The Final Cut

    Music Progression

Our piece goes through a rollercoaster of emotions. Towards the beginning, we used more light-hearted and innocent music to match up with what Martina was discussing regarding the beginning of her musical theater journey. 

This captured Martina's joy for her passion and overall how she feels about being able to pursue what she dreams of. 

As documentary continues, there is a tone shift with the music to represent that even though you have a love for something that you care about, it comes with hardship. The scenes that we included of Martina struggling to create the perfect video for her pre-screen captures the idea that with passions comes with side-effects that can be difficult to handle at times.

As we see these hardships happen to Martina, the music begins to become less enthusiastic to match up with the scenes of Martina becoming more and more frustrated with having to film her pre-screen videos for what feels like a million times. The music emphasizes that Martina is not easy and that even though she loves it, that does not mean it easy all the time.

Although we show Martina's difficult times throughout her musical theater journey, we ended with Martina's purpose for what she loves, why she does it, and why she believes that is is worth it. Through this demonstration, the solemn music fades to demonstrate the happiness that Martina feels from getting to perform. 

The music was not too loud of distracting, however, it played a key role into our documentary. The music was similar to B-Roll as it matched with the scene being displayed and helped establish the tone shift that occurred throughout the documentary. We did not want to make the sound too loud or over-bearing that way the primary focus within the documentary can be what Martina is talking about and what she has to say about the progression of her process regarding musical theater journey.

Interviews from Martina's Mom

Another inclusion that we also added was In-Direct interviews with Martina's mom. Having an outside perspective from somebody who was actively involved within Martina's journey and process was a great touch that I believe we added. We also included a conversation that Martina had with her mom where Martina's mom gets emotional overall her daughter's college process. Having these moments of them two together truly demonstrates a deeper meaning within our intentions and purpose of this documentary. By seeing how this process effects not only Martina but her mom shows the audience how much these means to them and how important this situation feels to them. 

We were unsure if we wanted to include anybody's parents, even from the initial brainstorming of this documentary. This primarily was due to us not having a complete idea of what our intentions would be within this documentary. I was slightly worried that it would take away from the main topic of the pre-screen process and achieving a BFA in musical theater. However, I am glad we did this because this allowed for separate perspective about views and opinions regarding Martina's experience. Martina's moms side within exploring this topic allowed the audience to understand not just from Martina on how difficult this process but that is also effecting her mom as well. Watching her mom's reactions to what she is going through gives the audience a realization that this process goes beyond Martina's perspective.

Final Thoughts

All of these aspects that went into making this piece all came together in order to create a deeper meaning in regards to what Martina is experiencing. Even the smallest details, whether it was background music or voiceovers, all came together to demonstrate our purpose our documentary about inspiring people of all ages to follow their passion no matter how intense or grueling it may be at times. I believe our documentary effectively does this within all aspects between what Martina has to say, what her mom has to say, demonstrations of what she was going through, it all came together beautifully and I am really thrilled that we created an impactful piece that we're proud of. 

I am so lucky and grateful to have worked with Martina and Isabel throughout every step of this process. Between brainstorming, researching, and filming, we produced a documentary that greatly captures such an unseen process that DEFINITELY needs to be discussed for within the media since it rarely heard of yet takes so much hard work and dedication (credits to everyone who has to go through the prescreen process) Overall, I really enjoyed working on this documentary and am super happy with the way that it came out. 

Until next time!