Documentary

Introduction & Reflection

Everyone feels a huge sense of accomplishment when they put in enormous energy and effort to complete something that they really care about. This is exactly what I experienced working on this project. For our Junior Documentary Project, we were challenged to creatively and truthfully portray a significant person, group, place, idea, or issue in the community. Being a high school teenager myself and trying to navigate through all the complex and unexpected challenges – COVID, digital distractions (Tik Tok), relationships, etc., I wanted to tackle an issue that was relevant to me and my peers, so that gathering research sources and developing a story was not only personal to me but also significant to my own community. Working on this narrative-style journalism gave me an opportunity to observe deeply an individual beset with challenges. I tried to understand and accurately report on my subject’s experiences. To capture the subject’s story, and give it its due justice, I also had to examine myself: My view of myself, my own relationships with family members, with peers, and even with food. Given all the new tools that we learned to use – Adobe After Effects, InDesign, Photoshop animation – one would think that telling this story would be easier. But, with more tools come many more ways to tell a story. And, so one can spin and spin, exploring forever. I have been spinning nonstop during this project. The result is a quiet satisfaction.

After Effects Interface for Documentary Intro

Mia is a girl whose story is unique but also relatable. What she is going through is prevalent and can be a story of anyone around me, the neighbor next door, my own sister, or even me. This project was especially interesting because the same story was told three times, spanning the English class with the research paper, then the Digital Media class with the magazine article, and finally the Animation class with the animated video. However, with each class, the story took on slightly different angles. Research paper told the story naturally, as a whole story. But when it came to writing the magazine article, I had to think in terms of sections to label the correct subheadings. Finally, with the animation project, I had to choose only a snippet of the research paper to tell. Therefore, the angles of the story were slightly different for all three forms. I appreciated gaining this new knowledge which will help me to become a better story teller.

Research Paper and Magazine Article

Click for documentary magazine article
Click to see research paper

I can’t emphasize enough this new knowledge that I have gained. Though it is subtle, the reader does go through a slightly different experience from reading the research paper to reading the article. While deciding on the magazine’s layout, I had to make conscious decisions on how to divide the story into smaller chunks, which funnels the reader into a specific path.

To help the reader better understand and appreciate this subtlety, here are the links to both the research paper and the article.

Because the research paper does not have any subsections, one would read the entire paper seamlessly as it bounces from the subject’s present interview quotes, to her past stories, to the author’s thoughts and reaction to her during the interview. One would journey through the story unfolding without any prejudice formed by the layout that is present in the magazine.

You can see for yourself and test to see if you form a prejudice to the story from the research paper to the article.

Animation Production

The animation started with capturing the interview, trimming it down, then finding the appropriate background music. That determined the length of the video. Then I started animating snippets of the scenes using rotoscoping. I added animated text whenever appropriate. My video turned out to be almost four minutes and it was difficult to animate the entire video. I tried not to leave too much gap with no animation. Some parts were left with the black screen on purpose so that the audio portion would stand out. These are the screen shots of the audio portion first and then the video portion. In order to make the project not too complicated, I exported the audio file and then used that to start the animated video.

After Effects Interface for Documentary Audio
After Effects Interface for Images and Animation
Adobe Photoshop Interface of Rotoscoping

Interviewee Bio

Mia Brown is a 10th grader who is attending a local high school. She has been going through mental health issues for the past three years. She is suffering from social anxiety, which was first suspected by her parents when Mia’s grades started falling in 9th grade from her refusal to talk in class.  During her 7th grade, there was a big transition from having several friends to zero friends. She shares some intimate stories about her disease.

Mia Brown

Interviewing my subject was a very intense process because of the nature of the topic. She wanted to remain anonymous. Even though 26% of American’s suffer from mental illness, it is a topic that are not openly discussed by the ones actually suffering. There is a shame aspect of it. It is a prominent disease but people are not willing to open up about it. They remain hidden, and the disease is their secret, shameful, painful, suffering alone. I am hoping that my magazine article and the research paper will shed some light on those who needs to hear it, giving them the courage to seek help.

Link to pdf of interview transcript

I would like to thank Mia Brown and her family for allowing me to interview her for my project. I would also like to thank Freestyle for giving me the resources needed to produce three different ways of presenting her story.