Window to the Soul

 Here are all the links for my final product of my project! Hope you enjoy c: !

This is the Instagram account link:

Instagram link

In this folder the excerpt and the magazine component are there:

Google drive link

Critical Reflection

    When I was first starting the portfolio project I knew that I wanted to do a documentary. I wanted to create a raw product that stems from real life. I had my mind set but I was not completely sure on what it would be about. However, after a few days I kept thinking about the idea to document how people convey who they are through their physical attributes. I decided to finalize my topic on that idea. I did research on a variety of sources. I did some research on the docuseries, "Formula 1: Drive to Survive" which kind of gave me a good idea of what a docuseries should look like. I also researched some magazines, specifically fashion magazines since the topic of my docuseries is kind of in the same boat. I also took a look at the docuseries, "Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer". For the night stalker I primarily researched the movie poster, and took note of the color choices. This helped me bring out my desire to make my docuseries as colorful as possible with the help of Canva.

    I paid special attention to how they portrayed the evil inside Richard Ramirez through the color red. This inspired me to portray how every person has a different personality through different colors. I love how a gradient of colors looks like, so I made it my signature for the docuseries. I always tried to look for colorful gradients every time I was editing on Canva. The technique I used throughout my excerpt was inspired by the documentary, "Exit Through the Gift Shop". My classmates and I watched this in class, and it struck a chord with me. I loved how it looks, how raw it was. Nothing was staged. I knew instantly from that moment that I wanted to create something in the same style. It highly influenced for my project to look the way it does. I even sought a digital camera to capture that same feel that the documentary had.  

    The target audience for my product are teenagers and young adults. My Instagram page engages my audience because it's colorful, so it attracts the eye. I know that teenagers and young adults tend to still be very creative and focused on having a fun time in life. I feel that all the colors grabs their attention. I also post clothes that are relatively trendy to each aesthetic. I have posted clothing brands that are popular among my audience. I have posted jewelry as well. Jewelry is unisex, and more people today are wearing more jewelry. Especially rings. I posted earrings too, which is also unisex. It has become more popular to get face piercings which may attract teenagers or young adults who have those piercings.

    My magazine component engages my audience because I also included the colorful gradient as the background which may attract the eye. I also wrote about the main purpose of my docuseries and how it relates to different physical attributes that my target audience is very likely to have or be interested in. I had also mentioned that my docuseries would most likely be distributed by Netflix. Netflix is a streaming platform that is very popular with my target audience, so this would definitely engage them. My excerpt engages my audience because it includes clothing stores that my audience probably enjoys shopping at. So, they can relate to the content. It also includes a teenager as an interviewee which can allow certain age groups within the target audience to establish a connection.

    The brand that I want to exemplify is individuality. My Instagram demonstrates individuality through my posts of different outfits that other people relate to because of their similar aesthetics. In the captions for each post I did a poll and basically asked questions like, "Would you wear this?" People can respond yes or no. The variety of responses demonstrates individuality because different people have different taste in certain things. I utilized the same strategy on all of my posts, not just the clothing posts. The only ones where I did not use that was for bloopers or behind the scenes posts. As for my magazine it promotes individuality by highlighting the fact that the goal of my product is to bring that very ideal to light. Since it is something that we constantly witness but never bring it to understanding or actually point it out.

    My excerpt conveys individuality through my interviewee, Valeria. In her interview my questions prompted her to talk about where she got her individuality and how she acquired it. She talked about how she enjoys being herself and what person she sees herself as. In the excerpt, I used this part of the interview with a visual representation of what she was talking about. I had some b-roll of her being herself which gave a great representation of individuality in my excerpt. Valeria is the embodiment of individuality in my product. Therefore, developing the brand. What could have been improved is that I could have included another individual as another interviewee to provide another version of individuality. So that there could be two perspectives at individuality through different people.

    My project represents social groups by targeting almost the general topic of groups. Each person has their own unique sense of style, way of thinking, and way of life. Every person is different. This can be demonstrated through my excerpt, where Valeria is shown talking about how she dislikes a certain type of jean but how she likes the others. This highlights her personal preference. A trait common in every individual. Every social group has something in common that makes them a social group. However, that does not exactly render them to be the same. My product represents the fact that although social groups are formed through common interest or common characteristics, it does not signify that they are all the same person. Social groups carry a handful of individuality within them. My Instagram has different types of clothing for each outfit post because every person is different and some might have a stronger liking to one outfit than the other. This demonstrates the variety in personality.

    I feel that my project is successful at developing my representation of individuality throughout all three of my components. However, there could have been some improvements. I could have included another subject to star in my excerpt to provide a better look at the variety in personalities. I feel like I could have also included more about individuality in my magazine component. I feel like it did not have enough. I also feel like my excerpt could have included a bit more b-roll or more action. I feel like the first half did not really convey the representation of individuality I really wanted. However, it was definitely there on the second half. Overall, I do think it was quite successful in my eyes. I am satisfied with my final product and I think that it does a good job at representing what I originally wanted it to represent.

Editing

 Ok I have successfully started my editing on CapCut. It's great, it downloaded perfectly without any problems on my other computer. I figured out how I wanted to structure my doc almost immediately. My excerpt will start off from the previous sub-topic. Which would be "Tops". It would start off on the part that is wrapping up the "Tops" section, leading into the beginning of the "Bottoms" section. I think this structure is a great way to show that it is an excerpt! So I think it'll fit really well. I also forgot to include kind of an opening shot for Valeria to introduce her as the subject for the sub-topic of  "Bottoms". So, I'm going to do that with her really quick and import it to the project. 

This what the editing is looking like right now!

I have officially finished the editing, and it's really great. I love the vibe of it, and I feel like I did a good job at editing it all together! CapCut is really easy to use. I made sure to include subtitles when it was too hard to understand or hear what was being said. I also included music and my narration. 

Editing process

 Ok so I started transferred all the files I need to edit to my USB. I renamed all the files so I wouldn't get confused when I'm editing. After I took about 30 minutes to look for non-copyright music that fit the vibes of my doc. I eventually found one that will probably be playing quietly in the background. Since the computer that I usually use for editing can support Adobe Premiere Pro anymore, I started to use PremiereRush. I was trying to boot up PremiereRush last night but no matter how long I waited for it to load, it never opened. So I'm going to try downloading CapCut on another computer because I really don't wanna deal with the lag or it crashing on me while I'm editing. I really can't afford that right now. I have a good idea of how I'm going to structure the doc. However I also need to include my narration in the excerpt, but I'm not really sure how to word it without physically seeing the final structure of my excerpt. So what I'm going to do is that I'm gonna edit and organize all the videos and edit them together and then when I'm about to finish I'm going to add in my narration. That will be my final step to the editing!

Magazine

 I have finally completed my magazine component! I think it looks really nice and that it gives a really good impression of my docuseries. Since we have to describe the goal of the docuseries I made sure to write about how I wanted to get an insight into how people demonstrate their personalities through their physical attributes. I explained how there are five episodes, and I gave the first episode a name. I named it "The Fabrics" because just naming it "Clothing" would be way too lame. I think "The Fabrics" sounds a lot cooler. I talked about how Instagram users can access the Instagram page for Window to the Soul to interact and experience some elements of the docuseries. I also included  a director's quote. Where I included a picture of myself and a short quote of mine. On the second page I included two behind the scenes photos of Valeria. I included the one where she's applying make up to get ready to be on camera and the one after the interview. This is the final look:

Instagram

 I have uploaded a bunch of Instagram posts, and it's a variety which is good. I posted a new behind the scenes post of Valeria after the interview. During the interview in the beginning when we first started filming, Valeria messed up on her words so it created a blooper for that take. I posted that blooper as an Instagram reel. 

This the blooper above! When I was posting it, I decided to add some silly background music on Instagram so that it could fit the mood of the blooper better. 

Then I started taking random combinations of clothes from my closet and set them up on my bed to create different outfits. I used my bed because my comforter is white, so I thought it would be a suitable background so that the main focus could be the clothes in the pictures. I created about five outfits and I posted two outfits. I realized that they are only considered female worn outfits so I took some clothes from my brother's room to create a masculine outfit. I posted one outfit for guys. 

This is the outfit I made from my brother's clothes!

Next I took some photos of jewelry. I gathered all my necklaces, and all my rings and I took separate photos of each of them. I organized them to look nice and pretty for the photos. However, since I don't own any earrings I borrowed Valeria's display of earrings and took a nice photo of it. I posted three Instagram posts, one for each type of jewelry. To interact with my audience I always put a question in the caption and I create a poll so that a user can interact and answer the question. 

This is a photo I took of Valeria's earring display!

This photo below is how my Instagram looks right now:

More filming

 Today we filmed the interview! Unfortunately I could not film with a tripod so I just tried to be as steady as possible. We filmed the interview in her bedroom on her bed. I had her sit near her bed frame since the background was nice and minimal. I made sure she was on the right thirds and I did a direct interview for all five questions. I used the interview questions I previously came up with earlier in the project. She gave me really good answers for each question! At the beginning she messed up her words and it turned into a blooper haha! So I posted it as a blooper on the Instagram. I put some cute silly music in the background to give it a wholesome feel. Before the interview started I took some pictures of her to post more "behind the scenes" on the Instagram. 

This is one of the photos that I took behind the scenes! It's really cute photo. 

Filming

 Today I filmed some b-roll of my sister, Valeria, for my project. I filmed b-roll of her looking through her clothes. 

I took this picture as she was getting ready for filming, I'm probably going to post this on my Instagram as a "behind the scenes post". I'll most likely do this tonight. We had a good filming session. I also got more b-roll of her room which I'm going to use to demonstrate how it adds to her personality. Since usually a person's personality can be somewhat represented through their bedroom. So, it can be a small part in conveying that for Valeria. I also had her pick out her favorite clothing items, a shirt, jeans, and shoes. She showed the camera each item in her own way. I had originally planned to conduct the interview too, however it turns out that the only tripod in my house was taken by my parents to Winterhaven. Which is where they are currently at right now. They're out of town so, I'm just going to do the interview tomorrow with Valeria and I'm going to try my absolute best at keeping the camera as still as possible. Maybe I'll prop it up somewhere instead of just holding it.
 

canva development

 Ok so I've been using Canva a lot recently to develop all the other aspects of my project. I created a title screen that displays the word "bottoms" since my excerpt is focusing on jeans. It looks really pretty, I love how it looks!

 

It's so perfect, I'm gonna use it as the opening shot for my excerpt. The rest of the other title screens that would have been in the full doc would be other colors, like blue and green. To simulate the variety of personalities. I also used Canva to get started on my print! 

This is my print so far! I love the background gradient! It's perfect. The font is a variation of Playfair Display. I decided to use the variation because it seemed more elegant and fitting for a magazine page. I also labeled it as page 2 because the first page would most likely be something else. I feel like it would be more natural for it to be page 2. I also included my byline. As for what I'm going to include on there for photos, I'll probably include a photo from behind the scenes and from the end result. I'll start writing all the info probably starting tonight.

Filming

     Yesterday my sister, Valeria, and I went out to the mall and we went around the mall to shops that she liked and I got a good amount of b-roll and and shots of her at the mall and interacting with clothes. Since she was mainly focusing on jeans I decided to focus my excerpt of clothes on jeans. I had some trouble trying to embed some of my what I filmed onto here but it's ok. Here's an establishing shot of one of the shops we went into where Valeria tried on some jeans. I'm not sure if it will play or not, but it's an establishing shot so there isn't much to see other than the sign of the shop anyways. 

This is another shot , it's just Valeria and I waiting for the fitting room I also don't know if this will load but it's whatever. 

    I'm not entirely sure if those videos will load once this post publishes but I'll check later. For the rest of this post I'll just explain how the day went. So, we arrived at the Sawgrass mall and we started off at PacSun. I was sick when we filmed this by the way, so I tried my best not to speak the entire time because it hurt and because I sounded like a completely different person. So, we went to PacSun and Valeria and I were looking around for some cute jeans for her to try on. She picked out like five I think and she went into the fitting room. Every time she tried on a different jean I filmed her review about it basically. She'd tell me and show me how the jean would fit and whether or not she liked it. It was great, her feedback was exactly what I wanted. 

    Later, we stopped by Hollister but she didn't like anything there so I just didn't film anything in there. We went to Forever21 after that and same story. Aeropostale same story. Then we took break and went to Shake Shack to eat something. Our last stop was Zumiez and I took some shots there because she ended up trying on like three jeans I think. I did the same thing I did at PacSun and filmed every item she tried on and her review about it. It was really great. Then on our way back to the car through the mall I filmed some pov shots of us walking through the mall. 

    Also I just want to put it out here that I really love how the shots came out. I love that it looks nostalgic. That's what I really wanted it to look like. It just makes it all look so raw and natural in my opinion. I'm so excited to edit it all together when I get all the footage I need.

Instagram development

 I have successfully further developed my Instagram account after the group meeting I had this week. They gave me some confidence to put out some of the ideas I had for my first two posts. 

This is how my overall account looks like, I really like it so far! I finally ended up deciding what template I wanted to use out of the ones I previously demonstrated from Canva. The only thing I changed from my template was that I added "docuseries coming soon" instead of just the "coming soon". Below I'll include more info about each of my posts!

This is the first post! I really ended up liking this one the most so I decided that I'm going to stick with the background and the font for the rest of my plans for the docuseries. When I first uploaded it I forgot to include a caption so I had to go back and edit a caption in. Oops. But it looks so cute I love it. I got my sister to like the post too. I still have yet to send the link to my account to my AICE media studies A level group chat so that they can follow and support my account too. I'll probably do that soon. 

This is the second post! It took me a while to finalize this one because I didn't think it looked right. I had a little trouble looking for a picture of myself that wasn't at school. I just wanted something that was taken outside of school. So I ended up with that picture from Valentine's day. I also had to go back to the template of my first post to find the name of the font, which is called Playfair Display, to apply it to my "meet the director" post. Since I was looking at the creation of the post for too long I started to think it looked bad, but I realized that it did look nice I was just overthinking it. So, I posted it and tagged my own Instagram account on the post. But once again I forgot to include a caption when I posted it, so I immediately went back and edited a caption into the post. Oops again..

Group meeting #2

Ok so today I had a group meeting with some of my classmates. Gabby, Emma, Alec, and Corina! They all gave me very good insights for my production. I told them the details of my project as they looked at my blog through Mrs. Stoklosa's website. I mostly just asked them for help on how to further develop my Instagram account because I wasn't really sure what else to post and stuff like that. 

 They saw my blog post where I demonstrated all the templates I had in mind for my posts and they said that they liked the aesthetic that I was trying to go for. I also asked them about what else I should post other than a "coming soon" post and a "meet the director" post. Gabby said that I should post things like outfit checks and Corina added to that by saying that I should include things that the person likes doing. That I should find some inspiration from Pinterest since there's a lot of that type of stuff on there. Which I will definitely do since I already have Pinterest. As for the outfit checks themselves, I can probably have some help from my sister and my brother by just grabbing some of their clothes and laying it out on a nice background like their bed or something. Then I could come up with a cool outfit out of the clothes that they have to do this. I could also just use my clothes too. They were also saying that my genre sounds really artsy and that I should also go for that artsy feel on my Instagram account. I see what they're trying to say and I totally agree. I really want to give me Instagram a nice artsy and aesthetic feel.

Print research

 Ok so this time for print research, I was looking at posters for docuseries and I came across a docuseries that I watched a long time ago on Netflix. It's called The Nightstalker. It's about a serial killer called Richard Ramirez. I know it's not anywhere near my genre but it is a docuseries, so the poster can somehow relate to my type of research.

This the poster for the docuseries. I feel like they did a good job at making a poster, but I feel like they also messed it up because it's makes Richard Ramirez look cool with the dash of red light on his eye. Maybe that's supposed to represent the evil within him since the light is red. I feel like they messed up with that. Like to me, Richard looks cool when he's not supposed to. I think I'd make my poster with the colorful gradient that I used for my logo. Maybe some sparkles around the corners of the poster, and for the main focus maybe one of the interviewees. I need to think about the main focus a little further. It's hard to know what you want to be the main focus of something that represents the whole piece.

Instagram

Ok so I applied the logo onto my Instagram account! 

This is how my account looks like now. I think it looks really good and fits well with the aesthetic I'm going for for the documentary. I'm gonna start posting on Monday, with the coming soon post. Then I'll probably start posting more posts about "behind the scenes" since I'm gonna start filming more b-roll and footage of the interviewees. On Sunday I'm supposed to go out with my sister to the mall to get some b-roll of her shopping at the mall. There might be a possibility that it won't happen because of rides. Like, my whole family except my sister and I are home, so it's a little difficult to coordinate with help from my family members. Because I have a shift on Sunday from 5:30-11:00PM, and my plan was to go to the mall with her earlier before my shift and end it when my shift ends, so that I can just go straight to work. And my brother would go and pick her up from the mall since he usually stays home during the weekends. However, he isn't home this weekend, he's with my parents. So this complicates things. I have no idea how it's gonna work if we do end up doing it, but I'll keep you updated!

Production/Instagram

I've started filming some b-roll! I filmed some b-roll of clothes around my house, since I'm sure that I'll film my project on the topic of clothes. I filmed my closet, my sister's closet, my brother's closet, and my parent's closet. I filmed four second still shots for each. I also took a still shot of my jeans cabinet. This Sunday, before my shift at Hollister, I'm going to go shopping with my sister to get b-roll of the mall and more clothes and shots of my sister shopping. I also started creating some designs for my Instagram page. I'm kinda nervous about that since I haven't posted anything at all. But I was editing them on canva. 

This is the logo that I created! I think it's really cute and it accurately represents what my documentary is about. The colorful gradient in the background is meant to represent the types of personalities that are within every person, and like kind of the aura of each personality. How everyone is so colorful. I put the window in the center to represent the title of the documentary and so it can symbolize the action of being let into a person's personal insights to their personality and their true self. Now I just have to put that as my profile picture on my Instagram. After I created my logo, I started making different templates for the type of Instagram posts that I'd want to post on my account. I want it to really be the aesthetic that I want, so I made multiple.

Ok so all these are the ones that I created, so I really need to pick one so that it can be the basis for the rest of my Instagram posts. As you can see these specific templates are meant for a "coming soon" post for my documentary. I'll probably get my friend's opinions on which one they like the most and I'll pick the one that gets the most picks because I like all of them equally.

Production

 Ok so today I had a shift at Hollister, and I didn't really have much time to record since I had to rush to work. However, after my shift I took two shots of the outside area of the Sawgrass mall. In the parking lot area. I'm probably gonna use those shots as establishing shots for my documentary. Before I left for my shift I was making sure that my digital camera was fully charged and everything. When I was doing this I realized that the camera wasn't turning on which scares me a bit. Though I eventually realized that it was because I had inserted the battery the wrong way. So after I fixed that, I inserted the correct time and date on the camera. I also recorded a short video to test for audio quality and camera quality. After I recorded it, I checked it out and it was pretty decent. Like its not pristine quality, but it's not horrible either. I can work with it! 

Group meeting

  

So today we had a group meeting in class where we all shared stuff about each of our portfolio projects. It was with my classmates, Corina, Julia, Zain, and Samantha. When it was my turn to tell them about my project they gave me really helpful criticism. They told me that I should focus on only one aspect of a physical appearance for each episode of my episodic documentary. They said that if I focused on too many aspects in one episode, it would be too overwhelming and just too much to fit in one episode. That it would be better to space it out more by assigning a different aspect of a physical appearance for each episodic episode. Zain said that she thinks that if I decide to choose the clothing aspect for my portfolio, that it would be pretty difficult to choose what to include in the 5 minute excerpt. Since clothing is a very big aspect of a person and how they express themselves. Clothing is a very broad aspect and choosing the right things to be in the 5 minute excerpt could be a challenge. I didn't really think about that at all before she mentioned it. However I still feel like going the clothing route will be the best idea at conveying the whole topic of my documentary. Plus I also feel like it's the most fun aspect of an appearance to document. Corina also recommended me to interview the president of the Fashion Club at Cypress. Apparently she knows a lot about fashion and she dresses very fashionista. That idea really got my attention, but I need to think about how I'd incorporate it into my project. Their criticism actually helped me a lot though, they told me things I didn't even think about!

Planning

 Ok so originally I was going to buy a digital camera to film my project, but I talked to my mom and turns out we have a digital camera! She kind of taught me how to charge to battery and how to insert the memory card. The bag had a few memory cards so we were going through them on my dad's laptop to see which ones were empty. Three of them were empty, two of them were 1GB and the last one is 4GB so I'm going to use that one. This weekend I work on Saturday and Sunday. So I'm going to use the fact that I'm going to be in the mall to my advantage, and I'm going to start recording some b-roll of clothes around the mall. As I previously mentioned in one of my blog posts, I'm gonna record around Hollister since that's where I work. 

This is my digital camera!

Social media

 So it was about time that I created a social media account for my project! I created it today on Instagram. I put my username as the.windowtothesoul. Creating the social media account helped me finalize the name that I want as my title for my docuseries. I really want to call it "Window to the Soul". I think it fits really well with the topic of my docuseries. People usually refer to the eyes as the window to the soul because a person's eyes can be pretty expressive of what their emotional state is. Since my docuseries is about how people express their personality through their physical appearance, I think that the phrase the window to the soul works really well for what I'm trying to convey through my project. 

This is what I have so far, I still need to come up with the logo for my docuseries. My mind is still blank for that, as for the posts I'll most likely start posting some time next week. I need to start getting followers on the account so I'm going to send the link of the account to the AICE media studies group chat that my classmates and I have for the class to gain some followers. I feel like my first few posts can be like a "what I wear in a day" type of post and the caption can be something like "which outfit is the best?" so that it can be interactive with the audience. Later on I'll also create posts of "behind the scenes" stuff. 

Planning for interviews

 Interview questions:

1. How do you convey aspects of your personality through your favorite items?

2.  How did you develop your sense of style over the years?

3. What or who inspired you to dress the way you do and how has it impacted you as a person?

4. How do you want people to view you based off of the way you express yourself through your physical appearance?

5. Do you think your physical appearance accurately represents the person you enjoy being/ the person you aspire to be?

Coming up with my interview questions was kind of a challenge. Mostly because I had to constantly remind myself of the main point of my documentary, and that my questions should stay on topic and be specific. I feel like my fifth question isn't as strong as I want it to be. I think I'm gonna tweak it a little later if I find a better way to word it. While I was coming up with my questions I also had to make sure that each question was asking something different for the interviewee to describe and explain. I think that ,\my questions do a good job at getting out the information I need from my interviewees. Though I'll confirm that with Mrs. Stoklosa when I have my meeting with her.