Over the past year, we participated in multiple projects that developed our knowledge and understanding of various mediums and forms of distribution. I wanted to talk about two of the major projects we did this year, what I learned from them, and the ways they changed and impacted what my approach to the portfolio project will be. This first posting will focus on the Documentary production I worked on along with two other group members, and the posting after that will focus on the Film Distribution project.
For the documentary project, my team and I decided to showcase the relationship that teenagers around our age have with clothing and the different ways that it affects how they identify with their gender and its expression. It was a big topic we were all very excited to talk about, and our team got together an amazing set of interviewees for the production. Throughout the weeks of production, we handled all sorts of new equipment we had not used before and experimented with different creative ideas for ways we could shoot b-roll and whatnot. I also got to see just how important delicate and explicit planning is for a production and how it can save you later on. When it came to editing, we got to experiment with new tools for things like color grading and looks, but this also came with its problems when we did not realize we were grading the footage for HDR video, making it so that it looked pretty horrible on all other screens but ours, meaning we had to scrap that idea and recolor quickly. (these frames look amazing though!). You can check it out here
Working on the Documentary was both a revolutionary experience and a very eye-opening one. We finally got the chance to work on a long-term production for the first time in the year and we had settled on a documentary topic we were really excited to tackle. Throughout the process, I got to see real-time how solid planning and thinking forward were the only things that allowed us to finish the project to the level of expectations we had, and that's something that I couldn't have done without my teammates. With that said, however, this project specifically opened up my eyes to how much my creative freedom was important to me. There are many creative directions that were shut down during the production, and from the interviews we had gotten, I still feel like there's a story underneath what we failed to capture simply due to not experimenting enough with the final concept of the film or thinking about its impact more broadly.
I also find that when working in groups for projects like these, a hostile and competitive environment can often form when everyone should instead be working together and communicating openly about the different issues going on. A healthier approach that a couple of my peers and I thought about was simply helping each other out but not necessarily attaching ourselves to the same project. That way, the final result and direction of the project are left mainly to its lead, but they can still rely on the help of their peers should they need it. I think this will most likely be the approach I take in terms of partners for my portfolio project, it's honestly a very very very personal topic and story, and it would honestly not make much sense to allow anyone to change that. However, with a project of this scale, I think it's always important to rely on those around you to at least keep you from going insane.
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