Starting the Print Component

 Now that most of my editing is complete and I am continuously working on my social media page, I want to begin work on the print component of my project. As mentioned in previous blog posts, the print component for the documentary excerpt is a magazine spread. In my research about the magazine spread (linked here), I talked about what ideas I had for my own spread. In this blog posts, I am going to being to bring those ideas to life. 

I started looking on a creation platform that I am very comfortable with and that was recommended for me to use by my advisor Mrs. Stoklosa. This platform is called Canva. With Canva, you can pretty much create anything from posters, instagram posts, flyers, and even magazine covers and spreads. Canva has templates for your various projects so, I began to look for magazine spread templates. I found two that I liked, both for fashion magazines. I liked the placement of photos and text for both so I combined each page to create my two page spread. I rearranged some of the text and photos for the second page to add a large quote and more photos which will make my spread more varied while still having conventions of a typical magazine spread. 

This is the template I chose for the first page of the spread

This is the template I chose for the second page of the spread

My next step is to look for photos. Because I am choosing to do a topic-focused magazine spread, most of the pictures are going to be of the subjects in my documentary excerpt. I also want to include pictures of pride flags and people waving them around proudly. Because I have not written the story yet, this is subject to change as the pictures will reflect what is being told but this is the general idea I have. I would also like for the spread to include a lot of color because rainbows are a big symbol of the LGBTQIA+ community. Creating this spread will tie my entire project together and will enhance the message of my documentary which is telling queer stories and uplifting LGBTQIA+ voices. 

“I believe all Americans who believe in freedom, tolerance, and human rights have a responsibility to oppose bigotry and prejudice based on sexual orientation.” 

— Coretta Scott King

Social Media Update

 While I have been filming, editing, and planning, I have also been adding to the Instagram page I created to promote my documentary. In this blog post, I am going to explain what I have posted and what I plan to post in the future. 

Like I detailed in my previous post about by Instagram account, I have been creating activism posts about raising awareness for LGBTQIA+ issues. I did a post about the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that was passed into law in Florida as well as resources for people to educate themselves on LGBTQIA+ topics or for LGBTQIA+ youth to have help or reach out for guidance. Since then, I have posted a quote by Marsha P. Johnson saying “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us!” This is an iconic quote by a trailblazer in the LGBTQIA+ movement and I used it to explain a little bit about her and who she is. The following posts have all been about the documentary. I posted the logo and explained what my documentary series is all about: the topics it would cover, its length, and its purpose. I also posted some of the filming process. I posted the set up of my interview with Tasha as well as B-roll of Tasha and their friends playing at the park, highlighting the fun they are having being themselves with their friends. My most recent post showed my editing process and that production for the piece is underway. This post will get people excited that the final product is coming soon and that they will finally be able to watch it.

One of the Instagram posts I’ve made

My upcoming posts will be the other five subjects of my documentary. I plan to do a personalized post for each person who would be considered a subject for the documentary. I have been asking some of my friends in the LGBTQIA+ community and I have enough people who are willing and available to be apart of it. I will take pictures of them for the Instagram when school starts again next week. This is so I can ensure everyone will be here and available. For these posts, I plan for them to have a white background, a picture of the subject, their name, the title of the episode, and their pride flag on the side of the photo. This would make the topic of the episode clear and highlight the subject’s identity. I also plan to post these as an Instagram highlight so they are front and center on the page. 

An example of the subject posts

After I post this, I plan to follow my social media schedule and create a poster for the project to post on the platform. I also plan to create a space for queer youth to share quotes and stories of their experience to uplift their voices and give them a platform to share and speak their minds. Incorporating interactive aspects on the platform like that, as well as pride flag phone lock screens and stickers can increase activity on my page and further promote my documentary. 

I’m excited to continue work on my social media page and spread the word of my project to wider audiences!

“The reason the rainbow flag endures is because people own it. It means something to them.” 

- Gilbert Baker

Editing Update Pt. 2

 I’ve finished editing (mostly)! Let me explain. Because I am currently on spring break, I was going to use  the time I had to edit my documentary, which is what I did. Once I finished, I was going to show my friends and peers to provide feedback and make the necessary changes that they suggest because I know it’s not perfect. So while my documentary is pretty much finished, there are still small edits to make that will make the excerpt better than what it is now. 

While it’s established that I finished the main editing for my excerpt, let me detail what else I did to do so. I started from where I left off, adding the B-Roll. With my new technique of downloading the clips directly from my iCloud, I had no issues with the clips being discolored or taking too long to edit. I added a few more clips, and that part was done. However, because I had changed the sequence and render settings of the entire project, the color was a bit too bright for the other angle of Tasha’s interview but the fix was easy and didn’t cause me too many problems. I was able to adjust it to look seamless from the main angle of the interview. 

After that, I added the title cards for each interviewee. I added their name, age, and pronouns and made sure all the information was correct. Once I confirmed it with all of the different subjects, I moved on to the music. I’m going to be honest, I didn’t like the way the documentary flowed with the music. Maybe it was the songs I picked out or the piece itself but I ended up not including it. I am however, going to ask my friends and peers that critique my piece if they feel it needs music. If they say it does, I will look for a different song that fits the piece and include it. 

My entire editing timeline

That was all I had to do, so it’s pretty much done! While editing had its up and downs, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Although I don’t think it’s perfect and could be refined more, I think my excerpt is solid and portrays the necessary themes and messages that I set out to highlight in the documentary. 

“Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.” 

- Brené Brown

Listening to Music

 As I am editing, I feel like something is missing throughout the documentary and that's music. Music adds depth and tone to media and I feel it will do the same to my piece. While I don't plan on utilizing it throughout the entire excerpt, I want to include it in some (especially pivotal or serious) moments in the documentary. This blog post will highlight my process for choosing the song I use in my production.

All of the music choices are copyright-free and in the public domain. Although using a popular song, especially one by a queer musician would be cool, I don't have enough time to await a response from them so I am going to use what I have at my disposal. 

I started searching online, and the first place I checked was the same website where I found my track from my portfolio project last year, pixabay. Pixabay has a lot of great royalty-free, mostly instrumental, pieces to choose from. After searching for a bit, I found "Inspiring Cinematic Background Music For Videos" by Lesfm. Although it is generic, it is what I'm looking for. It's neutral yet uplifting and sets a good tone for my piece. As I said, I am likely not using it throughout my entire piece, just snippets and the song shows a good balance of highs and lows that could elevate my piece. It is linked here or here. 

I also found a song called "Calm Documentary" by LexIn_Music" on the same website. This song also has a neutral tone but is more positive than most others I've listened to in the category. Like the other song I mentioned, it also has a good range of ups and downs to showcase the full emotions of the interview. It does have a different feel and vibe compared to the other song, which I'm not sure would be incorporated well, but I'll just have to test it to find out! I like this song and am curious to see how well it would accompany my piece. It is linked here or here. 

Finding music for my documentary proved to be difficult as it was hard to find songs that I felt captured the mood and feeling of my piece. The music was either too sad or too happy with very little in between, except for the two songs linked here. Although I prefer the first song, I will test them both in my documentary and see which one works best. I am excited to see how music will elevate my documentary further. 

"I think being gay is a blessing, and it's something I am thankful for every single day."

- Anderson Cooper

Editing Update Pt.1

 I’ve now moved my main focus of the project to editing! I have been editing for almost two days straight and while I am getting results, I am having a lot more technical issues than I originally anticipated. This post is going to detail my editing process thus far; what I have done and what’s left. 

The editing process started off smoothly after a couple of snags in the road. My flash drive (which I have been using since seventh grade) finally gave out on me, so the progress I had made editing Tasha’s interview had to be scrapped because I was unable to add or save anything to it. It was also becoming harder to work with, so I started over. This wasn’t that much of a major setback so it was okay. I put the interview back together made the necessary cuts, which didn’t take that long, and began working on the other interviews. I uploaded them to the project, then got to work cutting them down and arranging them in a cohesive order. This took quite a bit of time as I had to keep rearranging them so the answers made sense and looked clear. Once I finished that, and the main part of editing was done, I felt good about how the project was turning out and confident that maybe I would finish editing quicker than I expected. Then the B-roll happened.

Importing the B-roll into my project has been a struggle. Almost all of my B-roll footage looked too bright. Obviously, I couldn’t reshoot most of it, but I did reshoot some of it. The shots that I got in the classroom at school were pretty much unusable. The lighting is horrible both on Premiere Pro and on my phone, so I went to Tasha’s to quickly reshoot the footage of them individually such as, them looking at middle school photos and researching asexuality. I am also going to reshoot the shot of their family photos because that too, is unusable. Because most of my B-roll came out too bright, I used the internet as a guide but it didn't do much. I’ve had issues with lighting in my footage like this before but never on this scale with so many clips. With help from the internet, I have adjusted some of the sequence and render settings which have helped somewhat but not a whole lot. I thought I had to adjust the settings on every single clip and with rendering each clip taking twenty minutes, I was really struggling and morale was not high. That was until I solved the problem. 

I started thinking more about how I've had lighting issues for footage before but never with so many at once and how only certain footage looked bad. I then thought of how I downloaded them onto my computer. My iCloud storage was full so I sent them to myself on iMessage and then saved them to a Google Drive. Sending them through iMessage compressed them too much and made them look bad, so I bought more iCloud storage and downloaded them directly from there. This completely solved the issue. I wanted to jump for joy I was so happy. I could now edit efficiently and productively. I had to make up for lost time and am almost done (I mean it this time) adding all to B-roll the correct spaces and times. After that, I have to add text, and music, and create a title graphic. Hopefully, now that my main problems are resolved, I can continue to edit in a timely manner.

A photo of my project timeline so far

“The richness, beauty, and depths of love can only be fully experienced in a climate of complete openness, honesty, and vulnerability.” 

- Anthony Venn Brown

Filming Update Pt.3

 Remember when I said that I was mostly done filming...that was an unintentional lie. In my previous post, I mentioned that I started editing and realized the main interview was only three minutes and forty seconds, which is too short for the documentary excerpt. Because of this, I needed to add and create more aspects of my documentary in a short amount of time. This blog post talks about my process of doing that. 

Because the interview was shorter than expected, I obviously needed to make it longer so I asked Mrs. Stoklosa, our advisor, for advice. She said that I needed another interview so I decided to ask some of Tasha's friends their perspective of Tasha's identity. I created a separate set of interview questions, which proved to be harder than expected, but came up with three that highlighted the topic and the subject in a positive light. I also created a list with B-Roll but that also proved difficult because it depended on what they each said in the interview. However, I created a basis and went with it. I then began to contact some mutual friends of ours if they were able to be in the piece. I asked our good friend Natalia, who has been mentioned in my blog before and has helped me out on several projects including my last documentary Mic Check. She said she was able to do it which was exciting. I then asked our other friend Sunnie, but he said he was busy and couldn't. This was stressful as I had to figure all of this out in less than twenty-four hours because I had planned to film the next day. I quickly asked some other friends of Tasha's, Key and Cece if they were available and they were! This quickly solved my issue and I now had three interviewers instead of two which will give the piece more depth and insight while keeping it engaging. All there was left to do was film.

My new B-Roll and Interview Questions

Everyone met at my house to film at around one pm on Thursday (today). I did the interviews, starting with Natalia, then Key, and finally Cece. This went well, albeit with a few interruptions but nothing major, everyone just having fun. Once those were over, I filmed all of the B-roll at a local park. Everyone with Tasha, having fun and goofing around. Because the interviews mostly focused on supporting each other and spending time together, I thought this was the best idea. I also got shots of Tasha with their friends individually so that I could focus on their separate relationships in the documentary. We finished filming in about two and a half hours and everything went really well! We got everything done efficiently and managed to have a lot of fun in the process.

A clip of B-roll of everyone playing around and having fun

A photo of B-Roll of Tasha and Natalia

While figuring this plan out was very stressful, I'm glad it all went well. Now I can really focus on editing and putting together the entire project. 

"Gender and sexuality are so fluid. It's OK to change your mind a million times and figure out what works for you. It's OK to take your time."

- Amandla Stenberg

Filming Update Pt.2

I'm done filming (mostly)! Earlier this week I was able to capture a lot of B-roll of my subject, Tasha, hanging out with their friends at school as well as footage of them scrolling through pictures and doing research. In this post, I am going to detail how that experience went and what is still to come.

As mentioned in my first filming update blog post, I decided I was going to film on Thursday which is exactly what I did. I went to the classroom during my break period and filmed whatever B-roll I needed. I got them looking at pictures of them with friends from middle school to show the old memories, and I got them looking at websites like The Trevor Project to show that they are educated about their identity (the article is linked here). I also got footage of them talking and laughing with friends, even some that are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community to show the bond they have with people in the community. After school, I also got footage of them walking the halls both with friends and by themselves. In their interview they talk a lot about being with their friends and how their relationship impacts their identity so a lot of footage with their friends is important. All of the B-roll I captured is important to elevate and provide depth to my documentary. 

Stills from the B-roll footage

The reason I say I'm mostly done filming is because I feel like I need more rounded footage from different locations with different people so it stays engaging with its continued variety. I also want to show more of Tasha's day-to-day life to enhance the theme and message of the documentary. I have just started editing and putting the interview together. As I edit, I am going to put the B-roll together in the appropriate places and assess what else I need to make it more complete. I am going to talk about this in more detail in my next post detailing my editing process, but as I was putting the interview together and cutting what was unnecessary, the entire interview came out to three minutes and forty seconds which is a minute and twenty seconds too short. By filming more B-roll and showing more of Tasha's life, I can show more of what the documentary would become. 

As mentioned, I began editing and may continue to film some footage periodically if necessary but for the most part, the filming is complete. Putting the project together is so exciting and I can't wait to update on what happens next!

“To be yourself is truly a revolutionary act, and I think more and more people should try it, because it’s gotten me a pretty cool life.”

- Lena Waithe