Ciao filming, for now

 Hello everyone!! I am happy to say that I have gotten all the footage I need! Today I went to film around the neighborhood where the interviewee (my father) first came to America. Looking back on old memories. I really wanted to illustrate the change from where he started and where he is now. It was very important to get this footage, walking around and reminiscing. Now I have to started editing. Which I actually wanted to get a head start on asap. I have started with the drone footage and the airplane landing. I have to find some good audio to add, however I am not worrying about that now. I will keep you guys updated on my editing and I'm going to see if I need to film more or if what I have is good. I am very  happy with all the work done this week! See you guys in the next blog!

Spring Working, no break

 Hey guys! Today is Saturday, the start of the weekend before spring break is over. Still taking advantage of this break, today I have been in the car for over 6 hours, so I couldn't film today... However, I took this time to work on my laptop and start creating a poster for the documentary. I also have started working on the instagram page. I have decided to keep the name of the documentary series simple, as we discussed as a group in the first group discussion. I gave the instagram the name "The True American Dream". As I was working in Adobe Illustrator, I have brainstormed ideas for the colors and to me it only makes sense that I use the colors of the American Flag, I was also thinking of using a shot I took at the airport. I have just been playing around with Adobe and instagram. I also was creating a schedule on what to film tomorrow so that once we get there all we have to do is film. I wanna walk around and add a voiceover in the back, I thought this would be the best because I remember discussing with my classmates and someone wanted to film in the street, but it would be very difficult to deal with the audio, so I thought to film and add a voiceover. I've been feeling very productive, and I can't wait for tomorrow! See you guys in the next blog!

Action

 Happy Friday everyone! This week I've taken advantage of my spring break. This is the time I have really accelerated in my progress with my project. According to my calendar this week is filming week which is exactly what I have been doing. I was stuck between doing a direct or indirect interview and as I started filming... indirect is what I have chosen to do. As discussed in my group meetings as well as in past blogs, my classmates suggested I incorporate different locations with the interview. This is what I have done. We will be walking around where the interviewee first lived in America and where he lives now. I also need b-roll footage and I have gotten some of that as well. I filmed by the airport because I wanted a shot of an airplane landing. I haven't gotten the exact shot I wanted, hopefully I can go again and get it right, after filming I realized I could've gotten it from a better angle. Anyway, those are my updates for today. I have started filming in the office and where he lives now (because it was easier to film this first), now we need to film by where he first came to America. See you guys tomorrow in the next blog!

Sunday

 Hello everyone! Today is Sunday, a new week is beginning. This week my goal is to finish filming. Unfortunately I wasn't able to film much because I was not able to go to the office and film the interview. So today I didn't do much other than brainstorm ideas for other filming locations. My classmates suggested in the last group discussion that I film walking with the interviewee outside, make it feel more "interactive" and my first thought was that I wanted it to be an indirect interview so I wouldn't be in it, however, I felt that it was also a good idea and it would give me a range of shots to work with. I kept going back and forth with this idea and I'm still not set on what to do. I want to incorporate different shots, but I will make my final decision tomorrow when I go to film. This was my update tonight, not much has happened since yesterday, just a ton of brainstorming since I wasn't able to film. I will give you guys more updates soon, so stay tuned for those. See you in the next blog!😍 

interviews

 Hello everyone! I am currently writing this at 11:10 pm, I just got home a few minutes ago from filming. It is a Saturday, I took today to go ahead and work on the social media page. I have been brainstorming ideas for a name, however, for now I took tiny clips of people from different countries who immigrated to the US for the social media idea I discussed in an earlier blog. I would like to add that in the first group discussion we discussed names for our projects and everyone decided that the best names are the simple ones. This week is filming week and I have decided to stick to it, I filmed all day! I got some great footage of a number of people from different countries. It was such a great day, I learned so much. I also wanted to start working on the poster because I am in information technology and we are learning to use adobe illustrator and I am very excited to put my knowledge to action. This is my update for tonight, a very productive day. To more productive days, see you guys in the next blog! 😁

Final Schedule

 Hey guys! Happy Friday, I have been feeling overwhelmed recently and when this happens I like to write out everything I have planned. I was doing some of my nightly journaling and I decided to create a new schedule to keep you guys up to date and how I plan to do everything and having it written out helps me mentally to get it done. Here is my updated schedule. It also made me realize how close the due date is. 

Group meeting

Hey guys! Spring Break is finally here!! Yesterday March 17, 2021 my class and I had our second group discussion. We spoke about our projects and what stages we were in. I was the only one who had started filming and I asked them what ideas they might have for my social media part of the project. I wasn't sure which social media platform would be the best choice for my documentary. One of my classmates actually gave me a great idea which I will definitely be implementing in my project. I have decided to use Instagram and the idea suggested to me was to have little snippets of different episodes with immigrants from different countries! I thought it was a very creative and unique idea and I can't wait to start the page! I will need to find more people from different countries, but that shouldn't be too hard in Florida, the melting pot. After that they also asked me what I have filmed and gave me a suggestion for filming the interview. They said that I shouldn't just focus on filming in one spot, have different locations so that it's not just a "talking head". I have definitely taken that into consideration and am excited to see what I can do with these new ideas. See you in the next blog!😊

Progess

 Hello everyone! Happy Sunday 😊! I wanted to take today to collect my thoughts because in the past few blogs I have been doing a bit of everything; editing, filming, researching. I was reading back last years blogs (I would definitely call this research), and I realized I never created a blog specific to my target audience. I'm definitely slacking on my research, so expect the next blogs to be pure research! Still have so much work to do, but I am also very proud of the work I have gotten done so far. I want to start this week with a goal! My goal is to finalize my research and finish filming! Spring break is next week and there is no time to lose, instead I have to use this break to my advantage. See you guys soon!

editing?

 Hi everyone! I changed the theme of the blog recently so that it would be easier for everyone to read through the blogs and not have to click the "read more". Now onto the real updates, yes you read the title correctly, today I played around with the footage from Miami and I'm having so much fun with it. I was curious to see what I could do with it and I was so happy with everything. I not only filmed using my drone, but also got some shots of the city from the ground :). As I have mentioned last year, editing is my favorite part of the film making process! Of course I had to get on it and have some fun with it. I would love to share with you guys a sneak peak of what I captured with the drone. 

My drone films in 4k, I will also be using my iPhone for the rest of the footage which has the capabilities of filming in 4k as well. 

here is another shot from Miami, the busy city. 

I had fun playing around with the editing. My friend suggested to take inspiration from the series I watch "Ugly Delicious", they have some fun editing techniques!

This is from the pizza episode, I will be taking inspiration from their fun techniques and incorporating it into my own! See you guys in the next blog!

filming week?

 Hey guys! Today I did some really fun stuff. I started filming the interview! We went to my fathers office. I took some pictures today to share the setup with you guys. I mainly went to see how I can set everything up and we took some good shots. I am excited to see things coming together. Even though this was only a test run, I'm excited to film the whole thing. 

pictures from today. So excited. Not sure if I want to film him at the table or at his desk. I like the desk, but the table has better lighting. I will keep you guys updated! See you in the next blog!😁

On the hunt

 Hey guys! So a few updates, I got some extra footage of Miami that I want to use as b-roll and add information about immigration to Miami. To do this I need to research immigration to Miami. So without further ado, here is some information I have gathered. I have found that Miami is the number one immigrant city in America. This is perfect for the documentary, using Miami as one of the cities. This is the website I used to learn more about immigration in America and how immigrants shape the United States Link. It puts emphasis on what immigrants due for this country, they add to both the economy and society. After reading this article I found it best to research other interviews with other immigrants, who have reached the American Dream, I came across this website link, in which it discusses different people achieving the American Dream, it was inspirational and helpful in giving ideas as to what to make sure to discuss within my extract, like personal back stories, where they came from and what they have accomplished with coming to the United States. Everyone has a story. I want to begin filming the interview and continue researching. I find that as I film I get more and more ideas as to what research I need to create the perfect project. See you guys in the next blog where I bring more updates! 😁

filming day one?

 Hey guys! Today I went to Miami and decided while I was there I might as well start filming to get some ideas flowing. I brought my drone today and filmed in the city of Miami as that is where the interviewee from Romania immigrated to. Then I realized that the interviewees I planned on interviewing all came to Miami, so I needed to find someone from elsewhere, I know some people from Romania that moved to New York. I have some footage of walking in the city, when I was there pre-pandemic that I thought would be cool to incorporate and I could interview her through zoom. I am starting to get even more excited now that I have gotten some footage! Filming today gave me ideas on what statistics to search for and I love that I have two interviewees from two well known cities, my next steps it to get plenty of research on these cities and people immigrating to America and these cities in particular. Enjoy some pictures from today! 

See you guys in the next blog!! 😊

Moving forward

 Hey guys! I've been pushing back creating a storyboard because I wasn't sure how to structure my piece, but I realized that even though I have no idea how to structure it, sitting down and drawing ideas out is the best way to come up with a structure. That is exactly what I did, I sat down with a pencil and paper and just started drawing. I want to say that I also re-watched episodes from the docu series "Ugly Delicious" that I've mentioned in a previous vlog, they have a fun style I would like to incorporate in my piece, one thing I want to do differently from them is that I want to utilize indirect interviews rather than direct interviews. Keep in mind this is an extremely rough draft of my storyboard with raw ideas jotted down, without further ado, my long awaited storyboard...

Something extremely necessary for me is a ton of b-roll, however, I feel that this will come naturally when filming. Also to update on my last post, I have spoken to a few classmates and I have decided to focus on the topic of, coming to America, the journey, the reason. I have decided on this since my extract will be from the beginning of the episode. I am exciting that I have finally sorted out my ideas. Some great research coming your way in the next few blogs along with FILMING! See you soon!😊 

Planning, planning, planning

 Hey guys! Wow it's been the longest week EVER! Happy Friday everyone 😊 this week has been planning week 2, the final week in planning. Of course that's the plan which I plan to stick to, but also can't rush the process. Enough about that! Let's get to what I've been up to, while this week has felt extremely never-ending, I've gotten some exciting news, which include college acceptances and... finalized ideas!!! yayyyyy!

I wanna say that while I wasn't really blogging, I was definitely brainstorming/stressing to finalize my idea. I want to take you guys on the process of how I came to my conclusion. First, I want to begin my saying that research has been extremely fun, I love watching documentaries, and I've watch plenty this week along with my parents, which is actually the reason as to why I choose the documentary package, I wanted to do something I am truly passionate about. Now I want to say that I really thought about what was discussed in my class group discussion, where I told you all that we decided it would be best for me to focus on one topic of coming to America in my "American Dream" docu series. I didn't know what topic to choose, in class we discussed the process of obtaining a visa. While, that topic is great, I wanted to keep it simple. So I thought to myself, let me break it down, I only need a 5 minute extract, I am still thinking too big, so I thought smaller. I decided to pick which part of the documentary I would use for my extract. I decided it be best to film the beginning of the documentary, start with how they came to America. Everyone has there unique story for immigrating to the United States. It is of course how my piece would start before delving into deeper parts, like the struggles (ok side note, writing down "struggles" made me realize that it would be a good idea to film about their struggles as an immigrant, shoot now I'm torn). I think what I am going to do is either combine the two or I will consult with my classmates to see which idea they like more. For now though, I know that I want my 5 minute extract to be the beginning of the documentary, it's something I am familiar with especially since last years portfolio project consisted of creating a film opening, it's not the same, but it's similar. 

I hope you guys enjoyed today's blog! Now that I have a more finalized idea, I will talk to my classmates and create my storyboard! Yayy! See you guys in the next blog!😁✌