Genre Research

 I did some research based off of the topic that I chose for my documentary, which is like how people express themselves through their physical appearance. At first I tried searching up episodic documentaries about lifestyle and I mostly got results that were documentaries about food and eating healthy. Which is not really what my genre is about. So, I tried rephrasing. Instead I searched up episodic documentaries about how people express themselves but I didn't really get any results that I was looking for.

After a failed attempt at using google for research, I decided it would be a better idea to take a look at what past students have done on Mrs. Stoklosa's website. It took a bit to find a portfolio project that was a documentary. However, I eventually found one from the 2023-2024 A level section. Her name is Dana and she made a documentary about the role of animals. Which is pretty cool. Her magazine spread is also really cool and creative. Hers looks very much like a newspaper, which kind of inspires me to do the opposite. It makes me wanna make my magazine spread as very colorful and decorative, but not too decorative to the point where it doesn't look elegant and presentable. Like I don't want it to be too formal but I want it to represent the colorfulness and fun that comes with expressing who you are.

Project schedule

 I thought about how I would plan the production of my project. I really want the first two weeks to be consisted of me figuring out the important details that I want to be incorporated in my piece along with having a solid idea of what I want my documentary to be about and with the layout of the episodes figured out. Then I'll gather information for interviews and start conducting them as soon as possible to get things started for the documentary. I also would like to figure out where to film most of my documentary. I don't really want it to center around only one specific place. I want a variety, so I should think about locations during my second and third week. 

Later on, I'll start filming for b-roll. I know that I want to film aspects of an individual's life that contribute to their style and how it influences on their outfits and things like that. This will take time to do this for every individual that I decide to interview for the documentary. So, having to coordinate with each person for available times to meet up will probably take up some time. I think this will probably happen when I'm scheduling interviews and choosing who I'd like to interview. So around the second or third week. Then of course later on I will start choosing music and begin the editing process.

Project choice

 For my portfolio project I decided that I want to work by myself and that my project choice will be a documentary. I really want to work by myself this time because I want to have control over my creation and I really want to make it mine and something special to me. I was kind of stuck between going with the music promo or the documentary at first because I know a band that's consisted of a few juniors and a senior that go to cypress. I thought it could be kind of cool and fun to make a music promo for them. However, I ended up going with the documentary because I really want to express an idea that is special to me through a documentary. 

As for my idea for the documentary, I only have one thing in mind so far. I was thinking that maybe I could do an episodic documentary on how people express themselves through their physical appearance. Like their clothes, jewelry, make-up, hairstyle, hair color, etc. The whole idea for the episodic documentary would be that every episode would focus on a different aspect of a person's physical appearance. One episode could focus on clothes, the other hair, and the other jewelry, I thought of that layout and of another one. The other one being something like, one episode focuses on the grunge aesthetics and the main characteristics of their physical appearance and how their express themselves through it. I haven't really decided on which layout I like better for the episodes yet, but I only have those two ideas which I think are already pretty good. 

Critical Reflection

For our documentary project , Alec Labossiere and I, Romina Olvera, created a short documentary on the topic of gen z slang and how it has impacted culture among high school students.

To begin with, our product represents social groups by demonstrating how teenagers socialize today with their developed slang. We focused on the vocabulary that teenagers use now to connect with others and to form new bonds with others. We represented it by using interviews that pertain to the use of gen z slang through the perspective of high school students of different grade levels. The interviews demonstrated the individual thoughts of the students in regards to how they use and view gen z slang in society and at school. The b-roll that we included in our product also demonstrates students socializing with their friends and how it demonstrates that gen z slang is included in various conversations to connect with friends at school. Our documentary does a good job at representing gen z slang through the perspective of high school students. Although, I do feel that our whole topic for our documentary is not specific enough to go into the depths of gen z slang and how it affects communication among teens. We also could have included some more b-roll of students socializing and maybe some b-roll of students actively using gen z slang to bond with their friends. That detail could have made the representation of social groups more prominent in the documentary. 

Continuously, our product engages with audiences by demonstrating activities that they can relate to. The elements of our documentary primarily target younger audiences. Specifically teenagers who are in school, since our b-roll takes place in Cypress Bay High School. Our interviews of the students discussing their perspectives on Gen z slang is relatable to other students. Our interviewees are just a small portion of the entirety of teenagers who use gen z slang in their daily vocabulary when they are communicating with family members and friends at school or at home. Our b-roll engages with the audience by demonstrating activities that students typically do since the b-roll that was used was not staged. I think that we had a sufficient amount of b-roll for the documentary which engaged our audience since there were things to look at. Our product’s editing engages with the audience because it is fast paced editing. This keeps the audience from wanting to look away from the product. The music also played a role in this, since without music it would probably seem boring to the viewers. Gen z slang is not a boring topic to learn and talk about, so the music really added to the overall theme of our production. However, the fluctuating quality of the sound, and video camera quality most likely disengages the audience because the quality is not consistent. If the quality was more constant throughout the documentary it would probably cause less disengagement among the audience.

Furthermore, our research informed our product by establishing the target audience and type of b-roll and information that me and my partner needed to gather for our result to be what we wanted. Our research mostly consisted of us utilizing social media to find different types of posts where gen z slang was integrated. We used Instagram, and we scrolled through our feed and sent each other as many gen z slang related posts as we could to get a good idea of what types of images and videos we wanted to include for our b-roll. It led us into the direction that we wanted for the project. I was particularly inspired by one of the documentaries that I viewed in class, which also helped my partner and I to choose the right types of shots , and interview questions. Our research also influenced the way our product challenges conventions by allowing us to be inspired to use all the elements that are a part of our piece. It informed our product to represent a social factor of society among teenagers that is increasingly becoming more and more popular. The documentary challenges the fact that society never really used gen z slang that prominently before. It explains that now teens have begun to use gen z slang to connect with others because it becomes an inside joke for those who regularly use social media. This phenomenon among teens was something that was never popular in earlier years. This was probably due to the fact that the use of the internet was not as popular as it is now in society. Our documentary demonstrates how society has challenged this idea and how socializing has developed throughout the years, primarily for teens

Overall, the gen z slang documentary demonstrated the effects of gen z slang to communication between high school students within their school and at home.

Production for documentary 2

 The next day, I had to finalize the sounds that we were going to use for the documentary. It was incredibly hard. There's was nothing that I could find that I liked for the project. It took me a while but eventually I found a couple songs that I liked. I sent them to Alec since he was in charge of editing the whole thing. It was a very stressful process because he has never really been in charge of editing for a group project before. However, he did a good job! There were a few problems with the program he was using though. Originally, he was using Adobe Premiere Pro on Creative Cloud, but apparently his thing expired somehow. It was a whole situation. Very stressful. So, what he did instead is use CapCut to edit the documentary. This had to happen at the worst possible time ever. It was the day we had to submit, so it was especially stressful. CapCut was kind of a mess too because it deleted a few of the files that Alec had imported. I don't know how it happened but it happened. However, Alec was able to import them again. I helped him out throughout the whole editing process. We were on call through Discord and I was helping him out by making files into mp3 files and helping him find extra sounds that he wanted to incorporate into the documentary. We were working very efficiently together. In the end we finished, but then there were some issues with submitting the project. There was a misunderstanding between Alec and I. We both accidently assumed that the other person was going to submit it. I thought that he was going to and he thought that I was going to. We were so stupid for that but it's ok. We didn't notice that neither of us submitted the project until Mrs. Stoklosa let us know the following week. Alec then tried emailing her the folder that had our project through canvas and he thought that the email sent successfully, but unfortunately it didn't. Mrs. Stoklosa notified us again about our problems with submission and Alec emailed it to her again. It actually sent that time which is good. However, we are going to get points deducted for turning it in late. It was completely our fault though because of the misunderstanding. But here, is the finished product of our documentary! 

Gen Z Slang

Production for documentary 1

 When it was time to start actually producing our documentary, we started filming on the day that Mrs. Stoklosa wasn't in class. We were supposed to talk to her about our project but we had to start filming ASAP because the project's deadline was approaching. So, our first stop was the cyber security classroom. We wanted to interview a teacher so that we could demonstrate gen z slang through the perspective of a teacher, but the teacher for cyber security didn't want to be interviewed so we just let some of the students in the cyber security room volunteer for the interview. We couldn't interview the students in the class immediately because they were going to take a quiz so we had to go back later when they were finished. 

So, in the meantime we filmed some b-roll of Cypress Bay. We filmed some b-roll of the 900s building, and specifically where it said Cypress Bay at the top. We also asked permission to film outside the school to get an establishing shot of the school. The security guards let us go outside for a few minutes to get the shots that we needed which was great. We thought they wouldn't let us but they did! So, we filmed three still shots, one of the stone sign that says cypress bay in front of the school, one of the grass that has the Cypress Bay logo imprinted on it, and one of just the school. After that we went back into school and filmed another shot right under the catwalk. 

When it was time, we went back to the cyber security room to film the interviews we needed. In total, it was three students that we interviewed in there. There was going to be a fourth but we ran out of time to do another interview unfortunately. Each of the three students had a different perspective to gen z slang, which was perfect. Alec and I were hoping for a variety of responses, we weren't really looking for the same answers to our interview questions. So, I thought that those interviews went really well and that we got good information. When the bell rang I filmed a pov shot of me walking through the hallways on Alec's phone.

Later that day, I filmed another interview during my lunch. I had interviewed my friend Tomas, he gave me good answers which was great! I had also filmed some b-roll on my own after school during dismissal. I filmed two shots while I was waiting for my bus. When I got home, I filmed an interview with my younger sister. The quality of the shot wasn't as great because my camera quality isn't that good compared to Alec's camera quality. However, my sister did give me good responses!

Research on docs viewed

 I really liked all of the documentaries that we viewed in class. I love that they all had their own stylistic theme and aesthetic. I especially liked the documentary, "Exit Through The Gift Shop". I love how all the b-roll was recorded, it was really natural and and it felt so raw. I was really inspired after I watched it. I really wanna make a documentary where all the footage has its own style. Like for example, my camera quality on my phone isn't that great and often the videos that I record don't look that pleasing when compared to an iphone's camera quality. When my partner, Alec, and I were producing our documentary on gen z slang, we mostly used his iphone to record b-roll and I used my phone's camera a few times to record a few of the interviews and some b-roll. I kind of wished that we continuously used his camera for all of the b-roll we had so that the quality of the b-roll was constant and didn't fluctuate. When we did the op-doc assignment, one of the op-docs that I watched was really beautiful with all of the b-roll that it had. I forgot it's name, but after watching it I had it clear in my mind that Alec and I had to record a lot for our documentary. I had to get some b-roll of the cypress bay students at dismissal, and in between classes. So, I recorded a pov handheld shot of walking in the hallway between classes on Alec's phone. I really liked the idea of that shot. I also recorded two shots during dismissal and I thought it looked pretty nice because none of the students were really paying any attention to me recording.

This B-roll is one of the shots that I liked for Alec and I's documentary. I mentioned it above.