REFLACTION TIME 💭💬

I am starting this disclaiming that this project had costed me many hours of sleep and tears!

    I had always set in my mind that I wanted to work by myself on this project as I did not intend to share the creation of something so meaningful to me with anyone. I always knew It would be A TON of work and responsibility. During the production of my project, I regretted my decision so many times. Now, I look back and I don’t regret this decision, not even a little bit. Even though my project did not turn out exactly how I wanted… I am so proud to look back and see that I challenged myself outside of my comfort zone, I am so proud I did not take the easy way around this 450 points project!

   This Documentary has always had the purpose of sharing the human, intimate connections the Cypress Bay Football Team constructs and cherishes.   I always wanted to keep this as CLOSE as possible to reality. I never wanted to introduce fancy staged b-rolls, like I have mentioned in my past posts after our research done in class with the documentaries we watched. I knew I would incorporate a great amount of archived footage and “natural” conversations along the interview. “The Sweat that Runs Thru Our Veins”

, through visual aspects, does a successful job at representing the aspect of family in a non-blood related relationship. The documentary starts with a montage of pictures on a wall, those pictures visually represent the cherished “family” the team has created. I chose the montage of pictures to start the documentary as it is a more sophisticated way to present archived b-roll and also illustrate the close bonds outside of the documentary; a way to show reality.

    Touching the human side. I always wanted this project to touch people’s hearts and feelings. My main audience breaks down to young adults (15-23),female and male who are interested on sports culture. I wanted it to break that SPORT aspect of football (i know this sounds crazy, as football is a sports). I wanted it to be viewed as I SEE IT! Talking about this team naked me emotional and noone has ever been able to fell it or understand it; I WANTED TO MAKE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE! I am completely aware that my disgusting audio quality made this major factor almost improbable to happen(as people could barely hear it) But after listening to the critiques in class and reading out discussion assignments on canvas, I was positively surprised to find out I was somewhat successful at this mission. People were able to feel and understand the message I tried to deliver! *happy face*. It made me so happy to see my documentary achieve my goal of interaction with my audience.

      As I had mentioned In my previous posts… I always new… since before we started the preparation of this project that I would have VERY VERY VERY limited time with this project. And I knew I wanted to spend A LOT of time in pre production (80% in pre-production). So I took our research in class as a literal preparation for my project (instead of only viewing it as a way of understating documentaries, I actually took notes on what I wanted for MY PROJECT). We watched American Purpose, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Abstract and Op-Docs from the NY Times. As research on the genre I used my notes I took in class. But I spend LOTS of hours researching ways to fix messed audio. I used thousands of different AI programs, watched YouTube videos on how to fix it on Premier Pro… and the only thing I learned was to NEVER EVER record my audio in the camera without a back up. WHY?? Because nothing fixes the messed up audio! As I look forward to refilming my documentary… I took on paying attention to the critiques from my classmates so I can fix my errors!

the DOWN FALL

MY FAVORITE PART IS FILMING INTERVIEWS

(talking to interviwee before filming)

I LOVE filming the interviews... It is always my favorite part of the project. 

(setting up equipment)

Ever since the beginning of this project I had one thing set into my mind; My interviews would look NICE and PROFESSIONAL! I checked out a better camera than I usually do, more light than I usually do, and I would use a different audio technique!

(interviewing)

Instead of recording the audio on a mic connected to my  phone... SO I have the camera audio as a back up. I decided   to use a mic connected to the camera (I had heard some   people say it worked better and that I would not have the   problem of the audio not being synced correctly).

hora H

"hora h"-  a decisive, crucial, exact or opportune moment 

Nov 6th was when I officially started my production process! 💥 YAY☺

80% pre-production

 "80% pre-production" is something a learned last year from Jim Guarasci from BECON TV.  Jim said that if we spend 80% of our time in planning and preparing... when it's time for production and post-production we will face LESS problems.

OFC that is not 100% accurate as life happens and we can always face problems (🚨🚨🚨SPOILERR 🚨🚨🚨)

After  running into numerous problems with last year's portfolio... I decided to take on planning!!! I met with Mrs. Stoklosa in the first day( I new I had to start filming SOON as the last game was in 2 days and that would be my last chance to capture b-roll).

During our meeting I presented my desire to do a doc on my school's  football team, as I have been a part of the team for a couple of years, I wanted to show the family side of the team! Initially I was not 100% sure of how to tell this story... But Mrs. Stoklosa 👸👸 had the AMAING idea of telling the story through the GIRLS ( the other managers/water girls)

Because I knew I had very limited time... I chose my interviwees and started writing my questions. I scheduled a meeting with Coach Hood (Head Coach) as I wanted to see if he would be all in for this project. I also talked to the girls who I had chosen. 

👩‍💻👩‍🏫🕵️‍♀️📹🎞️📽️

Over the last couple of weeks we have been studying documentaries in class... along with Mrs. Stoklosa's lessons (powerpoints and notes) she also introduced documentaries to our class. 

We watched American Promise, Exit Through the Gift Shop and Abstract in class and we also watched a few Op-Docs from the NY TIMES. 

As I watched the docs I took notes from examples that related to terms/techniques/ideas I would like to incorporate into my own doc! Watching the documentaries after as a research method helped SO MUCH when planning my documentaries. 👀

American Promise
 and Roaches' Lullaby had many shots of b-roll/interview (moments where the subjects were answering questions or explaining something but not in an interview setting). I loved those moments when I was watching the docs. I found it NATURAL AND TRUTHFUL. As I learned in class, docs are used to illustrate a "slice of life" and they are NON-FICTION. 

Even though I am aware the editor/director can still chose/edit to only show what they want in the final project, I loved how those "natural interviews" felt more honest and more truthful.  I believe this is because of the setting the subjects were less stressed, more talkative, more COMFORTABLE.

From Exit Through the Gift Shop I was inspired💭 by the archived footage ( specially the beginning montage). That not only inspired me because it shows moments of naturally where ofc they have a camera but, many times, they were filmed by friends instead of a camera person. That technique also inspired me alot, because I was always aware that I wanted to do something withe the football team and that by the time where the actual project arrived I would Only have maybe one or even none games left!

VOLTEIIIIIIII

 Oieee...

As I had mentioned on my last couple of posts from last year... I am back and finally in A level (so fancy and culta💅🧠)  culta: well-educated (in Portuguese)

I have missed the ORANGENESS of this website of course talking to you guys😜

I really wish I could've talked to all of you over summer! BUTTTT here is a bit of what I have done over summer and up till now:

• I travelled to Brazill 
• I did a 2 week internship at GLOBO (this HUGE  Brazilian media conglomerate that includes a television network, news channel, movie production company, publishing house, and more.) biggest dream of MY LIFE! I worked with the people who develop this website and this cool people who work in the BIGGUEST broadcast in South America👀😱😍😆💥
• Visited some family
• got my wisdom teeth removed
• Did a QUICK workshop to improve my photography skills
• Finished my last season as the Football media/team manager (favorite people/ still have trouble spelling the the word manager)😭😭
• Applied to colleges ( CULTA pt.2)🧠
• GOT A NEW CAMERAAAAAAAAAAA (FANCYYYYYYYYY)
• etc...

here are some flics....

   

(pictures from my intership)