Introduction
A big part in Junior year at Freestyle, we go through a specific unit, the Documentary Unit. It’s basically what it sounds like, a documentary, of your choice. Students go out and pick topics that they feel passionate about and put it into planners and words, finding interviewees that would be perfect to use. In English, you figure out what you’re doing at the beginning, making building blocks, while it switches over to Digital Media where you’ll be able to make Magazine Articles. Depending on your elective you either make a film, a book, or an animation, and being an Animation student, you can see which I had to do.
For my documentary, I had a specific idea on making it about the Executive Orders that were passed earlier this year. Though through some difficulties, I moved it to a broader topic about Misconceptions that many people have heard and believed about immigrants in America. My interviewee I chose was a friend of my dad’s and past co-worker, Chitra Parandaman. It included executive orders and the views America puts on Immigrants, and what’s been happening to them in the past few months. This documentary was made as an awareness, since I believe, and know this is important.
She’s currently a worker at a nonprofit Organization, helping people from behind the scenes in order to help them come here from other places. Not only does she just work through immigration, but also with civil rights in the Bay Area, dismantling oppression or racism and economic justice.
She helped me by sharing her experiences through her work, and other information about Immigration and the misconceptions around the U.S. Even sharing some of her own experiences which I’m thankful for.
English Production
For the next few months at the beginning, in English we went through a process doc that was preparing us with information and interview questions that we could provide our interviewee’s with when the time came. Searching for credible sources online and even extra pieces of information that would be helpful. During our outline we then switched to the real deal, where we had to write about 5 pages, though I ended up writing about 7 because there was a lot of information from both sources I’ve found (sources found at the bottom of the paper) and from my interview with Chitra.
DM: Magazine Article
For Digital Media, we took our final Documentary Paper and put it into Adobe InDesign where we were able to make it into an online book, including GDEs (Graphic Design Effects), and photos of the Interviewee(s) and Author Bio. For mine, I wanted to make smaller GDEs since I had so much text, meaning I didn’t want it to be all pushed down to where it didn’t show up anymore. And I made it into a calm cream & green color because with my topic, I didn’t want everything too bright or anything, something calm that helps the reader also be able to seriously read through.
Documentary Animation
We got to make a short Animation for our Animation Class. We started with storyboarding our ideas and what we were going to add, all in Adobe Photoshop. From there, we began drawing the actual sketch & animation, everyone was using Adobe Photoshop, and so was I, until I switched to Procreate on my Ipad since it was easier for me. I did enjoy making it, and it was interesting to especially animate two scenes, one being a perspective on how Parandaman views society, and her experiences through an event from Afghanistan.
Video under construction…
Reflection
“How do you creatively and truthfully portray a significant person, group, place, idea, or issue in the community?”
At first, I was honestly scared about making this Documentary paper since it was something I’ve never really dug deep into before, or talked about in general. But when thinking about any interesting topics, I considered the events that were going on and thought it would be perfect because, like I said, I wanted to spread awareness. But I learned a lot more information than I originally knew.
There were many things that did need to be changed from my original plan, like the executive orders as I realized I both didn’t have much information about that, and also I felt like this new shift would’ve been even better considering that the information was interesting. The way people negatively view Immigrants, and how they treat them, whether they are a citizen here or not. And coming from a person who’s Hispanic themselves, that’s really scary. I wouldn’t want that to happen to any of my family or friends. Or anyone talking bad about them for who they are. But I know many out there go through a lot. And these past few months working on this big project made me realize that.
I think I did well at the end, because I said what I needed to say. I put many parts from my interview into the paper that I really wanted to add, and I honestly loved working with Parandaman because she really gave me great stories to use, and I loved her input on the situation, and knowing her backstory a bit through this. We had a very interesting time together, and I hope to work with her again on possible future projects. So who knows, maybe I’ll come back to do something like this again.
Thank You
I want to say thank you to Chitra Parandaman for taking time out of your days to meet with me and discuss my documentary, and letting me interview. I also want to say thank you to Mr Greco for taking some time and helping me with my outline and paper. I was stuck at one point, and he helped me find good sources and ideas to include. I couldn’t have done this without the both of them!
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.