Documentary Critical Reflection

What Do You Think of the Documentary? is a piece that focuses on two artists, Martina and Virginia, and their respective methods of creating art and overall feelings surrounding their passions.  The documentary illustrates the two best friends' attitudes, emotions, and frustrations when it comes to creating art and exhibiting it, as well as providing a look into their friendship.

Our documentary attempts to challenge what defines the genre by using unconventional means.  For example, we as the documentarians made a documentary about ourselves, both of us working individually from each other, and then united our separate halves during the last stage of editing.  This was something that I have never seen done before, and the division and unity represented in the editing techniques are meant to be symbolic of Virginia and I's differences and the bond we formed through our friendship.

When first drafting the idea for the doc, we knew that we wanted to include a mesh of interviews and b-roll.  We had the idea to sit each other down and conduct indirect formal interviews, but to add direct "candid" interviews of each other at work as well.  A lot of this interviewing process was influenced by American Promise, a documentary that we had seen for class a few months earlier.  The doc follows two teens as they navigate through high school in New York, and the interviews are mostly direct and recorded as the kids perform their daily activities.  I took inspiration from this and decided to implement the technique as I recorded Virginia setting up lighting and camera equipment for her Aftershock segment.  Aftershock is an episodic news show where CBTV students make new segments biweekly, and I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to get Virginia at work - considering that she doesn't make short films very often.  This technique provided us with an abundance of very raw and emotional shots, but some of them lack context.  For example, the introductory scene where Virginia talks about how she feels when she makes her Aftershock segments are great to establish a sense of what her true passion is, but some viewers may be unaware of what Aftershock is.  Vir and I also planned to include a variety of b-roll - including shots taken from each other's rooms, and "staged b-roll" scenes of us with our art (like we had seen in the docu-series Abstract).  However, due to time mismanagement, we were unable to film a lot of the b-roll scenes for Virginia's half of the doc.  This left us with no other option rather than to find b-roll online, both from movies that she mentions, and films that she has made.  This left her half of the doc feeling a little choppy, as some of the scenes went on for a little too long.  

When creating What Do You Think of the Documentary?, we both understood that our target audience would be very niche.  Being teenagers ourselves, we understood that if we were to make a piece about our respective attitudes towards art, it would resonate the most with fellow high school-aged artists.  Although both Virginia and I are female, our target audience isn’t limited to a specific gender - the experiences we discuss surrounding art are very universal to all artists (specifically those who have yet to graduate HS/college), and it transcends both gender and socioeconomic status.  When editing, we used a lot of b-roll and changes in interviews to ensure that a single image wouldn't appear on the screen for too long.  The attention span of teenagers nowadays is relatively short, and by providing visual changes and distractions, we can maintain the audience's attention for much longer.  This was important for us to do, as the documentary already exceeds 12 minutes long.  Further, a lot of the documentary's subject matter regards coping with stress and failure when creating art, which is undoubtedly a theme that everyone can relate to.  We purposefully included scenes where we feel insecure about our art, or afraid to share it, or nervous about what people may think.  Yet, we also included scenes where we praise our art, feel proud of it, and pity what a miserable life it would be without it.  These sentiments are universal to all artists.  By expressing our attitudes through this medium, we hoped to reach a wider audience of fellow creators who can relate to our experiences - and maybe even find comfort in them.

What Do You Think of the Documentary? is very much a passion project.  Although we have a clearly defined target audience, the documentary was a piece that Virginia and I made to showcase our biggest passions - art - and how our friendship has united us through it all.  We wanted to develop the fact that we are two best friends who are also artists, and the similarities and differences in both our styles of art.  This, however, was criticized greatly by our teacher and some of our peers.  Although we both thought that the purpose of the documentary was clearly defined, we received criticism stating that it was unclear whether the doc was about supporting each other, making art, or about of friendship.  We were told that if we wanted to explicitly state our friendship status, we would need to expand more on that fact in the documentary itself.  This is something that I find myself agreeing with, especially since Vir and I had originally planned to conduct a "dual interview" on each other that ultimately fell through.  We wanted to represent a new generation of artists and the differences in both art forms (traditional and film), but more importantly - we wanted to represent our differences as individuals.  However, we realize now that this wasn't expanded on nearly as much as it should've been.  If we had included that dual interview, perhaps the purpose of the doc would have been more clear.  Yet, we still have the pressing issue of time constraints, as 12 minutes is already quite long.  

Ultimately, there are a lot of things that we should have done differently during the process of planning, filming, and editing, but I am still extremely satisfied with our finished product.  Regardless, it is far from perfect.  I am grateful for the incredible experiences I had throughout the whole process, but the compounded stress of it definitely impacted the editing process, which is (in my opinion) the most important.  As for now, Virginia and I plan to re-work the doc before submitting it to some competitions, as there is always room for growth and new experiences.