Documentary Critical Reflection

Over the course of two weeks, my partner and I had to develop a 5-7 minute documentary, planning it, shooting it, and editing it. In doing so, we shifted ideas, had obstacles when filming, debated over editing choices, etc. However, in the end, we created a cohesive piece of work that I can say that I am proud of. 

Our documentary centers around a high school student, Yousef, whose family is from Palestine. The piece centers around how the Israel-Hamas War has directly and personally affected his life, both with his family in Palestine and the reaching effects in the U.S. Through this lens, we were able to capture and represent Palestinians in the conflict in the most neutral light that we possibly could, giving them a platform to speak about their experiences. In the beginning, we have Yousef talking about his family and trips to Palestine that he goes to every year, creating empathy between Yousef and his family and the viewer. From here, we go into the effects of the conflict on him and his family, with his cousins and grandmother being raided frequently and Yousef himself receiving harassment here in the U.S. This view into how Palestinians are being treated not only in Palestine but also in the U.S. showcases aspects that are sometimes not often seen in the media. Allowing a Palestinian who frequently visits Palestine while also living in Florida allows an accurate picture of both sides of the issue to be created. Because of this, we represent these social groups in the best way we can. 

When examining the conflict between Palestine and Israel in general, we also tried to establish a neutral representation of it. We designed questions for Yousef to give exposition and background information on the conflict, ranging back to the early 1900s. This paired with old archival footage of old wars and conflicts that have happened for the past century gives the viewer a clear understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict before getting into how it has affected Yousef. A fault with this is that Yousef, being Palestinian, explains the conflict mainly from a Palestinian point of view, but acknowledges that Israel may see the history of the land disputes differently. Had me and my partner ended up doing an interview with Yousef and an interview with an Israeli student as discussed in my previous blog post, Research for my own blog, this would have resulted in a more accurate and unbiased representation of the conflict as it would have taken both sides of the issue into account and given both a platform to speak about their point of view of the conflict. 

This representation of Palestinians and the conflict in general creates an accurate depiction for the target audience. The target audience for the piece is teens and young adults, ranging from ages 15-25. They are any gender and have a common interest of global peace and educating themselves. They want to learn as much as they can about different situations or issues in the world. This piece does just that by providing an in-depth look into the effects of the war in Israel and Palestine on a teenage Palestinian boy living in the United States. The documentary engages with the audience and appeals to pathos from the start with Yousef talking about his family and how he is loved and accepted whenever he visits. This paired with pictures and videos of him happily spending time with his family in Palestine works to immediately connect the viewers with Yousef. 

Here is a video of Yousef having dinner with his family in Yousef. This video was used in the documentary as b-roll when Yousef explains his trips to Palestine.

As the piece continues, the montage of the news segments takes the viewer by surprise with its abruptness, almost like how a war abruptly changes one's peaceful life into a world of uncertainty, and shifts the piece into a more serious and somber tone. 

As Yousef has been in Palestine while the war was ongoing, his anecdotes work to demonstrate to the viewers that everything they see on social media or the news has been personally seen and experienced by a person not that far in age from them. While being in Palestine in his grandmother's village, Yousef witnessed multiple raids where Israeli forces would come to the village in trucks and harass and imprison Palestinian civilians. What made his account have so much more impact was the use of video that he took while the raids happened as b-roll. 

The video that Yousef took of the raids. 

This makes the audience understand the reality of what he is speaking about and the true gravity of the conflict. The same family that Yousef talked about at the beginning of the piece is getting arrested and raided, making the audience sympathize greatly with Yousef and his family. 

Yousef also explains how he has been affected in the U.S., with students harassing him while representing Palestine during a school multicultural day where stands were made for multiple countries and presented during lunch. Hearing Yousef explain his interaction may have been staggering for the viewers to hear, as the media often doesn't report on the harassment and repercussions felt in other parts of the world due to the war in Gaza. This anecdote also makes the audience sympathize with and feel bad for Yousef as he explains that he did not want to offend anyone and that he has come to expect this kind of behavior, making the viewer consider how often this happens. 

Apart from just Yousef's anecdotes and the use of b-roll to expand upon this, we also used music to set the tone and set the mood throughout the documentary, enhancing the emotions that the viewer experiences throughout. We used soft and subtle piano pieces that create the somber tone, and we used it sparingly, only at the beginning when describing his relationship with his family and visiting Palestine, when he explain the background of the war, and then at the very end when he describes what he hopes for in the future. We exclude music from some parts to allow the viewer to really focus on what is being said, such as when he is describing his personal experience with raids and how his family and people he knows have been arrested. 

Notes that we took in class regarding
the conventions of a documentary

All of our choices were influenced by our research of documentaries prior to the creation of our project. When researching the genre of documentaries, we explored many different pieces (which I talked about here) that both conformed to and challenged the conventions of the genre. Out of the pieces I talked about, the documentary that we resembled the most was Abstract: The Art of Design, which contains standard interview shots and uses staged b-roll as

 well as archival footage as b-roll, similar to A War at Home. When learning about the conventions of a documentary in class, we also learned about indirect and direct interviews and saw examples of both in productions, with some even containing both in one, such as with American Promise. With our interview, we wanted it to be indirect as the focus was on Yousef and his experiences, and inserting our voices as creators would've taken away from that. Another common convention that we took note of was the use of music to establish tone, which is what we did throughout our documentary to create a somber tone. Another convention that we learned about was the use of handheld camera shots which evoke a sense of realism, as if the event we are watching unfold is unscripted and not set up, but someone just got a camera and pressed play to capture the moment. However, we challenged this convention as it didn't translate to our documentary. All of our b-roll was existing, archival footage as b-roll would've been impossible to film for the subject manner. 

Considering all of these different aspects of the piece, my partner and I set out to do what we wanted to accomplish with the project and I believe that we did so successfully. Although not perfect, as every piece can improve, I am very proud and pleased with what I have created. 

The Best Part

The most sastisfying part of the whole production process, at least for me, is putting everything together. Seeing your piece that you've planned out and have been thinking about and imaginging for days or even weeks finally starting to come out how you imagined. Its great. I mean just look at this timeline.

Its just so beautiful. I love color coding timelines. The editing itself tho can get a little tedious and exhausting. 

I edited the doc with Gabi, and we both have been in a tv production class for the 3 years we have been in high school, so we both know how to edit an interview. We made the general line edit from what I captured and what I remember being his best points and moments. We polished it up a bit, moved some stuff around, took stuff out, leveled audio, yada, yada. This is probably the most important part of the editing process, since I believe the structure of the piece really has an impact on how the piece is received by the viewer. If your just kinda throwing stuff around willy nilly, then the piece is gonna feel disjointed, the interviewee may repeat points, some parts may feel drawn out or irrelevant to the topic. A good structure helps the piece flow from one topic to another, and this comes from not only the questions you ask, but what you end up deciding goes in and where. This becomes even more important when taking into account the doc has to be a minimum of 5 minutes, which is a lot for just one person to be speaking, so Gabi and me had to really make sure that the doc flowed well. 

Once we got the sturcture and line edit down, we started putting in b-roll. This was mostly archive footage of conflicts in the past and the current conflict today, so me and Gabi would scour YouTube to find videos and clips of the conflict throughout history that fit what he was talking about. So many Youtube downloads. So many. Apart from this, we had come up with the idea that to transition from the exposition of where Yousef is from and how often he goes there and all that to him talking about the conflict, we would make this bulid up of news clips talking about the war in gaza and have the clips up for shorter and shorter time, ramping up the speed until we couldn't anymore. This paired with a riser made for a nice transition into Yousef speaking about the war and his connection and thoughts on it. 

In order to fix the lighting issues I had while shooting, we would have to manually color grade each shot so that they looked similar enough so that the lighting change was not noticeable. I think it ended up working great since nobody ever said anyhting about it, especially since the clips usually have b-roll in between so that it is not very noticable in between shots. 

Since Yousef is the only subject and is speaking for the entire time, we wanted to add some music to improve the piece and establish the tone for any given moment. We used it sparingly, only in moments that we believed needing it, and letting the rest of the piece breathe a little. All the music choices were soft and subtle pianos and can be easily missed if you arent paying close attention, which is the goal here. 

Last, but not least, the opening. At first, I thought that the piece could open with the news montage I talked about earlier, but then Gabi fought against it and preferred having it later and having Yousef be the first thing they see, which I came to agree with. But since thats what we had in mind for the opening, we didnt really know what to do. But then I remembered the b-roll shots I got of Yousef when I filmed him and found some stuff there that fit pretty perfectly as a little intro. Closeup shots of his hands and eyes, and then a wide of him sitting down, looking right at the camera. I was really glad that I ended up getting that b-roll. The wide shot was the perfect place to put a title, and we decided that "A War at Home" would be pretty appropiate since it was not only a war in Yousef's homeland, but also the repruccusions of the war that Yousef is feeling in his own home and in his own life in the U.S.

Here's the title shot

And thats it. I really enjoyed this project and it definetely opened up my eyes to the possibility of doing a documentary for my final. I'm quite proud of how it turned out, so here is the link to the final product. 

Interviewing Yousef

OK. So after planning everything, I went to Yousef's house to film the interview. Unfortunately, Gabi was busy the whole weekend, so I had to do what I had to do and go film the interview on my lonesome. I have a lot of experience doing interviews tho, so it ain't that bad. Still shooting an interview alone can be a hassle sometimes. Focusing on the shot and the audio and asking the questions and making sure the interviewee is giving solid responses that you can use, and all this while trying to be engaged in the conversation. It can be a lot. But thankfully it went pretty well. 

I set up my shot in his living room and his window was right behind us. Big mistake. It was only 4pm when I was interviewing him but thanks to daylight savings the sun wasn't too far from setting. I DESPISE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS. I hate it so much. It is so pointless. So so pointless. Do not make my day shorter, that is so stupid. And it was made so some dude could catch more bugs. Ridiculous. I hate it. Anyway, this put the sun almost perpendicular to the window and made it so that whenever the sun was partially covered by even the smallest cloud, the living room would get slightly darker. This was like tenfold in the camera though and it looked like it was switching from day to night for some shots, it was annoying. I tried my best to fix it during the interview and tried adjusting the ISO when I was asking questions, but nature still had its way with me. 

The shot in question

Apart from this, I asked Yousef all of the questions and his responses were great, he even showed me some videos of him in Pakistan after the interview was over that I thought could be used as b-roll. After the interview, I got a b-roll of Yousef, close-ups of his eyes, his hands, him sitting down outside, a Palestinian flag, etc. I knew I probably wasn't going to see any of it since all of my b-roll would be archival footage, but I got it anyway just in case. Next step was putting it all together.

Research for my own doc

This was a little rough not gonna lie. Coming up with a solid idea was difficult because there is a lot of stuff that I want to do, but most of it is just inaccessible to me. Some of my ideas included covering a individual who is a furry and trying to portray them in a unbiased and truthful light, as the furry community is often looked down upon and judged while many of these people are just like everyone else. I think this could make for a pretty interesting piece, but finding a furry is...not really easy. I don't know anyone that is a furry and even if someone I knew was, its not something people are very open or adiment about due to the stigma associated with it. 

R.I.P. Furry Doc, I'll make you one day

Many of my ideas were like this, or me and my partner I worked with just didn't agree on a topic. I wanted to make our doc about something we cared about and not just some dull topic no one would care about. I started thinking about different things or events that I cared about and came to the conclusion that the Israel-Palestine conflict going on would be an interesting and compelling thing to cover. I had a friend that was Palestinian and was the co-president of the Muslim club at my high school so he would be a great interviewee. My partner, Gabi, liked my idea and so we decided that we would go with it.

At first, I thought of having an interview with a Palestinian student and an Israeli student and cut between each interview to showcase the opposing sides in the most neutral and unbiased view as I possibly could from my position. I thought, and still think, that this is important because I believe a lot of the information that is presented about the conflict is often from extremes on either side which can lead to disinformation. However, when discussing with our teacher, we pretty much concluded it may be better to only focus on one because it just a pretty sensitive matter and it was just easy to screw up if we did both interviews, so we stuck with the view of Palestine. 

In order to write the questions, me and Gabi did some research into the issue so that we weren't going in super blind into the interview. We watched footage from past conflicts and the current war Israel has waged against Hamas. We looked at videos and read articles covering the history of the conflict. A good and simple overview that was helpful was this youtube video by Vox. This information led us to being able to create questions that were more informed and centered around the responses we wanted from the interviewee, Yousef. Since the doc was now only focused on Yousef, we wanted to make the piece more personal and focused on his experience of the war at home, with the impact it has had on him and how he may feel the lingering effects of the war on his own life. We wrote questions focusing on this aspect of the doc as well as questions asking about general information over the conflict.

Apart from writing questions, we also made a potential shotlist for b-roll. This wasn't the easiest thing in the world due to the subject matter and since we only had one subject, but we came up with as much as we could think of. Although me and Gabi were pretty sure we would use archival and existing footage of the conflict as b-roll, we still wanted to get some just in case, and that ended up being pretty important later on when we were editing. 

Yousef, the interviewee, was a friend of mine, so I came to him about the idea asking if he was comfortable sharing, and he was super down for it. We set up a date which would be best for us, and that was that. 

Looking at docs

So this year we have a lot more options compared to last year, with the option of short film, music video, a film promo or finally a documentary. Documentary is the only one we hadn't really touched on at all in AS, so its the one we spent the most time on, watching different docs in class and getting exposed to the genre. The docs we watched in class we're the American Promise, Exit Through the Giftshop, and shorter episodic documentaries from the Netflix show Abstract: The Art of Design and New York Times' collection of Op-Docs. I found all of these super interesting (except Abstract, found it to be lowkey boring it was just like meh) and they all showcased and introduced different techniques and ways of approaching a documentary and helped me go about making my own later on. 

With docs like American Promise and Exit Through the Giftshop, they take a much more direct approach, I guess? Like they both used handheld and were mainly from the perspective of the subjects in that specific moment, such as when Idris from American Promise is getting scolded by his father for being bad at basketball in the car and the cinematographer recording the interaction from the passenger seat. 

Here is an example of what I mean with American Promise

I found these to be the most engaging and the pieces that interested me the most. I think since it was such a grounded and hands-on approach, it felt more real, I guess, like what I'm seeing is the real deal ya know. If I were to do the documentary for my final portfolio project, I would like to take an approach more like this.

I also really enjoyed some of the more abstract docs I saw on the New York Times' Op-Docs, which we were assigned to watch two of on our own and comment on. One I watched was archival footage of music videos that were choreographed by Louis Johnson. The footage was old old, like from 20-30's I wanna say, and although the doc was just archival footage I still found it really intriguing and interesting to get a glimpse into this whole different world. Another piece I watched was talking about knitting with little animals and objects that have been knitted, which was really cute and I thought was pretty clever. 

The one that I cared about the least was the episode from Abstract, which covered the costume designer Ruth Carter. I think I didn't really care all that much and liked it the least because it was just pretty basic, I guess, and didn't really have much character. The b-roll was all staged, which is needed for the subject matter, and the interview shots were all on a tripod and looked like a traditional interview shot, and there isn't anything wrong with that, but I guess it just lacked character and it made me not really care for it. Ironically this is a similar approach I took with my doc, but I think that it was necessary and I believe it worked, but I'll talk about that more later. 

Guess who's back

 Hello....

I'm back. 

But now I am in A level.

Woohoo!