Introduction
The majority of our work during the documentary project relied on one idea: our topic. We were tasked with creatively and effectively portraying a person, group, place, idea, or issue in our community. My original partner, Leila Boisvert, and I discussed our common interests and came up with a plan to interview various staff members at Broadway San Jose in order to discover what it was like to work in a touring Broadway show and detailing a career in theater that wasn’t onstage. Unfortunately, due to the shelter-in-place order we were unable to interview our subjects or tour the theatre, and Leila and I created our own documentaries separately.
I was inspired by my dad’s job as a primary care physician and his transition to telemedicine to base my documentary around alternative forms of communication that comply with the shelter-in-place. I would focus on three major innovations: distance learning, telemedicine, and Zoom for social purposes. I used this idea to create a full 12 minute documentary for my Film class, a 9-page essay for English, and a 6-page magazine article for Digital Media, using the skills I had learned in each class to utilize narrative-based journalism.
This unit probably taught me the most out of all the units this year. I learned basic skills in Photoshop, InDesign, and AfterEffects, and expanded on my previous knowledge of Premiere Pro. I learned how to run sound on a film set, how to create mock-ups and articles in InDesign, and how to properly use quotations and sources when writing essays.
You can read my full article by clicking on the image here:
Like I stated above, the essay/article project taught me how to properly utilize secondary sources and cite quotes. I also learned the art of interviewing in both English and Film. The project-based learning style lent itself to this unit really well, combining interviews for Film class with an essay in English, then with a magazine article created from scratch in Digital Media. This project challenged me to use the skills I had learned to create something that I was passionate about, giving me creative freedom to do so.
Mockumentary
Our first assignment at the start of the Documentary Unit in Film was to create a short “mockumentary”, using techniques that we had been learning about in class up until that point. The point of this project was to make mistakes (hence the bad lighting, angles, audio, etc) so that we would be going into our actual documentary with slip-ups under our belt. Leila and I partnered on this film before we decided to work together on the “first draft” documentary, and this project showed me that we could work well together creatively and build on each other’s ideas. Callum, to his credit, was the actually skilled filmmaker, and he helped us with the technical aspects of our vision (I say “vision” with dripping sarcasm). He was also a good sport about dying at the end of the film. We were inspired by “American Vandal” to create a serious story about a minor inconvenience, in this case the forever empty vending machines on the Freestyle campus. I hope you enjoy me dipping my toes into the documentary film style, or at least get a good laugh out of it.
Documentary
As I stated in my introduction, my partner Leila and I initially came up with the idea to interview various members of the Broadway San Jose team as an exploration of traveling Broadway shows and offstage jobs in theater. We also hoped to interview a cast member of the touring cast of Les Mis. I began a correspondence with Tina Chang, the community engagement manager for the company. Unfortunately, as the COVID-19 situation progress in the Santa Clara county, Tina and the other members of the staff began working from home and were unavailable for interviews. I contacted a parent of my sister’s friend as a last resort, needing to turn in at least one interview. We were still unsure what the Documentary project would require as the situation worsened. The last work I did on this project was filming B-Roll outside the Broadway San Jose theater.
After this, the shelter-at-home order was put into place and we were able to start over with a new, quarantine-friendly topic. I took inspiration from my dad’s transition to telemedicine to base my documentary around the innovative ways people have been communicating during quarantine. I focused mainly on distance learning (interviewing my sister), telemedicine (my dad), and Zoom/family calls (my mom).
Overall I learned a lot about documentary film production during this project. We learned how to properly frame shots using the rule of thirds, curated questions based on documentary subjects, and told a non-fiction story using techniques from our Narrative projects last unit. I hope you enjoy my documentary and that it’s informative about alternative communication during the coronavirus!
Documentary Article
This is the article I created for Digital Media. I used the skills I had learned previously during the Learning Projects to create my own original spread and graphics.