Critical Reflection

The name of my documentary is The Stressful Application. It surrounds two high school seniors and their rigorous journey of applying to colleges.  

To begin researching the world of documentaries, we watched a few documentaries as a class, as I discussed in this previous blog post: https://brillianticonicqueenblog.blogspot.com/2024/12/documentary-viewingresearch.html . The documentaries Exit Through The Gift Shop and American Promise were the two documentaries that inspired me and my partners project the most. They both mostly used personal storytelling, which made them feel more raw and real which is exactly the approach we wanted for our project. It felt like the best way to connect with our target audience and tell our stories honestly. 

                                 

When it came time to choose a genre for our documentary, my partner and I decided to take an informational approach. As current seniors in the middle of applying to college, we felt that this topic was something we knew the most about, so we could speak about with firsthand experience. It made sense to make our documentary. Our goal was not only to share our own journeys but also to make it useful for future seniors. We wanted to break down parts of the process and share what to expect so that upcoming seniors could feel a little more informed when their time comes to apply. It felt like the most reasonable approach to choosing a genre.

Research for this project was fairly easy due to the fact that we chose such a familiar topic to create our informational documentary on. We researched some articles to add in different stories, opinions and experiences about the college application process. These two articles were the main ones we used to research the topic. The articles we read talked about how even small details can impact your chances of getting into college, the mental toll it takes, and the huge pressure students feel, especially in their junior and senior years of high school. These articles show that students are not alone in this process and that these feelings they feel during it are super common. Choosing this topic made me feel even more confident in our documentary because it’s so relatable not just for others, but for us too. 

  

Our target audience is teenagers aged 15 to 18, regardless of gender expression. We wanted to create something that would resonate with high school students who are either starting to think about college or are already in the process of applying to college. After finishing our documentary, It was showed to our class, which gave us the chance to get honest feedback from people close to our target audience. Getting their critiques and thoughts was super helpful because it gave us a better idea of we could improve. For example, one of the critiques that stood out to me was that our interviews should've been filmed in a different place so it could come off as more visually interesting and engaging. But when me and my partner filmed it we thought it made it look more simple and helped the audience focus on the topic not the background. Now that many people mentioned that, i would've used two different interviews for me and my partners interviews and i would've used a blur background effect so it can focus on us being interviewed.

Reading and hearing other people's constructive criticism and thoughts on my project really opened my eyes to many aspects of the documentary. One of the more popular feedback was how to make our documentary more interesting. People mentioned that we should've used different backgrounds, more b-roll and background music. I feel like now i realized that the different backgrounds are indeed more visually interesting and i do think we should've used and filmed more b-roll because would've helped keep the audience from getting bored of just seeing us being interviewed and some background music could've made point of view and tone clearer. Through other critiques I noticed that our structure was a little bit messy, it seemed to be very summarized, and I feel like we could've gone in more depth in our interviews pertaining to the questions and the answers and more in depth in the voice overs explaining background information. 

Our research really shaped the way we made our documentary, like how we got inspired by different documentary styles. Watching documentaries like Exit Through the Gift Shop and American Promise taught us how personal and real stories can make a documentary feel relatable. We loved how those films drew you in by focusing on real people and their experiences, so we took that similar approach. By sharing our own journey through the college application process, we made the documentary feel personal and informational to our target audience. A way we challenged conventions was by directly targeting specifically teenagers in high school, a group that often gets overlooked in serious documentaries. Most documentaries we researched were educational and they all had the same fast pacing, short, distracting interviews, and a hyper tone. To make ours more educational for teens, we used simple, visually appealing edits, a casual tone, and relatable scenarios from our own lives. We didn’t shy away from showing our own struggles with stress and pressure, which helped us connect with our audience in a way that feels honest and approachable. we challenged the idea that documentaries have to fit into one box. We wanted ours to feel both useful and personal instead of theatrical.

Production Part 2: The Stressful Application

 For the second part of production my partner and I filmed our interviews. We decided to interview each other to tell our stories about college applications. We set up the camera so we would end up on the right side of the shot. We also filmed both of our interviews in the same place. After our class gave us some constructive criticism, we realized we should've used two interview filming locations to make it more engaging and interesting. For the interview, we used the questions we previously made.

After shooting the interviews, we started the editing process. We immediately knew what we wanted our documentary to look like, so working with my partner was really easy and the editing went smooth. She did the editing while I helped with the creative direction since we were together during the editing process. We wanted a simple/straightforward approach when it came to editing. We used all of our collected b-roll and added those shots that related to what we were talking about in the interviews. The intro and the rolling credits of our documentary were made on canva!

Overall the production of this documentary went smooth since me and my partner were on the same page about the shots and the editing of it!

< Me and my partner (Corina) together!!

Production: The Stressful Application

 To start off the production for our documentary, me and my partner started off by filming all of the in school b-roll we wanted. We decided to film everything college related we could find at school. We found a sign that was an arrow leading to the college and career center so we decided to film. We also filmed college related flyers that were posted up around the school.

Then after school we met up at my partner: Corina's house. We filmed more b-roll at her house. Luckily Corina had so many college brochures that her parents got her so we used those in some shots. We filmed shots of her dropping the brochures, reading/shuffling through them and of the information inside them. We also filmed some shots of college websites. We filmed different websites like, FSU, UCF and USF and scrolling to what majors they offer.

We used these simple shots because they are quick, entertaining and effective. It shows what a part of the college process looks like. WE wanted to add these b-roll shots because without it our documentary would've felt empty and boring. We also wanted to use these because it builds context and shows some

people that haven't gone through the process what it kind of looks like!

Research and Planning!

 Once my partner and I figured out what topic our documentary would be on, we started to research more about the topic. The topic we chose was: College applications. We named it "The Stressful Application". We decided to read some articles to get different POVs and ideas within our topic that will help us understand the process a bit more than just our journey through it. 

These two articles helped our research journey the most (click pictures for links to the articles!):

Both of these articles discussed how the difficult process of applying for different colleges affected their mental health. Many claimed it was one of the most stressful times of their lives. It talked about how even small things can end up effecting your chances of getting in, mental tolls on students, and immense pressure students feel when it comes to the topic of college, especially in the last two years of high school. After our article research my partner and I felt almost seen because we felt the same stress that other kids were/are feeling. I was really happy that we chose such a relatable topic, that even we could relate to!

After we felt our research was finished, my partner and I started to do some planning  (as seen above). We made an outline to organize our documentary. In this outline we discussed/created different shots, the main purpose, our thesis for our documentary and the questions we wanted to ask when interviewing subjects.  After watching many documentaries, which i talked about in my previous blog post, we knew what kind of outline and documentary style we wanted to follow. We connected our purpose of making this documentary to our college application experiences as seniors. We knew many people in our class could relate and connect with the main topic and realize everyone is going through somewhat the same journey! We also wanted to give a preview to upcoming seniors/juniors to what this college application process can look like, so they feel less alone when they actually experience it!

Documentary viewing/Research!

The first day being in media A level, Mrs. Stoklosa stated an exciting fact: we would be viewing full length films this year!! I was over the moon because yes, we did view a few shorter projects back in AS level but now the S is gone and we are VIEWERS!! Starting off on a strong note, she showed us a few documentaries to really immerse us into that whole world. Before she starting playing these for us she did hint at the fact that we would be making our own documentaries, so with that in mind we watched a few documentaries. 

We first viewed a documentary called "I Think This Is The Closest to How The Footage Looked".

This was a shorter piece but it was genuinely a breath taking watch. I liked how it was more of a  straightforward storytelling style and i knew i wanted to take an inspiration from that for future documentary projects. I was deeply moved by the piece just because of how simple yet so powerful it was, it didn't need a big production, I mean he literally told a story using random things around his house and he told t perfectly. After watching it, I realized how appealing this simple but powerful type of storytelling in a documentary was but I also realized that it could be difficult.

The second documentary we viewed in class was called "American Promise".

 It centered two kids, Irdris, the son of the creators and Seun, his best friend. It documents a 12 year journey of both boys that started in a prestigious prep school at a young age and how they grow up in that education system. This documentary was filmed over 12 years with so many footage piece together. I think this film was done really well but i feel like I would've like it more if it was more specific with the more grown part of the boys lives instead of mostly them as young kids. I liked that we saw direct and indirect interviews for both boys. I liked the style of indirect interviews because i felt it sounded and felt more authentic, like we were having a conversation or one of the boys was explaining something to us, so i took note of that.

The third documentary we watched was "Exit through the gift shop".

This was more of a chaotic watch just because the production of this documentary was kind of messy because it changed directors completely in the middle of the film, but this was one of my favorite ones to watch. It was such a fun watch but also brings light to the graffiti/street art world. I also like how this entire documentary brings you to one single question "What is art?" and that question can just make you spiral into a million more on that same topic. I love that this documentary had no intention of being made, it made the tapes feel so authentic and real. It literally gave me the urge to grab an old camera and start doing graffiti (jk..). I liked how it had such a specific style it stuck to throughout the doc, it was like a cool artsy vibe which i loveeee! 

After we finished viewing all of those more full length documentaries as a class, Ms. Stoklosa wanted us to choose two op docs to watch on our own:

I watched "H.A.G.S. (Have A Good Summer)"

 

This Op-Doc focused on a guy opening his old middle school year book and calling up some old classmates.

As they talk about how they have changed and how nostalgic they feel, the documentary also shows the idea 

that keeping the people that you were friends with in school close can bring a sense of comfort. Out of all the 

Documentaries, this one is by far my favorite. I laughed and I did teared up a little Im not gonna lie. I loved 

LOVED the style of this documentary. We saw pages of the yearbook with funny doodles and the conversations

in the background matched the visuals beautifully. It was like a scrapbook short doc. Besides me being obsessed

with this Op-doc visually, I really loved the story since right now I am at a time in my life where I do have to 

face the fact that I am growing and that soon these will be just memories of my last year in high school. Me 

relating to this documentary made it even more emotional and helped me connect with the story of it, which 

is what made me want to choose something I know most people my age are going through right now, college 

applications, for my own documentary.

 and "Not for money, Not for love, Not for nothing"

This Op-Doc is just so so visually beautiful. The intimate conversation styled interviews with the drawings 

that depict the stories just capture the feelings and emotions the experiences the womens went through feel.

I loved how different this Op-doc was to a typical documentary because we did not see anything of any real 

people, just voices and art. I loved how the drawings portrayed the stories and how it grabs the audiences(me) 

attention. This gave me a new view on documentaries. I feel like i always have this stereotypical idea of docs 

in my head and that every doc follows that specific style or stereotype but in reality a documentary is just telling

a story and it doesn't matter how you tell the story, c=because telling the story and educating others about it 

is enough no matter how you execute it!!! 

Its safe to say that I am now obsessed with documentaries and all of these impacted/inspired how I made mine!!   

SHES BACKKKKKKK

 HEY PEOPLEEEE~ BRILLIANTICONICQUEEN BLOG IS BACK IN BUSINESS BABY!

Ok I hope you are excited as I am because I am now taking AICE Media A level!

: how i felt entering A level

 Im finally back to blog more than ever and I hope you enjoy watching me go through the process of my projects and all that fun stuff!! 

 <3