Documentary Critical Reflection

The documentary project Cypress Bay’s Evolution displays the evolution of education within a single, specific high school, exploring how certain factors have changed when it comes to education. 

Through interviews with teachers, yearbook photographs from past years, and clips of the classrooms now, the piece attempts to show how advances in technology have changed teaching methods and shaped experiences in the classroom.

Research was a crucial part of the documentary. Initially, other documentaries were studied to identify effective techniques that may aid in the later-on filming and editing. For example, American Promise (2013) showed how to narrate an incredibly personal story over an extended period, while Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010) used technical elements to comment on problems with authenticity in the art world. These examples emphasized the importance of having good interviews and utilizing relevant footage. Additionally, the more recently published documentary Abstract: The Art of Design showed how essential quality broll footage is for making an engaging product. The New York Times Op-Docs, placed an emphasis on concise yet effective storytelling.

The documentary followed traditional technical conventions such as interviews and using archival footage. However, adjustments had to be made when challenges arose. For example, when it was discovered that there was not enough footage, quick broll was filmed to keep the project on track. These accommodations ensured that the project met basic requirements even if there were some obstacles. The research was incredibly helpful in the sense that it helped to create a documentary that fit its genre.

The intended audience included high school students, teachers, and others curious about changes in education. The aim was to make the content relatable and engaging. Two teachers with extensive experience shared their stories, helping students see their place in a very large educational context. The old yearbooks were an idea used as an attempt to add a nostalgic element, especially for current students who were fascinated with seeing how the school was like decades ago. 

While the documentary slightly resonated with its audience, it had missed opportunities to include a wider range of interviewees. The focus on teachers only showed their perspectives, while including input from students could have shown how changes in teaching practices also affect learners. Including more subjects could have bettered the narrative being shown; it also could give a view of how changes in education affect more than one group of individuals.

The theme of educational growth was the focal point of the project. This was attempted to be reflected in the overall narrative. Some opportunities to enhance this theme were missed, however. For instance, not including footage of the school’s first TV production took away the chance at showcasing what the school was like at a different time. The absence of a third interview also took away from the length of the documentary and how potentially diverse the perspectives could have been. Addressing these shortcomings display how the documentary’s cohesion could have been more strong.

The documentary primarily focused on teachers and their adaptation to technological advancements and evolving teaching methods. This focus may have been effective, but it overlooked other important points. Including insights from students was a missed opportunity to see how educational changes impact everyone. For example, students’ stories of how new technology has influenced their learning experiences could have added more to the story.

The documentary’s visuals attempted at playing a significant role in engaging the audience. Old yearbook photos along with the inclusion of modern footage showed the change in the looks of the teachers and the school. These images may have helped the viewers better relate to the subject matter. 

The production aimed to establish a brand that highlights education's evolution while encouraging reflection on how far the community has come. This brand combines older perspectives while showing relevance to the modern technological age. This attempts to  encourage viewers to reflect on how the dynamics of learning have changed. 

The visuals, interviews, and narrative attempted to work together to build this brand. Yearbook photos and contemporary footage aligned with the theme of change and provided a connection between how the teachers were in the past and how they are in the present. Interviews with experienced teachers offered firsthand accounts of how teaching methods have evolved. However, there were areas where the brand’s development could have been stronger. 

The documentary also tried to represent social groups and issues, focusing on the role of teachers and the impact of technological advancements. Teachers were portrayed as the most important part of the educational progress, emphasizing how their adaptability is very important. Including examples of students’ experiences with these changes would also have strengthened the representation of the educational community.

Feedback from the viewers helped show the documentary’s areas for improvement. Many appreciated the personal stories, but said how technical changes could have made it even more interesting. 

The documentary project on the evolution of education relied heavily on research and planning to shape its structure. It connected with the audience through relevant perspectives and contrasts between the history of education as well as its current standing. While the project featured a theme of change and effective use of visuals, it was limited by missing interviews and footage as well as the narrow focus on just teachers. Addressing these limitations could make the impact of future projects better. Despite this, the documentary offers insights into growth and change in education, which in turn encourages discussions about the future of learning.

Documentary Production Part 2👻

 Finishing Up 🧚‍♀️

As per our assigned rolls, my partner took control of the editing. However, this is when most of our problems regarding the documentary started happening. My partner was editing the documentary the day it was due, which obviously is not a recipe for success.

Me and my partner were talking while she was editing, and she told me there was not enough footage, so I had to send her some last minute clips. 🫣😬

Last minute video 🥲 →

Unfortunately, I can’t give you much insight into the editing process itself because, well, I didn’t have any access to it. My partner handled everything, and I wasn’t really involved. 🤖🤡

Once she finished editing, I finally got to see the final product. Let’s just say it was…something. 💀 I noticed pretty quickly that the third interview—the one my partner was supposed to do with her English teacher—was nowhere to be found. On top of that, some of our B-roll footage was missing, including clips we had of the very first TV production video made at our school. These were things we had planned to include, but since the project was due, we had to submit it as-is.

Considering the circumstances, I think the documentary turned out okay. But doing this project made me realize a lot about myself and how I approach collaborative work. For one, I had plenty of creative ideas throughout this process that I didn’t voice because I doubted myself. I felt like my lack of experience with filming meant my ideas weren’t good enough, so I let my partner make most of the decisions. Looking back, I deeply regret that. When I watched the final product, I felt like my own vision wasn’t reflected in the documentary, and that is something I definitely want to change for my future projects.

From now on, I will trust my instincts more. Although I am still very much at an amateur level, when it comes to productions, I can confidently say that I have learned a lot and I can only gain more knowledge if I let myself experiment. So from now on, I will do just that. I will make sure my own creative thoughts go into my work.

Thank you so much for joining me as I explained this entire process!😘 I had so much fun and learned so much. Documentaries are quite literally one of my favorite film products as of now and I can’t wait to see just how much more I can learn. 

See you in the next project‼️😉

Documentary Production Part 1🥳

Documentary Filming 🎥💜

Now that all of our planning was behind us, it was finally time to start filming!

I joined my partner in the TV room, where she checked out the filming equipment. It was a whole process—tripod, camera, microphone, the works. I felt so official. Once everything was set, we headed off to film our first interview. Our subject was the school’s football coach, who also happens to teach engineering. He has been here since the school opened, so we were super excited to hear what he had to say.

We conducted the interview in his classroom, where the walls were decorated with football pictures and his tables were scattered with engineering projects. He was really enthusiastic, which made our job so much easier. He shared stories about what the school was like in its early years and how it has changed since then, especially in the students' usage of technology. Hearing him talk about the evolution of both the school and its students felt really meaningful.

Our next interview was scheduled for two days later, but things didn’t go as planned. My partner got sick, so we couldn't do the scheduled interviews. At first, I thought about going ahead and doing them myself, but there was a problem: since I wasn’t part of the TV program, I couldn’t borrow any filming equipment and I was worried that if I filmed it on my phone, the quality wouldn't match up. Because of this setback, we fell slightly behind schedule.

The following week, my partner filmed an interview without me because it happened during one of my class periods, and I wasn’t allowed to leave. This interview was with a teacher who teaches both Holocaust studies and English. She’s been at the school for a very long time and also had similar experiences with technology being the main facilitator of the evolution of learning and education. My partner told me later on that the interview went really well, which I was glad to hear.

Once those two interviews were done, we began capturing some B-roll footage. We filmed clips of the yearbooks we had tracked down earlier, making sure to get photos of the teachers we had interviewed. We thought it could be a cool way to connect the past and present. 😎

Some shots from the yearbook!! ↓↓

Our final interview was with my partner’s English teacher, who has also been at the school for years. My partner said she could do this by herself as well as it would be easier for her to coordinate directly with her teacher. 

As the interviews were getting finished, we were officially done filming.

Looking back at the filming part of our documentary, I wish I would have trusted my own abilities more. I think I should have tried to film one of the interviews by myself, even if I had to do it on my phone and the clips would not match. My partner has a very extensive background in film while I do not, which made me trust her more with the process. However, I realized that relying on others just because of their expertise is not necessarily viable. All of these projects are learning opportunities for me and I should have taken the opportunity to try doing some filming myself. 

Next up: editing! 😝

Documentary Planning...☺️

 Group Documentary Project - Research and Planning

After all that research and watching various kinds of documentaries, we were assigned our first big project of the year: to make our own documentary. When I first heard this, my reaction was something like, “Um…😦🤒🤕…there is no way.” I mean, a whole documentary? The idea felt impossible. But then my teacher showed us a student-created documentary called Counter Conformity, which explored fashion as a form of personal identity. It was so impressive. After watching this documentary, I really had no idea what I was going to do.

When we were sent off to start brainstorming, I ended up partnering with the girl who sits in front of me. She had this amazing idea: a documentary on pet shelters, specifically comparing traditional shelters to no-kill ones. It was one of those ideas that instantly felt important to me, so I was totally on board. Once we confirmed our topic, we started researching local shelters we could interview. The idea of filming actual shelter animals and hearing the stories behind them sounded so amazing and I started getting super excited. 

Following some initial research, we began outlining our production process. We established our purpose—basically, what we wanted to show and why it mattered—and brainstormed a list of potential shots. Think: adorable pets, but juxtaposed with stark shelter environments for that emotional impact😉😜. We also divided up roles. I’d handle writing the interviews while my partner would focus on filming and editing. Then, we put together a rough outline of how we wanted our documentary to flow, from opening visuals to the closing message.

Our pre-documentary planning sheet! →

Everything seemed to be going decent, but then we had a meeting with our teacher. As we talked through the logistics, it became pretty obvious that our idea wasn’t as doable as we thought. Filming at shelters meant traveling quite a bit, setting up proper interview spaces, and coordinating with shelter staff. It was a lot—maybe too much for two high schoolers😣. During the meeting, our teacher helped us brainstorm different topics, and we eventually landed on one we both liked: the evolution of education, specifically how our own school had changed over the years.

After scrapping our original outline, we started fresh with a new plan. Since we wanted to explore how education at our school had evolved, we thought it would be cool to include visual contrasts between the past and present. As a result, we began the great search for old yearbooks. We wanted to include B-roll clips of the school as it looked in its early years, and we thought tracking down yearbooks from when the school first opened could be a cool idea. What we didn’t expect was how much of an adventure that would be.

We trekked all over campus, starting with the yearbook room. Then it was off to the front office, the principal’s office, and finally the media center. Eventually, we found the yearbooks from 2003 and 2005. Flipping through them was wild. Seeing photos of students in the same rooms and hallways I walk through every day—it was like stepping into a time capsule. 

Interviews are a huge part of documentaries; subsequently, me and my partner decided the best interviews we could get were from teachers who had been at our school since the beginning, as they would have seen the evolution unravel as they taught through the years. After brainstorming about four potential teachers, we tried to plan out times we could interview them. After scheduling about three interviews, we were ready to start production. 😝😋

First Big Project of The Year - Documentary!!!

Initial Research & Learning

This was my first time working on a documentary project, so I knew there was a lot I needed to learn. The process started with a lesson on what a documentary is, the different forms it can take, and the basic and technical conventions used to create them. It was a good introduction to the genre, but at that time, creating a documentary myself seemed quite impossible.

My notes 

     from class!!!

↳

That same day, we watched a documentary that stood out to me. It was a documentary called I Think This is the Closest to How the Footage Looked. It was unlike anything I’d seen before. I could not even believe that it was considered a documentary. The documentary focused on an Israeli family coping with the loss of their mother. However, the director was recreating the moments before his mothers death with inanimate objects, such as furniture and household items. This piece sort of blurred the line between reality and art, which I think is what caused my initial confusion about it being a documentary. My teacher, nevertheless, taught the class that documentaries are essentially “a slice of life.” Even though this film used unconventional, artistic techniques to tell its story, it still fit within the definition of a documentary because it reflected real-life experiences.

We also explored other documentaries, including American Promise (2013), directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson. The documentary follows their son Idris, and his best friend, Seun, at the prestigious private school Dalton in New York City. The production of the film spanned over 13 years, which blew my mind. It provided a detailed and extremely personal view of the challenges both Idris and Seun faced in an academically challenging environment. This documentary really hit me; I was literally crying the entire time it was being shown and I literally could not tell you why. The biggest thing I learned from this documentary was that personal storytelling can be very powerful and is able to push how documentaries can speak on larger societal themes even if the focus is on individual experiences.

The next documentary we saw was Exit Through The Gift Shop, which ended up being directed by Banksy, a very popular street artist from London. This documentary started as a view of the underground street art movement filmed by Thierry Guetta, but it ends up being about Guetta himself. Guetta initially sets out to document street artists, including Shepard Fairey and Banksy, but then he becomes a street artist himself, being named the controversial "Mr. Brainwash." The film essentially comments on the fine line between art and commerce, what true authenticity is, and the commodification of creativity. 

The last documentary the class ended up watching was a Netflix series called Abstract: The Art of Design. In class, we watched the episode on Ruth E. Carter, who showed how costume design can tell stories about culture, identity, and character, with her work on Black Panther as one of her main examples. At home, I viewed the episode on Ian Spalter which focused on digital product design, especially his role in redesigning Instagram and how he balances user needs with creative decisions. This specific documentary series resonated with me the most. I was very engaged when watching and I took a great interest in learning all the different art forms that exist around me. This series taught me how documentaries can put a simple focus on people’s stories, yet stay impactful. It also taught me how visuals, interviews, and staged shots are integral to making documentaries engaging. Watching this series helped me see how documentaries can connect me with a subject that was otherwise irrelevant for me. 

We also watched Op-Docs, also known as opinion documentaries, which are really short documentary films usually created by independent filmmakers that explore current issues, personal stories, and/or different perspectives. This is usually associated with The New York Times Op-Docs series, where these documentary pieces are published. I saw two incredibly impactful Op-Docs: one about sex work and another about having troubles with cultural identity. These Op-Docs taught me that even if documentaries are short in length, they can still deliver a strong message. Focusing on real stories and personal experiences often make these topics more relatable and engaging, which is an integral aspect of Op-Docs. Op-Docs also show how creative techniques and visual variability can smoothly share opinions and explore different issues. 

All of this extensive research on documentaries helped me learn that documentaries are not a rigid category of film; they take on a wide variety and can be done in numerous ways. Throughout intaking all these pieces, I noted how different technical components of documentaries were done, such as direct/indirect interviews, authentic broll, staged broll, and more. 

I always had a narrow perspective on documentaries because I thought all of them were boring and strictly academic. Now, I can safely say that documentaries might be one of my favorite film pieces because they have the potential to be so impactful.

I Am Now An A-Level Student!

 

Guess who is back!! I have started AICE Media A Level this year, and I’m excited to see how much more I’ll learn and grow in my second year of this class! 

Last year, when I joined the AS class, I had absolutely no background in film. I did not know anything about production, planning, and editing. I had never even seen the classic movies that get referenced all the time! It felt like a bit of a culture shock, but it was definitely eye-opening and also gave me the chance to learn from the ground up.

The AS course taught me a lot about how films are created and the amount of thought and detail that goes into each step. I started to understand how camera shots and angles, editing, auditory effects, and visuals all come together to tell a purposeful story and make something impactful. Now, moving into A Level, I am ready to take on even more knowledge regarding media, especially in subjects that really fascinate me, like postmodernism. I know I will have more opportunities this year to experiment creatively, which is something I am looking forward to.

This second year feels like another chance to explore new approaches when it comes to media and storytelling. I am ready to be surprised by all the aspects of media and films I still do not know. I am so excited to embark on this journey, and I am even more excited to bring you along, blog.😉😉

Creative Critical Reflections!

CCR 1:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18tDo66ASK-XlXADEladlboQpHb0BxsFl/view?usp=sharing

CC2:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FvjqQd6guqrh4YkvuyLk_oi1K8Vf3AIU/view?usp=sharing