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! :)