Episodic Breakdown

Good Morning Ladies and Gents,
         In today's blog I shall be talking about how every episode in my doc series is going to be broken down.  Since representation in the Media is such a broad topic, I have decided to breakdown the episodes into three sections:
               1.  Representation in the News
               2. Representation in Film
               3.Representation in the Social Media

        I believe as each of these topics has a different impact as to how it effects individuals day to day life, because in our modern day time, the News and Film content tends to effect the representation of the race/ ethnicity in general, in contrast to social media which impacts the younger generations the most.  Therefore, the separation is needed in order to disclose these ideas in a way in which it would be easy to follow, and make sure no to cram all the information.

         As for the actual episodes, I am thinking around 45 minutes each, with commercials in-between making them around an hour each. Each sections would get around 15 minutes of screen time, so my excerpt is going to be taken from 1 section and talking about a 1/3 of it. Or I was thinking about doing a excerpt transiting between different topics, because in an earlier blog I mentioned how I liked the transition techniques  that the Ted Bundy series used. Anyways, here is the list of episodes I have as of right now:

1. Middle Easterns
2. Hispanics/ Lationos
3. Asians
4. Indians
5. African Americans 
6. Native Americans 

I am not entirely sure if this is the final list, but as of right now it appears to be it for me. I am still having a hard time deciding on the excerpt, because I can easily do middle east, but I am going to appear biased, not intentionally just subconsciously. So based on who I know, I might end up working with either Hispanics or Asians. In terms of which sections, I have cool ideas for each of them, but since my subjects are going to be of my age, I would rather just focus on the Social Media section of the episode. Anyways, I have a a lot to figure out, but as per usual,

       I Will See You Later ;)

Website Design and Aesthetic

Good Afternoon my fellow followers,
          Today is the day in which I will be talking about my website. It has been a little slow in terms of my project progression, mainly because my topic is quite broad and I am having some trouble trying to digest everything I want to do, and what to primarily focus on.
          So, I decided to create a base for everything. In my recent blog I talked about my postcard component and I shall now talk about the website. In terms of the website I don't really have much of an inspiration for it, I am going to follow along a similar color palatte for it that I will be using in my postcard, and as of right now I am thinking of using light beiges, browns, and greens. Because the topic I am focusing on is heavy, I want the website and postcard to be more light so the production isn't turned away.
          As of right now, my site is going to be primarily spilt into two pages: Home, and Episodes.
 The home page is going to consist of the summary, the pictures that links the instagram, and all the promotional packages.The home page is also going to have a link to excerpt that I am producing. The episodes one, is going to be set up in a blog type format, in which every blurb is about a different episode I'm going to focus on,
         As you can see below, this is what the website is going to look like when you first click the link. My production company is under the name of HBL Productions, which is clearly shown as the header. The episode page is yet to be set up, but I am going to be working on that later this week, when I figure out my episodic makeup.

                The colors below belong to the color palette I would like to follow for the website mainly, but also the rest of the production. To be honest, I think I am looking at more of an aesthetic more than anything else, but nonetheless here is my atheistic for the production. As per usual, 

     I Will See You Later ;)

Documentary Inspirations

Good Afternoon Ladies and Gents,
         In this blog, I will be sharing my inspirations to how I would like to my excerpt to look like. I have seen quite a few documentaries, it just they all haven't been TV serialized. But the ones that I have seen I have taken to like quite a bit. But they have all been serial killer documentaries, because those happen to be one of my guilty pleasures. Excluding the fact that they're serial killer docs, I'm going to focus on the genre characteristics that I like.
         The first one I'd like to mention is the Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. Although I watched it quite some time ago, I still remember my favorite parts about it. One of the few things I liked the most were the transitions between the scenes. I liked how they used timeline to smoothly transition between the scenes, I would defiantly like to incorporate something like that into my excerpt. I just think it such a neat idea. Another thing I liked was, how the tape was played and the reenactment scene was shown after, or as the scene was going on. It gave off a narrator or live action feel to the episodes. It carries a suspenseful atmosphere throughout the episode, which is not what exactly what I want, but I want to also do something in relation to that. Overall, I think this series, as of right now, is my main inspiration in terms of the technical aspects of the series.
       My biggest concern as of right now is that I haven't seen many documentaries, so in the upcoming week I will be watching some experts from non-serial killer documentaries and focus on a subgenre that is more similar to mine, so that will be my homework for the week.  Definitely except a blog from me within the next few days, in which I will be talking about the shows I have watched, and what I liked from them.
I have an honorable mention documentary series, Law and Order True Crimes, such a great one, anyways,
I Will See You Later ;)

Poster ideas

Good Morning Guys,
          As I mentioned in my previous blog, I based my Ap Art Portfolio on cultural representation and its impact on the individual last year.  And since I need to make a postcard for my documentary package, I decided to paint my poster. Now, this is going to take me quite some time to do, but I am probably going to follow along what I did last year. Take a portrait of someone, and incorporate their ethnicity in the background. I worked with countries for my portfolio, but I am going to be working with minority groups so I am going to have a different approach to the topic.

       Before I drew any of my pieces, I went through an interview and photoshoot process. I met up with my subjects, and I asked them a series of questions that gave me an idea of their culture and its influence on their personalities. After I interviewed them,  I sat them down and photographed them.
       This is Larissa, she is from Venezuela. When I interviewed her, I remember her telling me that about how after she moved she felt closer to her country. She also told me that one of her favorite things about Venezuela is this tree, I forgot the name, but its the one I drew in the background. She was one of my first pieces, and I forgot to keep record of what she said, and also I was still experimenting with how I wanted to approach the pieces.  In her portrait, I put her in typical Venezuelan attire, to make her appear more close to her home.                                

         This is Isly, she is from Morocco. Isly is one of my closest friends, and culture has always been a subject we've spoken about so I didn't really need to interview her. Isly always felt as if her culture has defined her, but she is trying to shine through it. So for her piece, I put Moroccan textile in the background and I gradually incorporated it into her face, but not so much, just to empathize that idea of shining through.
        So now that I've shown you some examples, I plan on doing the same thing with my postcard. I am going to interview all my subjects, and photograph them. Which will give a variety of options to work with. As of right now I might either draw only one subject, or somehow incorporate all of them into my piece, but I will be mentioning that later on. Here is an example of my thought process to approaching this:
This is what I did when I interviewed my friend, Gian Luca whose from Argentina, for his piece:

                                     

         

               The first picture, is my interview questions and his answers to them. This is where I found out that he isn't really involved much with his culture, but he is proud of it. Since he  didn't grow up there, he isn't as involved, But he does like his matte and steak. The second picture was the one I ended up drawing, I took several, but this one was my favorite because it was an off guard picture, and I thought it suited my overall piece idea. The third picture is the rough sketch I drew before the piece. The portrait of him was stood in-front off a graffiti wall with all his favorite things from Argentina, a soccer ball,  matte, and Messi's soccer jersey. I won't show the piece since Im not really proud of how it turned out, but I might later on.
          Anyways, here is what my process looks like, and I will be posting a blog soon in which I will be doing the same thing for my postcard. With that being said,




                                                                 I Will See You Later ;)
     

       

Intro to New Beginnings

Hey Guys,
         Today is officially the first day, in which I will be starting my A level Portfolio project. Just to refresh your memories a little bit, I am going to be working along with the Documentary package, in which I will be producing a 5 minute except of a TV serialized documentary series, a poster, and a website.
          I have had quite a hard time trying to figure out what I wanted to discuss, but yesterday I had quite a breakthrough with my idea. I've come to realization that there are very few topics in which I am passionate about, and one of them being Cultural Representation in the Media. Now that I am thinking about it, I didn't really realize it is a topic that I am so heavily imbedded in. For example, last  year I made my entire Ap Art portfolio about cultural influences of the individual. It's a topic that I have already been invested in.
           Just a few days ago, I finished my research about Arab Representation in U.S Media, and I've accepted the fact that it is a topic that I care about deeply. I noticed, that in modern media, it is very rare to see proper representation of minority groups, and coming from experience, it can impact how you are valued or percieved as a person.
          I grew up in country in which the world thinks of its people as terrorists, and this has impacted some of the views that people have had of me. Due to that, I strived to become the best person I could be, because this was my way of starting to spread awareness about this topic. Not everyone knows a Syrian or even an Arab person, so I wanted to be the person that represents my country to these peoples eye. I want them to think of me when they think of the Middle East, and think "oh Reem is from there" and just know that I grew up in that environment and that is why I am the person I am, not a terrorist but quite the opposite.
         Now that I have elaborated a little bit about why this topic is something I am passionate about,  I have decided that my documentary series is going to be about minority representation in U.S media and its impact on the individual. With that being said,

        I Will See You Later ;)

Census 2020

Hello lovely people,
     I am back again with another post, but before you get excited no, this isn't about my final project. This past week, I successfully finished a marketing campaign promoting The City of Weston Census 2020 campaign. I actually enjoyed working on this project, I learned quite a bit about my marketing abilities, and what I need to improve for the future.
     We started off the project by researching to cities with the a similar racial makeup to Weston, the first was the City of Boca Raton, which has 86% White and 13% Hispanic makeup, and The City of Irvine which has 50% White and 39.2% Asian makeup. The reason we chose these cities, is because they each are heavily influenced by a minority population, which is very similar to Weston's 82% White and 50% Hispanic makeup. Through these cities campaigns we realized that we needed a strong presence on the Internet, for example, The City's website and social medias. it has become a given that this is the best way to reach people.
      Our target audience consists of the minority populations, specifically the Muslim and Indian community.We chose this target audience, because my group members and I are practically minorities and we want to be represented through in The Census.
     In a quick summary of what our marketing campaign consisted of, we focused on targeting these minorities groups mainly through a tactic called "Influencer Marketing" which is a type of marketing that uses key leaders to drive the brand's message. Through these influencers we wanted to reach these people, because in all honesty we tend to trust people that are similar to us than total strangers. The way we would get these influencers would be through the events that we would have, such as the YMCA and Weston Place events. These events are meant to target the specific audience based on their residences and activities within the community,
     The part I truly want to talk about the most is, my experience working on this project. In this project I worked with two new people, Nick and Rhea. The two of them have worked with each other numerous times, and they know how to work with each other, and I was the odd one out. From the beginning, I felt as if we already had our roles decided for us: I worked on the marketing campaign, Rhea did all the print components, and Nick did the video spots. I was satisfied with the outcome of our campaign, and I thought I got the easy way out. But as the project progressed I realized that my part, was not as easy I expected. It was actually quite difficult, starting an entire campaign from scratch, research where to have the events, flyers, and etc. It is safe to say I under estimated the power of marketing. Not also did I realize it wasn't easy, I realized that this is something I truly enjoy doing. Although it was tedious and lengthy, I didn't mind working on it with the whole marketing strategies and campaign.
      This project will help me with my portfolio project because I have realized that I would definitely prefer working on my own with something this big, because one of the most frustrating parts of working on the project was having to wait for my partners to finish up something, and the same goes for every group project. I have realized to not underestimate the effort required for something, every aspect of the project is equally as important. The usual procrastination is not the way to go, it always goes wrong. I also realized that I need to make sure I have every detailed covered, because that was one of my mistakes during the campaign, I forgot to mention things that I have instantly thought about, but for some reason didn't put them into my presentation. And research is very important, especially in the genre I chose. Overall, this campaign has been a learning experience, and I can't wait to take this knowledge with me to my portfolio project. As Per Usual,

I Will See You Later ;)

I.AM.BACK.

Good Evening my fellow followers,
        I am assuming you guys are wondering where I have been this past year.... Let's just say it has been quite hectic. But I am back again, to tackle the Media A level project!! Wooo!!
        For this year's project I went on a completely different route, I am going to be working on this project by myself (scary I know) but I am ready for another challenge. Last year I worked with two partners, and each of us had our own strengths and weaknesses, and to be honest we worked quite well, but this year, being by myself I have complete freedom over what my topic is going to be, my scheduling time, and everything, which seems nice because I won't have settle down to please other group members, but I am assuming it is going to be harder to pull that off, so let's see what happens.
         Just to give you a refresher of what I did last year, I along with my partners worked on a film opening. Our film, How the Stars Aligned, was about a Utopian society that was run based on zodiac compatibility. The two main characters, who are not compatible, undergo a glitch in the system, and they fall in love. We chose to go with the Sci-Fi approach because we thought the idea was cool, and we had so much to work with. For this year, I chose to work with the documentary project. The documentary pack includes a poster, a website, and a five minute extract from a TV documentary.  
        Naturally, this year I am thinking about making this project about something more serious. Many things have happened in the past year, and as A level progressed, I realized I would much rather work with something more serious, more "based on true events" than creating a whole new society. So I figured that a documentary would be the best fit for me. I have been lightly thinking about what I want to do, and as of right now I only have one idea, and I think I am going to stick with it.
       As you guys already know, around 5 years ago I moved to the States, from Syria. My biggest struggle in the move was accustoming to the new culture I was thrown in. Going from a middle eastern culture to Floridian culture was quite difficult. And this past year, I have met people that went through a relatively similar situation, in which they had to move out of their home country and get accustomed to a new way of life. Because this topic is something I am an expert in, I am considering making my entire documentary series about different people that went through the same thing I did.
       With all that being said, I am glad to be back. I hope you guys enjoy the journey along with me, for the second time... and

      I Will See You Later ;)