Music Time

Isa and I have not seen the footage yet because we all have been on Spring Break with different schedules, so it's been hard for us to meet throughout the week. However, Maria got a new camera battery recently and we have decided to keep our old footage and try to see what music really fits in with the tone we want before we see the footage. Last year, we focused too much on the music fitting the footage as opposed to the tone and mood we wanted our viewers to feel. Of course, there has to be some fluidity, but the music and audio has to fit the message and feeling we are trying to convey simultaneously. Therefore, we have been searching up free and uncopyrighted music we can use for our film. We have used websites like:

• https://www.pond5.com/stock-video-footage/1/1940s.html
• https://www.audioblocks.com/royalty-free-audio/uncopyrighted+music
• https://www.bensound.com/

After we see the footage, we will choose the best one four our film so I will keep you updated! 

Oops! Almost Forgot

Oh, did I mention how Isa's sister (our other supposed interviewee) bailed on us? Let me explain.
    We filmed at Isa's aunt's house because its near all of our houses and her grandfather lives there. Along with some of the other minor problems we struggled with during that shoot, Maria's camera battery died, I kid you not, every five minutes. It's an old camera, so the battery must be acting up now. Well, Isa's sister, who had previously said she would be in our documentary to answer some questions, went to her house to watch a television show. She's a sweet girl, but we were all upset and wanted to get the shoot over with. What was our next option? Our very own Isabel Maya!
    Isa did a great job in responding to the questions (I would imagine, she did make up some of the questions) but the only problem I see is that the answers were not spontaneous like the others. The creator bias might really shine through as she knew the questions beforehand, unlike our other interview subjects. Hopefully, the answers are not seen as biased from our viewers and we can finesse through this. If not, we might interview Maria's boyfriends grandparents and test them out. Extra footage is always a must :-)

Filming: How It Really Went

    So we filmed part 2 of our documentary where we interviewed Isa's grandpa. Surprisingly, it took longer than the last one. I got there a few minutes late and Maria and Isa were already filming. I think what took us so long was the fact that our interviewee didn't speak much English.
    Okay, wait. That's an understatement. He spoke English well, it just took longer for him to respond as he had to think more about the question and what it meant since they were kind of deep I guess? I mean my own grandparents barely speak English so I understand how to work my around the question or simply translate it from Spanish to English, so that's what I did.
    Along with his difficulty answering the question, he spoke in a really low and quiet voice, almost like Marcel the Shell (Google it if you don't know) but we had the microphone so I hope it picked up his voice well? He didn't really repeat the question which is a PROBLEM but we can figure that out. Besides that, his answers were straight to the point and very assuring though. He was such a cute old man saying he felt like a celebrity. We had him read a random book and mind you he doesn't speak that much English, and he really did try to read it and it was just hilarious. Even though we had some difficulties, we hope we can use him because it will bring out the cultural aspect we want in our project too. 
    Another thing, Spanish sayings and proverbs make NO sense when translated to English, which was most definitely a problem during the interview. We asked him what the best piece of advice was for him and the answer he gave us was a saying about how if you move a rock too much it won't be able to grow mold. Sounds weird, but in Spanish it makes perfect sense. We are going to have to edit this baby a lot but the interview went well overall...let's just hope the footage came out okay :D

Prelude to Part 2

Hey everyone!

    Today, we are filming Isabel's grandparents and her siblings. We are going to her aunt's house around 7:30 at night, which I pray that we still have sunlight outside. Even though our first part is dark, we hope we can get at least a little bit of lighting so the footage can look good. We are going to keep the same questions we did for Leah's grandfather and we hope to get similar, elaborate responses. I'm only worried about the lighting and the responses we will receive, but I have faith that we will get good footage. After today, we are done with the filming process!

    Oh my god... we only have a few more weeks left. We still have to do the following:

• Website for the documentary
• Marketing campaign (my favorite part considering I want to be a marketing major in college)
• Poster

  So um, hopefully we can finish filming soon so we can get started on that! What is to come is going to be my favorite part and I can't wait to get my classmates reactions and feedback. It's crazy to think that exactly one year ago I was a junior doing this same project and same blog. Now I am a senior who is about to graduate and go off to college, but I am more mature and more experienced. Those two traits have definitely helped all of us feel better about this project and the class itself. Just wanted to mention that real quick, sorry for the off topic subject. 

Progress Log

    Based on our schedule, we are on task, woo hoo! Being someone who usually procrastinates and has trouble truly staying on task when I am surrounded by my friends, I am so glad we are being so productive. 
    If I can be 100% honest, I did not think we were going to be as productive as we are right now. We are second semester seniors who have already been accepted into college, so most people just slack off. I may or may not have started slacking in my other classes (Sorry mom) but I am extremely determined to keep this productive thing going. I almost like doing my work calmly and with time ahead, you know, because I usually do my work either the period before or in the morning. I don't mean to make myself sound like a bad student, but being this on top of my work has been extremely rewarding. Last year, I felt so much more stressed out about our project and I think it was because we were worried more about our grade than our project. There were deadlines we had to meet with certain tasks done, but this year we can control our own time. not only does that prepare us for college and our own time management, but it gives us more time to think about what we want to do or solve our own problems. We are older. We are more experienced.We will do well on this project.
    Everyone in my class has been so supportive in terms of our project, and our teacher has helped us out tremendously with the meeting and letting us borrow her microphone (even though we may have forgot it at home, yikes).  This topic is not an easy one to portray since elderly people are so narrowly represented within the media industry, but I am so glad we chose this topic.  My group members aren't just my classmates but my genuine friends from last year. I could not have been happier to not be doing this by myself (thank GOD I chose a group). Yay for progress and ultimately accomplishing our goals so far!!!! I love my group so much :')

P.S: If you think this post is cheesy, it is. Do I care that it is cheesy? I do not. 

Filming Process

Sorry, I forgot to add what questions we used throughout our filming of our friend Leah's grandfather. We interviewed both Leah and her grandfather so we all cooperated to create a set of questions that would effectively have them spill out information. 

The questions we came up with for her grandfather were the following:

• Tell me about your full name, when and where you were born.
• Tell me about your childhood. 
• What were some of your favorite hobbies back when you were my age?
• What are your favorite hobbies now?
• What are some things you can still do now that you would do before?
• What is an average day for you like?
• What are some things your parents never did that you have been able to do?
• What do you enjoy now?
• Do you think you carry around a kind of stereotype?
• What do you think about yourself?

The questions we asked Leah were the following: 

• Whats your full name, when and when were you born?
• How have your grandparents grown up to be apart of your life?
• How well do you know your grandparents?
• What are some things you share in common with them?
• What is your stereotypical idea of a elderly person?
• Do your grandparents match that?
• What do you think of them as a person?
• What is your favorite memory/story that you have of your grandparents?

We wanted to follow the documentary-like questions and avoid yes/no questions, like we learned in class. From the answers we received, we feel as if these questions definitely got a response out of him, and hopefully will do the same for Isabel's grandpa. If i didn't mention it yet (or if I did, sorry for the repetition) we are interviewing two sets of grandchildren and grandparents to see what they both say. Not only will we have more than two subjects, but it will allow us to compare and contrast their responses and see how we can edit it to our liking. So far, I think we have done a great job and have remained on task. Next up: filming part 2! 

Filming: Part 1

We filmed! We found the absolute perfect person to interview. 
    My group member Isa's best friend lives near her grandfather, so we decided to interview him. Even though we did not meet him until the shoot, that man is one of the funniest, caring and most lively person we could have interviewed. He was one of the best interviewees ever, he answered with jokes and smiles. The best part: we didn't have to tell him to do that, he did it on his own. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WANTED. 
    On one of the next blog posts, I will post a small sneak peek of our project that way you can understand what I am talking about. We filmed him in his home, decorated by trophies, awards, montages and family pictures. Although it was a dark setting (we kept teasing him by calling him a vampire LOL) his personality is what we wanted to focus on, which will definitely combat the dark lighting. I definitely feel like he was such a lighthearted person and it perfectly shapes what we wanted to highlight: livelihood. He even bough us cookies. COOKIES. HOW CUTER CAN THAT GET? Food. Jokes. Older people. How much better can our project be? 
    Along with our friend Leah's grandfather, we decided to interview her so we can also gain that extra perspective of how our generation views their grandparents, as well as the overall elderly population.
    Next week, we will interview my fellow group member Isabel's grandfather, in which we may have to alter our questions but I will get back to you on that. This project has been so cute and it truly warms my heart. :-)
    Until next time!

Somewhat Halfway There

Surprisingly, I don’t feel that overwhelmed. Today, we wanted to research stereotypes and myths associated with elderly people. Hopefully we can also start thinking of questions we are going to ask our subjects. In this article, we learned that most myths are associated with:

• Depression
• Loneliness 
• Memory loss
• Creativity
• Lower libido
• Religion

THIS IS WHAT WE ARE GOING TO FIGHT AGAINST. Our whole idea is to show them as a lively group that can be independent and can live their lives. Even though there is that minor percentage of elders who need help to live their daily lives, our objective is to show that their stories and their personality keep them young. When discussing our project with our teacher, we decided to interview three subjects and have them tell their stories. Right now, we need to find those interviewees and figure out where to film. Wish us luck. 

No Go

    So the DECA idea was a no go. Even though my group members thought it was a good idea, we already made a schedule and we made a storyboard. But it's alright, I'm not mad or anything because I genuinely think that our adulthood idea is a good one. BUT, I have done six blog posts and I still don't know exactly what our main idea is.

    After a fifteen minute meeting with our teacher (shoutout Mrs.Stoklosa) we finally came to a main question we want to address: How are elders perceived in society? Now, we understand it's a broad question to answer in five minutes, but we have ideas of how our series is going to work. We were inspired by the CNN decade series, where each episode focuses on a specific decade in history. As for our docuseries, it will be based on how different age groups are perceived in society, in which our particular episode focuses on people 65-75 years old and their representation in society. Even though we would be one of the last episodes of the series, the marketing aspect of our single episode will ensure people are aware of the series and specifically our particular episode. We want to focus more on how society perceives each age group, but have an underlying theme in which cultural values are addressed too. 

    Something that inspired us to portray our older subjects in a positive light was another student project, called Natural Red 4. The lighting and the overall mise-en-scene of the film opening showed his grandparents as lively, and that's something we want to use FOR SURE. We as a group do not want this excerpt to be negatively representing elders as a whole, therefore we want to use white lighting and bright color schemes to show them in a positive light. 

   Finally, I feel at ease and on track with this project. Woo hooooooooo!

    

Let's Just Say.....

    Hyopthetically speaking, let's just say I may or may not have come up with a new idea for our series. So as you may remember, I went to a DECA states competition and I won 6th in the state in my category (go me!) but all I could think about was the cost of my upcoming international competition. Today, we got with our classmates to discuss our ideas and share our critiques. I saw that my classmates are super talented, but one of my fellow group members is doing a documentary on her class. And then it hit me: a docuseries based on DECA and how it is perceived within Cypress Bay. Being that I'm in the class and have competed, I have access to teachers and students that can help me. 

    Wait hold on. Maybe I should explain what has happened this year so you can really understand why my classmates LOVED this idea. To make a long a story short a petition was made within the school for the leader of DECA to "release the spreadsheets" and explain where fundraiser money goes towards since students have to sell candy at least 4 times a year to fund competitions and events. So, basically a great majority of Cypress Bay students think DECA is corrupt. :-)

    Being that I have access to the teachers and I personally know the person who started the petition, if my group members like the idea this project is going to be juicy!

Disappointed but Not Suprised

    So the title of this post might throw you off. I'm not talking about a relationship or any issues really. I am talking about how confused I am in terms of how we are going to do this project. Who are we going to cast? How are we going to represent elders in a positive way? What person is actually willing to be in our documentary? I'm just disappointed that I haven't even thought about the answers to these questions. Let the anxiety begin...
    Just kidding, I told myself I would be relaxed and I am GOING to be stress-free in the next several weeks, you better believe it. Well, anyways here are the answers for now:

1. Most likely our grandmothers or a friend's grandmother from various cultures.
2. We will represent them positively by showing their livelihood and their outgoing character. 
3. Who's willing to be in our documentary? Good question, I'll get back to you later.

Research, Research and More Research

We are still in the brainstroming/preparation stage. The inner work-obsessed monster in me suddenly comes out when I remind myself that we are supposed to be researching instead of jumping to the production stage. I know we made a schedule but on the inside I am dying to just start filming and editing. You see, one side of me is fast-paced and productive while the other is laidback, stress-free, and just does work occasionally. I reeeeaalllly hope that I can balance them out, you know, be work-oriented but not freak out all the time. Well, anyways I did research on our documentary so here it is:

• A lot of TV documentaries are based on famous people (Whitney Houston might have her own documenary, what a legend) or topics that raise controversy (like Rachel Dolezal and her identity but let's not get into that).
• According to IMDb, Mythbusters is a documentary series and you really do learn something new everyday
• Most of the viewers who watch TV documentaries are Netflix viewers and stream it from there. 
• According to this article, documentarians create films based on "the most challenging issues" in their opinion. 
• Filmmakers are excited for the future in documentaries, as mor epeople want to learn more about a certain subject or are intrigued by the genre. 
• Most funding comes from foundation grants, followed by licensing deals and then broadcasting stations.
• Latstly, most of the documentaries are distributed for educational purposes followed by grassroots or community screening. 
• Honestly, what surprises me the most is that besides in this class, I have barely seen any documentaries unless you count Bill Nye's show as a documentary. 

So far, I have learned a lot about documentaries that I didn't know before which is strange because it's my favorite genre of film. Let's just see how I can use all this information for our own project...

The End Yet Still the Beginning

     Yeah it may be the end of my DECA competition, but it is still the beginning of the planning process for this project. I just got home from the long drive and I am exhausted BUT here I am writing my blog post. In all honesty, all I wanted to do when I got home was to lay down in bed and sleep, but I knew if I didn't do it now I wouldn't do it until tomorrow morning. I haven't really talked to my group, but we do know how we are going to plan out our project. My plan is to remain consistent with the schedule to be productive in these upcoming weeks. Below, you will find our schedule and I really hope this schedule will keep us on task.
                                                 

Absent but not forgotten...

    Today in the morning I arrived in Orlando, FL for a DECA state competition. This past week I have been anxious, nervous and overall distracted with this competition coming up. I have been up since 4:30 a.m and haven't rested since then. I'm tired, I'm annoyed, and I'm frustrated. But even then, I knew it was my responsibility to contribute to this project as much as my partners have done so far.  Even though this three-day competition is not an excuse to have forgotten to ask my partners what they did in class today,  I can assure you I tried to do a little research in the break I have right now. The only time I really have in order to work on this project is right now, where I have an hour until we leave for dinner. In this hour, I have tried thinking about what TV documentaries I have watched and what they all had in common. One show that crossed my mind was E! True Hollywood Story (I secretly love E!'s shows so I'm not surprised that this was the first one I thought of) and I tried watching excerpts on YouTube. I watched the episode based on Lindsay Lohan where they explain her biography, and eventually I kind of found myself pausing at certain moments to get an idea of how we can edit and plan out our own extract. By doing this, I truly noticed the importance of editing and cohesiveness that will have to be seen in our project. If not, our project may not be classified as a TV documentary and we can ultimately get a lower score. I have no doubt in my mind that there are better options of television documentaries, but I wanted to find one that i have seen and have found intriguing. Don't judge me.
    Another excerpt I watched was this student sample, and I tried analyzing the visual and auditory elements they included in their project. They did a tremendous job with the interviews and overall seemed to have scored well on this component of the exam. I tried figuring out how they could have planned out this entire project and I then found myself reading through the blog like a book. Not only did the student sample help me figure out how they planned their original documentary, but it was just another example of how I can exhibit my blog as well. Most of the student's blog consisted of research, emotions, and honesty.  I watched  the whole project unravel through the blog, and suddenly it all made sense as to how they presented their final project.
    Unfortunately, I took an 45 minutes to write this blog post and I have to go. I may have been  absent in class today, but this project was surely not forgotten.