Critical Reflection

    Fruit Punch follows two best friends, Kat and Cat, who are attempting to get Kat's dream girl, Alex, through a series of steps.

Here's Alex (left) and Kat (right)

    Research was essential to this short film. My project partner, Corina, and I began by researching genre, we knew right away that we wanted to make comedy with romantic aspects. We researched comedy with a combination of movies and shows, using six in total. In this blog post the two strongest examples are provided:

Bottoms (2023)

But I'm a cheerleader (1999)

    Bottoms specifically follows two best friends who start a fight club to date their crushes, seeing this dynamic between the best friends was extremely helpful and helped fuel Corina and I's understanding of how two characters in a comedy movie can interact with each other. Though Kat and Cat's dynamic is different then the protagonists in Bottoms, it introduced us to something very important to have in a comedy: comedic timing. 

    We found this article speaking about how important comedic timing is when making a comedy. It can make or break a joke. We learnt that it's all about instinct, especially in long take, and we have a few of those in this piece. Corina and I tried our best to have the best comedic timing we could since we are in the film. We are certainly not the best actors, but we have both taken drama and acting classes in the past, which helped with this timing immensely. 

    Understanding our target audience was important so that we could properly market and represent our audience. Our target audience are people ages 14 to 20, mostly women (but all genders can enjoy of course), may be a part of the lgbtq+ or an ally of the lgbtq+, and enjoy comedy as well as romance. We wanted the marketing of the film to be colorful as it catches the attention of younger audiences with bright colors and goes with our name fruit punch which represents a mix of emotions. To interact with our audience we used instagram, which we tried to make as colorful and eye catching as possible.

This is section of our instagram and what it looked like

    Something we lacked in our social media was reels, we had thought of posting reels with short, but capturing scenes from our film since our target audience (teenagers and young adults) use the reels feature on Instagram and love the instant gratification that comes along with scrolling through videos. Not adding short clips was a missed opportunity for sure and could have expended as well as resonated with our audience. Our postcard was also similar to our color scheme in our instagram, making it consecutive, here's what the post card looked like:

    We also used those same fruit in the logo which we made by scanning fruit stickers and by using Canva. This is what our logo looked like:

    As you can tell, these fruits were a big part of our branding, we wanted people to see them and recognize that it was from fruit punch right away. We also used the fruits in the film when explaining the steps to get Alex, this allowed the audience to see these fruits and recognize the short film, here is what one of the steps looked like:

    A missed opportunity however is not making a Tik Tok, according to this article 63% of 13 to 17 year olds use Tik Tok whereas 59% use Instagram. Though both are popular, Tik Tok has an algorithm which catches onto audiences interest extremely quickly so also using it along with Instagram would have been a great decision. We also most definitely needed more audience interaction. We didn't post polls on Instragram, which would have been a good way to talk our audience and create a sense of closeness and connection between the audience and the brand of fruit punch. There was a bit of audience interaction in the comment sections however for instance here:

here's some comments we got on a post because we asked this question

the question being "What's your answer??!!!"

    Something we really prioritized was properly representing the lgbtq+ community. Often, lgbtq+ stories are about sad topics and majority of the times it is because the characters are gay. In this blog post, I discussed this article from The Guardian:

Link to the article

   

    Benjamin Lee essentially discusses that although it's important to see the bad things that happen to queer people, it is just as equally important to see queer love and happy endings in media. There's a lot of funny and romantic heterosexual movies with happy endings, but the there's only a handful of those for queer people. This article gave an example of this which is Happiest Season (2020) was promoted to be a fun movie about two lesbians who enjoy a holiday together, but instead the movie ended up being about one of the characters not being out to her family and the other being uncomfortable with that, making it a sad movie rather than a happy one.

 We represented Kat and Alex as a lesbian couple without only making their character about them being queer, they're just two girls who love each other. We also wanted to of course give them a happy ending, and they ended up going to homecoming together, so it worked out. We also would've liked to represent other members of the community like bisexuals, gay men, and more, but with the length of our short film, adding more characters might have made it a bit confusing.

    A big reason our characters were in high school was also for representation reasons, as discussed previously, we don't see many teenage movies with lgbtq+ representation, and if they represented, harmful stereotypes are used or they're side characters. We wanted Alex and Kat to be the protagonists and we wanted to be very careful to not harmfully represent them and provide representation for lgbtq+ people we rarely get.

Links

 I cannot believe this project is over, I had so much fun making this and I'll miss this class so much

I hope you enjoy fruit punch! Here are the links:

Short film:

Fruit Punch

Postcard:

Front

Back

Social Media (Instagram):

@fruitpunchfilm

Final thoughts

 Throughout this project and class, I have learnt so much. I let creativity take over a lot more this time around, I really loved this project and wanted the actual piece and marketing to come together, it felt a bit risky making a comedy and romance, but I let my creativity guide my project partner and I and we really loved the result.

This specific project was a lot harder the plan then the film opening, considering that it is a short film and needs a beginning, middle, and end. But after much brainstorming with Corina, we figured it out somehow, and when we did, it was so satisfying to finally have a story. I hope that this short film is just the first of many that i'll make in the future. I loved making this with a close friend, after all, they say two minds are better then one, and I agree. The team effort we made ended us with a result we really love.

Not only this project, but this class has taught me so much about the digital and media driven world we currently live in, and for that I am forever grateful, I had so much fun and I'm really sad to have to let this class go. This sounds a bit dramatic, but I think since I'm a senior this is hitting me extra hard hahaha.

forever grateful for this class 💛

Credits

 Hey! So this journey is almost over, I can't believe it. Since we have finalized editing, we have to credit some of the copyright free things we used in our short film, here they are:

link to video

We used this song in our short film toward the end and credits, it is copyright free and we got it from youtube. 

       link to video

We also used this sound effect for the effect transitions, which is also copyright free and from youtube!

Very much needed update

 I want to give an update on how the social media is going since I haven't discussed it as much as I would like to. We have worked on the posts and our feed for it to match the aesthetic of the film. We have also used the #fruitpunch to get more algorithm going. It has been fun to create the social media since my project partner and I like marketing and promotion, but it can for sure be hard at times since the choices have to be very calculated. 

Here's a sneak peak of our first three pictures and

 what they look like on the feed

 

We have also been working on our postcard and what film festival we would like to use on our postcard. We are leaning toward the Orlando film festival since it show cases more then 300+ films according to this website. It would be fitting and would allow our film to be widespread considering that Orlando is a pretty popular city and many can watch it.

Editing

We had begun editing as soon as we had finished filming, we have our first edit, it's very basic and still needs some tweaking. We also used mics that Arianna (who I mentioned last blog) had so kindly let us borrow, so we need to sync the audio with the actual videos. Here's a picture of when we were using the mics:

The editing has been going well but I'm a little stressed because it's over five minutes, so there's somethings we don't want to let go but we have to. It's hard to pick what to put in and what not to put in, so that's what I've been trying to figure out. 

We also need to add the parts which say the steps which also take some time, so cutting down on the basic editing i've done is essential for the short film to be short enough, I'll update you on how that goes, we've (my project partner and I) have been discussing what should stay in and what shouldn't, and it's for sure a hard debate.

Update on final filming

 So I hadn't mentioned but we did our final filming, we needed a few more scenes we wanted to perfect so we took the whole afternoon (from around 5 to 8:45) which only once ten minute break. Im really happy with what we got. We had a few more shots to get since it was raining before. Here's a picture we took:

We also took some promo pics for the postcard and social media! I haven't mentioned this but, I used some really awesome equipment. I was lucky enough to borrow Arianna's camera (who was in my short film last year and is also in our short film this year). The promo picture is exactly what I wanted it to look like. I also edited it a bit on lightroom to look more like the aesthetic of the short film.

Here's the picture!

Some scheduling issues

Sooo we began filming over spring break, but we had a big issues, it was raining LIKE CRAZY. Corina's street was flooded and we had to make a million trips to the car to get our equipment so it wouldn't get wet. A lot of our scenes were outside so that was a big big issues. However we came up with a game plan. 

So essentially we filmed the sleepover scene, aka the scene that was inside along with other interior scenes. Not only was it rainy, but the weather was super gloomy. We didn't want that because we want it to be sunny and colorful outside. A lot of the film is colorful, so I feel like we needed a good sunny day!

Here's when we first found out about the rain issues, we did in fact figure it out yayy!

Characters

Since we will be filming soon, we wanted to make a few mood boards using Pinterest to help us visualize their aesthetics and what they will dress like. 

Here's what we're working with:

Kat 

Kat, the protagonist is a bit quirky (that might be a cringy way to say it, but it's the best description for her). She's a tiny bit awkward, especially around Alex (her crush).We want her to dress in stripes and some button ups. Different patterns and colors on her clothes match perfectly with her "quirky" personality. We also included a lot of pictures of friendship, since she loves Cat and they're the bestest of friends. The picture in the bottom right is meant to be representative of her and Alex since it's more couply then the others (heheh so cute) and it's a big part of the short film.

Cat

Of course we can't forget about Cat. She is also a bit quirky, she loves wearing different patterns and colors like Kat and cute outfits. There's a lot of pictures of friendship here as well, since Kat is a big part of her life. A picture of a girl alone was also added, since sometimes she feels a but lonely because of Kat's love life. A picture was added which says "And I hate to break it to you, but we're pretty big losers" was added, because that is indeed true of Kat and Cat. 

Alex

Alex, Kat's love interest is awesome. She loves baggy clothes and layered shirts (like the ones pictured above). She always looks cool and collected, she's also very charming. I also added someone wearing a soccer outfit since she plays soccer. There's a few pictures of couples. For instance the bottom middle image shows two women laughing, which is meant to represent Kat and Alex. I also added a little doodle that says "me + my girlfriend", even though they aren't yet dating in the short film, it represents something they would do maybe in the future, I just thought the doodle was very them lol.
 

 

Group meeting part two

 Today we had another group meeting! I actually love these meetings so so much. I like getting feedback from others not involved in my particular project because I get honest but good feedback. 

Here's my group!

Aren't we cute?? lol 

This meeting was very productive, I feel like I got some really good ideas from it. I explained that I was having a hard time designing the social media to look the way I and my project partner want it to look. We know what we want to post, but organizing everything so that it has a certain aesthetic has been a bit hard. They suggested something I had never thought of. They suggested I use an app that lets you preview what an instagram feed will look like. It essentially lets you place photos as if you are posting them on instagram but nobody else can see them. This will let me visualize what my instagram will look like. I found the app, it's called "Feed Preview for Insta". Another person suggested that I can also use Canva, which is a great idea considering I use the website frequently. I also brought up the fact that on Instagram Corina and I want to post snipits of the film in the reels format. We weren't sure about this but they agreed that that would be a great idea to hook the audience.

I also got a lot of positive feedback, which honestly made me so happy. They mentioned that they liked the name Fruit Punch and the meaning behind it, as well as the logo we made. They also liked the concept of the comedy/romantic aspects of the story and how we want to make our social media and marketing pretty colorful. This feedback made me really happy because sometimes I can get a bit worried about the decisions we are making for our short film since we want to make it a strong piece.

Almost production time, yay!

This week, we made the final touches onto our story, we knew what we wanted to make, but we were having a really hard time putting it into words and into a 5 minute time limit. It was so hard to explain what we wanted to make, but we finally figured it out. We decided to take a class period to write our story out once again and story board it. After much debating, we finally figured it out: our story will be in steps. Our main character, Kat will have a love interest, she tries to get her love interest through steps. 

The steps will be structured this in this order:

Step 1: Admitting

Step 2: Interaction

Step 3: Denial

Step 4: Initiation

Step 5: Prep

Step 6: Execution

 These steps will help the story flow easily and allowed us to properly structure the way it will play out. in the beginning of the story, Kat admits her crush to her best friend Cat one night after some chatting and establishing that they had planned to go to prom together, Alex (Kat's love interest) is Cat's neighbor who is having a house party. Kat goes outside and sees Alex, they interact. Alex invites Kat to a soccer fundraiser (because Kat pretended to like soccer since Alex is in it). It seems like Alex wants to hangout with Kat, but she's in denial, however, Kat sees Alex at school with Cat and she reinvites her, which reassures Kat.

Then, at the fundraiser, Kat invites Alex to prom, in a very indirect way because she's terrified, Cat helps Kat prepare for prom, but she's a bit angry Kat broke their pact to go together. Then, Kat reassures Cat by inviting her along with them, they can just be a trio for the night. Alex is understanding of their pact and accepts Cat third wheeling for the night. This story will have many jokes included into the story. 

Our main goal was to make a movie which shows queer joy, specifically involving sapphic characters. We've noticed many films about queer people address queer sadness, which is okay to do of course, but it is as equally as important to showcase queer joy and happy love stories. This article from The Guardian speaks about the fact that though it is important for us to see all terrible things that can occur to the lgbq+ community, it is equally as important to showcase stories of queer hope and love.

Fruit Punch

 Soooo, we have been decided on our short film name for a minute now, it's set to be named fruit punch. Our name is set to be fruit punch because though it's a comedy, our characters go through a mix of emotions throughout the film. This mix of emotions is a mix of flavors like fruit punch is so we thought it was a solid name for the short film. We also made a logo, here it is:

We wanted the logo to have a bunch of fruits like fruit punch does. Corina had multiple fruit stickers which she scanned and then we made those pictures in pngs and added it to our logo. We also decided to make the font look like handwritting. Since the characters will go in steps, we wanted to make those steps look handwritten so that it's like the characters wrote it. We made each letter different colors like the different fruits. We used Canva to make this logo, I'm obsessed with Canva, it made making this logo go by smoothly.

Print component- postcard

 Since Corina and I are doing a short film, we have to make a postcard for a film festival, we learned a few things we must include on our postcards in class. It is 4x6 inches, double sided and should look like the aesthetic of the marketing already done (instagram page). It is also double sided. We must include the tittle of the film, key art, the director name, the film festival, the screening as well as the time and date one can watch the screenings. Including social media info is also important and where people can watch it.

After learning what was necessary to include, I wanted to do some research on postcards, here's what I found:

This is a postcard I found

This post card is simple, I'm assuming this is the front of a post card, and the specific information is probably in the back. I like how the image captures attention, it's a simple image but yet it still conveys a lot of emotion and makes you wonder how the image is related to the title. Since our film is a comedy, our picture will be much brighter and colorful, but this is a good example for the front of the postcard. The back of our postcard will include information. We still want to add all the necessary information but still have it be simple, so we have to make sure to have a balance of the two.

Group meeting

Today we had a group meeting! This meeting helped me learn a lot about my project and all the things I can improve about it. Here's our group:

We begun by discussing my overall idea for my story, I explained my story by using my blog post named "Story rough draft". I got a few critiques especially about having a clearer beginning and end. I definitely have one, but I want to have it written down and more constructed. They suggested I do a plot diagram, like this one:

Plot diagram

This may help me get my story more defined, I used to use these all the time in middle school, so even though it something simple, it will help me a lot. Corina and I also want a comic relief character thats a bit chaotic, and Zain (my class peer) offered to be in the film, so we finally found someone for that role, which is a big relief. Corina and I have to better establish our script and jokes, once we do that, we can begin filming!

 

Fonts!

 Fonts are a big part of our project this year, since we have to do marketing and also use it in our short film, so knew we needed to do some planning as to what fonts we will use and which one will be the most fitting to our short film. 

We did some font looking on a website named dafont.com, I've known about this website for a long time, it's awesome and has so many different options for fonts. It really has anything I can imagine. We spent a while looking for fonts we think could fit, here's some we found:

Font 1

Font 2

Font 3

Font 4

Font 5

Font 6

Font 7

Okay so here are all the fonts from dafont.com. It's a lot, I know, oops! However, all these fonts are good contenders. As you can see, some of the fonts are reminiscent of school fonts, like fonts 1 and 2. The reason we thought to use these was because our characters are in high school and it's very clear in the story, so it would make sense. We also have some more funky ones like fonts 3, 4, and 5. Our characters are very silly and "quirky" (I know that word is not the most loved but it just makes sense lol), so the funkiness of the fonts match up with our characters. Overall, my top two contenders are font 1 and 4, they just make sense to me, but I don't know if we should go for a more funky or school approach of font.

 

Storyboarding yay

 Hey! So it's about time to start planning for this project and a big aspect of planning is storyboarding, last year I spoke about how much planning helped me. Storyboarding was one of the things that helped me a lot. Figuring out all the different scenes beforehand made filming go by very smoothly. 

Since I haven't storyboarded in a bit, I wanted to do some research before just straight up diving in again. I found this website which speaks about how a storyboard must be logical, which is something I really have to prioritize when making my storyboard. Especially considering the fact that it helps filming go by smoothly, so if it's far too complicated, I might get confused while filming. 

I also found this website which spoke about how short and simple captions under storyboards are beneficial, this reminded me of the captions I used to write, so this website was a nice reminder. These captions helped me a lot last year as well because they reminded me what each scene was in case my drawing was not the clearest (I'm not the best drawer, I wish though hahaha).

Here's an image of the captions with the storyboard

Social Media (Instagram)

A component of this project involves making a social media page for our short film. I found a few pages of the films I had previously mentioned in my genre research, they were great examples of what a social media page for a film should look like.

Bottoms social media page-

The instagram page (I made this collage so it could be seen together)

The Bottoms social media has many great aspects that could be a good inspiration for our page. They have many posts, a simple bio explaining the movie, and a simple username, making their instagram easy to find. They also interact with their fans (as seen on they're highlights). They have reels with clips from the movie to hook audiences with certain parts of the movie by giving them a sneak peak, which is something Corina and I have thought of adding to our short film before researching since reels are so popular. The profile picture shows the two main characters and so do the main posts, making it clear who the protagonists will be. They also repost fan art, again interacting with their audience. 

Booksmart social media page-

The instagram page

This page also has a simple username which is easy to find, a simple bio, and many posts. They also have reels posted of clips from the movie to hook audiences, so this is for sure something Corina and I will add to our instagram, since it's a common pattern in comedy films social media pages and they have inspired us. They have pictures of the main characters throughout the film to establish their roles, which is important, and they also have videos of the script and the characters saying it side by side, which is engaging and interesting because we can see how the actors made the characters come to life.

Corina and I will work on our social media logo today and tomorrow, we will begin posting this week. We both love marketing, so we are pretty excited!

Story rough draft

We have developed the main idea for our short film, though there are still details we need to add, here is the rough draft. Our protagonists will be named Kat and Cat, which derive from Katherine and Catherine, we found Katherine on this website and we thought them having similar sounding names would be funny. When Corina and I tell people we have the same name, they usually laugh because it's such a best friend thing to match, and the fact that it's our names that are matching makes it that much better. 

Our main characters have been friends since the third grade, they are in senior year and have theatre class together and make a pact to to get their dream girls (hence the lgbtq+ representation I've been mentioning). Cat likes a girl who is a bit on the mysterious side, she thinks she might be straight and that she wont have a chance. Kat likes a girl who seems to like her back, but she sorta leads her on in a way.

Though this sound a lot like a romance, there is a lot of characters that make this a comedy, for instance, a character will be that will be a bit hard on herself and overthink everything to the point where the best friends think she's a bit crazy. Kat and Cat are in a theatre class, and a lot of awkward things happen here (me and my project partner were together in middle school for two years, so we deeply respect theatre,  but a lot of funny things would happen in that class that have given us great ideas) so that will also be a big role into the comedy aspects. Kat and Cat will also be a bit girl crazy when trying to get their crushes, which will play a big part into the comedy aspect.

Last but not least

 I have done research on comedy with examples of the genre for my last few blog posts, there are two more pieces I want to discuss that have helped fuel my understanding of comedy.

Example 1:

English Teacher

English Teacher was recommended by my teacher, I gave it a shot and I absolutely loved this show. It is about a English Teacher who deals with all the crazy parts of being a teacher as well as his many different situations being a gay man, so this show also has lgbtq+ representation. The show mainly pokes fun at how high schoolers can be a lot to deal with, as well as some other things. The situations are extremely realistic but funny, which is an aspect I hope our short film can have.

Example 2:

Superbad

Superbad is a great and very beloved example of comedy. It follows two best friends through their second semester of senior year. Corina and I were obsessed with this movie when we were younger, we loved the punchlines and jokes, even over a decade later, this movie is so hilarious and funny. The differences in the two main characters made the jokes so much funnier, so that's good to keep in mind in case it inspires us, however, I think we want our characters to be sort of similar, but not the same.

Genre genre genre

In my last post, I discussed some examples of the genre we want to convey along with some comedy research about comedic timing. Since comedy can be hard to convey, there is a few more examples I have in mind that will help me understand comedy more profoundly!

Examples 1:

Booksmart (2019)

Booksmart is a great example for a comedy, it follows two best friends (we have been planning to have two best friends in our piece) on their last day of high school who have been "nerds" throughout high school and they go to a party to live the typical party scene. There is a lot of comedy throughout the film and it's great, though this piece is from a few years ago, it's just as funny as when it came out. It also has lgbtq+ representation, which is something our film hopes to have. 

Here are the best friends from the film!

Example 2-

Pen 15

Pen 15 is a show that follows two best friends in middle school going through the typical awkward phase that occurs during middle school. The show is very funny and the comedic timing is amazing, all the jokes are well played out and will have you laughing for quite a while. The dynamic between the two best friends is very realistic and they tell a lot of jokes about the people around them, which could be something that may inspire our film, since it helped make the show really funny.

Genre Research

When Corina (my project partner) and I began to think of our genre of choice, we immediately thought about a few movies we both absolutely adore. These movies have helped us understand the overall genre of comedy because these movies have great comedic timing, which according to this article is very important. Comedic timing is important so that the actual delivery of jokes is funny, we must work on this so that our short film can be funny. The following movies are great at this timing.

Comedy movie 1:

Bottoms (2023)

One of Corina and I's favorite movies is Bottoms, it is a comedy that surrounds two girls who are starting a fight club at school to get their crushes to join it. This film has romantic aspects (trying to get their crushes) but it is a comedy first, which is something that has inspired us since we want our short film to be a comedy with some aspects on romance. This movie is also big on lgbtq+ representation, which we plan to have in our short film. 

Comedy movie 2:

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

This film makes fun of conversion therapy, how terrible it is, and how it does not work. It involves a cheerleader being sent to it but has a lot of comedy aspects, it makes fun of the ridiculous things that are done in the films conversion therapy and how they are useless. This film also represents lgbtq+ relationships and has aspects of romance, but again, it's main focus is comedy. Even years later, this film is funny, it has jokes that everyone could laugh at. It is a great example of a comedy that has aspects of romance.

Project schedule

 As we begin this project, we know we need to stay organized. Last year, i developed a project schedule to stay organized, which helped immensely. Since it's been a while, i found an article speaking about tips for making a schedule for a short film. It speaks about how though there may be obstacles, we must try and stick to the schedule the most that we can, which I agree with, for the most part, i stuck with my schedule last year, and I think if i hadn't I would've been a lot more stressed. 

I thought this image was very true to how life can go when you have a schedule, but, it's totally possible to stick to it. 

Anyway, here is my schedule for now:

2/15 to 3/9:

During this time, my project partner and i will be doing genre research, making our story board, script, and any sort of outlines. We will also make out shooting dates based on our availability and what we have going on outside of school. We will also be figuring out how we will go about the social media pages we must make. This time will pretty much the planning stage, which is really important so that we can make a good production. People underestimate how much planning can help a production, but it is crucial so that things can go smoothly.

3/10 to 3/30:

During this time, we will be shooting our short film, we will be taking weeks to do this since over shooting always helps when making a piece. We want it to be a comedy and have a very specific vision for this short film, so we want to make sure we do things right. We will also begin to edit during this time since that may take a while. Spring break occurs during this time, so we will try to use this time since we won't have school. I will also begin to research for my critical reflection during this time.

3/30 to 4/9: 

Here, I will continue my critical reflection research as well as writing it, I will finish the project and post everything to my blog!

Portfolio Project (project choice!)

 Hello! It's time to start my portfolio project, yay!! This is year I will be working with one of my best friends since the 6th grade, Corina (we have the same name, partially the reason we became friends). Corina and I have decided to partner up because we want to make a comedy short film (with aspects of romance). We have similar humor and like similar things (since we basically grew up together) that can help inspire our short film. We decided to do a short story because we had an idea for a story with a beginning, middle, and end. 

We also both want to study communications in college, therefore, we both love marketing, which we need to do for this short film by making an instagram and a post card for a film festival. We both have good ideas for this aspect of the project that align, so we are also very excited to begin this aspect of the project.

I found this comedy short film, which I found to be a really good example

Though we want our story to have some aspects of romance, we found this to be a really solid example of comedy, especially since that is the main premise of the film. I loved how this short film had a clear beginning, middle, and end, which is something my project partner and I really need to make sure is clear, and  may be difficult to do in only five minutes, but this example helps me understand how that can be done in a short amount of time. The short film aspect is perfect since we know we want to have a full storyline, we had thought about doing trailers but we ultimately decided this would be the best choice for us. I'm so excited to begin this project!

Critical Reflection

     My partner and I's documentary "The Stressful Application" focuses on the difficult college application process through two high schools senior's point of view.

    We began our process by viewing documentaries in class as discussed in this blog post. We viewed documentaries such as American Promise and Exit Through the Gift Shop. Through these documentaries we were able to see the usual conventions utilized in documentaries, such as indirect and direct interviews. We also were able to view how and when b-roll was necessary and how it could help a documentary be engaging. Through these documentaries we realized how to properly structure our documentaries, which made our process go by a lot smoother. 

    

    As far as genre, we went for a more informational route, we wanted our audience to be enlightened about the application process. This was due to our purpose, which was to help upcoming seniors have a look into the process and to have seniors who are going through the process now feel less alone. We wanted to have specific statistic to include within our documentary so we could fully comprehend the process, therefore we began to research. These were the articles we utilized for our research:

 

Article number 1

Article number 2

    As discussed in this blog post the first article allowed us to realize how many mental health issues come along with the stressful process of college applications. Though we already understood how stressful this process is since we are seniors, this article further reinforced just how terrible this process was. We learned the reason college applications affect teenagers mental health was that we simply do not have enough time for ourselves since we not only have these applications but we also have school work. The other article allowed us to comprehend just how many seniors are worried about this process. It also discussed how much little mistakes could completely make or break your college application, hence why so many seniors are so worried about their application being "perfect". This research lead us to discuss the juggling school work seniors have within our documentary and how stressful it was on them, however, in the documentary we realized we spoke too much about our experience rather then the general experience, which we didn't realize when originally making it. 

    Our target audience was individuals ages 15-18, all gender expressions, and those who were going through the college process. Originally, we wanted this documentary to be about how all seniors felt about the college process, but after some class feedback, we realized we made this documentary far to personal when speaking about our experience. Since we were both the makers of the documentary, the documentary might have came off as biased which was a problem. To fix this, we could have interviewed another subject, like a college councilor or another student. Interviewing ourselves made have made our actual overall purpose be less clear to audiences.

Here's us (the creators and interviewees) during our interviews

    A lot of class critiques also mentioned the lack of music used in our documentary. During our b-roll we typically did voice over speaking about what we had found through our research or we made it silent because we thought it would work as a transition from one topic we were addressing to the other, however, according to class critiques without music incorporated it felt a bit awkward. Though most of our feedback was good for the footage we used for out b-roll, people did discuss a certain seen that felt jarring to them. The scene consisted of different flyers being thrown. Here's a photo of what it looked like:

    Due to these mistakes, our audience did not always engage with our documentary in the way we wanted. We should have included more interviews with various perspectives, had stronger audio choices, and fix up our b-roll a bit in order for this documentary to be stronger and more engaging. When making this documentary we hadn't realized just how much mistakes we had made, but now knowing these small but important things we could fix, our next documentary could be much stronger. 

    We wanted to represent all students and the immense stress they have to go through, at first, we thought we were helping to represent all of seniors even though we were talking about our experience. But after reflecting, we've realized that when talking about our experiences, we we're far too specific and spoke about it from our perspectives.

     Originally, we were going to interview people who were applying for very specific majors, like musical theatre and those applying for film programs, but we thought our documentary would be too messy that way. However, we should have stuck to that plan so our documentary would have been more broad and not just about us. We didn't realize how much of our bias was included within our documentary which made the piece not so generalizable to other upcoming seniors.