Okay so I recently just found out that for every blog post that we post this week (except for the last one) we had to research not only one but TWO media texts within each!! GAH! Luckily, it's not that deep cause I already have a list of stuffs to research but I still should've read a little closer so I could come up with titles that'll fit each post more LMAOOO
I don't wanna change my titles though I think they're pretty boombayastic so uhh Cambridge lads! Tstok! Random viewer! Whoever you are! Here's how the next 3 posts are gonna be layed out! (excluding the very first post that I made for the week duhhhhh) (its the one below this one you should read it :D)
Post1- Beetlejuice and Dan Da Dan
Post 2-ENA: Dream BBQ and Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
Post3- The Amazing Digital Circus and Parasite
Alrighty! Now that we have all that sorted out let's dive straight into today's first media text:
BEETLEJUICE(1988)!
As of present day, I have watched both Beetlejuice's! (except for the new movie that came out in like 2024 I don't have any intention of watching it lolz) I've seen the movie from 1988 and the musical adaptation! :D Twice! The first time was like a year ago in Miami or Fort Lauderdale (i forgor) with my family and the second time was just last week here at my school! Both were INSANELY good, the immersion, the costume design, the characters, the comedy, Beetlejuice himself, oh MAN all of it was AMAZING!! I am going to watch this musical more times than twice that is very for sure! As for the movie, I've only checked it out once with my family after watching the musical out of curiosity :D I don't quite remember that much but I do remember laughing a lot so HECK YEAH LETS GOOO
me cause I'm literally researching my fav pieces of media rn
Now that I look back on both viewings (or uh..thrice viewings?), I decided to choose specifically the movie cause it's freaking awesome and I don't quite remember it as much as the musical, so why not learn some more about i? :D I love learning things that actually appeal to me, so let's do it!!
okay wait brb cambridge i gotta go to lunch bai :DD
Konichiwa Mr/Mrs. Cambridge, Tstok, or random viewer!! I am back for like 10 minutes cause I brought myself some free time in English class! :D Time to talk to you all about Beetlejuice (1988)!
So the plot of this movie is quite literally the same as the musical which is pretty awesome as both versions align with each other pretty well. It revolves around these two lovely people, Adam and Barbara Maitland who recently died in their own home that then a new family moves into. Driven to get their house back from these grimy alive humans, they recruit this creepy old half demon guy called Beetlejuice to scare them all away! The entirety of the film (I have to watch this again), contains a bunch of wacky antics, Lydia almost killing herself, going to literal hell, meeting Mrs. Argentina, and much, much more!
holy shit actually getting the drive and the will to begin writing this post was absolutely back-cracking, bone breaking, or, if you're a good friend of mine, Mongolian butt tickling.
Literally how I'm feeling right now :DDDDDDDD (this was a ft call with my best friend from like forever ago)
HELLO EVERYONE! It is I, Emi Valdivia, back again for week 2!! YUP! ALREADY WEEK 2! MOVING FAST BABAYYYYYYYYY LETS GOOOOOOOO YAYAYAYAYYA WOOHOOO WOHOOOOO TRUMPET NOISES WAHOO YAYAYYAY PARTY HARDY!!!!!
i have a love-hate relationship with the planning stage
It's like so ahhh!! :D and so ah. D: at the very same time yk what I'm saying, like you get to research and learn about cool new things for your cool new film but part of you just wants to NOT do it and just get straight to the cool and awesome and super amazing stuff like filming the devil and a girl named Otto going absolutely batshit insane while carrying out his orders !!!!!!!
But alas, despite how tedious it may be, planning is VERY important everybody!!! I've been through this typa project once before in the past and know exactly how it goes :D The better your planning the better your final product andd the worse your planning the more dog doo doo your product will be! :D So with all that in mind, I am locking in on the research part of the planning stage!
DA RESAERCH: ANOTHER VERY INSTANT DECISION
As I said in a previous post, when my team and I first sat down we immediately thought of doing a short film to appropriately mesh all of our insane brains together AND along with that instantaneous decision we decided to make it...A COMEDY!!! WAHOOOO!!! However, this isn't just your typical Dumb and Dumber comedy film, oh no, no, no! This lovely piece of fiction that we are striving to create has devils, spanish hats, batshit insanity, mur-durr (perchance), and pure absurdity all around! I wouldn't consider it JUST a comedy, but a dark comedy!
evil comedy be like
im dark
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
So what makes a comedy and what makes said comedy dark :D
DA RESAERCH: WTF IS A COMEDY AND WHY DID IT TURN EVIL
I explored a bit of comedy during the very beginning stages of the AS project last year and I still have a bit of what I learned burned into my brain that I will now recite to all you Cambridge lads so you can give me an A+++++
SO! A comedy is a genre that majorly focuses on entertaining the audience by providing humor either through witty punch lines or physical comedy (often called slapstick humor). These films very often have to be written very well in order to deliver their pizzaz effectively to audiences looking to get a good laugh in during a Monday night after a miserable day at work :D They also very typically have bright, happy-go-lucky-looking mise-en scene along with a happy ending. To make this job easier, a ton of comedy films rarely integrate complex plots or themes into their narratives since the main focus is mostly in the writing and all the pizzaz that comes from that hopefully clever writing!
One very good example of your good 'ol, good 'ol classic HAHAHHA I LAUGHED comedy has got to be one of the greatest films in all of human history, Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) :D The entire production is literally just about a guy skipping school with his girlfriend and best friend and it is such a fun watch.
Ferris Bueller (1986)
I myself have watched this film about 2 times and I enjoyed each time very much! In Ferris Bueller, it is also very clear that nothing very complex or insane was inserted into the simple story, as the main focus was definitely on just making audiences laugh through good writing and great characters! Ferris especially was a very fun protagonist to follow and he surely made everyone I know personally who watched it root for him :DD
Everybody including you, yes you Mr/Mrs. Cambridge examiner, go watch Ferris Bueller RIGHT NOW it is actually so peak here look at this super awesome poster right to your right and video right down below (BAHAHHA) this is totally not me shoving it in your face and begging you to watch it what ur insane
Bueller?... Bueller?.... Bueller???...
Now, if you take everything I just told you and make it a little bit more tragic, and a teeny tiny bit more complex, then you'll very much have yourself a dark comedy! :D
okay wait I need to go to bed I'll see u tmrw cambridge goodnight
Haiii Cambridge I'm backkkk :D I slept really really awesome last night I freaking love junior privilege I went sleeping from 10pm alll the way to like 7:15 so refreshing
OKAY BACK TO IT!
Alright so, what makes a dark comedy? A lot of you would probably think the same thing, "Oh! It's a comedy but kinda morbid and a lil tragic and kinda disturbing!" And yep, super awesome blog reader, if that sentence was similar to your thought process, then you are definitely spot on! To expand upon the definition more, according to IMDb, "the dark comedy subgenre, also known as black comedy, combines humor with elements of tragedy, morbidity, or darker themes. [This genre] often explores serious or taboo subjects, such as death, crime, dysfunction, and societal issues, while infusing these topics with humor to create an unusual and often thought-provoking contrast. The humor in dark comedies is typically edgy, satirical, and often unsettling, challenging traditional comedic norms." Dark comedy is essentially the type of comedy that'll leave you THINKING, thinking for a good while! I've seen a couple of films from this genre and I could definitely say that they are not your typical happy go lucky hahahahhah comedy. I mean, of course they have made me laugh, like a LOT, but at the same time there are always scenes tackling themes so profound that it leaves me just sitting there on my couch with my mouth wide open and my brain heavy with thoughts
A good example of a film that falls under the dark comedy genre and had the "holy shit that's deep" effect on me and probably many others, is Jojo Rabbit (2019)! I watched this movie a couple years back in 8th grade English class as during that time we were touching on the topics of WWll and the Holocaust. I had a great time throughout my viewing, so many scenes especially the ones where Jojo is talking with imaginationHitler were pretty funny.
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
I know talking to an imaginary evil dictator can be a bit dark, but I'd say it's surely the whole point of the film. Jojo was being influenced by Nazi Germany and that was represented very well through his commitment to the army and constantly having an imaginary Hitler on his shoulder guiding him. I'm only really scraping the surface here while talking about this film, but there are definitely so many more profound scenes, even darker than the implications of Jojo talking to imaginary friend Hitler, that are still burned into my brain and make me think a whole lot about the WWll time period and its effects on German society.
If you haven't watched Jojo Rabbit, do yourself a favor and check it out :D It's a fun and pretty heavy watch that I'm sure you'll enjoy, [insert name of whoever's reading this right now]. I might actually rewatch it myself since I think we haven't finished the entirety of the film back in the 8th grade..but I could be wrong, it was quite a long time ago. Either way, I'll definitely give it another viewing in the future :DDDDD
Jojo talking to imaginary Hitler ^^
Alrighty! My research here is done for now :D After looking into both a comedy and dark comedy, I've taken away some inspiration for what we can implement from these movies into our own production!
DA RESAERCH >:D: SOME TAKEAWAYS FOR OUR OWN SUPER AWESOME FILM!
Within our film, we would like to be hilarious and goofy while also tackling/critiquing serious subjects such as religion and power. So literally the perfect combination of Ferris Bueller and Jojo Rabbit!
Otto is a happy, quite whimsical main character (as for now, her personality could change) that is sent out to do some seemingly silly tasks for a mysterious man who's totally not the devil called Annie Christopher who wants to spread around his new religion. We still have yet to flesh out the entire story, but I'd like the rising action of the narrative to just be Otto completing her ridiculous tasks for Christopher like handing out fliers, making altars, and spreading his religion and portray it in a funny, silly goofy way, since obviously Otto is new to this type of stuff and will come off as clueless and clumsy while carrying out Christopher's bidding.
Throughout this entire portion of the story, I'd also like Christopher to talk to Otto in a way, maybe through just a voiceover of Joaquin (who's playing Annie Christopher duh who else).
Jojo Rabbit (2019)
This will be similar to how Jojo talks to imaginary Hitler. Even though it isn't the real Hitler he's talking to, it still comes off as dark and disturbing at times since Hitler was literally a tyrannical dictator that destroyed Germany in so many more ways than one, and an imaginary version of himself is shown to be essentially controlling and guiding a child to serve Nazi Germany. The difference here though is that Otto is talking to the actual devil, and he isn't imaginary or anything, he's a real guy manipulating her more and more as the story goes on which arguably makes it even more dark. We're seeing Otto communicating with an evil, disguised, supernatural being as she is blindly carrying out his tasks to receive power, which comes off as goofy ahahhahahahh at first but will get more and more out of control and dangerous as it goes on :DD
In the end of our film, we would also like to portray Otto's insane journey of following the devil to receive power as ultimately worthless. This will be a critique of religion/power in a way, which will be more developed by our main writer Joaquin, but in basic terms, the entirety of our film is just saying "using religion as a means of exerting power is kinda silly and dumb lmao lmao lmao lolll" which will also successfully follow the dark comedy convention of including/commenting on serious topics and themes that affect the real world everryyy singllee day! Wahoo!!
So yeah, those are all my main takeaways! Thank you Ferris and Jojo for giving inspiration! :DD
I genuinely cannot wait until we have every single part of the story fleshed out and I think I'm going to really have fun not only acting in this film but making/developing the characters as well, that was surely one of my favorite parts from last year :]] Be prepared for ten quatrillion drawings of Otto and Annie Christopher coming at you in future blog posts!! And be prepared for even more research on some crazy ahh, goofy ahh pieces of media! I am SO excited to research some of these and yap all about it to you guys, IT'S GONNA BE SO FUN I LOVE EVERYTHING THAT I'M ABOUT TO RESEARCH A HEALTHY AMOUNT AHAHAHHAHAHAH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHAHAHHAAHAHAHAH AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH
oki cya later I must go now :D
CITATIONS:
Dark Comedy - IMDb. (2024b). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/interest/in0000035/
Movieclips. (2011). Bueller? - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1/3) Movie CLIP (1986) HD. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS6f1MKpLGM
MovieTime. (2020, February 4). Jojo Rabbit / Opening Scene (Heil Me, Man). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQGx6i7tAfA
guys have I ever mentioned just how excited I am to get this thang going
CAMBRIDGE I AM EXCITED.
"Hi excited, I'm Cambridge!", I'm sure you just thought about that, examiner. In that case, HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHA you are SO funny HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAiamsotiredandconstantlycountingdownthedaysuntilsummer
I hope you're having a good day, examiner! Or whoever's reading this right now :DD I had a pretty dang awesome day! I blogged a ton, watched a movie called Solo Mio with my fam at the theater (LITERALLY THE BEST ROMANCE I'VE SEEN YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT RIGHT NOW), and ate some bomb ass tacos :D
Speaking of bomb ass tacos, it's time I show to you all first the blogging schedule to get a good idea of what we're supposed to put on here every week and the super epic amazing awesome schedule I crafted for my group :] This is a very accurate representation of the next two months of our lives!
how we be moving lately
THE BLOGGING SCHEDULE CRAFTED BY THE ONE AND ONLY STOKOLOCHACHA:
Week One (2/17-2/22)
two postings
-posting #1 should introduce your project choice for A level
-posting #2 should be a project schedule/timeline (what you wish to accomplish each week)
Week Two (2/23-3/1)
four postings
-one post on chosen genre research
-three posts researching real media texts of the same genre (discuss at least two media texts within each post)
Week Three (3/2-3/8)
four postings
-one post should focus researching social media pages for content similar to your project/genre choices
-two postings should reflect research or planning (outlines, layout drawings, storyboards, shooting schedules, etc)
-one post should summarize the group meeting
Week Four (3/9-3/15) three postings
-each postings should reflect detailed planning (outlines, layout drawings, storyboards, shooting schedules, etc.) and/or production processes
Week Five (3/16-3/22) – this is Spring break – plan accordingly
three postings
-two postings should reflect production process, reflection on key moments, changes to project (why), etc.
-one posting should reflect research on print components similar to your project choice/genre
Week Six(3/23-3/29)
three postings
-posting should reflect production process, reflection on key moments, changes to project (why), etc.
-begin researching/planning for Critical Reflection
Week Seven (3/30-4/5) three postings
-posting should reflect production process, reflection on key moments, changes to project (why), etc.
-Researching/planning for Critical Reflection
Week Eight (4/6-4/10)
three postings
-one post reflecting final, reflective comments
-one post must be a link to or embedded A level project (all components) with short textual reflection/introduction
-one post must be the Critical Reflection for A level project
THE SUPA AWESOME PORTFOLIO PROJECT SCHEDULE CRAFTED BY EMI VALDIVIA!
Week One:
-Choose package and genre
-Plan schedule for the next couple weeks
-Assign roles to group members
-Begin developing plot for film
Week Two:
-Research genre
-Research real media texts of same genre
-Develop characters
-Begin script
-Develop filming and editing schedule
Week Three:
-Create shot-list
-Begin storyboard
-Research social media pages similar to genre
-Begin planning for social media component
-Begin production
Week Four:
-Continue production for film portion
-Document production for blog
-Post to social media
-Begin print component
Week Five (spring break!!):
-Continue production for film portion if needed
-Begin editing
-Continue social media postings
-Continue print component
Week Six:
-Continue and lock in on post production for film portion
-Finalize social media
-Finalize print component
Week Seven:
-Finalize the film portion! Wahoo!
-Research for Critical Reflection
-Begin Critical Reflection
-Finalize print and social media components if needed
HEELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BLOGGGG!!!!!!!!! holy guacamole I AM SO EXCITED to be back here!!! And this time it's for something super duper special and awesome and amazing..dare I say my absolute favorite part of the entire AICE Media curriculum...
THE CAMBRIDGE PORTFOLIO PROJECT!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYA YAYAYAYYA
If you are a devoted follower of mine, like you, lovely Cambridge examiner, then you definitely know about all the wonderful adventures I had with Zach, Nico, and Renn last year with our very awesome Western film, Death Wears a Dress :D It was a great time filled with growth, experience, hardships, blood, sweat, tears, and most of all, friendship :)
okay so now take that and multiply it by over 9000
THIS YEAR IS SERIOUS BUSINESS PEOPLE!! Back in the small 25 we only had to make a 2 min film opening and 2 reflection videos but this year?? BAHAHHA THIS YEAR? THIS YEAR WE'RE GETTING DOWN!!!! We have a whole shabang going on!! Check it out!!
WE ARE ACTUALLY SO BACK: A SUPER AWESOME INTRO OF THE PROJECT AND TEAM!
Very much unlike the AS project, in A level you have to choose between 4 options, "packages" if you will. These include a music promotion package, which is kinda like the music marketing project from AS that was genuinely one of the greatest experiences of my entire life, thefilm promotion package, which is very similar to the distribution project we just did this year that you can read, hear and watch all abouthere, thedocumentary package, which is similar to the doc project I tackled with Renn this year and made my midterm all about, annndd the short film package! Which is unlike anything I've ever done before!
For this one, I decided to join forces with classmates Joaquin and Andrew! I’ve been thinking about collaborating with Joaquin for a while after getting to know him a bit better and realizing if we combine our brains together and make a film project, the product would be beyond human comprehension in the best possible way imaginable :D Right after I partnered up with Joaquin, we noticed that Andrew was working alone when they didn’t want to be so we welcomed them to the pack! Its been a minute since I worked with them on a media project and I’m excited to see how far we’ve both come since our last project together :D Hooray for the supa awesome squad!! :DD
From left to right: Andrew, Emi, Joaquin :]
Here to bring you all the best, most amazingnist, out of this
world, incomprehensible, weirdest short film of all time :D!
Oh yeah we picked short film! That is a very important plot point everybody! Do NOT forget it. Here's a deeper dive into all the choices we made for this project so far:
WE ARE ACTUALLY SO BACK: A SUPER AWESOME RUNDOWN OF OUR CURRENT CHOICES
Short film:We immediately decided this. The very moment we all sat together for the first time on the first official day of this project we quickly decided, "we are making a short film!" This is for the sole purpose of getting all of our wacky personalities and ideas out there into a whole 5 minute narrative piece. I see difficulties in solidifying and going with a plot, characters, and theme that we all like but once we get there it's actually over for this entire world because this film will literally be unlike anything EVER seen before once we hit the sweet spot >:D
Joaquin, Andrew, and I watching the world blow up because of how insane our short film was
Genre:This short film seems to be leaning on the dark/profound comedy side. We want this piece to be very silly goofy and weird but also something that'll leave audiences thinking for a bit, maybe about their lives, the world, or just how strange the film was! :D I personally would love to end with a hilariously tragic ending that conveys a deep message that the audience can take away for a while. Will we able to pull that off? With the power of friendship, willpower, and total agreement, absolutely! But we shall see what happens in the end, I'm very open to the ideas my team members have :]
us being silly while also highkey locked in
Group roles: We decided these a bit on the first day and fully solidified them on the second day! Here lemme copy and paste real quick from our supa awesome Google Doc :D
Emi: Actress, social media manager, editor (?), costume designer, storyboarder, art director
Just like last year, I'm taking on the artsy side of things for the film portion of the project! :D I loved what I did a lot so why not do it again! Along with that, I'm going to be the person primarily working on the social media component cause it sounds super duper fun and I love branding with my whole entire heart. ...I might also be an editor? Joaquin offered himself up to the job aswell but we still have yet to decide whether or not we want to edit together or leave one of us to it. We shall see!
Joaquin will be the one taking care of most camerawork and writing for the film portion of this project while Andrew is gonna tackle the print component and sound design!
We will also alllll be acting in this film which sounds very fun :D Not only will this film's entirety be an embodiment of my whimsy, Joaquin's craziness, and Andrew's strangeness, it will also likely be amplified more by each one of us taking on character roles featured in the film that accurately represent who we are as people! Our amazing teacher Mrs. Stokolochacha did say to treat this project as a time capsule of where we are right now after all, so I think this approach is super duper cool and awesome :D Nothing is set completely in stone yet (will be very soon), but this is most likely going to happen. WAHOO! :DDD
Very very rough draft of the plot: On the first day, after choosing our package and genre, we began brainstorming a potential plot for our film :D It was very clear from the get-go that Joaquin had a clear-ish vision in his wacky ahh brain, so we heard him out and took some things to use for the future, solidified plot. Here's how it goes so far:
Take [insert name], she’s a person with an alright life but feels strongly that something is off, whichhhh might be her deteriorating mental health. And so, after getting so down in the dumps, she goes to the devil and makes a deal with him for a better life. However for such a gift there comes a price. The devil wants her to go and do heinous things. The film is overall a comedic, goofy, strangely weird, yet dark story of a girl slowly losing her mind at the hands of a supernatural being while searching for a better life.
I'm liking the sound of this story so far :D Obviously we still have tons more work to do in order to make it the best it could be and something that we all like, but I'm satisfied as for now :]
When u just up
Anndd yeah! These are all the pretty basic ideas we have right now for this project and I genuinely cannot be more excited and happy with my group :D I am so looking forward to rewatching this entire project over and over and over again after April 10th and for the rest of my life :] Be ready Cambridge, you are NOT ready for what's coming soon out of arguably the weirdest kids in the entire class!
HELLO! I'M BACK!!!! I AM SO READY TO FINISH THIS YOU ALL HAVE NO IDEA!!! This past week has been a constant whirlwind of media midterm media midterm ZOOLOGY TEST THAT IS LIFE OR DEATH media midterm media midterm AHHHHHHH WINTER CONCERT AHH media midterm anddddd media midterm :D
I have thankfully put in a heck ton of work on each blog post and got them done in time to write the big kahuna portion of this midterm! THE CRITICAL REFLECTION! Here I'm going to be answering 3 questions and diving deeep into the choices we made for this documentary and how it affects audiences and addresses social issues and allllll those stuffs :DD You guys remember the portfolio CCR'S right? It's a bit like that except I'm no longer moving and my physical form is a bunch of words on an online website :D Okie dokie, with all that being said, LETS-A-GO!!
HOW DOES BEHIND THE FIREWALL REPRESENT SOCIAL GROUPS AND ISSUES?
Academic, intellectual Emi mode... ACTIVATED!!
Our documentary touches on the topics of censorship within academic spaces and the effects of that issue on teachers and students, specifically those who are in the LGBTQ+ community. One of our objectives when making this documentary was communicating the importance of having knowledge on certain subjects like Holocaust and queer history through the interviews we incorporated of teachers explaining how Florida's restrictive laws banning discussion of those topics have affected the way they teach in the classroom and students stating how significant any type of story can be. A vast majority of students who have been interviewed have stated that they do not know much about queer history along with other sensitive topics and feel that if resources at school had been less restricted on that topic, they would know so much more.
We wanted to portray sensitive topics like these that are typically blocked in schools as valuable and useful for gaining new significant knowledge on suppressed groups and events that are rarely talked about within the media sphere and society as a whole. In other words, censorship is doing no good for students, and had they been more exposed to issues such as trans and LGBTQ+ rights, more empathy and respect for such communities would have been frequent among student body’s. In other OTHER words, censorship lowkey sucks and not learning about gay people along with other minority groups also lowkey sucks. Knowledge is power people! Education leads to new perspectives, and new perspectives leads to respect for others :)
I would say our documentary does a good job representing this serious issue. However, we definitely could have included more information about how the teachers and students actually feel about the matter. Had we done that, better representation of this issue from an emotional aspect could have been done.
Despite everything though, by representing the issue of censorship in schools as detrimental to the education of students and teachers, while also emphasizing the importance of queer history along with the knowledge of other sensitive topics and providing an insiders perspectives on those who are affected by it every day, Behind The Firewall hopes to cultivate more empathy among audiences, especially those who disagree with censorship's limitations.
HOW DOES BEHIND THE FIREWALL ENGAGE WITH AUDIENCES?
Behind The Firewall, while it relies mostly on interviews, utilizes historical context, insightful interviews, and B-roll to engage with audiences. For this production, our target audience would mainly be teachers and students (high school and up) along with those who are interested in sociological discussion.
To hook in our audiences, our documentary begins with character Emi sitting outside and researching transgender rights for her class research project. She then proceeds to talk about what it is that she's researching and the historical context behind it all, from mentioning Magnus Hirschfield, the first to coin the term "transgender," to Hitler and the Nazi's praying on LGBT+ individuals. This intro of our documentary did a decent job in hooking audiences and immersing them into the issue, possibly making them want to know more about it. However, this intro could have definitely been stronger had it been filmed indoors with no people in the background to set the tone and context better :)) Job was well done though, it definitely was a smooth pathway into the rest of the piece.
The remainder of our documentary consisted of only interviews until the very end. We thought by incorporating mostly interviews into our piece instead of constant Character Emi, Behind the Firewall would have been more engaging....and it was to an extent!! The interviews we had, fortunately, did provide very insightful information and personal opinions on the issue presented, giving a ton of insight for audiences looking at how censorship affects the typical student and teacher every day at school.
Unfortunately, throughout all these interviews, there was a severe lack of B-roll to truly keep the entirety of them fully engaging due to us not having time to film more on another day. The B-roll that was included, though, was successful in providing context on who the interviewees are, like Ms. Bueno being shown teaching and some of the students being shown interacting with each other in the Literature Club. The B-roll drawings that I made also engage the audience by giving them visuals that go along with some of what the interviewees are saying to help them understand better. More of these drawings could definitely have been made and incorporated throughout the piece, but despite it all have made a good impact on the documentary and audience immersion.
HOW DID RESEARCH INFORM MY PRODUCT AND THE WAY IT USES OR CHALLENGES CONVENTION?
When making this documentary, research played a big role in helping shape our understanding of the documentary genre and how to execute it well through the use of its prominent conventions. The productions that we took the most inspiration from when making Behind the Firewall were definitely "Exit Through the Giftshop" and "American Promise."
From researching "American Promise," and finding out that its editors sifted through hours and hours and absolute hourrss of footage, we decided to gather as much footage as we could to also have hours and hours of footage to look through and choose the ones that best align with what certain interviewees like Ms. Bueno and the president of Lit club were saying. "American Promise" surely inspired Renn to interview as many people as he possibly could that one day after school in order to gather the best of what they had to say and incorporate those parts into the final documentary. Because of this, we ended up with 4 hours of footage to edit, and through that while editing, Renn and I dug up a bunch of rich content that added valuable perspective to our piece and made the overall message that we were trying to communicate a lot stronger! Thank you American Promise! :))
Additionally, "Exit Through the Giftshop" and other opinionated documentaries that we watched independently (like the roach and Ellis Island ones to be specific, along with the docs Renn watched), influenced us to make this doc with passion from what we both believe in in regards to the topic of censorship in schools that focuses on those who are queer. Like "Exit Through the Giftshop" that subtly argued what it believed in about art and Thierry Guetta, we decided to do just the very same. Throw middle fingers and big statements, but not by screaming on the rooftops! Thank you Exit Through the Giftshop :D!
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
EMI'S SUPER AWESOME CONCLUSION: I am done. EVERYONE I AM DONE!! This midterm is finished, almost all my grades for this semester are in, and winter break is right around the corner, I AM SO READY TO CATCH A BREAK IN JUST A FEW DAYS!! WAHOOOO!!! That being said, I gotta go now! It's almost midnight and I must take a shower before I go to bed to ensure I get the best sleep EVER after a very academically heavy week! And so with that, I wish you all the very best while I'm away enjoying time with my family and friends during Christmas and New Years :D I'll be back before you know it!
BLLOOOOOOOOGGG GGGGG BLOG BLOGGGGGGG I am in desperate need of water right now is there any chance that you have some :D Pretty please :D Like an ice cold, fresh out of the fridge bottle of water? Nah? Not at all? K lol guess I have to get the crowbar!
HGRRRRAHHHHHHHHHHHGHNBYRTRHHHHH
THIS IS IT SUPER AWESOME BLOG READERS!!!! The very last post before the super duper omega Critical Reflection!!!! I had no idea that I would make it this far in one piece but hey, if my media midterm is literally just blogging about a project and writing some deep stuffs about it then I AM SO MOTIVATED TO GET THAT A !! SO MOTIVATED THAT I'M GOING TO DO THAT!! LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!
PROOOOOOOOOODUUCCCTIONNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (the last final little bits of it) YOUR HOST: A DEHYDRATED EMI:Okay so the title of this section might be a bit of a lie, I just drank water and it tasted very good :D If you're reading this you should drink water because water is cool :D And it keeps you alive and stuff :D OKAY LETS DO THIS!!
So in our last post we ended off by talking about the filming of our docs intro and outro! Real quickly, I'd be surprised if you remember, but do you recall when I was talking about the logo I was making like two posts ago and how I'd dive a bit deeper into how I made the actual thang during the 3 day production era? If so, this post is exactly what you might have been looking for all along you lucky lil lucky fella !!! Check out the next couple lines of my extensive monologue!
After finally FINALLLY coming up with a logo design that I was decently satisfied with, I showed it to Renn for approval, and when he said "that's fire" I immediately busted out my computer in my 7th period and igot to WORK on that thang in Canva. Look at the thang it's right below you isn't the thang pretty cool and stuff :DD
If I recall correctly, this little dumb lil orange dumb dumb logo literally took the entirety of 7th period to get done and over with, which, for me, who drifts off after 2 seconds of work, WAS A PAIN !! But all that matters is that I got through it and ended up with a pretty good design too that aligned well with the brand we wanted to create :)) And the color palette isn't the same as the media project I made quite literally a year ago!!! A project that is now barely a fragment of a thought collecting dust in an old box inside the deepest attic known to mankind!!! Additionally, I used Canva's animation feature to smoothly put in that big black censor bar over the previous words, "Banned Books." This was easy, as it was quick and convenient for both me and Renn, who edited the background of this logo a teeny tiny bit in After Effects. To align with our "book-related" brand, he added a paper overlay over the entire thing :DD I really liked that effect :DD It added to the overall coolness and awesomeness of our documentary :DD
Okie dokie that should be all for production!! It is now officially time to move on to everyone's favoritteeee partttttttt......
POST PRODUCTION!!!! YOUR HOST: A STRANGELY QUIET EMI WHO IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF SLEEP
11/15/25 was the very first day of post production for both Renn and Emi. Time was ticking, Tstoks were waiting, and the blue canvas submission button was glaring at us with the strongest, most piercing eyes I've ever seen. By this point, the final project was due in about 2 days, which to my detriment, meant that I needed to work on some stuffs during two trips going alllll around Florida! LMAOOOOO
EDITING ON THE WAY UP TO ORLANDO: 11/15/25 was the day the marching band went on a fun trip to Universal Islands of Adventure to end off and celebrate the very successful season we had :)) However, long trips with looming project deadlines meant I had some stuffs to do! So how did I work around this???
I brought my huge ahhh lard ahhh gaming ahh ahh ahh computer onto the coach bus 😛😛😛😛😛 With its huge ahh lard ahh even bigger ahh case that had to go inside my also very huge ahhh purple backpack 😛😛😛😛😛 That was probably the heaviest my backpack has ever been since I went to Spain this summer 😛😛😛😛
On that day, I was tasked by Renn to edit a couple interviews since there were like 10 quadrillion billion he had to deal with. So I took the task because I love my best bud and don't ever want him to die from 10 quadrillion billion interviews :D After like 20 or so minutes getting settled into the band bus, I whipped out my Godzilla sized computer and began opening everything that I needed in order to begin editing! I opened up Blip and immediately received Renn's folder containing like half of the 10 quadrillion billion interviews and got to work on Premiere Pro :)
It took the whole rest of the trip to fully get every interview done and ready to send to Renn and I'm very fortunate I did because bro realllyyy needed that edited footage STAT. And so I finished the work I had to do that day and went on to enjoy my day at Universal :D If you look over to your left you'll be able to see the exact project I worked on that day and the super awesome timeline :DDD If you look closely the title at the top reads "emi has edited interviews (DONE! WOOHOO!!)" I was very happy once I finished editing these on the bus :DDDDD
Moving forward! If you look to the right you'll see my friends and I having a lovely time at Uni in the Hagrids line 😛 A few hours later after riding the best theme park attraction in the entire universe, we were about to get lunch at this place near Jurassic Park and while we were sitting on a bench waiting for our party to get called, Renn ringed me up and was all like "yo yo yo ems wassup so you really could have cut down more on the interview footage lolol like try not to tell a story but instead find me the best footage ever out of each interview" and I was like AH! But then Renn was like "nah brah you're fine u made my job easier, just remember that for next time :D Oh and also is it cool if you help me edit another set of interviews? I need it asap like the next day at 4pm" and then I said "Yeah man ofc :D" Only thing was though that on the verrryyy next day after the Uni trip I had to go up to Tally with my family to go visit my brother and watch his honors thesis presentation sooo that required me to also bring my big ahhh lardd ahhhh comically big ahhh computer all the way up to Tallahassee!
EDITING ON THE WAY UP TO TALLY: 11/26/25 was the day I woke up very very early (6am) after getting back home at midnight :D But I couldn't rest until I got shit done!!!!! Or so I thought before I got into the car and passed out until about 8am silly face. But that's okay! It was only two hours and it was good enough rest to get me going the rest of the day! So a bit after I woke up I pulled out my lard ass computer and got to work :D!
There were some drawbacks though...when I got back home from Uni I took a shower and immediately went to bed..WHICH WAS A HUGE MISTAKE!!! I still had to charge my Bigfoot sized computer to charge and a bunch of files to download, and so by the time I pulled out my 3000 Meters Fortress Maximus in the car, I had to wait what felt like actual centuries to get all the files downloaded and by the time I did my computer battery was already down to like 15% crying emoji unfortunately my dad's car did not have any outlets that supported my computer charger available so I was only able to get the timeline started in Premiere Pro and cut a couple clips until my computer jumped off a microwave and stopped seeing the light of day.
otw to tally babyyyyy
When that happened, I sent a voicemail to Renn telling him all about what just happened and he was all like "no worries brah for now until u get to the hotel u can work on B-roll...did you bring a sketchbook?" and then after I got that message, I thought to myself.."I didn't bring a sketchbook buttt I did bring my journal!! And a black pen!! I'll have to do with what I have!!" So after eating half a bag of plantain chips (SOOO GOOD), I pulled out my journal, turned to like the 2 random completely blank, lineless pages at the back of it and began drawing!! I drew about 2 more thangs, one thang was of books burning on the ground (I believe I showed that one like a post ago), and other of a buncha books stacked with the one on top reading, "LGBT+ HISTORY." Here they are right down below :D
After drawing both of those B-rolls, I had no more space left to draw more and no more computer alive to edit, so I had to accept my fate and wait until I got to the hotel to get RIGHT back to working on editing!! I had projects to submit!! Lives to save! People to entertain!!! And so as SOON as my family and I got into our hotel room, I IMMEDIATELY plugged in my Titanosaur sized computer into an outlet on the room's desk. I chilled for a bit until my computer began to boot up again and once it did, got my booty back on Premiere Pro and began EDITING!!! I took Renn's advice from the previous day and cut all the clips I deemed unvaluable to our documentary's premise until about 5pm ish :D By that time I finished editing all the interviews I was tasked to, sent them to Renn, and felt very at peace and ready to visit my brother again after 10000 quatrillion billion years (like 5 months)!!!
However, my work was not done just yet! I thought otherwise but was WRONG!! Later that night, after Renn got the clips, he called me and asked if I could cut down the entire video to less than 8 minutes when it was originally at 17 minutes after I finished LOLLL LMAOOO LOLLLLLLLLLLL but it was allll okay (!!) because the due date was luckily on Monday so the very next morning, 11/17/25, I whipped out my King Kong ahhh computer and cut down as much as I could on each interview!!! Later that day I sent it to Renn and he was very happy with it :DD YAY!!! I successfully helped out my best bud, drew as much B-roll as I could, and was having a great time in Tally with the fam!!
That night, I ate out with my family again at a super cool cafe, by the time we finished eating it was like 9:30ish pm and a few minutes after, Renn called me asking if I could submit the entire project since he had tons more of home work to do and I said yes of course since we pretty much had just about everything done and ready to go for Tstok to see and grade :DD And so as soon as I got back home from dinner, I busted into the hotel room, put on my pjs, watched the final draft of the documentary, loved it, compiled everything that we worked on (outline and production logs), put it into a Google Drive folder and SUBMITTED!!! YES. YEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! IT WAS DONE! IT WAS OVER! I LET OUT THE BIGGEST SIGH OF RELIEF WHILE SITTING ON THE FLOOR (context I was charging my computer and the desk was filled with a ton of my parents items so I resorted to the lovely carpet) LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO THE DOC WAS DONE!!! After that I called Renn, told him I submitted and unlocked the good ending of our documentary saga. Our final product may not have been perfect, but the effort we put in was well worth it in the end, and soon we'll come back with an even stronger version after reshooting some parts :))
Anndddd that'll be all for the documentation of our awesome documentary super awesome blog viewers!!! Thank you guys for joining me on this short little journey :DD I'll be right back for my next and final post on this thang and then will disappear for a teeny tiny bit until the next assignment :)) It's been a great time being back on here again, I seriously can't stress that enough ! As for now though, here's the link to our final project. See ya soon blog :))
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
