Critical Reflection :)

   My documentary project is titled "Cracked Under Pressure” and was directed by Mariana Sanin and I. Our topic, and main idea, was about the negative effects of the American School system on modern day teens. We had two main subjects, Alejandra and Peyton, and their relatives: one’s sister and one’s father. The first subject, Alejandra, moved here from another country and had to adapt to this new system, and Peyton has to do schoolwork on top of busy extracurricular activities. They both struggle at balancing school with other hardships, and they explain their experiences in the documentary.

      As previously stated, we wanted to represent the negative effects of schooling in the U.S. has on students. Mariana and I know that this is an issue we just had to cover. These effects, like stressing out to the point of burn-out and mental health issues, is something that felt close to home in a school of nearly 5,000 diverse students. We have seen people struggle and we wanted to bring awareness as well as explain what is so negative about the way U.S. schools deal with academic pressure. We felt that getting two perspectives on this certain situation pulls in the representation theory as well. You have this girl who is an immigrant, who has been exposed to schooling unlike the one most of us here are used to. She represents Hispanic immigrants, or any immigrants for that matter, whose parents moved here to the U.S. to give their children a better life. She represents the children who feel at a disadvantage because of the language barrier. Peyton, on the other hand, represents all the student athletes out there who barely time have to do homework. They need to rely on and be good at time management, if not they fail. Both girls are extremely different, but the pressures of doing well in school on top of everything is a priority. As it is in American society. It’s become a problem so big that a lot of mental health issues originate from being in school across the nation. Yes, there are some benefits, but in this documentary, we are displaying just the negative effects. By doing this, we as directors also represent bias and companies controlling the media because we controlled and made the documentary as exactly what we wanted people to know. We were not only able to get different representation of different people, but also of a representation of bias and social ideas on schooling.

     The documentary engages with audiences by capturing that human aspect. Our target audience would be middle class teenagers that would have access to this documentary and would be able to relate to things being said in it. Specifically in the 13-18 age group. Instead of using direct interviews, we used indirect ones with lengthy answers that way you could feel the subjects are talking from the depths of their hearts directly to you, an audience member.  Projects usually do better when they feel genuine, because who wants to watch something where they are being lied to right? So why not do the same for our documentary when it concerns our target audience. I also think that the b-roll we used and the use of two subjects instead of one engaged the audience further. It made the piece less monotone and kept people on their toes. It made sure not only one person’s opinion and experiences were shown, but to show the validity of what they are saying. If it applies to two completely different people without ever having met each other, it must be true to some extent. It’s like science after all.

     Of course, we couldn’t start doing a documentary without knowing what one entails and should look like. In class we watched different types of documentaries such as Exit Through the Gift Shop, American Promise, and Abstract. Each one taught me something different about the elements a documentary should have, how narrative works, hoe bias works and how exactly to get an emotional response out of someone. I wanted to take it a step further from just class time and research techniques on my own. I researched what makes the documentaries so personal, apart from what they say, and almost everything led to b-roll. Specifically hand-held shots, so that is what we did. Almost all the b-roll I took of Alejandra doing everyday tasks isn’t steady, it’s all handheld. It is also one among the many common conventions we used. We also used archive footage for b-roll, because even though we could film some on our own, the subjects also talked about things in the past and we wanted the audience to be able to see what they are talking about. For example, Peyton talked about her past experiences and we used pcitires found on her Instagram to show people what she was referring to and to not make the audience disconnect with the story so quickly. Basically, to keep them engaged.

     The genre of this documentary, as researched, would be considered one of six. In this case it would be an expository. This documentary was heavily researched into finding data for the statistics in the beginning and end and finding people that would help us represent what we wanted. It was also made to educate people that teens are struggling in school and the extent academic pressure really goes in these types of schools.