Introduction

In English, we spent almost an entire semester working on our documentary papers, conducting interviews, transcribing, annotating, researching. My inspiration for english was seeing all the recent news about the transgender community, I wanted to see how I could represent them in a positive light. Once the text was done, we moved on to designing our digital media articles with elements that matched the theme of the text. In Film class, we reached out to many people asking to make a documentary about them. Then we conducted interviews, shot b-roll, and started editing.

English

In the beginning of this writing process, I had a different idea of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to write an article about the Transgender community. So, I started reaching out to different groups in the community, and none of them had the time for the interviews I needed to conduct. After struggling for a bit, I pivoted to interviewing the parents of Transgender teens about their experiences. I was behind on the writing process because of the time I spent trying to secure a subject. After starting the long writing process, I realized that it was difficult for me to write this paper because I didn’t want to have to think about this topic, but I had to because I had deadlines to meet. After a lot of revision and perseverance, I finished my paper.

This process was difficult but also fulfilling. I built upon so many different skills during this writing. I was so nervous for the very first interview, but it helped me learn what to do and what not to do for the next interview. A majority of my time was spent on the planning and organizing, the actual writing didn’t take as much time. During the middle part of writing the paper, I felt stuck and didn’t want to keep writing because it was a lot to think about. Once I realized how close the publication deadline was, I spent hours finishing the text so that it would have the chance to get published for Exhibition.

Digital Media

In Digital Media, we were assigned to turn our text into a six page magazine article with design elements. I struggled to come up with what to do for this because I wasn’t super confident in my design ability. After some time brainstorming and looking at other articles for inspiration, I came up with a theme and some design elements to add. I am proud of the designs I made, and I really like my About The Author page because I got to incorporate something I really like that wouldn’t have fit the tone of the article. This process was difficult but also rewarding in the end. I was worried about how the designs would turn out and if it would be cohesive enough. I learned a lot through this process and I am proud of myself for completing it.

Film

In film class we watched many documentaries and talked about the techniques they used. Then, we learned how to set up an interview with correct lenses, lighting, and camera positions. After that, we started making our documentary film.

Mockumentary

Before starting our Film Documentary, we learned the techniques required for production by making a mockumentary. I really love watching mockumentaries, so I was excited for this project. It was surprising how difficult it was, especially because we didn’t have as much time as I thought we would have. I really liked writing something with my group because everyone had some pretty funny ideas. We learned a lot from this just by trying and then getting things wrong. I will definitely do something like this again in the future.

Documentary

For our Documentary Film, we took weeks reaching out to different small businesses asking them to be part of our documentary. Finally, we had the idea of House of Bagels, our local bagel shop that many high school students eat at during lunch. From the start of communicating with the House of Bagels staff, we were met with unwavering kindness and genuine interest in our documentary. We had so much fun interviewing the employees and getting to know people.

The filming process was so fun, but also difficult because of the small space and sometimes low light conditions. Since I had eaten at House of Bagels since I was a kid, it was so cool to see how the bagels were made and to get a behind the scenes look into the community at this little shop that I have known my whole life.

This is a picture of our final timeline. Starting the editing process was daunting. This was a new style a film that I didn’t know how to approach editing. We started by cutting up the interviews and marking the best parts, then we moved on to assembling sections that make sense together. We had extensive lists to keep track of all the edits we wanted to make and how to organize it. It was a long process but I’m glad that we finished editing on time.

Final Product:

Interviewee Bios

Marta Wilde

Marta Wilde grew up in the Bay Area with a big family. Formerly a research scientist and teacher at the Med Center at Stanford. She spends time supporting her children by going to football games to watch her daughter cheer, and wrestling competitions to see her child compete.

Christine Salinas

Does work in the non-profit sector raising money for social service organizations to provide services for under resourced individuals.

Thank You

I would like to thank Marta Wilde and Christine Salinas for sharing their stories about their children and for showing genuine interest for my project. Both of them were happy to talk with me about their kids and they also came to read my finished article at Freestyle Exhibition.