The documentary series, "Immigrants in America", is a series in which people from all over the world share their experience with moving to America. The series includes multiple episodes of countries in which people share their stories.
The five minute extract is from
the episode of immigrants from Romania. This is especially special to me
because I am from Romania. Coming up with an idea for a documentary I decided
to work with something that I am passionate about. Living in Miami I have come
across many different cultures, I live in a very diverse area. I have met so
many people from different parts of the world and noted that they each have
their own stories. Documentaries are about informing and educating, they
illustrate a "slice of life."
Immigration is a topic that is usually viewed
differently, so I decided to create a piece that gave viewers insight on these
personal experiences. As an immigrant myself, I tend to feel closer to people
who come from a different country, not necessarily my country. This is how I
drew my target audience, which are immigrants that came to the United States,
ages 7-75, male and female. I want to give viewers the feeling of comfort and
relation.
In the extract, the interviewee
is discussing the feeling of flying for the first time, first impressions, how
America is viewed in his country, obtaining his citizenship. In the interview
he also discusses the language barrier and how learning English in a classroom
is not the same as needing it in the real-world, this is a part of the extract
in which I felt was something many people can relate to; however, I did not use
this part of the interview in the extract. I feel that this could have added
greatly to the piece, but I could not fit it into the extract due to the flow
of it, it felt out of place.
The article was a “director’s” interview,
but being the director, editor, producer, writing, etc. I included questions and
answers about how the piece came about and how the editing worked. This product
engages with the audience because it also has the feeling inclusion, the
interviewee is also an immigrant in which the audience can relate to.
To promote the piece, I used
Instagram. Instagram has recently gained a great deal of popularity among businesses
due to their feature which helps promote and reach a large audience based on
their likes. I created a business/promotional page which shares my posts with
people who engage with similar posts. Something I felt lacked in my page
greatly was a set theme. Instead of having a color scheme I posted images and
videos of countries and interviewees from those countries. I was able to obtain
short clips of interviewees introducing themselves to share with the viewers
other episodes that are going to be included in the series. This brings me to
another topic I want to discuss about the social media page. While I included information
about other countries, the last couple of posts only focused on the episode of
the extract, this is because it is the most footage I had. Not having a color
scheme definitely does not attract the audience, however, I feel that it works
because the documentary is a non-fictional piece focused on immigration which is
usually correlated to more serious and neutral tones.
I chose to follow genre conventions,
the five minute extract includes, interviews, b-roll footage, archived footage,
and the use of a hand-held camera. While the overall episode would include
multiple interviewees, the extract only included one interviewee, this is
something that I felt I could’ve done a better job on, I could have included an
interview with the interviewee’s wife to describe how she felt. However, I am
proud of the way I shot the interview, it felt very professional, the
interviewee was placed perfectly and the lighting was great. I also used archived
footage, while it was minimal, something that I felt made the piece better was
the use of the footage from the first house he lived in. The use of the hand-held
camera worked well because the main feeling I wanted to convey with this series
was for the audience to relate, and this created a sense of realism, as he is
walking into his office.
The brand is developed mainly through
the five minute extract. Diversity is the important part of this series. The
different episodes focus on immigration from one country. Immigrants feel a
relation to other immigrants because they share similarities; struggles and happiness
with leaving their home countries. They see themselves as foreigners, however,
they work hard and try to become the best they can because they have been given
the opportunity to move to the country with limitless possibilities.
Overall, I felt that my products
worked well to engage with the audience. My main focus was on making sure the
target audience felt relatable. Being able to watch people who come from the
same country, hearing their stories, it makes the audience feel like they are
watching family. I know that my products could use work, for example, adding
more b-roll as well as transitions to the extract could strengthen it greatly,
an additional interviewee, such as his wife would have also added to the piece.
The social media page could have been structured with a color scheme to attract
the audience more. The article seemed to engage with the audience as it relates
to the audience.
