DOC PROJECT, THE FINALE- CRITICAL REFLECTION!

 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!

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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! 

Goodnight blog and happiest of holidays! :)

DOC PROJECT POST 4- PRODUCTION + POST PRODUCTION!

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!

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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 :)) 

                                                   BEHIND THE FIREWALL DOCUMENTARY

DOC PROJECT POST 3- PRODUCTION!!

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HI BLOG!!!!!!

TODAY IS ALL ABOUT PRODUCTION!! WAHOO!! WE LOVEEEE PRODUCTION! YAYYY!!!!!! it was hectic it was quite the adventure but the important thing is that we got it DONE and READY just in time for submission to Tstok the greatest teacher of all time!!!!! So with the wholleeeeee intro shabang now out of the way, hereeeeeeeeeeee IIII GOOOOOO PRODUCTION TIME!!! IM VERY TIRED!!

THE INTERVIEWS: So an incredible fun fact! I conducted Mr. Kanno's interview on exactly 11/12/25 and like 2-3 student interviews the day after! It was great seeing my goat Mr. Kanno again after my 6-8 months of hibernation :D He has hair now!! Top ten coolest things of all time!! Not only that, but he also provided us with some pretty awesome information for our documentary and was overall really awesome to work with :))) Thank you Mr. Kanno! You're super duper cool and all knowing I wanna be like you when I grow up! 

the goat of all time 

  As for the student interviews, I was tasked to interview about 3 of them, the last being the Lit club President, while Renn went to go film B-roll inside Mrs. Bueno's classroom and gather more victims for our sacrifice ceremony (interviews for a school film project). I felt a tad bit more awkward conducting them silly face. Interviewing a   teacher who is like twice your age feels very different from interviewing someone who goes to your same school, is the same age, possibly knows your name,  and probably watches you sleep through your window at night

 I just ate two really big cookies and now I feel very oopy goopy

But yeah! I felt a tad bit more on edge, nervous, and a teeny tiny bit more awkward than usual while interviewing the students, but successfully made it through without any insane errors or the school suddenly combusting for no reason whatsoever :))))) Fortunately though, every student I interviewed provided amazing information, was soso amazing and was overall really fun to work with despite the internal battles I faced while asking them questions about how they get around censorship within the school's wifi to search and find easy stuff on topics like gay people HECKS YEAH!!!!!! my eye lids are heavy WAKE UP!!!!! midterm midtermmm midterrrmmmmmmmmm MIDTERM !!!!

Okay im back :D LETS GET THIS DONE CMONNNN LETS GOOOO

But despite the internal battles, I got those interviews done and ready to make Renn's life easier and left for band practice that was at 4pm :DDDD Renn spent the rest of that afternoon interviewing more students and Ms. Bueno herself and got great things out of them to :)) 

Also! Another detail that I'd like to mention about our interview saga: Renn always had a person behind the camera wearing headphones and listening to audio since that's so very important according to his long and ever-lasting CBTV experience :D In the case that my hair falls in front of my mic and begins making the strangest noises known to man kind, it was the job of the person behind the camera to make sure that the seven gates of hell aren't being unleashed on the mic :D YAY I LOVE EFFICENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY EVEN THOUGH I FEEL LIKE I WANT TO TURN INTO A SMALL SLOB OF SLIME AND FALL INTO A SEWER AND BEFRIEND AN OLD RAT AND HIS SONS!!! 

THE B-ROLL: This part of production was the hardest if I have to be quite honest, however a bit of it was quite easy so I'm not entirely mad lol wait who am I kidding I never get grr grrr angry mad mad emi only feels like 2 emotions: silly and silly MIDTERM MIDTERM MIDTERM 

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So for our B-roll, we decided to film a majority of it inside Ms. Bueno's classroom during 6th hour :D! Fortunately, Ms. Bueno said yes to Renn asking if we could film in her room and as a result we fully embraced that opportunity and caught a couple good (very high quality, like wow cbtv camera's are CRISP) shots of not only the teacher herself but also the students interacting with each other and working on their creative writing assignments :D I filmed a couple of the shots on a tripod and had a grand ol time :D It was really cool being able to walk into a creative writing class and feel all the brainstorming and creativeness oozing around all over the place :) Telling stories is fun! The people love telling stories and writing stories! Me and all my homies eat that shit up!! 

Unfortunately, though, that day in Ms. Bueno's classroom was really the only day available for us to film B-roll, so that put us a bit down in the big ol dumps. Fortunately, though, I can draw :D! And so, because of that super awesome talent of mine, Renn told me to draw a couple specific thangs that he could incorporate into the piece to substitute as B-roll during post production so our documentary isn't just talking head talking head talking head hello I am a head and I am talking for 1000% of the time :DD I made a good amount of drawings! However though, it wasn't enough as more B-roll truly could have been thrown into the hot and steaming soup of interviews. The drawings that ended up earning a spot in Renn's Premiere Pro timeline are pretty good-looking to me though, so I don't regret or take back all of my choices while making each piece yay me #picasso #### #peepeepoopoo 

Here on your right you can see a buncha burning books on the ground burning and stuff from a burning fire did I mention that they're burning from a fire that's burning? And did I mention I drew this on the way up to Tally after my computer's tragic death (topic for another time)? This is one good example among like 3 more drawings that I made for this documentary :) Had I the time to make even more to make up for lost B-roll, I believe our piece would for sure have been elevated in terms of entertainment and creativity BIG TIME! 

THE INTRO AND OUTRO: guys I am almost done with this post and I feel a twinge of hope in my very exhausted body this will be done I will pass my midterm and see Santa in the North Pole HERE WE GO FINAL STRETCH!! 

THINK FAST!!! AUAFGHGHJHGHHHJJHHHHHH

Friday, 11/14/25 holy crap that was forever ago, was officially the very last day of production..THAT MEANT WE HAD TO GO FAST!! The only thing left we had to film was the intro and outro of the doc and that was IT!!! So because we didn't have any other time to do so, we filmed these right after media studies during lunch! I distinctly remember running out to the courtyard with Renn and two other friends (who helped a huge ton shout out to Aug and Ry you guys are so awesome), black blazer in one hand, tripod case in the other. Then we began to set everything up on those weird big stone step thingys near the 900's. I booted up Renn's computer, put on the script, slapped on my blazer, sat on the ground, and BEGAN TALKING!! Fortunately Renn is the absolute goat and made it so I didn't have to memorize absolutely everything I had to say :D I was allowed to look down every once in a while since I was supposedly doing "research" for a class :D However, looking back, we both can agree that more shots of myself actually researching could have been incorporated. But other than that, I think I did a pretty swell job :D Everyone stand up and clap for Emi before Emi comes to your house and drinks your fridge water :DDD

ALRIGHT!! THAT'S IT FOR TODAY!! It's ass o'clock and I need to go upstairs to my room and continue blogging in room because it's midnight and I need to be in my room :D Nighty night blog! See you in like 2 seconds from now cause I'm gonna be online until the world ends! :D 

DOC PROJECT POST 2-RESEARCH AND PLANNING

 Yo whats goodie yo yo yo  what goodie its like almsot my bed time and like I really wish I had a bottle of lemonade and a bowl full of french fries to dine on I'VE BEEN SO HUNGRY TODAY HOOLLLY MOLY the effects of having A lunch smmhhhhhhhhhhhhfffefgggggggMIDTERM!!

MIDTERM MIDTERM!! MIDDDTERM! Today's blog is about pre-prod and planning and research for the doc project I made with my super duper awesome pal pal buddy pal, Renn Walas :D Hi Renn Walas I know you're here :DD Hi :D Our doc is called Behind the Firewall! I'd say there was a ton of thought put into it and you're gonna see alllll of that thought in just a few!! In like

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BEHIND THE FIREWALL: PRE PRODUCTION!! RESEARCH AND PLANNING!! WAHOO!

HOOLLYYY PEAK (i made this :D)

BRAINSTORMING: So the second it was time to find who we wanted to work with, Renn looked at me and he was all like "wanna make a doc about trans people?" and I was all like "hecks yeah I was thinking of doing an LGBT+BLT lettuce BLT bacon lettuce tomato LGBT LGBTQIA+ film too buddy!!" And then we were both all like wahoo (!!!) and got to work :DDD We began brainstorming...what kinda issues do trans individuals face in our modern day society?? Aha censorship! In academic spaces!!! aha!!! We stayed stuck on that issue and then began already thinking of who we would interview, where we would go to shoot, all that!! After a while of thinking of that topic, we decided to switch the general demographic to be featured in our doc from trans people to the entire LGBT+ community as a whole.

Eventually, after having our thoughts on the queer community in academic spaces, we cooked up this essential question that would become the very basis for the entire, humongous, gigantic, morbidly obese, documentary project :D 

The basis for the entire, humongous, gigantic, morbidly obese documentary project!

THE OUTLINE: Immediately after coming up with this essential question, we wrote it down on the paper Tstok gave us to write our thesis, outline, b-roll shots, and literally everything else that one needs to know and develop while creating a film project. KABLOOEY! We got our main idea!! Afterwards, Renn started on making the outline on a separate sheet of paper. This thang was our main focus for a huge while as Renn wanted to really structure everything out well in a way that would make sense in the documentary!



We decided to start our raw draft (as you can see above) with an introduction of the topic we are going to talk about through making historical connections with women’s suffrage. That didn’t end up making it to the final draft but we still stuck with the whole “providing context so our viewers don’t explode” thing :) As for the rest of the doc, we planned for it to be heavy with interviews from teachers and students about how censorship in academic spaces have personally affected them and their experiences. After a bit, we had our outline ready to show Tstok, and following our meeting with her we tweaked a couple things and made it more focused on one singular topic, which is all about banned resources and books in academic spaces and how it affects teachers as well as the student body, especially those who are queer.

THE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: A day after we solidified things with the outline (except for the conclusion lol we'll get to that), I was tasked to come up with general teacher and student questions. Originally we planned to have specific questions for specific people but just ended up doing general for everybody except for Mr. Kelly and Arantza from our school's Literature Club to make our lives easier.

After coming up with these super duper awesome and cool questions, Renn emailed each one of the teachers and messaged the students to get approval and schedule a day for interviewing. After we got dates and times from those he contacted, we made a film schedule in order to not fall behind and get shat on :D

THE ???: Our documentary was all coming together amazingly!! Only thing we had left to do before starting production was research and script writing, both of which Renn took care of so I don't have much to say about those two except for HEY LOOK AT THIS SCRIPT ITS SO COOL LOOK MY SUPER AMAZING BEST BUDDY WROTE IT and then talk about the branding I did for the doc :DDDDDDDD














Okie dokie my turn!

THE BRANDING: Okay so I genuinely had a really hard time coming up with a good color palette for this production's graphics and logo and all that annndddddddddd that is entirely the fault of my overthinking scattered, lil blob of a brain!!! When I first started brainstorming what colors to use, my mind IMMEDIATELY went to orange, light blue, and white, because what other colors do you think about when you see the words "Behind the Firewall?" I hope I wasn't going crazy with the blue but sincerely, it was one of the first colors that came up! am I crazy? Are you crazy? ???? Am I?? ???????a..?/a/midterm midterm midterm mideterm midterm

!!! At very first glance into the colors I was thinking about incorporating into the logo, I was completely fine with it! Like one hundo percent, "helly yeah Emi this color palette is pretty solid, you should move on now and make the logo so you don't explode and die and stuff!" But unfortunately that changed in the matter of a couple seconds! See, for the new gens out there reading this non new gen blog (get with the program), last year my friends and I made a music video for Media Studies AS level around the same time (woah thats trippy), and our colors for the entirety of the production were blue and orange. If you fast forward to me like 2 weeks ago, you'd see me being all like "WOAHH WOAH WOAHHH I CAN'T USE THESE COLORS AGAIN FOR ANOTHER MEDIA PROJECT!! WHO AM I?? A COLOR REPEATER??? NOT COOL!! I know it may seem like a tinnyyy teeny tiny bit of a stretch but I was very much bothered by this and wanted to immediately figure out what other colors to use. HERE'S PROOF!!

This picture above you (ish) here is live footage of Emi finding out the original colors she was using cannot be used because of a past media project that is currently collecting dust!! I first went with black and red but then I was all like..hmmmmm that's a little tad bit boring and we DON'T want to be boring here!!!! So then I toned down the red a bit and the black a ton and ended up with a black font and an orange background with red accents on the side. I thought I was done for a little seccie after that but NAHHHHHHHHH there was still tons to do, and I was NOT satisfied, but then I got caught up on other school stuff and didn't come back to this logo until LIKE A DAY LATER!! On that very day, I made it an absolute GOAL to get the docs logo done and send it to Renn since I also got tasked to make multiple drawings for the B-roll since we ended up not having much. And so, once it was the last 15 or so minutes of media studies, I grabbed my journal, snatched my pencil, and DREWWW on that thang until I came up with something that I was satisfied with.


That picture over there righttt above is everythinggggg my brain could possibly come up with while planning out the logo and as you can see I was scrambling to make something that my picky ahhh ah ahhh ahhhhh brain would FINALLY be satisfied with! The logo design that you see in the orange highlight is my final design that got approved by Renn at the end of class! :D I decided to include a censor bar within the logo as it relates back to our documentary's topic so it made the most perfect sense!! I liked it, Renn liked it, and it was time to finally make the logo which I will not tell you about until like two post's later cause that technically counts as production! And this post is about planning! And I wanna get an A! So take this super awesome super duper secret behind the scenes planning for now!!! YAY!!

Anddd that should be all for today super awesome blog readers!!! It has been incredible being back here on this wonderful site to document more media adventures! And I'm gonna be here for a veryyyy long while so expect a lot more from now on :DDDD! As for riiight now though, I have to get going for the Winter Concert at my school!! I'm in the band and I must go and play or else I'll like explode or something OKAY BYE TIS THE SEASON I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

A MEDIA!!! WOOHOO! DOC PROJECT POST 1- RESEARCH

 Hello blog!! I'M BACK! After like 6 or 8 months of summer and marching band and school and marching band and school and school and marching band and school and school and school I am back and ready for my grand return to this lovely blog :D I'VE MISSED IT SO MUCH!! This whole week I'm going to be making posts every single day for my A media midterm :) I just finished a super awesome documentary project like 2 weeks ago and now I have to..document it! The whole process! The whole shabang :D! Booyah! 

A LEVEL MEDIA B.D: BEFORE DOCUMENTARY

So a few weeks before we even started the project, we watched a couple documentaries in order to get a pretty good idea of how they're made, learn about their conventions, and gather some inspiration for our own! We watched two full length docs and I watched two op-docs from New York Times. What the helly were those documentaries Emi??? What pieces of work inspired YOUR super awesome work?? Well you're in luck lovely viewer :D It is now time for me to talk about each of them in depth in order to pass this midterm! HERE WE GROW!

DOC #1- ABSTRACT

This documentary is insanely cool let me just say that right off the bat 😛😛 It's an episodic doc that delves into all things art and design by featuring people from all kinds of jobs within the field in each episode. The episode we watched as a class was about Ruth Carter, a really cool and awesome costume designer who's mainly known for her work in Black Panther. We were also assigned to watch an episode on our own time for a homework assignment and I chose to view the episode on Paula Scher and graphic design :)

Throughout our class viewing of Ruth Carter's episode, we were encouraged to be on the look out for any prominent techniques and conventions used to better understand the documentary genre to gather inspiration for our own films and answer homework questions pertaining to the contents of the piece :D One technique that stood out to all of us in the entire class + tstok herself were the animated sequences incorporated within Carter and Scher's interviews! In many parts of their extensive explanations of their super cool processes and work, colorful animated sequences were put it instead of usual run-of-the-mill b-roll. This might have been because they didn't have any appropriate footage left in store for their topics. Not only that but these sequences are also very on brand :D Considering that Abstract's branding is all colorful, artsy, and polished, it made perfect sense for them to incorporate these types of sequences into their episodes :D! 

Some sequences! (SO COOL)

As another substitute for B-roll, we also noticed that Abstract likes to use archived footage and photos, primarily of the featured interviewee from their early days of life or their family or oldy moldy stuff like that since obviously the camera crew can't go back in time and film the past lmaaoooo imagine doing that thats crazy lmaooooooooo 😹😹 Apart from everything else, Abstract uses a plenty amount of conventions that really sell it as a full one hundo 100% documentary. These include AHEEMEMMMMMM lemme get some water: Interviews progressing story, shorter than full length films, hand held camera, selective editing, graphics, music, re-enactments, indirect interviews, voiceover narration, annnddd most of all...B-ROLL! Yup it has been proven folks this documentary is very much so a documentary! WAHOO!!

Ruth Carter in all her glory

     After both of my viewings of Abstract, I felt quite inspired and    had a much better idea of what specific techniques documentaries need and what specific techniques would be good in making my own project looking pretty awesome. Renn and I got the idea of adding in my drawings as B-roll within our final project from this lovely documentary :D Thanks Abstract! I love being reminded that I can insert my silly lil drawings in just about anything I make! Mwah thank you love ya! But yeah, out of every other documentary that I have watched in preparation for the actual project, I'd have to definitely say that Abstract is my absolute favorite out of all of them. GUYS ITS SO COOL ITS SO COOL GO ON NETFLIX AND WATCH NOW ITS SO COOL !!!! !! !  !!! ! ! !! !  !

DOC #2- AMERICAN PROMISE

I LOVE THIS DOCUMENTARY GUYS. HOP ON TUBI WATCH IT RN ITS SO AWESOME. This masterpiece is a full on, full fledged, non episodic documentary :D The film is not only 1 hour but a full 2!! (and like 22 mins). We spent multiple class periods watching American Promise, and all I have to say is that I wish it was longer. 

This documentary follows the lives of two boys over the span of 13 years from their K-12 years, Idris and Seun. The life of these two guys in the school system was pretty difficult and this film did a good job in showing that. The homework stress, racial concerns and discrimination, girl problems, personal life events like a death in the family, and soso much more was included, which along with shaky shots, not so high quality footage, and natural lighting really added to the authentic, raw feel that the directors were likely going for. All this combined is actually called Verite cinema!! Verite cinema is pretty cool, it made me 10x more immersed in this documentary, it like genuinely felt like I was watching the unfiltered personal lives of the two boys, like I'm right there with them and UAAAGHJHHH I LOVE THAT AUTHENTIC FEELING!!! AUTHENTICITY!! THATS WHERE IM AT GAH I LOVED IT.

 

The siblings ever

Apart from the super awesome use of verite cinema, American Promise also follows a heck ton of conventions that do a successful job in making it still fit under the documentary genre :D This includes indirect interviews, direct interviews, voiceover, music, annnddd most of all! B-ROLL! Unlike Abstract though, this documentary doesn't have any flashy, impressive graphics because it isn't really needed :D For this film, editors had to sift through HOOOOOURRSSS of footage so they had plenty of B-roll to work off of for each interview and whatever else it may be :D Also even if they did include animated sequences it wouldn't really be on brand. This documentary aims for pure rawness and authenticity, and that tone can't be clearly created with a polished animation. 

After my viewings of American Promise, I truly felt like I had to go out out there and make the most out of my life and truly appreciate each and every little thing in it. This documentary showed (to me) that life is soso beautiful, even the ugly sides of it all. From every single lense, the beauty of being alive can never ever be dimmed or taken away :D This piece also allowed me to see a truly different type of documentary. All the ones I have watched throughout my life have been super duper professional and clean and polished and filled with Morgan Freeman narrations but this one was different :) I loved branching out and watching something different and feeling inspired by it :D! EVERYONE GO WATCH AMERICAN PROMISE!! 

DOC #3- EXIT THROUGH THE GIFTSHOP

This documentary was truly a doozy. I didn't hate it but I also didn't love it as much as the other two either silly face. I know this was made to point and laugh at Mr. Brainwash (Thierry Guetta) but I just felt myself being a bit pissed off at the end when they showed him succeeding after not actually truly making art of his own. But that's just me!! Banksy, you have such a good reason for genuinely crashing out and making a whole "loolllll look at this loser" diss doc about Thierry but to all the Mr. Brainwash lovers out there, just know that I am not out for your guts. We just think differently. 

Like I said like 50 words ago, this documentary basically follows the journey of street artist, Mr Brainwash, whose real name is Thierry Guetta. The piece begins by focusing on other street artists, like your run of the mill sloppy joe, Mrs. sloppy joe, and the glamorous Shepard Fiery and Banksy. Throughout this all, Thierry is the lovely camera man filming the street artists. He expressed before that he loves to film and literally all he does is film film film with his cheap lil camera he probably got from dumpster diving in Detroit at 3 am. At a certain point in this doc, the focus begins to shift from other street artists to Mr. Guetta himself as he becomes inspired enough to become a street artist. Annnd yeah then he becomes super big and stuff by creating and opening a gallery that made big bucks! The best and funniest part about this is that he did not make the art! That being the reason why Banksy took a giant shit on him throughout this piece! Booyakasha!!!! 

Just like American Promise, this documentary has that raw and authentic (verite) feel that I love so very much. I could definitely say that my favorite part of all time in the entire film is the intro with all the footage of street artists doing their street artist thangs. It felt super exclusive and special seeing the guys who paint on the walls actually painting on the walls...it like kinda felt like something that I wasn't supposed to see ya know? Like something super duper secret and kept behind super duper omega secret doors. SO COOL!! Aside from super duper awesome verite cinema, this documentary also has its hella amounts of conventions that sell it as a documentary even though its literally just a Thierry Guetta diss track disguised as a huge "freak you." These conventions include music, montage, direct interview, voiceover, indirect interview and BBBBBBBBBBB-ROLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!! We love B-roll, you love B-roll, I love B-roll, we allll love B-roll!!! 

bruhhh look at this bummmm

We took like 2 or 3 periods to watch this entire documentary and by the very end of it, I felt kinda..confused?? The ending was very abrupt and left me all like HUH?????? But that was actually a good thing in the end cause it lowkey inspired Renn and I to do a really weird, sudden ending in our project! Thank you Exit Through the Giftshop for being weird!! Mwwwwwwahhhhhhhhhhhhh! 

But yeah genuinely apart from how disappointed and confused this doc made me, I actually really liked it and it made a pretty big impact on the project Renn and I ended up creating :)))

DOC #4 and #5- NY TIMES OP DOCS!

So right around Halloween, Tstok tasked us to go on New York times and watch 2 op-docs and answer some questions about them :))) Since I have to talk about all the docs we watched in class and the ones I watched independently, I gotta talk about these tiny lil thangs!! Just to get that A!! Midterm I'm coming for you! WATCH OUT!!

son im crine sonn whos she sonnn lmaoo

  ELLIS ISLAND: This op doc was quite unique and a teeny tiny bit confusing to me at first watch. It is literally just static images of abandoned Ellis Island and some archived footage from the past, statically moving with voiceover from interviewees who were actually there when the Island was functioning and taking in immigrants way back in the stone age when I literally was a shred of air. The tone of this doc was what most got me. Every single picture incorporated in the piece was black and white and kinda grainy, low quality-ish, giving that somber, very sad, kinda a bit scary, creepy tone. Like I'm not supposed to be there. I'd say this doc is a bit unconventional considering the lack of video, music, interviews showing interviewees' faces, all that shabang. And for its unconventionalness, I found this one to actually be really cool in the end :D Who knew docs could literally just be creepy pictures of an abandoned building with old people talking over it?? Not me thats for sure!! I'm looking at you Morgan Freeman.

ROACHES LULLABY: This doc was incredibly amusing I'd say it's definitely one of my favorites out of all the ones I talked about here. Which is funny! Cause I hate cockroaches! Like really hate em!! If you couldn't already tell, this documentary is basically all about New Yorkers dealing with cockroach infestations in their apartments. That's literally it (she said while laughing). Thank you Roaches Lullaby for making the experience of having roaches in your home seem very lighthearted and humorous I genuinely had such a great laugh!!

No but actually, I feel like if I were a documentary, I'd be this one. It's so silly and goofy and it literally has a song in the middle of it that has lyrics probably shitting on cockroaches which I absolutely adore. Unlike Ellis Island, this one is a lot more conventional as it includes indirect interviews, B-roll, voiceover, and music :DD! This was a really fun watch and I truly am on the look out for any other pieces of media that have the same exact vibe as this one.