Documentary CR

 In our piece "What do you Think of the Documentary?" My partner Martina Schmied and I attempted to portray each other's art work, and explore our differences in perception, self esteem, process, etc. 

Martina and I have both been making art for a decent amount of time now- her as a traditional artist, and I as a filmmaker. Upon being found with the obstacle of not feeling passionate about any documentary subjects, we decided to take a more personal route, one we knew we could be passionate over. 

We wanted to represent both each other as artists, and in the process, demonstrate our relationship as best friends. So we separated the documentary into two: Martina and Virginia. I would do a half on Martina, without her input, and Martina would do the same for me. We wanted both pieces to feel different, contrasting, yet lay harmoniously with each other, and create a cohesive piece. 

We took great inspiration from the documentary "American Promise." The people making the documentary had a very direct connection with the subjects of it, and the indirect, candid interviews reflected that. Thus, we decided it was imperative to incorporate candid interviews of both of us working on our art, that way we could get a more raw answer, that stemmed from the subconscius. Nonetheless, we still included other types of interviews. Our main interviews were filmed with the subject framed centrally, since it creates a deeper connection with the viewer and the  interviewee. Our secondary interviews, with people adding context on the subject, were filmed more traditionally, with the interviewee on a third, since we wanted to create a bit of a disconnect, and bring back the main focus to us two. Our b-roll consists of a mixture of candid b-roll, scripted b-roll, and extra pictures, videos, and paintings. I personally really liked the way "Abstract" included many types of b-roll like this, it made the film visually engaging, especially considering this is a film that talks about abstract ideas and feelings, rather than just events or facts. I really liked the end result, but I wished we had spent more time taking b-roll of me. I normally do not work on films often, so there was a limited amount of footage Martina could get of me working, and it was harder for us to figure out a way of scripting my b-roll, because my art does not result in a physical product like Martina's, but rather videos. We both want to record more b-roll with me, whether it be of me with projections on my face, or simply cinematic shots where we can play with lighting, scenery, and costuming.

The audience of our documentary is not very specific. I think people can watch and enjoy our documentaru. whether they are artists or not, because we discuss aspects that are general for most interests and hobbies. However, our idea of our target audience is teenangers of no specific gender, and especially teen artists. I think this piece could resonate with young artists such as ourselves, because it discusses ideas or self esteem, and the future that they maybe have struggled with as well. Unfortunately, the best reception has come from people that know us personally. Martina and I wish to expand on the documentary and add more context about us as friends, and us in general, because the documentary was lacking context on what specifically we do. 

Martina and I wanted to represent different types of artists. Not simply artists of different mediums, but different artists, and workers in general. Martina helps represents those who work out of the pleasure of doing so, and care little for the result, whereas I represented those who work and make art out of an internal drive, that almost prevents them from not doing so. We also really wanted to represent a geniune teenange friendship, one more positive than commonly associated with high school relationships in general. However, I think we did not completely achieve that, as we were missing a lot of context and shots of us interacting, and there is little where the friendship aspect could be observed, and was almost a distraction to the artistic part of the documentary. 

Nonetheless, Martina and I felt very emotional watching our documentary. This was truly a passion piece, not only because of the time and effort we put into it, but because of the experience that it was to create it. Our discussions on art and ourselves helped us understand each other in a much deeper and beautiful sense, and the finsihed product, we felt was a beautiful representation of each other. By changing up the end product a tad, we hope that audiences can feel the same connection. 

I hoped you liked our documentary, hated our documentary, was neutral towards it, or any feelings you may have had. Thank you for watching. 

Doc 1

My partner Martina and I began with completely different ideas.  We were planning on doing our documentary on imaginary friends, a topic neither of us really cared for, but thought could be interesting. After thinking about it, and talking to Ms. Stoklosa, we realized how little passion we both- very passionate people- held for this topic. Hence we changed our idea to fit us better. 

We had the luck on working on this together. Martina and I are best friends- we basically live with each other- so we thought we should use that for our advantage. Additionally, we are both artists of different mediums- Martina paints, and I make films. We wanted to make our documentary about that, but we thought of an interesting angle we could take. We would separate the doc into two distinct parts. The first part would be completely produced by me, and the second by Martina. Our subjects? Each other. We wanted to see how our art forms differed from each other, not only objectively, but personally. We both had an idea that the toll that our art took on us was different, and we wanted to explore on that. 

Filming was easy- yet exhausting. For about two weeks, I practically lived at Martina's house, and she in mine. Not only was I recording her interview and b-roll, but just her creating in general. I wanted as much candid footage as I could get in order to give the documentary a more personal feel. I was not sure until after I filmed, how I wanted to use my interviews- direct, indirect. But during editing, I saw that the indirect interviews added the person making the documentary into the story. 

To be frank, the process of filming and interviewing was not very tedious. It felt as though my friend and I were having deep conversations about each other and with each other, and the camera was just recording, hence why it felt so special. The original interview with Martina is so much longer, because we just kept conversing about art, and going deeper. We really bonded during this time. 

For b-roll, I knew I wanted to take advantage of Martina's beautiful art. I decided I wanted to make a "gallery" of sorts. Pin up her work(in her bathroom) and take diverse shots of just the art, and Martina interacting with it. It felt scripted, but it was my full intention. I also just took shots of her painting, not even speaking to her. I would just let her do her thing for a couple of hours and record it, that is where I got my best footage from. 

I edited my part of the documentary on premiere. I also put Martina and my part together, which was stressful because I had to take two disconnected pieces and make them linear. However, Martina's part, although different than mine, fit well with what I had. We both had very similar visions, as we had discussed before how we were putting this together.