about that...

 So I know I said that the editing would be slow, but I didn't imagine we would get virtually nothing done. The main issue we ran into was the fact that Maria was out of town for the entirety of spring break. The last documentary we did together we spent the whole week together editing it and that was the plan this time around but with her leaving and having limited time it was impossible. We were only able to upload our videos and begin making small cuts. We want to be together to make any further decisions since the last time around we struggled with the formatting. I'm confident we will be able to have the project complete by the deadline since this project is around half of our past one. After we complete editing we will complete the print component which I will talk about in a following post. Once we start actually getting into editing I'll be here to update you with all the steps we are taking and why we are making certain choices. Thanks for sticking around through a rough spring break I can't wait to see it all come together. 

(me at the thought of school)

social media again :0

 As I've said about 1 million times our social media is really important and we are focusing on each post because while we could post random things to reach the minimum we need that is not what we want to do. We are utilizing our social media as if there was no minimum and we are posting what feels right. Each week we have been posting around 3 posts and that may change in the coming weeks since time is closing in, but as of right now, we are on track. This week we wanted to announce our release date and then bring our audience into the project. As you saw yesterday we created our intro to announce our release date. We posted that along with the caption save the date to ensure people look for the release date in the post. 

Then we decided to create a behind the scenes post to showcase our hard work and bring those following our Instagram into the project. In the post, they can see our subjects along with us filming them working. We've worked quite hard so far and I think this type of post showcases it. 

The last post we made was a bloopers reel. While I edited the intro Maria created a blooper real to showcase all the funny moments we had while filming. I loved how the video turned out and I love how we can edit our intro to fit the different needs of the project. 

Thanks for struggling through spring break with me I think I might collapse going back on Monday. 

(me to myself)

editing pt.1

 Listen I know it's been a little but I did say that the blogs would be coming late and they are indeed doing that. As we said editing has begun this week and since we plan to focus on the beginning of the podcast episode we needed an intro. I had been thinking about what it should look like for a couple days using the app Canva. I starred a couple layouts that I liked and then asked Maria which ones she felt fit our theming. We ultimately ended up picking the same one so there was no need to even debate. 

I have to give credit where credit is due and all the credit goes to Canva and designers who share their templates on the platform. As we are focusing on different people's creativity in our documentary I think it's important to highlight all the hard work that has been put in that is then used by other people at such a small cost to them. The two templates above are the ones I combined to make the intro. The animation was most important to me because it is definitely not my strong suit so finding that template eased my mind. Then I felt it was important for us to have a logo to go with our production company's name which is when I found the little ghost. I also love ghosts so it's a win-win. We played around with timing and we may continue to edit it, but for now, this is our intro and I think its fun while including our logo and release date. 

Here she is! I'm very much spring breakin so productivity levels will most definitely increase after sunday. 

(me on spring break) 

not really though I haven't left my house in days...

break (kinda)

 For my final blog post of the week, I thought we could reflect and then look at the future. These past few weeks have been great and I’m really proud of what we have accomplished. I think this project truly resembles one that has a lot of time and effort put into and looking at myself I can say I have put a lot of time and effort into it. This project really does make me understand just how fast time flies and how little control I have over it. Over the next week, we will begin and hopefully conclude editing. While I think it is quite optimistic it would make our lives a lot easier. We really only have about 2 ½ weeks before the project is due and still have the print component to complete along with continuing to post on our social media. I’m confident we can do it and am excited to get to the end and have a great final product. Anyway, we will begin editing this week and then reassess the situation from there. Below is a schedule we created for spring break (don’t hold me to the blog posts they will most likely be later in the week)

See ya soon xoxo

social media and kinda editing

As I've mentioned previously our social media is an important part of the project so we've been making sure it represents our documentary appropriately. We want it to look as professional as possible so we decided to do small previews of our episodes for this week's posts. 

We edited quick 30-40 second videos together on iMovie since they just had to be a small representation of what we plan to showcase in the actual episode. Incorporated in each is a small section of interviews from the subjects and b-roll related to what they are saying. Below I'll include Abby and Riley's documentary preview. 

I really enjoyed editing this and it was so quick and simple it made me worry a lot less about the upcoming editing we have to do. 

I love how our Instagram is looking I think it represents a brand that's building itself up. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about spring break and our plans for that. 

spring break soon!

     

Editing research

     Time is ticking by and we will be starting to edit soon so of course we have to do some research first. We of course have done some previous research due to our previous documentary project so this won't be the most extensive research, but more of a reminder of common documentary conventions. 

14 Video Editing Tips for Cutting a Documentary

I found this article and I really liked all the approaches it had when talking about the documentary. First, it begins with just the basics and while they are simple reminders it's little things that amateur filmmakers tend to forget about. The simple tips continue throughout the article but are truly helpful because in times like this upcoming week were we will be off school I can refer to articles like this since I can't talk to my teacher. My favorite tips were 7 & 8 because they included detailed videos with examples of what we should replicate. Tip 9 we have to ignore since we can't use stock footage or photos only original b-roll. I'm worried it will become a problem for us in the future but remain optimistic we will be able to figure any issue we have out. 

How to Edit a Documentary Film (Start To Finish)

This article is a great checklist and very detailed. This even includes steps that we will most likely skip over. I just love how much detail it gives and how each step has a check beforehand. Obviously, we have made a documentary people but this one is so much more important to us and we want it to look ten times better than the last one. I'll most definitely be coming back to this article to check out what we should be doing with each set and if we are making it look as good as we can. 

Making a Documentary From Start to Finish - Beginner Tips

Lastly, I enjoyed this video because it gave me a quick synopsis of everything I need to cover and ensure I do to create the perfect documentary. 

I'll be back shortly

filming day 3

 Today we filmed Josh and Sai for the podcast episode. Since this will be the episode being submitted for our project it took significantly longer than our other filming days. It probably doesn't help that they are boys. Putting two best friends together to film a serious interview is like asking kids to not eat candy in a candy store. We began filming around one and ended around three. Realistically I would have enjoyed it if we had more time to film, but I'm also not that worried because I know we have time to refilm if we need to. Below I'll include some of our behind-the-scenes footage because I don't want to give anything important away. 

In the photos above you can see Maria filming the b-roll. We wanted to get them filming an episode because well that's the whole point of the episode, but we also wanted to get them playing sports since that's why they started the podcast. We did struggle to come up with other b-roll so we got some shots of the equipment as well since we didn't want to leave feeling short on shots. 

For the interviews, we did some together as well as some separately because we wanted to make sure the documentary is visually interesting and not repetitive. We asked all of the questions I posted previously to ensure we had enough content. Getting the episode right is really important to us and is another reason we spent so much time thinking through our details. 

Okay, we will catch up soon!

Print Research

 This may seem a little premature but it's better sooner than later. A main component of the documentary package is a magazine spread so before diving into it we decided we should do some research. I've never made a magazine before so this is definitely a crucial step in our preparation. To start I looked at some magazines with my teacher. I wanted to go to her first since she knows what is important to the project. She showed us some good pages from multiple magazines and I'll include them below.

This is the first magazine we looked at together. This one is simple and an example of a foolproof magazine. It incorporates photos and text in a format that is easy to copy. We're going to be using Canva to create our magazine so something like this should be fairly easy to replicate. While I don't think we'll do exactly it there are aspects of it that I like. A specific one is the bottom right corner of the left page. I enjoy the individual photo with the specific quotes next to it.

This magazine we liked because it was an interview with the actress Michelle Yeoh. We are planning to do an interview with the directors AKA ourselves because the documentary gives all the information the public would need on the subjects. The incorporation of the large photo was something our teacher pointed out to us and she said it can help to make our page interesting but would recommend not having the photo cross the crease. 

This is the last magazine I'll be showing you and it's because I fear I'm becoming repetitive. This magazine would really only be capable if we get a great photo. Blowing up a photo this big is a bold move and that's why it would only be done with good photo. If we did do this we would have one page with a large photo and another page with all of the text. 

                                                               Anatomy of a Magazine

Lastly is this article I found prior to talking to my teacher. The first thing I enjoyed was the graphic at the beginning. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this breakdown because while I do consume a fair bit of written work I rarely look at magazines. This broke down the basics and pieces of the magazine I would have totally looked over. Along with that graphic, they include four detailed YouTube videos that go over more phrases and introduce some layouts as well as giving some editing tips and tricks. 

I plan to look back on this post soon to begin working on our print component. While it's not the part I'm most excited about after this post I feel less intimidated. I'll be back tomorrow with a film update after we film with Josh and Sai. 

social mediaaaa pt.2

I told you we were going to ramp up the social media posts and that is exactly what is happening. This week we wanted to introduce our subjects to the social media before their interviews are posted. Since two of the three interviews are going to be solely featured on our social media their stories won't be fully developed we thought that introducing them first would help build our overall brand. As I told you before we were working on graphics for their posts as well as descriptions. 

The posts you can see above are what we have been working on. We spent some time thinking about color and how we should incorporate it. Originally all the posts were black and white but looking at the logo we created I felt color had to be included in our branding. Along with that, we felt the need to include photos of them along with their medium as the main feature. 

Then when it came to descriptions I left it up to Maria. I was slightly burnt out from trying to figure out this ombre situation and I'm not the best with my wording. We spent time perfecting them and making them short and simple so that they could be introduced to our audience it a fast manner. Social media fast pace so hopefully our colorful posts caught their eye and the short description allowed them to read and then continue to scroll.  

                                            Thanks for tuning in sorry for this oddly late post. 

film updatessss

Today I filmed with Riley and Abby for their portion of interviews. It was a long day so I’ll start from the beginning. They are some of my close friends so I had no issue coming to help as well as film their interviews. I wasn’t worried about time since their interviews are only being featured on our social media so they could be done in a fairly short amount of time. I posted the questions in a previous blog so I used those along with questions I thought of while they answered the questions. We plan to use an indirect documentary style so that it seems they are seamlessly telling their story rather than questions constantly interrupting the flow.

Here are some clips that I got from filming with Riley and Abby today:

Last week a filming update was not done as it got taken over by another blog post so along with updating you on Riley and Abby I felt I should update you on our work with Constanza. We went and filmed on Wednesday during our lunch period. Once again we knew we could get it done fairly quickly so we were not worried. Constanza was a natural and barely needed our questions to guide her. It was clear she knew what she wanted to say and exactly how important this was to her. Since a classroom is her main setting it was quite easy to get b-roll. Below is some of the b-roll (unedited)

We hope to have completed filming by the end of this upcoming week after last weeks setbacks. With spring break coming up, we want to have as much of the project done so we can focus on perfecting the editing and completing the print component. 

To close out our social media will be seeing a lot more activity coming up as I finish up some posts to introduce the Mediums along with our subjects. I’ve been working pretty hard on them so I’m excited to get them out into the world and start using our socials more frequently. 

Also 20 Days in Mariupol just won an Oscar and I’m very happy about it you should go give it a watch. 

(me watching The Oscars)

social mediaaaaaaaaa

 It's about time we actually introduce our social media rather than just reference it in other blog posts. Since our target audience is 18-25, we felt Instagram would be the best option for our social platform. This age group is present on social media while finding their identity and the job they want to do for the rest of their life. Our use of Instagram will introduce these types of people to our documentary hopefully convincing them to watch and also inspiring them to go into one of these fields. 

As you can see there have been some minor adjustments to the logo. After getting feedback from our group meetings people seemed to want more color. I once again took took to canva trying to figure out how to create ombre text. After some trial and error that was our result and we were both happy with it. We felt the black and white showcased our mediums perfectly and the pop of color highlighted our tagline of breathing life into every medium. I've already started working on some Instagram posts and I'm really excited. 

You after looking at @createdocu on Instagram

Weekly updates + group meetings

 Hey long time no see! Just kidding... Anyway I have some important updates to give you before this week truly begins. First, I wanted to update you on our filming that happened last week. We were only able to film with yearbook since personal matters with one of our subjects prevented us from filming on Saturday. I plan to film with Riley and Abby this weekend, but I am waiting for confirmation from them on the day and time. Obviously, this messes up our schedule, but I think we will be fine especially since our social media component is starting sooner than we originally planned. With that, I plan to film and start posting on our socials this week. 

You may be wondering who these people are and it's my group from our class's first set of group meetings. I always get slightly worried when we do group meetings because I don't want to be judged for something even though there is probably nothing to judge me for it's just my anxiety. In the end, I do love group meetings because they bring me the reassurance I need to continue working hard on the project. My main takeaways from the group is that 6 out of 7 of us our documentaries, we're all worried about the social media component, and the struggles of original b-roll. I felt pretty prepared going into the meeting and not super insecure in the place I am within the project, so I didn't have much to ask about other than the social media. When it came to my turn that's what I talked about. In our research we all realized that many documentaries have no social media and that one's that do are kind of boring. I was glad to hear that mostly everyone had to rely on Netflix documentaries and everyone is also confused about what they have to post. So we discussed what we could post like pictures representing the documentary and audio interviews with b-roll to represent the other episodes.  I'm really glad we had the group meeting and I'm glad I didn't have one million hurdles to jump over during the meeting. I'm happy that I'm proud to talk about my project and that group meetings aren't embarrassing anymore. 

I love blogging this time around I think it's just so much fun to talk about something I'm so passionate about. I shall see you soon xoxo.

Yes logo? No logo?

 When doing our social media research in class we were told that especially since our documentary would be episodic we should create something that makes it feel cohesive. We once again looked to Abstract for inspiration. 

Their logo simply consists of the title of the piece and we decided that it would be something that fit our documentary as well. We did some brainstorming for names because we couldn't make a logo without a name and landed on Create. Originally it was created, but after meeting with our teacher we decided to remove the ed and leave it as simply Create. Once figuring out our name we started brainstorming our logo. Let me tell you it was rough at first we were going through fonts and different effects, but they were all terrible. Some of them didn't even look like they said create and that's when we knew it was not gonna work out. My favorite app is Canva and I use it for absolutely everything so when we started brainstorming it was the first thing I opened. Since they have so many options I started shuffling through until I remembered they have letter frames that allow you to put a picture of them. Once we created this logo I felt like we were onto something. 

This logo represents the three mediums we will be focusing on audio, print, and film. Three letters are ombre black to grey and then the other three are pictures. I loved the addition of pictures I think it makes the logo visually interesting along with displaying what we are focusing on. We worried that this wasn't visually interesting enough, so we played with some color. 

To be honest I hated the color. I understand we are focusing on the creation of different art forms and there should be color, but I think the absence of color allows the episodes to bring the color. This is where we came up with the tagline for the documentary. 

I love this. Breathing life into every medium is our tagline and I think it is representative of what we are aiming to do with our documentary. While a poster is not our print component we still plan to make one as we feel it's important to help build the brand. Since social media is a component of our project we think we could include it on our social media page.

What a busy week am I right!