Fonts fonts and more fonts

Welcome back!

Today we all had a bit of down time and began to edit our documentary film. Through the past year and a half we have always used iMovie to edit. It works perfectly and is super simple to use. However, today we have ran into our first problem while editing... we can't seem to agree on a font!

Fonts in our opinion are so important. Its kind of like giving your writing, title, or caption some life and expression on its own. If your font dosen't match your film it makes it look extremely odd and out of place.


If you see here, this is the only list of fonts iMovie provides you with. We are all trying to figure out which fonts work and which don't.














To the right, I put a screen shot of all the places where we can actually place the captions through the film. Like I said before, we have worked with iMovie before and knew there was limited places where we could actually place the caption. This time however, since we might have to use subtitles for my grandfathers interview and are required use much more captions, it might be a bit harder. I searched up online and found different ways to force the text to be where you want it to be but it's however still so hard.

Until next time!

Music

Welcome back!

This week has indeed been very hectic. My group and I have been on spring break and due to my unplanned vacation, family events and much more, we have had some trouble meeting up to do some editing.

Because of this we all decided to do our own researching on our own down time and see what we're able to put together. So today I focused on just finding some music and background noise to go along with our film. This is a playlist that we created and are planning on finding something similar to use but obviously free.

Searching through Soundcloud which is a free website where you can publish any songs, we found this song. This song also allows it to be used wherever you want since it isn't copywriter. We plan on possibly using this same track for our actually documentary.

Until next time!

My grandpas interview

Welcome back!

On Wednesday, my group and I finally got down to filming my grandpas interview. We did however have a lot of problems shooting. One of the main ones being that Maria's camera's battery ruined and her camera kept dying. Luckily she had brought the charger so we kept having to charge it. This however made it take much longer than it was originally planned out to be.

My grandpa also had a couple problems understanding what exactly the questions were asking and many times started speaking Spanish instead of English. But this is ok, I thought about it and the fact that sometimes he would accidentally pass over to Spanish can emphasize how he's hispanic, and highlight the different ethnicity roles we are trying to show.

During this interview my sister also had to leave halfway through my grandpas filming so we ended up not interviewing her. Instead they interviewed me. :)

Although we had many difficulties the second time around, we still managed to get through the filming. We also plan on using subtitles for my grandpa in order to make him easier to understand. Through this whole process, we also realized that we didn't have a women point of view so Maria called up her boyfriend and asked if we could borrow his grandma.. who is also hispanic.

We also plan on filming her, and agreed that the more footage we have, the better.

Until next time!

Preparing for 2nd interview

Welcome back!

So today we have planned to interview my grandpa at around 7 or 7:30. I called my grandpa and he agreed on doing the filming and said tonight would be the best time. In order to get the same affect that we did on my friends grandpa we want to make sure the questions for him are just as spontaneous as they were in are past interview.

We still are trying to have a wide variety of races and ethnicities as somewhat of a “uncover theme” so my grandpa will help since he is Hispanic. In order to mirror the same way we interviewed my friend and her grandpa, we plan on also interviewing my sister who is 12 Year’s old and get her opinion from a much younger point of view.

These are the questions we plan on using tonight for my grandpa:

• What is your name? How old are you?
• Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? What was the world like when you were born?
• How long have you been retired?
• What does age mean to you? Do you wish to be young again?
• What is your best memory?
• What makes you happy?
• Do you believe age is depressing? What would you comment on this stereotype?
• Do you have any rebellious memories?
• How would you compare your childhood to today’s children childhoods?
• What failures have you faced in life?
• What was your marriage like?
• How was parenthood like? Do you have any children?
• Any regrets?
• What is your say on how society thinks the elderly are boring and useless?
• Does aging really lead to loneliness?
• Does aging make you more religious?
• What do your opinion about the statement “elderly cannot learn”?
• Are the 60s the new 40s due to medical and technological advances?
• Are the elderly unable to learn and be open to other people’s opinions?

These are the questions we plan on using for my sister:

• Whats your full name, when and when were you born?
• How have your grandparents grown up to be apart of your life?
• How well do you know your grandparents?
• What are some things you share in common with them?
• What is your stereotypical idea of a elderly person?
• Do your grandparents match that?
• What do you think of them as a person?

One thing I am however worried about is the fact that my grandpa is Hispanic and Spanish is his first language. He also has a somewhat thick accent so we might have to add in subtitles. Another problem with the whole language thing, is that in many cases he may not understand the questions fluently but I hope this we can simply fix by just editing out the parts of us explaining. Hopefully he’ll be able to express himself fluently in English but we will see!

I will keep you guys updated on how the filming goes for my next post :)

Until next time!

Filming

Welcome back!

Honestly I am so happy on how our project has come up so far! We are right on schedule and filming has gone great.

Last weekend my group and I began filming. Like I had said in my last post, my grandpa was in California and got back yesterday morning. So today we plan on finishing up filming and hopefully start editing by the end of this week.

But... let’s talk about how our filming went!

So this past weekend we started by filing my friend Leah and her grandpa, Zeyda (Zayda is his nickname). When we arrived to his home we realized we had one major major problem.... the lighting. Zeyda lives in a small town house by himself around Bonaveture. His home however is extreamly dark. It’s almost as if he lives in a man cave.

We started by moving around the camera turning on lights, trying to get the perfect lighting in order to actually film. Than we found a spot that somewhat worked and we agreed that if anything, we would just edit the footage to increase the lighting.

Now, let me tell you... Zeyda honestly did an AMAZING job. We told him that the more he spoke the better, because we all know the more footage the better. And that’s exactly what he did! He spoke so well about everything and awnsered our questions throughly. We honestly couldn’t have picked a better person to film. The best part of him though is the fact that he in general is a very goofy and happy old guy and this same personality was something we were able to catch on camera. This is exactly what we were looking for.

After asking him our questions we interviewed my friend, Leah. In order to try and get a different kind of setting, we decided filming outside on the  footsteps of the home would be perfect. The lighting was also very good and she too was very helpful with answering the questions.

Until next time!

Interviews questions

Welcome back!

Today my group decided to work on our questions. We plan on filming this weekend and in order to begin our interviews we obviously need to finish our questions.

We also decided to go along with the idea of also interviewing the grandchildren of our interviewees. This way we can also have the perspective of their own family members.

So here are the questions we came up with for the grandparents:

• Tell me about your full name, when and where you were born.
• Tell me about your childhood
• What were some of your favorite hobbies back when you were my age?
• What are your favorite hobbies now?
• What are some things you can still do now that you would do before?
• What is an average day for you like?
• What are some things your parents never did that you have been able to do?
• What do you enjoy now?
• Do you think you carry around a kind of stereotype?
• What do you think about yourself?

We are hoping to start off with some basic questions just about their life, age hobbies, etc. and than get into more detail about their life now and how they are "perceived". Like I said before, we are hoping to film this weekend starting off with my friend, Leahs grandpa. My grandpa is currently in California visiting and gets back next week. Thats when we will next film.

And here are some questions we came up with for the grandchildren:

• Whats your full name, when and when were you born?
• How have your grandparents grown up to be apart of your life?
• How well do you know your grandparents?
• What are some things you share in common with them?
• What is your stereotypical idea of a elderly person?
• Do your grandparents match that?
• What do you think of them as a person?

Here, we are also striving for almost the same goal as the other interviewee questions. We wanna start off basic and continue.

I will keep you guys updated as best as I can.

Until next time!:)

Interviewees

Welcome back!

Today me and my group were all texting on our group chat and we begin to discuss who exactly we were going to interview. I shared my idea of also interviewing maybe one family member of that elderly person just to see what their thoughts on their grandparents were.

We spoke to Gaby boyfriends grandma and sadly she said she is not available to do the interview. We than were short one person. My grandparents and my friend, Leahs grandparents were still available to film but still that one person was missing.

We begin to than think of people who come from different cultures in which we could interview. Remember... our goal is to still have a underlying multicultural aspect to our project. Gaby than purposed asking her friend Mina! Mina is from Korea and the fact that Koreans are known for treating the elderly with such respect would be perfect for our documentary. We hope to begin filming this weekend because if not, it throws us off schedule.

We also did some researching on my teachers page and found a video from one of our classmates from the year 2014-2015.

This video has some short scenes of were he incorporates his grandparents. The lighting and the way he showed them so happy and smiling. This something we look forward to using in our video. We want to make our elderly people look like they're enjoying life and living.

Until next time!

Problems and corrections

Welcome back!

So today was a BIG day! My group and I finally met with our teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa and we came up with some new ideas and a much better understanding of the entire project itself.

As we spoke with our teacher we realized that our documentary had to be apart of a documentary series that could be aired on national television. This meant that we are only supposed to present a clip from one episode out of the many other seasons they may have. This meant that not only did we have to think about what our mini clip from the episode would be about, but we also have to think about all the other seasons and episodes as well.

Once we were done talking we went back to our seats and began to think of an overall topic. And this is what we came up with:
- How are you perceived?

We plan on naming our show "How are you perceived" (although that is subject to change), and having different episodes on different age groups.

For example, the first age group would be 10-15 years old... this would make up one whole episode interviewing people in this age range and asking them how they are perceived. The next age range is 15-20, than 20-25, 25-35 and so on. At first we want our episodes to be focused on people who are all  within five years of age apart from one another. This is only because when you are younger, age is a bigger deal. Than we plan on making age groups of 10 years, just because as you get older, age becomes more of just a number.

The same concept with the interviewers is continued throughout the entire show.

Our project however is going to be focused on the 75-85 range. This is where our main focus is and we plan on naming this episode "80 is the new 40".

Until next time!

More research

Welcome back!

Today I decided to do some researching and think of questions that can be asked on our two most possible topics:
- How the elderly are treated in the USA vs other countries
- Life regrets and life lessons.

In this article I read, they compared different countries together based on how they view the elderly and what they think of them.

Sadly America is ranked as one of the lowest. The article states that us Americans usually view the old as grey, hairy wrinkled skin people and they're are often times not given the respect they deserve. However, they state that this is slowly changing. America is now making movements to show that these people are knowledgeable and wise by have small things in society such as "Senior Citizens Day" and "Older Americans Month". On the other hand, they say that countries like Japan and China view their old as precious, wise people who deserve much much respect.

I than viewed some videos and made a list of questions that I could ask are interviewees. Here are the questions I came up with:

• Who is the person who has influenced your life the most?
• What would you tell your 18 year old self?
• What are you most proud of?
• What is the happiest moment of your life?
• How would you like to be remembered? 
• If you could go back and change one thing, what would it be?

Until next time!

Larsen, Dana. “How Do Different Cultures Take Care of Seniors?” Senior Assisted Living Guides: Find Senior Care A Place for Mom, 8 Nov. 2016, www.aplaceformom.com/blog/10-10-16-how-different-cultures-take-care-of-seniors

Peer Groups

Welcome back!

Today is the day that I met with my peers!

During todays class, my teacher assigned us to different people from different groups in order to discuss and advise each other about our progress so far. So I mentioned to them the different thoughts about our subject. I told them we wanted to do the elderly since in todays society, we feel they are very looked down upon and we weren't sure whether or not to go down a culture, life lessons or life regrets topic.

So this is the advice they told me:
They started by saying that honestly going into the whole culture aspect would be very narrow and instead, if we do the life regrets and life lessons it could be a broader subject and its much more interesting. They agreed that still using the same interviewees would be pretty cool and just having it be more of and undertone subject would be best.

I than remembered that my teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa had once said that we need to make sure that if we're doing the documentary, we have to make it so that it can continue and go on. Meaning that it can be aired on national television. My group and I had always been very confused about this aspect of the project so I asked them how they thought it would be best to incorporate this in.

Antonio, one of my peers actually gave great advice. He began to talk about how here in the USA, the elderly are not taken good care of. In other countries he said, like China, hispanic countries and such, elderly people are seen as wise, important people. Here in the USA its almost the complete opposite. He than said that it would be pretty cool to see us incorporate some of that towards the end of our documentary. In other words, he recommended starting with the life lessons and than somehow merging into the topic of how people treat their elders.

We all agreed that if we had time to interview the same elders family members, it would be interesting to hear what they have to say about them.

Sammy also mentioned to remember that if we decide to just do life regrets and life lessons we need to mainly focus on the past. For example, for B-roll she said, its key to make this highly focused on pictures and don't do anything about the present.

I plan on sharing all of this information with Gaby and Maria next class.

Until next time!

Different thoughts

Welcome back!

A couple days ago, at the dinner table I mentioned to my mom our idea about the entire project itself. I also asked her whether or not she thought we would be able to use the nursing home I volunteer at as a place to film. My mom however said something really interesting. She asked why not do people I know?

I than began to think of this and started to thinking about doing something with different cultures and how growing up in different countries would affect you in your future.

The next day I right away mentioned it to my group. Gaby said that we could interview her boyfriend's grandparents who are Haitian, Mari and me both said we could interview either of our grandparents who are hispanic, and I than thought of my friend Leahs grandpa, who is Jewish White. And there we had it! Three interviewees, from three very different cultures and it would somewhat look like this:

Hispanic

Black

White

We than began to question whether or not doing something based on culture and stereotypes would be better than doing the life regrets and life lessons. Or maybe even doing a combination of both.
Knowing that next class we were going to meet with different peers from different groups and discuss our ideas, we decide waiting to hear their opinion would be best!

Until next time!

Research

Welcome back!

Like I said in my last post, in order to succeed and have a good understanding of what exactly we're doing, we need to research. So my group and I decide it was best that we all do our own research on our own time and share ideas.

Because of the fact that our documentary will be a maximum of five minutes and 30 seconds long, I decided youtube would be the best fit to find really short and entertaining documentary films.

This documentary short film is based off of three very old people who talk about certain aspects that they would change about their lives and some life lessons. I really loved how in this short documentary they had the old people go throughout their daily lives while they tell their story. This to me was very interesting and could be more visually appealing compared to them being placed in the nursing home and being in one location at all times. The "life lessons" part of the documentary also added some light towards the subject, this way its not so sad and emotional. 

Although this isn't exactly a documentary film, it does how ever express the same life regrets topic that the earlier video touched up on. This video really motivated me to do something out of the norm. Within our documentary I hope to use some kind of inspiration to inspire our audience to do more and push themselves to their limits just like this video did towards me. The use of rhythm and a beat that goes along with the video added some entertainment as well.

Until next time!

Timing

Welcome back!

Today my group and I decided to make a week by week schedule. Last year we had no planning at all and yes, the week before the project was due, we were all freaking out, running around attempting to finish every last finishing touch.

So... the idea of a schedule and something to keep us on track didn't sound to bad after all.

This is what we came up with:

As you can tell, we have a very detailed week by week explanation of what is to get done. We are also very strong believers that the more time we have to edit, research, and clean up the better the project outcome will be. This is exactly why you will notice that the word "research" is used quite often, and thats the same reason why we give ourselves a whole week to edit and two weeks to do touch up on anything we missed or want to improve.

Until next time!

Welcome

Hello to whomever is reading my blog. Today my group and I were assigned to create a short documentary film. In this blog I will be posting weekly updates of my thought development and project processing. My team includes my amazing teammates Gabriela Marcano (Gaby) and Maria Bonilla.

So lets get started...

Like the over achievers we were attempting to be, my group and I have already been brainstorming for quite some time. One week ago my teacher gave us a friendly reminder that we were to begin our projects this week. That night in our group chat, Maria was in bed watching youtube when she came upon random elderly people documentaries based on life regrets and childhood stories. She right away sent this to us and the inspiration begun!

With this in mind, I responded back saying it would be extremely interesting to try and do something similar for our documentary film. I have been volunteering for a nursing home and the thought of interviewing them was pretty cool.

Today as a group we all got together and begin to toss out random ideas. We even thought about going off our original topic and do something based on gun control and what had happened at Stoneman Douglas High School (since of course, we are right in the center of all the heat).

This however would be extremely complicated.

So... we decided to go back to our original plan but than the unanswered questions begin to arise:
"What happens if the nursing home says no?", "what exactly are we going to ask them?", "how will we ask them?", "will the interview be indirect or direct?".

With these questions in mind we decided to begin doing some research.

Until next time!