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.
No comments:
Post a Comment