Critical Reflection

      Upon beginning the approximately 8-week process of creating my final media project of my high school career, I made it a point to do extensive research, in addition to what had been done for our documentary unit, in order to ensure that I could create an engaging and technically sound documentary of my own. In doing this research I watched various documentary forms from film length to episodic to get a feel for the techniques that are used in creating a documentary. The most notable documentary that I viewed during my research was Drive to Survive, which I have continued to watch even after finishing the project. This episodic documentary gave me a significant amount of ideas about how to connect the various episodes while also being able to change the subject per episode. However, I feel like I strayed from the conventions of this documentary by having only one interviewee shown in my excerpt, if I were to expand on this episode however I would include other interviews that connect with the main subject. I also found that most modern documentaries don’t often create magazine articles anymore regarding the production of their piece which provided me with very few examples to derive inspiration from to create my own article. 

 

Now having completed the project and looking back on the process as a whole, I have accomplished exactly what I wanted to accomplish at the beginning of the year by opening a forum and a conversation for people to learn to understand others on a deeper level. This year I wanted to brand my work through the idea of promoting empathy, which I believe that I did pretty effectively through the stories that I will be telling in this documentary series. I hope that those who watch my excerpt have a better understanding of the experiences of others that they may not relate to, but are able to empathize with on some level. This is very important to me and is part of the reason why I was determined to create this documentary and have started off with a story that is close to home, my family's story told through my mom. In order to continue to expand on my brand, I would have to continue the episode and the series to tell as many stories as possible and ensure that as many people are heard in order to give all those who may feel silenced or overlooked a voice in the media. 

That being said, an aspect of my time in Media Studies that has stood out to me the most is the ideas and theories surrounding representation in the media. Coming from various underrepresented groups myself, I believe that this is a topic that I have lived through firsthand. However, what stuck with me on a deeper level is that representation does not only account for gender, race, etc. it also accounts for unique experiences and uncommon lifestyles that may not be seen as much in the media. Keeping this in mind, I believe that, while not as uncommon or unique that some would assume, my family and I have lived through an underrepresented and often misrepresented experience that I wanted to bring to light. I hope that my project was successful in showcasing what has been my normal for going on 16 years, but many may not have an understanding of. While representing underrepresented groups along the lines of gender, sexuality, race, etc. is extremely important, I believe that showcasing the experiences of individuals beyond these parameters is also expensive, which is what I set out to do with this production. This is further expanded upon within my magazine article and on my social media account showcasing stories of people who may not get much media attention.

I believe that this focus on representation will be what ultimately engages my audience and encourages them to consume my media. My target audience are millennials, because I believe that they are of the age that would be able to watch my documentary and truly internalize what is being shared and commit to understanding the experiences of others that may alter their views of the world. Being that my product can be classified rated R I think they would also be the only ones “allowed” to consume my product. Surveys have shown that Millennials are the group of the people who are most likely to watch documentaries and to shape their view of the world around what they are able to learn which is my ultimate goal. It is also believed that Millennials would be the most receptive to heavier topics such as the one at hand. Beyond my video component, I am confident that while viewers in my age group (Gen. Z) don’t often view magazine articles, those under the Millennial age group grew up with magazines and would be more inclined to read my magazine piece discussing my product. My magazine article works to expand upon the ideas of my documentary and I believe adds to the overall project. 

All in all, I feel as though I put a significant amount of effort into creating this product and I am for the most part happy with how it came out with minor changes that I would have made to my process if I could do it over again. My ultimate goal is for viewers to be able to get something out of it, learn something new, or just take something away from the story that is being shared. The one thing my mom always tells our family is that our story is meant to be shared to impact someone else's life even if only just a single person, and I am glad that I have been able to share this story and experience with whoever will view my project, and hope that it may provide comfort to someone who may also be struggling with a loss even if not the same as my own or my subject’s loss.

Project Components

 Without further ado...

After Life Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afterlifedocumentary?igsh=NnE5M2p6bHZ1ZmNr&utm_source=qr

After Life Magazine Article: https://www.canva.com/design/DAGBysyoom4/_a8hqch-dWI_Ik4LUaBxuw/view?utm_content=DAGBysyoom4&utm_campaign=share_your_design&utm_medium=link&utm_source=shareyourdesignpanel

After Life Documentary: https://youtu.be/P-3uiDy1sZY?si=GsQ6LzAmjOMKvOOy

    I hope all viewers find something to take away from my project! And I hope those who may have struggled with loss feel heard and understood. Thank You!!

Portfolio Project: Finishing Touches

         I have completed the editing of my documentary excerpt, and I am pleased to say that while it is not perfect and I can see now areas where I could have done more throughout the process, that I am proud of what I created and what I have been able to accomplish in the two years that I have been in this class. I believe that I have come a long way in my skills of media production despite there being even more to do to get better. While I will expand more on this in my CR, I wanted to reflect on my time in this class and high school in general as I am a senior with less than 2 months left to go until graduation. I have learned so much in this class that I will take with me into the future despite not currently planning on going into a career in the media, I feel that I have learned universally valuable skills through this class.

    I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to create not only this documentary, but every project that I have made within the last two years. While many of my projects were not good, I believe that they helped me grow creatively. Everything that I have learned in this class has led me to this project and I believe that I was able to create something that I wouldn't have thought possible at the beginning of junior year when I enter my Media Studies class for the very first time. I have posted this preview on my social media account, but I felt that is also belongs here. My documentary is coming soon...

Portfolio Project: Editing cont.

    I have spent this final week before the project submission collecting the last bits of b-roll that I wanted to add into my documentary to break up the interview videos. I found finding b-roll for this documentary to be significantly harder than the documentary that I previously created in the year because the topic is so specific, and collecting visual representations of grief can be quite difficult especially when telling an almost 16 year old story. Nonetheless, I did my best to collect videos of people being happy, and families eating out at restaurants, etc. to contrast the more sad videos that I have collected.

    I feel that this contrast will really put into perspective the topic at hand, and the tremendous impact loss on such a great scale can have on every aspect of a person's life. I also believe that this will connect with the information and stories that my subject is mentioning within the interview. Family is the overarching theme of this documentary and I believe that this b-roll does an amazing job at showcasing that. 

    I am continuing on in my editing and hope to be finishing up by the end of the weekend.

Portfolio Project: Magazine Article Creation

     I have begun working on the formatting for my magazine article and have found that the templates in Canva may be my best course of action. I enjoy using Canva for all of my creative needs so I am well verse in what different elements I can add to my magazine article to make it as engaging as possible. I have found the template that I will be using. It is a basic template, but I feel that I will be able to accomplish what I intend to with it. 

    Within this article, I will be writing it as an interview with the director (aka Me) discussing the purpose behind the topic of this documentary series. While the director will be the one being spoken with, the magazine will ultimately be topic based. I wanted to structure it this way because I feel that I would like to share my mission statement  in a way to emphasize why I believe that stories such as these ones should be told in film. I believe that my goal with sharing these stories is in increase awareness and reduce stigma which I hope to get across with both this article and my piece as a whole. 

    I am very excited to write in article and supplement the creation of my documentary with what I will be sharing. I hope to be completed with the entirety of the article by this weekend and will be moving forward on then writing my CR and completing the finishing touches in editing my documentary. 

Portfolio Project: Group Meeting

    During our final group meeting of this project, I mostly wanted some advance on how to go about producing my magazine article as I was stuck as to what I needed to get done. I asked my fellow group members who are also doing a documentary as many had either already completed it or were in the process about where I was. Being in a group with other documentary makers was very beneficial as I had previously not had access to group members that were working on what I was. I believe that this group meeting really helped me, and sparked ideas of how I will be producing my magazine article. 

    I have decided that I will be doing a topic focused magazine article, because I believe that this will be easiest for me and it will compliment my documentary the best. The focus of my documentary is loss and recovery which I hope to explain further in depth through my magazine article in order to expand on what I will be sharing within my documentary. I intend to advertise this article on my Instagram page as being related to the documentary, and hope to write as a sort of interview with the director in order to link the two products better. I think that this will allow my project elements to be more cohesive in nature which is what I am hoping to go for. 

    I am continuing in my editing process and then I will also begin promoting my episodes on my Instagram as well. I will try to not only reference the episode that I will be producing in my magazine article, but also reference the episodes that I will not be producing, but are apart of my episodic documentary. I believe that this will also improve the cohesiveness of my documentary series as represented through both the Instagram and the magazine article. All in all, I found this meeting to be very helpful, and I believe that this is what I needed to feel confident in the remaining work that is needed to be done on my project. 

Portfolio Project: Editing

     I have begun editing which I believe will be the hardest part for me throughout this entire project as I have never been the most advanced where editing is concerned. I will be using adobe premiere which present even more challenges as I am more well versed in using IMovie. However, I wanted to challenge myself to use the more advanced platform that I believe may help my documentary look more professional that I believe that IMovie would be. 

    

    I will begin my splitting up the different questions within the interview as I kept the camera rolling rather than cutting after the answer for each question. This will give me a better idea of whether or not I will have to cut some of the questions or part of my voiceover. However, I believe that after I cut the part needed it will be the perfect amount of time to fit into the 5 minute excerpt.