Interviews Pt1

Good Day Mates,
          Welcome back to my blog. Today's posting is about my first interview with my lovely older sister. Not only did we discuss media representation, we also discussed marketing and distribution for the doc series, because my sister majored in that field, so she is aware of realistic approaches on how one would market and distribute new content. I will be going into detail in my next blogpost. I am glad that I had this conversations, because it has led me to begin working on the CCR. Which time wise, fits about right.
           Unfortunately we couldn't talk to my brother in law at the same time, because he has turned himself into a night owl, so his interview is just going to be a clip of him answering a list of questions I have sent him. Although, I wanted a conversation, this is the best I could get.
          Overall it has been productive, I have completely figure out things, and I am almost done with the poster, just working on details. The website is in the works, I have to change a few things because of my shift in how I am doing the docs. My goal is to finish the poster by the end of the week. I am just glad that with this situation going on, I am still able to work with my original idea, because it is something that I am passionate about.
      I Will See You Later ;)

Putting the Word Out

Hello Everyone and Welcome Back,
          Today I decided it would be a good day to talk about the social media essence of the company. Even though it is not a required section, it is needed for the marketing strategy I am approaching for this project. In my website, there is going to be the company's instagram linked below, mainly so people could check out the information posted through there. But, a while back when we had out marketing presentations, one of my peers explained that a constantly updating website brings it higher up in the searches for google. When linking an active Instagram account that is constantly being updated, that will help the website do generally better.
     

         In terms of what the set up would look like, here is an example of what I am picturing. I would include it the home page right at the bottom, where the rest of the social media would be linked. I am going to add a Twitter, Facebook and gmail links as well. These are the only social media presences I am planning on including. I apologize for the simplistic blogs, it has been a hectic week and I am finally starting to get everything together,  with that being said,

         I Will See You Later ;)

Interviews... Yay

Good Day,
          In my last blog, I revealed where my brain is at, as of right now. In this blog, I am going to be talking about the steps I am taking following my decision. As I said, I am going to be interviewing some of my family members, the catch is only my mother lives with me. I have yet to interview my mother, because I am still debating on having her be my narration, but with my updated idea, I chose to be my own narrator. As for my sister and her fiancé they both are very busy keeping up with their jobs, but I have managed to schedule FaceTime interviews with the both of them.
          My only concern about myself is, I chose not to write concrete questions, because I want to have more of a conversation than an interview. I have some simplistic questions in mind, but I would like to see where the conversation leads, and go from there. This way, I believe I can prevent myself from appearing biased through my questions. With a flowing conversation, opinions are more subject to individual more so than myself forcing out specified answers.
         They both agreed to talk with me this weekend, so Im a little excited. I look forward to see where this topic leads us, and I am sure I am going to be getting some insight or different perspectives by consulting others. But for today,
        I Will See You Later ;)

Making things clear for myself

Good Morning ladies and gents,
          This post serves to set everything clear in terms of what my doc series is going to look like now. After short discussion and ridiculous circumstances, I have come to slightly change what my documentary is going to look like.  Originally my doc was supposed be a simple expository doc, just simply talking about media representation. But sadly, due to out current circumstances, I am unable to film just exactly the way I wanted to. But fear not, I have found a solution. Basically, my documentary is going to look something like an episode of either Patriot act, or skit from John Oliver.
          Just to clarify, no I don't intend on following the same biased approach, I am looking more at the stylistic approach of the series. The excerpt is going to be a small bit of me talking about media representation, while including samples and interviews throughout. I explained in a previous post who my interviews are, its going to be my brother-in-law, my mother, and my sister. I chose them, Frankly because they are all very well spoken people, and can put across the right point. I would like to add some comedic sense to the topic, but thats my brother-in-law's job.

           I have an idea for what my set up is going to look like, but I'm not sure. Both examples, always have the updated screens of what they are talking about in the background, that might be my greatest challenge to create. I am going to ask my sister how to do that, because right now I am unsure. But here is just a little update on where my mind is, thank you,
          I Will See You Later ;)

Distribution Works

Hi Everyone,

             Today I shall be talking about the distribution processes of my documentary series. As of recent, I noticed that the more popular documentary series are starting to become streamed. Usually doc series are either found on TV or on streaming services, but when I take a look at my target audience, I am more likely to appeal to them through streaming services rather than anything.
             The Explained series, is a doc series on Netflix, based on what I have seen it is doing rather well. On Netflix in specific I have seen quite a few good ones like, Abstract series, Ted Bundy tapes, Making a Murderer and much more. So, in my best interest I would like to put my doc series on either Netflix or Amazon Prime. 

      I Will See You Later ;)

      

Good News about News?

Good Morning!
         As my latest blog explained our pandemic situation, this one, I would like to say, has some lighter news. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I began researching into the copy rights and fair uses of news, and here is what I found out:

Under the "fair use" defense, another author may make limited use of the original author's work without asking permission. Pursuant to 17 U.S. Code § 107, certain uses of copyrighted material "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."


The entire article talks about how it is allowed to use outside sources if it is for use of commentary or criticism. I would like to say, my doc series is going to be a commentary on media representation, therefore I should be fine in order of using these clips, but I have to consult my teacher to make sure I can use these clips. As of right now, that is good news, because I would be able to create a montage of them. But yea, that is it for today,
I Will See You Later ;)

Pandemic Ruined My Plans

Good Day Mates,
         As you guys already know, we're are currently in a middle of a pandemic, and were all obviously quarantined. So, my plans to shooting this week have all been you know destroyed, but I have to work my way around it. As you guys already know, my mother is going to be my main subject, but I was planning on filing with her somewhere else, but I'm pretty sure I can film my mom somewhere in my house. My actual problem is that I was going to film my mom's best friend, who wears a hijab, but I can't see her anymore. I chose her because her outskirts  automatically give away her ethnicity, and I wanted to portray how that can lead to automatic first impressions from strangers.
          My mother doesn't wear the hijab, and she looks relatively European according to some, so with my mom I wanted to illustrate how people shift attitudes after they find out my mom is Arab. The solution to my problem is I am going to send my moms friend the questions, and maybe get her son to film her for me. The framing might not coming great, but some things are just beyond are control. I'll try my best to help them with the set up, but whatever works best for their connivence is what matters.
         With my two subjects, who are relatively the same age, I need a wider range of audience, someone younger, to appeal to my target audience a little more. So, I'm going to ask my brother in law to film himself for me. I believe in him for setting up the shot well, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself. My brother in law is a good subject, but he is very well spoken, and he somewhat reminds me of Hasan Minhaj, who was the inspiration for the styling of this doc series. I still think I need someone a little younger, but I can't think of anyone at the moment. My cousin might be able to help, but I don't know.
         If I find anyone I will keep you guys updated. But for now,
        I Will See You Later ;)

Excerpt pt2: News Media

Good Evening,
      The news media is going to be the first half of my production. This is the part in which I am going to be interviewing my mother, and asking her questions in regards to how the news has affected  our people the way we are looked at. The answer in a sense is obvious, but the wise words of my mother might make someone look at it differently. She is my first subject for the interview, and I might just make her the star of the episode. I wanted to interview others but with this while pandemic situation, I don’t know if I’ll be able to meet with these people.
      Other than my interview subject, the way I’ll be approaching this topic will be using some news articles, I was looking into copyrights in regards to film, and you’re allowed up to like 10 seconds maximum, but I couldn’t find anything in terms of news. I’m not sure how the news copyright works, and based on the restrictions I will follow along. It would really be in my benefit if I was all lower of use short clips from interviews, because that will lead me into creating a fast paced montage with a clips about the Arab/ Muslims community. Worst case, well let’s hope there isn’t, because I don’t think a good way to approach it. I also want to incorporate podcasts, interviews anything I can without  being copyrighted. My goal for the next few days is to find enough clips and footage to put my point across. Here’s my thought process about this, and well yeah,

     I Will See You Later ;)

Website Setup and Features

Good Morning,
     This blog's sole purpose is to show you the set up for my website. The research component for this has been hard, and I haven't been able to find many websites, but after I looked at a few student examples I think I have gotten an idea for what the proper set up of the website is going to look like.

        Up here is my front page, which is going to have a big picture of my "logo" on it or an advertisement for the latest production, the doc series. This ad, is going to replace the grey background of the productions. Right under I am going to be putting the thumbnails for all the episodes of the news production. When you scroll further, you'll be able to see a few pictures from the instagram page that is meant to promote the doc series.

        This page is meant to show who the cast is, and underneath I am going to place a quote or a statement  made by each of them. 

        This last page is going to be the episode breakdown page, each box is about a different culture and it's going to have every persons face on it. Right under I'm going to insert a small blurb explaining what each of the episodes is about. This is basically the skeletal look of the website, I have already started to work on it, I am on schedule with it, my only issue would be going out and filming, with this entire pandemic thing going around. But other than that, the progress is going pretty well, and with that being said,

I Will See You Later ;)

Animation Progress

Hello lovely People,

       As I have mentioned earlier, I am going to be animating the transitions between my different representation topics. I believe I mentioned an app that has made the idea of an animation just a little easier for me, because it offers just enough for me to work with in this project. So just today I was playing around with the features that it offers, and just see what I can do in a short period of time. 

       I played around with two clips that were a second each, and the first one took a little under ten minutes, so in terms of time it's going to be lengthy, but it should be fine after I get the hang of it. I just need a little more practice. Today I just wanted to show you guys the samples, I have pulled off and also give you a little insight of what I'm going to be doing for my project.

         

     This video above was my first ever animation piece. Even though its a little childish, it was my trial piece, and quite frankly it took some time for something so simple. The only problem with the end result, there’s watermark at the bottom left corner. I was thinking I could maybe work smaller and then crop the clip enough to get rid of it. If not, I might need to pay or something to get rid the watermark that it’s going to produce. This blog is meant to be more fun, and just a little progress update, and with that,

     I Will See You Later ;)

        

Poster Progress

Good Morning Followers,
      I am glad to say that my poster has been going relatively great. I am slowly working on it, because I just want to make sure everything goes right the first time. As of right now I only have the bottom part of it done, and it's going to take some time to finish, but now that school is out, I have much more time to work on it. I would like to finish it off by the end of this week, but I'm not sure how that is going to happen, since I was planning on using reference photos of random people, and I haven't been able to see tup with just random people yet. So, I am thinking I am just going to end up just pulling off an impressionistic look to the figures without even using any references photos, that is going to be a little harder but if I want to keep up with my schedule, I am just going to work with what I got.

Here is a picture of my poster looks right now, in the bottom where it's black I am going to be putting the title, and the streaming services that I want to realise my production on. Sorry this blog is short, this has been a hectic week for me in terms of exams and mocks. I am almost done though, and should be back on track soon. And for now,

   I Will See You Later ;)

Poster In the MAKING

Hello Everyone,
       Today is the day I started to work on my poster. With a little help from my mom, I was able to come up with an idea of what my poster is going to look like. If you remember, a few blogs ago I mentioned something about my color palette and aesthetic for this project, but my poster is not particularly going to follow along the same color scheme, but I will try my best.
        The idea for my poster is going to be a sort of point of view shot have the second row in a movie theater, looking into a big screen. In the front row, is going to be a few seats with people on them. These people are going to be the minority groups I am representing looking at a reflection of a stereotypical version of their ethnicity.
         When it comes to the faces of these people, I am not going to make them detailed, because that will not be easy to execute at all, so I'd rather stay with the impressionistic feel of faces. My idea wasn't particularly inspired by anything, it was just simply my mom and I discussing how we constantly how to watch out people get wrongly represented and we can't do anything about it,  and that remind me of a movie theater. Here is my sketch/ possible final piece of my poster:

 So yeah, this is what it roughly looks like, I promise its gonna look nothing like this, this is just the skeleton to my masterpiece. Also, ignore the title name, it was just the first thing that came to my head when I saw my drawing, but I don't think im going to use it. But that is it for today my fellow followers, and things are going to get juicy starting next week, so be on the lookout. For now,

    I Will See You Later ;)

I Changed My Mind Again

Good Morning Everyone,
      For today's blog I decided to let you guys know that I am going to change things up a bit. Not too long ago, I said that I was going to be filming my Hispanic friends and how they were represented when they didn't live here. I was excited to be attempting to see their perspectives on this, but when I was writing out my questions, and I was thinking about the possible answers, I realized that I might not be getting the answers I wanted. To be honest, I want something raw, I want a story that is so insignificant but impactful, and I didn't think I would get that from my friends.
       So, I decided to go against  my original thought, and just work with Middle Eastern community instead. My biggest worry was that I would be biased, but this is where my challenge is going to be. I am going to use the same questions I was originally planning on asking my friends, and I will use those on my new subjects. With that I was hoping to appear as unbiased as I could get.
       In terms of interviewees and stories, I am going to have a much easier time planning those, mainly because I know quite a few Arabs with stories that I can talk about, which will help me get the message I want across. Also, in terms of time management, I have my parents, and my siblings whom I can interview at any given moment, in case I need to reshoot something. With that being said, here is my excerpt layout:

       Episode 3: the Arab Community
       Length: 45 minutes, 15 minutes per media group
       Excerpt: 12:00 to 17:00min, the transition from news representation to social media.

      My only worry now is, how am I going to manage to get all these stock images of news article without getting copy righted. That is something that I am going to be discussing in a future blog, dedicated specifically for the news section of my film comment. I am excited to finally begin filming the interviews and editing the film.
        I Will See You Later ;)

Excerpt pt1: Transitions

Good Morning lovely followers,
     Today is officially the day I started my film, and in this doc, I shall be talking about the transition during my excerpt. Just to give you a quick rundown, here is what my excerpt is going to look like:

 0-2.5 minutes: the end of the news representation segment
2.5-3 minutes: the transition between scenes
3-5: the begging of social media representation

     These 30 seconds are crucial in terms of what to do, because i was thinking of working with animation, but I have never animated anything in my life. But with the advice of a friend and some research, I think I found a simplistic app that I could use to help, and if that doesn't work I could always use stop motion.
      The reason as to why I am working with animation is because the past few documentary I have watched for research had some sort of animation embedded in them, for example:

The doc series, The Mind Explained, uses simplistic animations such as the one above to explain some of the concepts they can't physically show. This is an example how what I might do if I need to talk about something I can't show. 

This is from the show, 13th, which is known to be one of my inspirations. This picture above is an example of what they do in order to also show things they cant. The animations here are quite nice, simple but not too simple. There are a few other docs in which I looked at that had animations in them, and I am probably going to stick to the common theme they have above, the simple silhouette of people or things, and I might even use that idea in my poster. On that note, 

I Will See You Later ;)

Possible Interviewees

Good Evening Ladies and Gents,
         Today I shall be discussing the possible interview subjects I have. I have been struggling to pick a minority group that I wanted to talk about, and I think I have made up my mind. I live in Florida, which exposes me to quite a few people who are a part of the Hispanic population. So, I decided to document the episode about Hispanic representation.
        As of right now I have two possible interviewees: Veronica and Yelna. Veronica is my best friend, she is from Colombia, and she has moved quite a bit. Just last year, she moved to Connecticut in place in which there isn't many Hispanics. I assumed something might have happened in term or representation, but I will find out this weekend when I interview her.

       My second interviewee, Yelna, just recently moved down from North Carolina. She has lived there for a while, she's told me that she was one of the only hispanics in her school, and she's has spoken about her undergoing some form of discrimination. Although, both of them have gone through minor experiences, it's all about going through that experience.

       The reason as to why I chose to do them, was particularly because I want to avoid working with the middle eastern community, because I am afraid my piece is going to come out biased, because it is something I am passionate about.
       I apologize for the short post, this happened only because I have been having a hard time figuring out what I want to do, but now that I do, I think I can begin working on filming the project. with that being said,
         I Will See You Later ;)

Group Discussions and More Research

Good Evening,
       This past week in class we had the opportunity to get into a a g=big group and talk about our portfolio projects in class. When my turn came around I was a little nervous to present my topic but I am glad to say I got some beneficial feedback and recommendations as to what I should do. While I received feedback I noticed that everyone was telling me to focus on the Asian community for my project, and just talk about their stereotypical representation about how they're all Chinese and what not. Quite frankly I like this idea, but I do not know many Asians, so I might have to go hunting for subjects this week. Another subject that was offered was Hispanics, which is easier for me because I am surrounded by them, and I could easily interview them. But I always like to challenge myself so we'll see where that takes me.
        But while we were discussing I was told to watch The 13th, on Netflix, because like I mentioned in an earlier blog I haven't seen many documentaries to be inspired from. But I finally had time to watch an episode, and I am honestly speechless. I don't want to get into the content, because I genuinely am disappointed in humans, but as a piece, the technical aspects are crazy. I loved their transitions, but the hardest part would be imitating a similar idea terms of the animation. I have no idea how to animate anything, so I might either have to learn, or figure out a way in which I could do something similar. Another big issue I have would be the copyright. If I were to use any news articles I wouldn't be able use more than a few seconds of any excerpt which would be hard to do, but not impossible.

       Overall, I have realized I have quite some work to do, my plan is to have the planning done by the end of the week, and hopefully begin shooting as soon as possible. I apologize that this blog is quite short, but I will only get better.  On that note,

I Will See You Later ;)