using in our excerpt and most of Chey's script is done. I'm really excited for all the progress we've made!
See you soon!
I'm back and I've got news for you! So Chey cam over my house on Friday night to begin the film process. We also managed to schedule our subjects to film the intro next week. Lucky for us, we have good friends and although we only need about 5, we have 9 people coming for the shoot. Here's a video to show you a little behind the scene look of our lighting set up:
See you soon!
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Episode #3: Cheyenne Desrosiers
Welcome back!
So, we've decided that my partner, Chey, will be the subject for the episode we are taking our 5 minute excerpt out of. Chey or I as the main subject is more convenient than finding an actor and it's one less person to schedule around.
I've been exploring more of the why behind our project. It's important to have a purpose; the driving force behind our project is that these negative misrepresentations result in muddling teen's self-image and lowering their self-esteems. SFGate did a poll at two honors English classes in Santa Rosa and asked teens if the media representation was accurate. Many teens responded negatively:
"It makes me sick that I can't turn on the TV without being insulted by the "ideal" image the media tries to send out to teens. All it does is lower people's self-esteem and self-worth." -Marisa Foppoli
"The media does not accurately portray teens. The media portrays what sells." -Hannah Van Sickle
This is why our project is so relevant. Teenagers are tired of being misrepresented and they seek to consume media that they can relate to. For each episode we want to focus on the collective stereotypes used and contradict them with each subject's specific story. Some of the stereotypes we are fighting are teens being called: lazy, ignorant, irresponsible, overemotional, and sheltered.
Sesame Street often focuses the content of some of their episode to a specific group in their target audience. Recently, they've decided to come out with an episode that will help their audience (you children) learn how to deal with having an incarcerated parent.
Within each episode we want to use a subject that will connect with each part of our target audience. As you may have noticed, Chey is Episode #3, we want the first two episodes to be people that can bring in a broader part of our audience. One of Chey's focuses in her episode is her upbringing in a single-parent household. Not all of our target audience will be able to relate so we made it Episode #3.
Tata for now!
So, we've decided that my partner, Chey, will be the subject for the episode we are taking our 5 minute excerpt out of. Chey or I as the main subject is more convenient than finding an actor and it's one less person to schedule around.
I've been exploring more of the why behind our project. It's important to have a purpose; the driving force behind our project is that these negative misrepresentations result in muddling teen's self-image and lowering their self-esteems. SFGate did a poll at two honors English classes in Santa Rosa and asked teens if the media representation was accurate. Many teens responded negatively:
"It makes me sick that I can't turn on the TV without being insulted by the "ideal" image the media tries to send out to teens. All it does is lower people's self-esteem and self-worth." -Marisa Foppoli
"The media does not accurately portray teens. The media portrays what sells." -Hannah Van Sickle
This is why our project is so relevant. Teenagers are tired of being misrepresented and they seek to consume media that they can relate to. For each episode we want to focus on the collective stereotypes used and contradict them with each subject's specific story. Some of the stereotypes we are fighting are teens being called: lazy, ignorant, irresponsible, overemotional, and sheltered.
Sesame Street often focuses the content of some of their episode to a specific group in their target audience. Recently, they've decided to come out with an episode that will help their audience (you children) learn how to deal with having an incarcerated parent.Within each episode we want to use a subject that will connect with each part of our target audience. As you may have noticed, Chey is Episode #3, we want the first two episodes to be people that can bring in a broader part of our audience. One of Chey's focuses in her episode is her upbringing in a single-parent household. Not all of our target audience will be able to relate so we made it Episode #3.
Tata for now!
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Faces
Hey guys!
So, my partner was away for the weekend and I was left to continue the planning. So we planned out our intro but we have yet to pick out the subjects. It's going to be hard to pick out people because we want to find a solid 6 people to film on one day. We aren't sure about some of the choices we made for the documentary because we are unsure about how that's going to turn out in editing, sigh. However, it would be extremely inconvenient to gather this many people on one day TWICE, especially in the short period of time we have. Our hope was to get it all done in one day; film in the morning, take a lunch break, and then continue filming in the afternoon.
Another aspect of picking out our subjects is diversity. Gen Zers want people who like them, people they can relate to. I've found many articles that confirm that Gen Z is extremely multicultural. According to MediaPost, it's "the largest ethnically diverse generational cohort the U.S. has ever seen." One of the reasons the hit TV series, Glee did so well was because of its diversity. The show featured all kinds of races, shapes and sizes, and sexualities. I want to make sure the group of subjects we use is a diverse cast in order to make this representation as genuine as possible.
Wish us luck in scheduling!
So, my partner was away for the weekend and I was left to continue the planning. So we planned out our intro but we have yet to pick out the subjects. It's going to be hard to pick out people because we want to find a solid 6 people to film on one day. We aren't sure about some of the choices we made for the documentary because we are unsure about how that's going to turn out in editing, sigh. However, it would be extremely inconvenient to gather this many people on one day TWICE, especially in the short period of time we have. Our hope was to get it all done in one day; film in the morning, take a lunch break, and then continue filming in the afternoon.
Another aspect of picking out our subjects is diversity. Gen Zers want people who like them, people they can relate to. I've found many articles that confirm that Gen Z is extremely multicultural. According to MediaPost, it's "the largest ethnically diverse generational cohort the U.S. has ever seen." One of the reasons the hit TV series, Glee did so well was because of its diversity. The show featured all kinds of races, shapes and sizes, and sexualities. I want to make sure the group of subjects we use is a diverse cast in order to make this representation as genuine as possible.
Wish us luck in scheduling!
Planet Earth Inspo
Hello there!
Okay, so the first thing I decided to look into was other popular documentaries in the form of a mini-series. My eye caught on Planet Earth since I'm familiar with it. This is where my partner and I got our inspiration for our intro. Planet Earth uses the same intro and theme for each episode despite the different focus in content.We're doing a bunch of different episodes featuring a different individual per episode. Our plan for our intro is to use the same on in every episode as a way of creating cohesion. This will also help our target audience recognize us and better establish our show as a brand. It should be around 30-55 seconds long and it will feature all the individuals we plan on using in our miniseries for that season. Although we haven't decided if our documentary was going to be one season or more than one yet.
We were also inspired by this idea that we had seen in the TV series One Tree Hill. In this scene the character Brooke Davis stands strong against all the negativities and insecurities she's faced. We want to introduce our subjects with quick midshots of them covered in words typically used to characterize teenagers, or Gen Z. Words such as: lazy, overemotional, irresponsible, ignorant, etc. We would use the same words for every subject to establish this collective, inaccurate generalization (that we're determined to change). This would be followed by a cut to a black background and then the voices of the different subjects saying, "They call us ___" followed by a collective "They're wrong." Our initial idea was to use a narrator but then we decided on using the voices of our individual subjects to personalize it and make the content connect with our viewers more. After this we have each subject say multiple "We are___" statements and at the end of the series of shots they would say collectively "... and we are not who they think we are."
So that's the current plan for the intro, we have the details pretty much down and the rest will come through in the shooting and editing process.
I'm looking forward to the next post!
Okay, so the first thing I decided to look into was other popular documentaries in the form of a mini-series. My eye caught on Planet Earth since I'm familiar with it. This is where my partner and I got our inspiration for our intro. Planet Earth uses the same intro and theme for each episode despite the different focus in content.We're doing a bunch of different episodes featuring a different individual per episode. Our plan for our intro is to use the same on in every episode as a way of creating cohesion. This will also help our target audience recognize us and better establish our show as a brand. It should be around 30-55 seconds long and it will feature all the individuals we plan on using in our miniseries for that season. Although we haven't decided if our documentary was going to be one season or more than one yet.
We were also inspired by this idea that we had seen in the TV series One Tree Hill. In this scene the character Brooke Davis stands strong against all the negativities and insecurities she's faced. We want to introduce our subjects with quick midshots of them covered in words typically used to characterize teenagers, or Gen Z. Words such as: lazy, overemotional, irresponsible, ignorant, etc. We would use the same words for every subject to establish this collective, inaccurate generalization (that we're determined to change). This would be followed by a cut to a black background and then the voices of the different subjects saying, "They call us ___" followed by a collective "They're wrong." Our initial idea was to use a narrator but then we decided on using the voices of our individual subjects to personalize it and make the content connect with our viewers more. After this we have each subject say multiple "We are___" statements and at the end of the series of shots they would say collectively "... and we are not who they think we are."So that's the current plan for the intro, we have the details pretty much down and the rest will come through in the shooting and editing process.
I'm looking forward to the next post!
ClassWORK
Hey everyone!
So my partner and I managed to make some pretty good progress in class the other day! Woot, Woot!
So, first thing is first, the purpose of our documentary is still to redefine the modern teen. (Yay, for consistency!) Now, we have decided to change our "full-length" documentary idea into a marginalized mini-series called We Are Not Who You Think We Are. A mini-series would provide us more flexibility and then we can focus an episode per individual. I really like this idea because it gives us breadth and depth on our topic.
We haven't decided how we are going to distribute it yet, but since our target audience is "Gen Z" I figure it would be a good idea to stream it instead of play it on TV. I've found quite a few articles that talk about Gen Z and their tendency to stream. Apparently, 70% of Gen Z prefer streaming over watching cable and 50% have never even had cable.
I'll be back after some more research!
So my partner and I managed to make some pretty good progress in class the other day! Woot, Woot!
So, first thing is first, the purpose of our documentary is still to redefine the modern teen. (Yay, for consistency!) Now, we have decided to change our "full-length" documentary idea into a marginalized mini-series called We Are Not Who You Think We Are. A mini-series would provide us more flexibility and then we can focus an episode per individual. I really like this idea because it gives us breadth and depth on our topic.
We haven't decided how we are going to distribute it yet, but since our target audience is "Gen Z" I figure it would be a good idea to stream it instead of play it on TV. I've found quite a few articles that talk about Gen Z and their tendency to stream. Apparently, 70% of Gen Z prefer streaming over watching cable and 50% have never even had cable.
I'll be back after some more research!
Sunday, March 19, 2017
A Slice of Teen Life
Alright guys let's do this!
Hello everyone!
So I've been delving further into the research I was talking about with the poetic and performative documentaries. This means I've been spending some quality time on YouTube, not that that's anything new. I've also been giving some thought into the documentary idea and the mode in which I hope to portray it.
This documentary is called Fear. The narrative is pretty weak in my opinion, however, I really like the visuals. One thing I've learned with poetic documentaries is that they can be pretty unconnected (visually). I honestly can't say how much this irritates my control freak/perfectionist self. I know if I do a poetic mode, my documentary will definitely connect visually. Now before you say anything, I'm not technically straying from conventions, I'm just adding a little Kassidy to my piece.
I've decided that I really want to do a poetic mode to showcase teenagers challenging their stereotypes in the media. My idea so far is that it would have different people doing a number of different things. (Yes, I know, it sounds pretty ambiguous. Stay with me here!) For example, I could have some footage of a friend who loves soccer and hopes to play D1 in college. Or maybe some shots of kids from debate talking about the current political sphere. It can truly be a number of things and my partner and I essentially have Cypress Bay to use as a resource. I know plenty of inspiring kids in my media class alone!
I did a marketing campaign earlier this year where I had to market a deck of cards. In my campaign I focused on characterizing the playing cards and making them represent passionate people. I ended up getting some footage of people pursuing their passions and essentially being a "Queen" or a "King" in their life. My point is, I have an idea of the kind of content I want to capture with this. I guess it's time to talk to my partner and brainstorm some more on the details (shots, storyboarding, etc.)
Send me some good karma!
Hello everyone!
So I've been delving further into the research I was talking about with the poetic and performative documentaries. This means I've been spending some quality time on YouTube, not that that's anything new. I've also been giving some thought into the documentary idea and the mode in which I hope to portray it.
This documentary is called Fear. The narrative is pretty weak in my opinion, however, I really like the visuals. One thing I've learned with poetic documentaries is that they can be pretty unconnected (visually). I honestly can't say how much this irritates my control freak/perfectionist self. I know if I do a poetic mode, my documentary will definitely connect visually. Now before you say anything, I'm not technically straying from conventions, I'm just adding a little Kassidy to my piece.
I've decided that I really want to do a poetic mode to showcase teenagers challenging their stereotypes in the media. My idea so far is that it would have different people doing a number of different things. (Yes, I know, it sounds pretty ambiguous. Stay with me here!) For example, I could have some footage of a friend who loves soccer and hopes to play D1 in college. Or maybe some shots of kids from debate talking about the current political sphere. It can truly be a number of things and my partner and I essentially have Cypress Bay to use as a resource. I know plenty of inspiring kids in my media class alone!
I did a marketing campaign earlier this year where I had to market a deck of cards. In my campaign I focused on characterizing the playing cards and making them represent passionate people. I ended up getting some footage of people pursuing their passions and essentially being a "Queen" or a "King" in their life. My point is, I have an idea of the kind of content I want to capture with this. I guess it's time to talk to my partner and brainstorm some more on the details (shots, storyboarding, etc.)Send me some good karma!
Man in the Mirror
Back again!
So while I'm focusing on the technical aspects of my project, I'm also looking more into our audience, our genre, and all the gory, but significant, details. We've actually learned quite a bit about Gen-Z this past year and I have found plenty of information in my notes. Also, my partner surprised me with a cool idea that really focuses on our generation, more specifically teenagers! Hence, making our target audience mainly teenagers. So when I mentioned looking into our audience it may or mar not have involved socializing ;). Anyways, I'm really liking the new idea and I hope this one is the one!
So, our focus is on representation in the media, specifically on teenagers. As teenagers and Gen-Zs, we've seen plenty of misrepresentation of teenagers in the media. We want to change it. Well, at the very least we're trying to be the change we want to see in the world.
Essentially, the problem is that the representation for teenagers is negative. It often portrays us as over-emotional, irresponsible, ignorant, self-centered, and a number of negative things. Sure, sometimes we can be any one of those adjectives above, however, that applies to every age group. Most teenagers aren't like this, and we want to prove it. I am and I know plenty of, hardworking, active, responsible, empathetic, and dedicated teenagers. So many of my friends are inspired and motivated that it truly hurts me to see us portrayed in this way.
So, now that you're all caught up please wish me more of that beautiful luck!
So while I'm focusing on the technical aspects of my project, I'm also looking more into our audience, our genre, and all the gory, but significant, details. We've actually learned quite a bit about Gen-Z this past year and I have found plenty of information in my notes. Also, my partner surprised me with a cool idea that really focuses on our generation, more specifically teenagers! Hence, making our target audience mainly teenagers. So when I mentioned looking into our audience it may or mar not have involved socializing ;). Anyways, I'm really liking the new idea and I hope this one is the one!
So, our focus is on representation in the media, specifically on teenagers. As teenagers and Gen-Zs, we've seen plenty of misrepresentation of teenagers in the media. We want to change it. Well, at the very least we're trying to be the change we want to see in the world.
Essentially, the problem is that the representation for teenagers is negative. It often portrays us as over-emotional, irresponsible, ignorant, self-centered, and a number of negative things. Sure, sometimes we can be any one of those adjectives above, however, that applies to every age group. Most teenagers aren't like this, and we want to prove it. I am and I know plenty of, hardworking, active, responsible, empathetic, and dedicated teenagers. So many of my friends are inspired and motivated that it truly hurts me to see us portrayed in this way.
So, now that you're all caught up please wish me more of that beautiful luck!
It's All About Style
Hey Everyone!
So after our march play failed I decided it's time to go back to the drawing board and start on square one. I know, it's incredibly intimidating! My metaphorical idea board was coming up blank because all the ideas I had didn't seem to fit and I wasn't going anywhere. SO, I decided to really start fresh by doing some good old research again. Instead of focusing on conventions, I looked more into different documentary types and styles. I found a pretty good website that gave me a good explanation on the 6 types of documentaries. My two favorites were:
Poetic Documentaries
First seen in the 1920s. Poetic Documentaries are very much what they sound like. They focus on experiences, images and showing the audience the world through a very different set of eyes. Abstract and loose with narrative, the poetic sub-genre can be very unconventional and experimental in form and content. The ultimate goal is to create a feeling rather than a truth.
Performative DocumentariesPerformative Documentaries are an experimental combination of styles used to stress subject experience and share an emotional response to the world. They often connect personal accounts or experience juxtaposed with larger political or historical issues. This has sometimes been called the "Michael Moore" style, as he often uses his own personal stories as a way to construct social truths (without having to argue the validity of their experiences).
I'm hoping to work backwards and while my creativity and good ideas hide from me, look at the more technical elements of my project. I know with poetic mode it would be a lot of focus on planning but I believe in myself and my partner. The performative route seems interesting and something I better connect to. I've got to admit it's a bit exposing seeing as we're probably using a personal account!
Wish me some more luck please!
So after our march play failed I decided it's time to go back to the drawing board and start on square one. I know, it's incredibly intimidating! My metaphorical idea board was coming up blank because all the ideas I had didn't seem to fit and I wasn't going anywhere. SO, I decided to really start fresh by doing some good old research again. Instead of focusing on conventions, I looked more into different documentary types and styles. I found a pretty good website that gave me a good explanation on the 6 types of documentaries. My two favorites were:
Poetic Documentaries
First seen in the 1920s. Poetic Documentaries are very much what they sound like. They focus on experiences, images and showing the audience the world through a very different set of eyes. Abstract and loose with narrative, the poetic sub-genre can be very unconventional and experimental in form and content. The ultimate goal is to create a feeling rather than a truth.
Performative DocumentariesPerformative Documentaries are an experimental combination of styles used to stress subject experience and share an emotional response to the world. They often connect personal accounts or experience juxtaposed with larger political or historical issues. This has sometimes been called the "Michael Moore" style, as he often uses his own personal stories as a way to construct social truths (without having to argue the validity of their experiences).
I'm hoping to work backwards and while my creativity and good ideas hide from me, look at the more technical elements of my project. I know with poetic mode it would be a lot of focus on planning but I believe in myself and my partner. The performative route seems interesting and something I better connect to. I've got to admit it's a bit exposing seeing as we're probably using a personal account!
Wish me some more luck please!
Sunday, March 12, 2017
Group Meeting
Alright! So, we had our first group meeting with other members from our class. I really enjoyed the experience and got some good feedback for the project. I gave feedback to my group mates that I hope really helps them develop their project even further.
One of the pieces of advice I was given concerns the structure of our project. Cheyenne and I had decided that our project would be an entire documentary about social activism and then we would make an excerpt on the feminism section. However, my group mates gave me the idea to make our entire project a documentary series; some examples are Making a Murderer and Abstract.
I really like this idea and I think it makes more sense for the idea my partner and I have in mind. It would be harder for the documentary to flow if we show different social movements and this way we can go for more depth and achieve the breadth we originally wanted. By doing a series we can focus on each movement in depth and make multiple episodes.
Another important piece of advice was on how we need to have a stronger purpose. Our idea was to showcase social activism essentially in a more positive light. However, we hadn't yet figured out the why. One of my group mates told me I need to explain how it changes people and why people should be active. They were right, we had yet to consider what our purpose really was and how we were going to show it. Basically, Cheyenne and I have a lot of work to do because we need to re-plan and re-think our project.
Ta ta for now!
One of the pieces of advice I was given concerns the structure of our project. Cheyenne and I had decided that our project would be an entire documentary about social activism and then we would make an excerpt on the feminism section. However, my group mates gave me the idea to make our entire project a documentary series; some examples are Making a Murderer and Abstract.
I really like this idea and I think it makes more sense for the idea my partner and I have in mind. It would be harder for the documentary to flow if we show different social movements and this way we can go for more depth and achieve the breadth we originally wanted. By doing a series we can focus on each movement in depth and make multiple episodes.
Another important piece of advice was on how we need to have a stronger purpose. Our idea was to showcase social activism essentially in a more positive light. However, we hadn't yet figured out the why. One of my group mates told me I need to explain how it changes people and why people should be active. They were right, we had yet to consider what our purpose really was and how we were going to show it. Basically, Cheyenne and I have a lot of work to do because we need to re-plan and re-think our project.
Ta ta for now!
The First Attempt
Surprise, surprise our first attempt didn't exactly go as planned. Our initial idea was to go to the women's protest on March 8, which we did, and film. We had hoped to film the protest as well as interview the people there. We wrote out what questions to ask beforehand:
PROTESTORS:
⁃What is your name?
⁃How old are you?
⁃Do you identify as a feminist?
⁃How were you made aware of this event?
⁃What does A Day Without A Woman mean to you?
⁃Why did you come here today?
⁃Did you go to work today? What reasons led you to that decision?
⁃Is this your first time participating in social activism?
⁃ Did you go to the Women’s March in D.C., or locally, or not at all? Why?
⁃How did you originally become interested in advocating for women’s rights?
⁃What do you hope to see as a result of this protest and strike?
⁃Are there specific women’s rights issues you are passion about?
⁃What steps, if any, will you be taking after today to continue promoting this message of female equality?
MEN:
⁃What is your name?
⁃How old are you?
⁃Do you identify as a feminist?
⁃Have you faced any challenges as a result of this identification?
⁃How were you made aware of this event?
⁃What does A Day Without A Woman mean to you?
⁃Why did you come here today?
⁃Is this your first time participating in social activism?
⁃ Did you go to the Women’s March in D.C., or locally, or not at all? Why?
⁃How did you originally become interested in advocating for women’s rights?
⁃What do you hope to see as a result of this protest and strike?
⁃Are there specific women’s rights issues you are passion about?
⁃What steps, if any, will you be taking after today to continue promoting this message of female equality?
⁃How do you feel about your role in today’s protest?
⁃What would you say to other men who are not feminists?
BYSTANDERS:
⁃What is your name?
⁃How old are you?
⁃Do you identify as a feminist?
⁃Do you know what is happening at Bayfront today?
⁃Do you know what A Day Without A Woman is?
⁃If no, explain, and ask:
⁃If you had known, would you be striking and/or protesting today? Why?
⁃What is your opinion on the protests occurring at Bayfront today?
⁃Are you supporter of women’s rights?
⁃How come you aren’t marching?
⁃Do you feel as if marching is effective for this issue?
⁃Are you an activist for any other issues?
However, we didn't get the chance to interview anyone due to unfortunate circumstances. The women's protest was honestly a great experience, the whole time felt so energetic and powerful. It inspired me to attend future marches and to be more active in my life. We haven't gone through all the footage we got but some of it pretty good. Our hope is that we can use some of the footage in the excerpt instead of focusing it on the event itself. Now, we have to outline a new game plan for our excerpt. I think we'll try to get interviews from people at school in the feminist club and from professionals, such as the women who organized the January march.
Goodbye for now.
Goodbye for now.
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Update: Progress has been made!
Hi guys!
Alright, so we have an idea. Are you ready? Well, you better be.
So, we originally were trying to find something within the feminism lense. We were having a tough time finding something that we could focus on and document well. We couldn't quite settle on doing an issue such as catcalling or gender pay for our main story. SO, because we are geniuses who are interested in social activism we thought to ourselves, "Why not make our overall documentary focused on social activism?" Even better, we decided to focus our perspective on teenagers being socially active and asking the big question of why they fight. Since, we're probably doing a direct narrative then we can tie in our thoughts about this generation being transformative and active.
NOW, I know what you're saying "but what about the 5-minute excerpt?" Yes, well for that we decided that the excerpt would be a piece from the middle of the documentary about one of the social movements. First, we need to do some more research about the upcoming events for social movements that we could do. We plan on picking the movement that will be easiest for us to get a lot of footage and information on. Here's a short list of some of the topics we came up with so far:
1. LGBTQ Rights
2. Racial Equality
-Within this section would be the Black Lives Matter Movement or the rise of Islamophobia and the activist response to it.
3. Feminism/Women's Rights
-Within this section could be abortion rights or other feminist-related topics such as, equal pay.
4. Ending Violence Against Women
We've done some research so far and we found out about the International Women's Day strike happening on March 8. The strike is called 'A Day Without a Women' and it will be happening on a global scale. There will be an event happening locally in Miami, however, there have been basic guidelines proved for anyone who wants to participate by the planners of the January Women's March. We don't know for sure if we will go to the event but we will decide whether or not to cover the event, we most likely will though.
Alright, see you in the next post!
Alright, so we have an idea. Are you ready? Well, you better be.
So, we originally were trying to find something within the feminism lense. We were having a tough time finding something that we could focus on and document well. We couldn't quite settle on doing an issue such as catcalling or gender pay for our main story. SO, because we are geniuses who are interested in social activism we thought to ourselves, "Why not make our overall documentary focused on social activism?" Even better, we decided to focus our perspective on teenagers being socially active and asking the big question of why they fight. Since, we're probably doing a direct narrative then we can tie in our thoughts about this generation being transformative and active.
NOW, I know what you're saying "but what about the 5-minute excerpt?" Yes, well for that we decided that the excerpt would be a piece from the middle of the documentary about one of the social movements. First, we need to do some more research about the upcoming events for social movements that we could do. We plan on picking the movement that will be easiest for us to get a lot of footage and information on. Here's a short list of some of the topics we came up with so far:
1. LGBTQ Rights
2. Racial Equality
-Within this section would be the Black Lives Matter Movement or the rise of Islamophobia and the activist response to it.
3. Feminism/Women's Rights
-Within this section could be abortion rights or other feminist-related topics such as, equal pay.
4. Ending Violence Against Women
We've done some research so far and we found out about the International Women's Day strike happening on March 8. The strike is called 'A Day Without a Women' and it will be happening on a global scale. There will be an event happening locally in Miami, however, there have been basic guidelines proved for anyone who wants to participate by the planners of the January Women's March. We don't know for sure if we will go to the event but we will decide whether or not to cover the event, we most likely will though.
Alright, see you in the next post!
Back and Better Than Ever!
Hi everyone!
Welcome back to my blog. Due to this year's portfolio project I am once again back on my blog! I've got a surprise in store for all my readers because my project this year is so different from last year's. This year I will be doing an excerpt of a documentary with my partner Cheyenne.
Now, a documentary is all about capturing a slice of life and I am very excited for this year's project. Chey and I have been friends for a long time now so I'm certain we'll do great. We both have an interest in social activism, particularly, feminism and we've been looking forward to focusing our project on something in that area. We spent the better part of the week brainstorming an idea on how to capture what we wanted in a documentary.
Here are some conventions of a documentary that we are interested in implementing:
-shorter than full-length films
-hand held camera movement (to add realism)
-narrative format
-interviews to progress story
-crosscutting/parallel editing
-non-diegetic sound (voiceover)
-selective editing
-music
-infographics
Wish us luck!
Welcome back to my blog. Due to this year's portfolio project I am once again back on my blog! I've got a surprise in store for all my readers because my project this year is so different from last year's. This year I will be doing an excerpt of a documentary with my partner Cheyenne.
Now, a documentary is all about capturing a slice of life and I am very excited for this year's project. Chey and I have been friends for a long time now so I'm certain we'll do great. We both have an interest in social activism, particularly, feminism and we've been looking forward to focusing our project on something in that area. We spent the better part of the week brainstorming an idea on how to capture what we wanted in a documentary.
Here are some conventions of a documentary that we are interested in implementing:
-shorter than full-length films
-hand held camera movement (to add realism)
-narrative format
-interviews to progress story
-crosscutting/parallel editing
-non-diegetic sound (voiceover)
-selective editing
-music
-infographics
Wish us luck!
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