Introduction
The documentary project enables us to delve deeper and research a topic which piques our interest. For English, we wrote a research paper which ties together evidence for our claim with personal interviews with people on the topic. In Digital Media, we created a digital magazine in Adobe InDesign using the text from our research paper, featuring graphic design elements (GDEs) drawn in Illustrator, photos, and various fonts. Lastly, for Animation we created a short 2-3 minute animated documentary centered around our interview audio.
When I first started out with this project, I was a musician, so I knew I wanted to make my documentary project about something music related. Initially, I thought about doing a profile documentary about my subject, Camille Chien, but then I realized there were so many mental and physical benefits about playing an instrument, which became my topic. I was inspired by Camille Chien as she is able to balance her flute practice and performing with a high academic workload. Knowing this, I was curious to find out how playing the flute helped her academic stress.
English Production
Through the help of Mr.Greco and his insightful comments during my revision process, I was able to weave the interview and research evidence more smoothly in text. In addition, I also got feedback on how I needed more statistical and reliable evidence, which would make my arguments more powerful.
Looking back at my process for my research paper, I developed skills such as being able to contextualize an interview into a broader topic and integrating sources. For example, although both my interviewees were musicians, they talked about a wide range of benefits from playing an instrument, such as how it trains cognitive awareness, decreases anxiety, and enhances fine motor skills.
Digital Media Production
In Digital Media class, we used Adobe InDesign to make our research paper into a magazine article. In this article, it features our images we took of our subjects as well as custom objects created in Illustrator. To create these, I used various Illustrator tools such as the pen tool to trace over images like a flute, and the line tool to create the effect of a sheet music book with multiple pages.
One important thing I learned about Illustrator was how to convert the shapes and objects created in Illustrator into InDesign, through exporting each image as an individual artboard png file. Moreover, I had to make sure that I put these images in my magazine article folder, otherwise they wouldn’t be linked onto the magazine when opened on another computer.
Animation
In animation, we visualized our audio interview into a two minute long animated documentary. Going into this project, I had always been very curious about animated documentaries I saw on YouTube and got some inspirations from some of those documentaries, such as the animated moving text. Since this video was time limited, I had to choose important sections of the interview to use, so I went with how Camille picked up the flute, how it boosted her mental health, and her advice for aspiring musicians.
During the process, we first started out by creating a storyboard which vaguely summarized our scenes. Due to the lack of time, I was only able to animate a few frames with detailed animation such as the beginning scene of Camille playing the flute. I converted a sample video of her playing into frames, and rotoscoped with lineart frame by frame.
Animated documentary video
After creating the animations, I composited everything using Adobe Audition and Aftereffects. First, I adjusted the appropriate volume and denoising using Audition, then put together all the animated scenes with After Effects.
Final video
Reflection
From the documentary project, I was able to delve deeper into my close musician friends and their backgrounds about how they started learning their instrument. From the various drafts I underwent in English, I developed my ability to synthesize information and evidence to develop strong arguments. In addition, the interviewing phase of the project also allowed me to become more insightful when talking to people, as I had to change the questions according to what the subject was saying.
In digital media, I developed my InDesign skills further which can be applied onto other magazine articles I make in the future. I learned from this project how to be more organized with project files and to create appealing graphic designs.
In animation, I developed the ability to create sequentially timed animations which would match my interview audio, which is important when creating voice overs in the future. Overall, this project taught me how to be persistent when learning new skills which you may never know when you’ll apply them in the future.
Interviewee bios
Camille Chien is a 9th grade flautist at Presentation High School. She believes playing the flute boosts her cognitive and mental health, as well as her self-esteem.