Beginning but digitally

Hi Blogger! As I mentioned in my previous post, I am slightly nervous about beginning to develop my social media page. Although I have my idea and kinda sorta have plans for the Instagram content as well as marketing campaign, I want to ensure that it accurately depicts my piece while also being aesthetically pleasing in order to satisfy my control freak needs. I have been attempting to come up with a look for the feed, therefore, I have been creating a variety of designs that I could potentially implement on my Instagram page through Canva. 

Something that I desire for within the digital aspect of my portfolio project is an organized and layering look. Therefore, I found a Canva template that could represent how I would like my feed to like organization wise. 

                                                                            For example...

                                                                          

Although my title is The Roots of a Flower: Our Underlying Insecurities, I wanted to make a tagline in order to tease what I will be producing to provide audience engagement to look forward to what will be coming next so that they're invested in watching the documentary develop and unfold. Therefore, I came up with What you can't see wont hurt you in order to reference what topic my documentary will be discussing, insecurities. 

I feel much better about my project now that I have an overall theme and marketing campaign to develop, therefore, I will be posting these designs on my Instagram page by the end of this week which I am super excited about. Although I have an idea of what I want it to look like now, I want to consistently stay active that way my audience is engaged and is looking forward to what is to come. As a result, I have started to brainstorm potential posts that I could also include within my Instagram page. 

Instagram Post Ideas

These are a few examples of some posts that I find visually appealing that I could potentially include within my own social media for my episodic documentary.

In order to get all of the ideas circling in my head more organized, I found it really help to jot down these ideas that way first of all do not forget them but also to make a schedule for each week on what should be posted that way the Instagram is constantly active. 

Brainstorming for social media

In addition to that, I also created some other Canva designs to brainstorm what I can include on my social media page. I really enjoyed testing out what I could possibly include throughout this template and I plan on making the rest of my social media page match this theme that way my brand is more recognizable.

Minor Setback

When I was attempting to make the Instagram, the verification code was not working after many attempts which caused the account to say that it was suspended. Therefore, I will be waiting for the appeal email. However, if it takes too long, I will have to find another phone number or email to use that way I can begin posting on the Instagram account. 

Despite these current events, I am really excited to start posting and I have a lot of faith within my ideas for content. Although I was stuck at first, I really like the theme that I have developed I am exciting to continue to further my marketing campaign through the Instagram page.

Social Media

Hi Blogger! Even though you have been seeing a lot of research, it is going to continue! However, this time, it is not about the genre of episodic documentaries but about the social media that promotes the film to gain an audience :)  Just because I am not shy of social media does not mean I do not still have to learn more about it. Although I follow my fair share of social media accounts, I do not often come across social media marketing campaigns on platforms. Even though we had a lecture about having a social media page within our portfolio project, it will definitely make me feel more comfortable researching what an episodic documentary's instagram typically looks like.

                                                       Notes from lecture about social media

If I am going to be completely transparent, even though I feel pretty organized so far throughout this process, I am a bit overwhelmed (primarily due to the creation with the digital aspect of social media). I have an idea of about the title, however, I am unsure about the structure, potential subjects, the marketing campaign, theme ideas, and a ton of other stuff I must accomplish within my portfolio project. Therefore, I hope by understanding what a social media page for an episodic documentary should look like, it will help me with the creation of my own social media page for my portfolio project. Throughout this research, I hope to better understand what a typical post would look like, unique ideas for audience engagement through this page, and a variety of other inclusions within my instagram page for my episodic documentary.

                                                                        Chef's Table (2015)

Having already done previous research with this piece, I resorted back to it for my social media research since this page has over 328,000 followers, which is a large number for a Netflix original. After scrolling through the feed, I was surprised that most of the content displayed throughout the pages was simply dishes made by the chefs featured within the show. I believe this is due to the social media page attempting to be engaging towards their target audience, those who love unique and intricate food dishes, through their display of authentic creations. Furthermore, they use captivating captions quoted by popular chefs. For instance, "He considers fire to be a paintbrush rather than a hammer", "I'm not afraid to break something to make something better", and "Life's too short to worry about how many cookies I ate today" are all quotes used to inspire and relate to their target audience. Along with their appealing dishes for their target audience, they also provide their target audience with bright coloring and bold graphics in order to appeal to the idea.  

                                                

                                                How To With John Wilson (2020)

       

Although I had not previously discussed this episodic documentary, I really admired this pieces consistent marketing campaign. To give a brief synopsis, How To With John Wilson is a humorous episodic documentary where a filmmaker named John Wilson offers his insight on everyday human obstacles with his unique mindset, discussing his own experiences, and overall an exploration into the world and its society. In this documentary series' marketing campaign, it offers a minimalistic and simple style with the use of a light/beige color scheme. The page offers engagement primarily through the thumbnail of their short videos on the page (also known as Reels). Some title names include "How to watch birds", "How to watch the game", "How to work out", and many other "How to" titles in order to have the audience have a better understanding of what would be included within this documentary as well as engagement to want viewers to understand John Wilson's insight. Throughout the posts within this social media page, it is clear that their main center of the show is John Wilson due to majority of the posts either having him as the thumbnail or him being featured within the Reels. 

After conducting research about various social media pages centered around episodic documentaries, I feel a bit more comfortable within understanding what my feed should look like for my portfolio project. Even though I had not decided on a theme yet, I am glad I have an understanding of what posts these pages typically consist of. Throughout this research, I was able to gather that I would like to see a consistent marketing campaign, audience engagement, snippets, teasers, and other unique marketing strategies that I have viewed within my research. Over this next week, I will be continuing to observe social media pages for episodic documentaries while also working on planning what my own episodic documentary will look like that way I can develop my overall theme and social media in my upcoming endeavors. Until next time!

Even more research

 Hi Blogger! Are we surprised about what this post will be about? The only right answer is no. In this blog post, I am going to delve even further within what I should potentially be including within my episodic documentary for portfolio project. Even after just researching a few episodic documentaries within my later blog post, I am already gaining so much information of aspects that I can include within my own portfolio project. Therefore, I will be looking at even more episodic documentaries to ensure that I know everything I can about the genre to ensure that the genre is captured to the best of its ability within my portfolio project. Even though I know this research is beneficial to the future of this project, I cannot wait to discuss some ideas that have been coming to mind recently that I will be speaking upon within the next week. As of now, I have to finish this portion of the project off strong with what I know best, research. 

                                                                      Home Game (2020)

This episodic documentary focuses on a different unfamiliar sport each episode while delving into different cultural traditions taking place to enlighten their audience with insight into a unique sport's roots, importance etc. Some episode examples are Scotland's highland games, Kyrgyzstan's Kok Boru, and a variety of other unknown activities that have a hook on their home country. This show not only not only discusses lesser known sports but also explores human relationships and a passion for culture. Throughout my research process, I have also been looking specifically at how episodes are structured as well as their titles in order to understand the overall outlines of episodic documetaries. 

Episode Examples

I especially admired this series cinematography and interview shots. Many of the colors, shots, and angles displayed gave me a lot of inspiration for potential ideas that I could implement within my own portfolio project. In my own episodic documentary for my portfolio project, I would really love to create a good sequence and pacing within interview shots while also making them unique to provide engagement within my target audience. While watching interview clips from Home Game, I admired their choices made as I believe certain decisions that they made work well very well within my own project. 

Shot Examples

For instance, I really like how up close and personal this shot is while the subject is looking in another direction. Therefore, I would love to keep this in my mind for shots that I could implement within my own portfolio project.

I would love to implement low angles, therefore, I was really interested in implementing a shot similar to this one.

Song Explorer (2020)

This episodic documentary stars a different hit song each episode and explains the process of how each musician composed their music. Some features including writing, recording, and producing. The documentary stars infamous artists such as Alicia Keys, Lin Manuel Miranda, R.E.M., and others within the industry as they recount how they made their successful music. This show allows to fans to see the behind the scenes events that occur throughout artists' creations which is similar to what I want to do within my own portfolio project as my episodic documentary will be surrounding a behind the scenes look into a subject's personal life, thoughts, feelings, emotions, experiences, etc. 

I had previously seen this style of colorization within other documentaries, however, I especially liked how they used this style within this episodic documentary. I am unsure what type of colorization I would like to do within my own portfolio project, however, I am interested in possibly embarking with experimentation with brighter colors to allow for as much audience engagement as possible. Furthermore, I really liked the use of the over the shoulder shot demonstrated as I believe I were to use this type of shot within my own project, it will give a very personal vibe that would make my target audience feel more comfortable and allow for a sense of relatability.

After continued lengthy research within my intended genre, episodic documentaries, I feel prepared to work on my own portfolio project, This upcoming week, I intend on following my planned schedule that I made last week which is researching social media pages and planning posts that way I understand and potentially have an outline within my portfolio project through the use of possible subjects, storyboards, brainstorming, charts, and other aspects that can contribute to the creation of my portfolio project. Until next time!

Research

Hi Blog! As I had mentioned in my previous blog post, I have chosen a genre for my portfolio project. In order to learn more about episodic documentaries, I am going to delve deeper into the characteristics and conventions that go along with this somewhat unfamiliar genre. Therefore, I am going to look at specific episodic documentaries to understand what the genre entails and how I can make my portfolio project fit the look of an episodic documentary. For the episodic documentaries that I chose to research, I tried to pick ones that I had a different topic per episode since that matches what I will be implementing within my portfolio project. 

                                                       The Playbook (2020)

The Playbook is an episodic documentary that captures the philosophy behind life lessons and coaching styles behind a variety of infamous sports coaches such as Doc Rivers (NBA Coach), Jill Ellis (Soccer Coach), Patrick Mouratoglou (Tennis Coach), and Vince Lombardi. With the lessons being displayed throughout this documentary, the show emphasizes how these lessons can be used in the sports, personal aspects, and even professional fields. Each episode stars a different coach as they discuss their morals and beliefs in order to inspire others to attempt to do the same. The series is a collection of interviews, archived footage, and personal accounts, which all fall under conventions that a episodic documentary may include. While researching this Netflix documentary, I found a few shots that I was especially interested in and may want to implement within my own portfolio project. 

Specific Shots from The Playbook (2020)

Street Food: Latin America (2020)

Street Food is a documentary that captures the variety of Latin America street food along with its celebrated culture. Just a few inclusions within this documentary are the flavors within this food, the history behind Latin American countries, and personal stories about people within this industry. Each episode discusses a different county with a different speaker featuring locations such as Buenos Aires, Argentina, Salvador, Brazil, and many more Latin American countries.

These episodes focus on one individual subject, their personal stories, setbacks, and other experiences that they have had within the industry. This documentaries philosophy is that it is not just about the food but the personal stories behind it and they try to make that message clear within each episode. Some features within this episodic documentary that can be potential characteristics within my episodic documentary for my portfolio project is a soundtrack featuring local music within the countries for a more personal effect, emotional aspects, cinematography that captures the essence within the latin country, a behind-the-scenes feel, a sense of community, and other features that make this piece feel more personalized. 

Specific Shots from Street Food: Latin America (2020)

After delving deeper into specific episodic documentaries, I have gained a lot of inspiration for my portfolio project as I now have a greater understanding of what shots, representations, and other aspects that I should include within my project. However, before I can delve deeper into what my episodic documentary will look like, I am going to need even more research behind what I will be producing. Until next time!

An unsurprising change of plans

Hi Blogger! Although I liked the idea of my initial episodic crime documentary that I discussed in my blog posts last week, I am a little bit unsure if I could realistically implement my idea. Due to it being fiction, I believe that would take away from the conventions within the genre that I had researched last week about episodic documentaries. Therefore, this week, I plan on brainstorming other potential ideas and researching about conventions within documentaries that I could implement within my portfolio project. I do not feel like I am behind, however, I feel slightly stuck in a rut since I am hearing discussions within my class that many already have their set idea in mind and are creating storyboards as well as scripts within their process. However, I am attempting to not compare myself to others and just keep moving forward within this process.

In order to organize my ideas, I made a brainstorming planning sheet to get my ideas on paper to be able to visualize and know my interests for what I would like to implement.

I was a little bit stuck after my first brainstorming piece since I did not have any other ideas I could think about after writing about an idea that I was passionate about. However after evaluating it, it could not work. Therefore, I began to list topics that I am passionate about that way I could create a documentary that I would be motivated to make and that would express ideas that interest me to make myself enjoy the process so much more.

Something that never been my strong suit is creativity. Not to say the inspiration is a negative thing that is being done, I always find myself being a little bit too inspired by other pieces and therefore not coming up with own ideas and plans at times. For my portfolio project, I want to change this by creating something that is strictly specific to me, my interests, what I enjoy, in order to produce something that I am proud of. 

As I began to list these different "passions" of mine, it ending up turning into something different that became a happy accident. I started to list my experiences rather than things that I enjoy since I thought that relatability would be extremely beneficial within creating my portfolio project. After listing things from the past that have shaped me into the person I am today, I thought about the topic of insecurities. I struggled a lot with insecurities starting around middle school and I still struggle with them today. However, I have been able to manage my feelings about them much better I believe by making a documentary about how to handle these emotions can improve how others feel within themselves. 

Although I do not have all of the details figured out, I am really interested in taking on this idea and plan on talking to Stoklosa to see what she thinks about my plans. Even though I am very excited to jump into this idea that is loaded with potential, one of my biggest regrets within my portfolio project last year was that I did not have enough research done within my film opening. Therefore, I want to do things differently this time around by researching everything I possibly could to ensure that this project is lived up to its fullest potential. Until next time!

Planning, planning, planning

 Hey Blogger! In order to do everything for my portfolio project efficiently, it feels right to map out a plan of what should be taking place each week. Due to my insanely busy schedule, making a calendar is going to make me feel much better about what each week is going to look like, how I am going to stay productive, and how I am consistently going to be on task. Although I have placed specific days of the week I am going to do a task, my schedule moves around a lot so I am expecting for certain days to be changed when I have to get certain blog posts done. Despite this, creating the calendar has helped my brain spread out these assignments in not only a cute way by using a minimalistic Canva calender, but being able to visualize everything that must get done in my to-do list that way I can plan accordingly.    

Although I have an idea in mind and now have a map to match what I plan on doing each week, I am still considering other ideas about my portfolio project. Therefore, for the next week I will be also be brainstorming other possible ideas while creating storyboards, layouts, drawings, etc. in order to understand exactly what I would like to produce within my portfolio project. 

After this past week of researching episodic documentaries, I am sure that I want to take on that component within the portfolio project. Due to this, I will definitely be continuing my research on episodic documentaries that way I can be more knowledgable while producing my portfolio project and know more about what conventions and details the genre entails.

To-Do list for Week 2 (2/17-2/23)

- Brainstorm other possible ideas 

- Create storyboards for ideas I may come up with

-Continue research about episodic documentaries

-Research sub-genres I could potentially produce

Until next time!

Genre Research for Documentary

 Before I get ahead of myself, I wanted to delve deeper into the genre that I have chose to surround my portfolio project around. Although my class had a lot of time dedicated to studying documentaries, I wanted to understand more in depth what details and characteristics I should include within my documentary for my portfolio project. We had already discussed documentaries such as American Promise (2013), Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010), and were even introduced to the concept of episodic documentaries (which is something that I should be knowledgable about since my portfolio project is an excerpt from an episodic documentary.) Therefore, I wanted  my documentary research to be primarily surrounded by episodic documentaries since we had discussed it in class before, however, I want to be more knowledgable about what should be addressed and specific conventions that it may include.

Episodic documentaries consist of episodes that include an entire story with a beginning, middle, and end. They may have effects such as cliffhangers to keep their audience engaged throughout the series. Other conventions may include the episodes building upon each other, varying interviews of what is happening in that specific episode (a variety of subjects would be included within the series), consistent visual style, personal stories, fast paced episodes in order to receive the entire story, evolution,  and many other aspects that I could include within my documentary for my portfolio project. 

                                                            Episodic Documentary Examples

Chef's Table (2015)

Chef's Table is an episodic documentary series that stars a different highly acclaimed international chef each episode. Chef's Table includes the insight into the unique lives of these successful chefs, their talents for creating cuisine, and what inspired them to create their notorious dishes. Examples of chefs that have been featured on Chef's Table are Massimo Bottura with his restaurant Osteria Francescana, Dominique Crenn with his restaurant Atelier Crenn, and Grant Achatz with his restaurant Alinea. Some episodic characteristics within this documentary include a self-contained narrative, a deep dive into each different chef per episode, high quality cinematography, and a variety of philosophies that the chef's have towards the concept of cooking.

Our Planet (2019)

Our Planet is a documentary that covers and captures the beauty within our ecosystem while also including the environmental damages that earth is enduring. Featuring 8 different episodes, Our planet contains incredible cinematography and stunning shots of wildlife in their habitats. Each episode contains a different setting within the environment. For instance, it may discuss forests, deserts, oceans, and a variety of other places existing in nature. Different episode titles include Forest, High Seas, Grasslands, Deserts, and more in order for viewers to understand that each episode discusses a different topic and has a beginning, middle, and end. Some episodic features that our planet contains are stunning visuals, poignant storytelling, and a wide range of themes.

After doing a more in depth look into what features may be included within an episodic documentary, I believe it will allow me to have a better understanding of some effects and conventions that I should include within my own portfolio project. By using the knowledge that I have since gained, I will be able to begin storyboarding what I want to be featured within my episodic documentary.

It's all starting again!

 Hey Blogger!! It's been been a minute but here we are. Yesterday in class we went over our portfolio project. Of course I was expecting to begin soon but this all came up so fast. Despite this, I am really excited to begin this process once again but this time in A Level. I loved blogging last year in AS Level so I am really happy to be back on here. When we were taking notes on the portfolio project last class, all of the different choices that we had seemed extremely interesting and I believe that there is so much opportunity and creativity within them. 

                                                                Notes on portfolio project

 I am definitely considered all of the choices, however, I am really leaning towards doing a 5 minute excerpt from a documentary. I really enjoyed learning about documentaries towards the beginning of the school year and actually getting to create a documentary was even more exciting. I would really like have another chance to create a documentary after doing one earlier in the school year since I believe with more planning, the outcome may have been better. I would love to be able to do it again but this time on a larger scale to ensure that it is everything that I would want and more. 

Despite knowing what genre that I would like to participate in, I am unsure of exactly what my plan is going to be. While learning about the different types of projects that we could create for our portfolio projects, an idea came to mind for what I would like to do.  However, I am unsure of exactly what I would like to do with it or how I am going to implement it. Therefore, I am going to need some advice on how I am going to approach my idea. 

                                                                             Brainstorm

To summarize the brainstorming, my 5 minute episodic documentary excerpt would star two subjects who are teenage stepbrothers that live in a fictional town where unsolved crime cases happen to be extremely common. Each episode they would be solving a different case to have the characteristics remain with an episodic documentary. I am unsure of exactly what an episode would look like (which is an important aspect within this type of portfolio project.) The subjects interviews would be filmed by themselves and their purpose for filming would be to use for future use to the authorities when discussing their cases. I have many unanswered questions and details so I have a lot to think about but I so far like my idea (I think, I do not know I am indecisive.)

I was heavily inspired by some of my favorite documentary series, Dateline and Worst Ex Ever, as I really admire the way they're developed and the B-roll that is included. As of now, I am planning on working within the crime genre, therefore, I would like to do more research on what the genre entails in order to understands its conventions and characteristics. Although I am fond of the idea I created within my brainstorming, I am definitely going to continue to come up with other ideas that I could potentially surround my portfolio project around. 

I am super excited to keep documenting about my process as I know that there is so much to do and so many things to consider. This week, I plan on coming up with other ideas that I could potentially do. As of now, I really like my idea that I came up with so I want to delve deeper in its details and planning. Through the use of storyboards, I plan on making a few quick drafts that way I can get somewhat of an outline that way I can understand what I am producing. I cannot wait to see where this takes me. Until next time!