Brief Outline/ Planning

     Brief Outline/ Planning:

Interviewees:

-Veronica (Vera’s mom)

-Victoria (Vera’s sister)

-Me (Vera’s sister)

-Hernan (Vera’s dad)

-Ms. Cristina (Vera’s tutor/teacher)

-People Vera’s age who do not have special needs.

Main focus:

Her after school routine. B-roll consists of the dogs, her getting off the bus, interacting with the dogs, and also at the dog beach (it will relate to the questions regarding how having a pet made her more independent). The interviewees that are her age but have no special needs are there for the purpose of comparison. To compare how everyday things or chores affect Vera’s independence versus other people who don’t find it affects how they will live their life. I also have plenty of interviewees because I want to have as much content as possible to choose from. In order to make it as real and personal as possible, I am going to need options. 

Questions:

I do not have a list of interview questions yet because I actually want to do some more research about what questions I should ask, BUT I know what I want them to relate to. General questions will include different points of view regarding Vera’s life (from her friends vs family). For family members, the questions will get more personal since they are with her 24/7. The way the interviews will be set-up will depend on who I am interviewing. For the family members, I want a living room as the background to create a familiar and cozy look. For her tutor, I am hoping I can get access to her classroom after-school so we can film then. As for her friends, I think either Vera’s room or the living room as well.

Poster Inspo

Hi! Welcome back! This post is going to be breezy and easy! I am going to talk about/ show some inspiration for the poster! I am getting better at multitasking and time management so while I wait for the days I can actually film, I am focusing on the rest of the tasks. 

      Unlike the “Unexpected” example, where I talked about the actual docuseries was formatted, for the poster I wanted to choose examples that actually relate to the topic I am creating my documentary on. I went to the trusty old Google and looked up some documentary series that showed special needs people in their daily lives. Two that caught my eye were “The Specials” and “Born This Way”.. Even though these shows demonstrate adults as their subjects, the idea is clearly related. They all have different types of posters, but I am going to show you some that I really enjoyed and why I want to take inspiration from them. 

 The first one is “The Specials”:

This poster is simple, which is something I want to achieve in mine: simple and straight to the point. The poster clearly shows the subjects interacting with each other and it seems that the poses captured were natural and candid, which adds to the “real” element of the documentary. The ONLY thing I don’t like about this one is the black shadow outline and the font of the title. To me the font seems to be childish and it also resembles the font of “The Office” which takes away originality since that is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the font. If I were to take one thing from this poster is the picture they chose. Even though my excerpt is only about Vera, I am still including her friends in the description of the other episodes, so this photo opportunity would be amazing for the poster.  

   These next posters are from “Born This Way”: 

As you can see, it has all the subjects’ close-up pictures and they are all clearly happy. To me, this seems like a very beautiful poster but too staged. Unlike “The Specials”, this font is a little better. It still seems a bit childish to me but it is overall better. I also don’t like that it is a collage-type poster because it takes away any personality or realness. Overall, this poster showed me what I am trying to avoid. 

The second poster from “Born This Way” is much better. It shows more personality and individuality from each subject rather than a posed picture. I also loved that each one of them is wearing a colorful shirt because it adds some lively elements to the picture. Again, not a big fan of the font, BUT the choice of picture is MUCH better.

Slight Change of Plans

  I had an entirely different blog post planned for today regarding more research for different examples of documentary series that actually relate to my documentary, but after our group meeting today (as a class and with our instructor) let’s just say my entire plan changed. After telling the class my plans, they told me what I knew but was avoiding: I want to do too much with not enough time. My idea of showing 2 different subjects and their weekly routines would be rushed through the 5-minute excerpt I have to create. From the beginning, I was planning on mainly focusing on my sister as my main subject, and I still am, but now I sadly have to give up filming most of my other subjects. 

      To clarify, I am still including the other subjects for the website and poster, but only to explain the episodes and their content. For my excerpt, I am focusing on my sister and how she builds independence and responsibility through her routine. One of my main goals still continues to be creating an unbiased view, and I am planning on doing so by telling/ demonstrating what happens when her routine is broken. I don’t believe my parents would want me to show her acting out like it happens when she is frustrated, but I will try my hardest to show any alternate activities to fix the issue and also include it in my interviews. 

     Regarding the structure of my documentary, I think I will be doing an excerpt from an episode, NOT the introduction like I originally wanted to do. My classmates and teacher let me know that creating the introduction would have given me less time to show exactly what I want to. They also recommended to include a voiceover in order to explain everything I wanted to, but voiceovers are the one thing I absolutely want to avoid because like I said in a previous post, I believe that showing b-roll and having the interview audio in the back is more personal and raw than just scripting a voiceover. 

    My plans for this weekend are to plan my questions and if I can get b-roll. This upcoming weekend is an extremely busy one for me, BUT it works perfectly because it gives me time to work on everything else and I can begin to film on Monday.

    I knew my blog was bound to be hectic but I did not know it would be this early on! Trust the process! I am passionate about this topic so I am focusing on making this documentary as real as possible. 

An Unexpected Inspiration

Hi again! For this blog post, I am going to talk a little bit about some inspiration for my documentary as well as some shots/ other elements I want to include in my documentary.

  I just finished watching the serialized documentary or "reality docuseries" (as Hulu likes to label it )“Unexpected” on TLC. This documentary is about teen parents and their journey through pregnancy as well as the first couple of years of their child’s life. What made me think of this show as a good example for my documentary is that they show the teen parents’ story but from many different points of view, in order to avoid bias. The producers also did an amazing job of not focusing on negative or positive aspects but rather related them to one another and showed the REALITY of it, which is exactly my goal.  As everyone knows, TLC shows are quite odd and dramatic, but I specifically liked this one because it did a good job of showing the negatives and positives of the subjects’ lives. The reason I am taking this show as inspiration is that I like the way they formatted it; it made the narrative clear, cohesive, and entertaining as well. The episodes consisted of indirect interviews in which the subjects and their families were talking about a specific situation in their point of view. Sometimes the producers included a question if the subject said something interesting which I also liked because it continues to build the narrative and it is raw and an “in the moment response”. Within those interviews, they would also sometimes include b-roll over the original audio or also include footage of the moment or scenario the subject was talking about in the interview. The reason I am taking this into consideration is simple: interviews create a coherent narrative that also makes it NOT biased (which was one of my goals). I also like that the producers did not just rely on b-roll over the audio, they would cut to the actual moment in order to further build the visual. One thing I did not like from the show was the way the interviews were set up; they seemed awkward and too staged. The way they were set up was a mid-shot (I would have even considered it a long shot) and it would randomly switch to close-ups. Although I like the idea of different shots, the contrast in how far each shot was dramatic and not aesthetic. I also did not like how the background was clearly a stage, so it was the same for every single subject. That does not bring any personality to each subject and their story at all. 

  To sum up what I took from “Unexpected”:

I want to set up my documentary similar to it (narrative, use of b-roll and “in the moment” footage) BUT I want to add more personality. I want to make sure I interview my subjects and their family and friends somewhere that has meaning to them, whether it is the subject’s house, a park they like, etc. Obviously, I will keep technical elements in mind to make sure the backgrounds are not extremely distracting, but the main focus is personalization. 

This video will hopefully act as a good representation of what the show looks like in terms of structure. When watching this, please remember how dramatic TLC is!:) 

Here is an example of the interview set-up that I mentioned earlier. It is obviously all about opinion, but for my documentary, I do want to create a little bit of a more formal or serious tone. This looks too informal.

Check out "Unexpected"! (it is available on Hulu)

Planning Begins

This is an outline of what I have to work with in regards to my main subjects’ schedules. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I have more subjects but Grayson and Vera are my main ones for the excerpt of the episode I am focusing on. I chose to focus on both of them to create a cohesive theme or storyline for at least this one episode. They both have had similar experiences, especially extreme and harsh surgeries that have set them back, which is just another reason I want to show how they are able to overcome such unwanted events. 

Schedule

VERA: 

Weekdays:

-8:40 am Bus comes to pick her up

-4:10 pm Bus brings her home 

-4:10 She dog sits/ plays with the dogs next door for about an hour

-(If the dogs cannot come over, I take her on car rides along with our dog and we blast her favorite music--essential for her to relax and unwind from her school day)

-Around 5:00 pm the rest of her “daily routine” starts. She watches TV, eats her snacks, etc. 

-Bedtime varies from 8:00 to 10:00 pm. 

Weekends:

VARIES

Options:

-Dog beach (one of her favorites)

-Movies

-Plans with her friends and Ms. Cristina (used to be her tutor/teacher and is Grayson’s mother)

Must-haves:

-Include her interaction with the dogs and how her relationship with Linda has made her more independent and has taught her to take care of others. 

-Her ENTIRE story. Her surgeries (seizures, legs) 

-Despite her hardships, she had a quince, as a “normal” Hispanic girl would.

-Show her love for rap and rock music. (unexpected)

GRAYSON:

Weekdays:

-School from 7 am to 2 pm

-Mondays: physical therapy at 2:30 for 1 hour.

-Program/ treatment for 1 hour.

-Shower and dinner before stretching exercises.

-Bedtime is 7:30

Weekends:

-Saturday: swim, go to the mall, other various activities. 

-Sundays: plays baseball for 2 hours.

Must-haves:

-Just like Vera, he has had multiple harsh surgeries.

-Include his relationships with both his sisters.

-Hobbies

A Level Documentary Production Begins Now

The day in which I officially start my project is here! I’m feeling nervous, excited, maybe a little stressed BUT I do have more planned than I thought so hopefully it is only smooth sailing from here. 

At first, I had chosen the music promotion project and I already had a band I was working with, had the video planned, basically had the foundation done. After thinking about my potential and what project I would exceed the most in, I decided to change it to documentary. I already went ahead and gathered my subjects as well as some examples as inspiration as to how I want the production to look like. 

This is what I have so far:

Topic: Demonstrating how special needs people (my subjects happen to be kids) can live a normal life despite the stereotypes society assumes. 

After discussing my topic with my instructor, she said something important that I really have to keep in mind: since my sister is one of my subjects, I have to focus extra hard on not making this a biased documentary. I have to make sure I include the reality of her and the other kids’ lives. Am I going to take priority on showing the positives? Of course, but I knew from the beginning that touching upon sensitive topics or events will be necessary. 

Subjects: Vera (my sister), Graysen, and other middle school students. 

I decided that for my excerpt I will be focusing on showing my sister and her friend Graysen. Not only am I going to be able to get a closer look into their lives, but they are 2 kids who have gone through the worst and have kept fighting and wanting to live the best life possible. Obviously, on the website, I will explain the full-pledged documentary BUT for the excerpt, I will be focusing on them. 

Narrative: I would obviously love for the subjects to speak 100% for themselves, but Graysen and Vera’s communication is not at a point where that is possible, so I am also gathering family and friends to talk about them. One main focus will be to include as much B roll of them as I can since actually seeing the subjects’ daily lives is what will deliver the message. So far I know I want the documentary’s narrative to be through interviews only; I am really trying to avoid voiceovers in order to keep it as raw as possible. 

Schedule: For today’s post I will not be posting the schedule since it is not where I want it to be. I have Vera’s schedule since I live with her, but I am texting with Graysen’s mom (who has also personally known my sister for years) so we can figure out when we can film. My goal is to have a set schedule by the end of this weekend. What I do know for sure is that filming in their school environment may not be possible considering the stricter rules that have been placed, however, I am also working on trying to ask the teachers if they can get some footage of them at school to use as b-roll or archived footage. 

Title: TBD

Hopefully, this introduction to my project was not as chaotic as it feels. As excited as I am to make a documentary about something I am passionate about, I am aware of the bumps on the road I will encounter. Something that I did not worry about for my AS level project was a schedule since the magazine was very flexible for me, so hopefully, for my A level, I have better-planned production.