Epiphany

So an epiphany... let's have a little chat about what this means to me and how it is exactly what I am having right now. An epiphany, defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, means a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event); or an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure. So this is exactly what is going on in my head right now. I have had a brilliant (I think) idea. 

During my road trip I will be visiting all the places I mentioned in my previous blog and spending at least a whole 12 hours there. I began to research cool facts about the places I am visiting and the one that caught my attention the most was the blooming of the Japanese Cherry Blossoms in Washington, D.C. This is a major event over there which attracts many tourists and is considered to be one of the most beautiful moments of the year at Washington. These cherry blossoms have very rich history and there are even museums about it in the area. This could be the main focus of my documentary. Thinking from above the poster would be a picture of a cherry blossom and the website would be just very pink (the color of the flowers) etc. 

My other idea is that I will be visiting St. Augustine, FL and Savannah, GA these are two cities with very rich Spanish history (especially St. Augustine due to the fact that it was the first city established in the United States by the Spanish). I could do my documentary on the architecture there or just the history of it and why people visit it, my interviewees would be tourists in the area and I could visit a tourist information center and get someone with some expertise to talk about it. 

I have a couple of other ideas rolling around in my head but I truly think I can pull this together.

Hold on tight!

Mariette xx

What comes next?

Hello again!

Sunday before show week has finally gotten here and the show, FAME, is finally coming together so that's a weight off of my shoulders. Spring break is coming along in the next week so that is something I am very much so looking forward to.  My family and I have "last minutely" planned a road trip from Weston, Florida which is where we live, all the way up to Washington, D.C. I am so beyond excited because we're not just going straight there; we're going to be stopping in St. Augustine, Jacksonville, Savannah, Ashville, Blue Ridge Parkway, Williamsburg, and finally Washington, D.C. This will be prime time to be working on my complete documentary package due to the fact that our project is due April 16th! Ahhh!

I will have plenty of hours, 31 to be more exact, to work on all that I have to do. I am planning on making the most out of these hours and really utilize the time to the best of my abilities. My family and I will not be driving overnight therefore I shouldn't fall asleep in the car (like I would usually cause I got lots to do!). I kinda had a little epiphany during the weekend and it was to change the idea of my documentary... and just film something completely different... This might sound ballistic right now but I am truly feeling hopeless with what I have for now. I am embarking on this amazing road trip with my family and the ideas for my documentary project are endless. I have countless hours to work on it in the car and I truly do believe I could pull it together!

All you have to do is believe! I have been researching different movies and films who seem to magically get their stuff together last minute and these include but are not limited to the production of Moonlight where the character who plays the mother, Naomie Harris, only went onto set for one day and filmed everything that she did in the movie in one day. I know there are many more people especially people who film documentaries who have last minute epiphanies and manage to get their stuff together. I am truly looking forward to not having to do this and maybe figuring something out with what I already have but I am truly just not happy with my work at all and I will not submit something I am not happy with.

Don't freak out... just hold on tight.

Mariette xx

Uh Oh... #3

Here we go again...

This is uh oh #3 a.k.a not a good sign at all. So let's do a quick little update on my life and all that is going on right now. I am part of the American Musical Theater program at my school and this year we are putting together a version (I guess one could say) of FAME: The Musical. We have been working on this ever since the beginning of the school year, so August, and our show is this upcoming week on the nights of April 6th and the 7th. Every production done by our musical theater program tends to be very chaotic and in simpler terms just a mess; up to rehearsal weeks which take place the two weeks before the show. We have after school rehearsals from 3-5:30pm every day the week before show week, we then have a technical rehearsal on the Sunday before show week from 10am-1pm. which is basically just a whole run through of the show (costumes, makeup, hair, lights, curtains, etc.), and finally the 2-3 days before the show we have "full run through" rehearsals from 3pm-6pm. This is all a very intense process and it has truly made my work ethic in all things a lot better, it also helps me to work under pressure a lot more efficiently.

Which brings me to my next point, in my last blogpost I talked about my documentary's title and the fact that I was going to name it "Disagreement: Election 2016." Since then I have filmed both my interviewees and went to their house. Camille, my friend from school, and her mom are my interviewees and they really did do a wonderful job of giving me great answers and helping me bounce back and forth between the questions and their responses. I have the footage but I am just not happy enough with it. Here's the thing... I have seem to have not thought about this well enough in the beginning but putting all the pieces together after what I filmed... I'm just bored. I hate watching my own stuff and not being excited because if I'm not excited then how will my audience be?

From here I'm putting my thinking cap on. I am going to talk to my peers, my parents, and whoever else I can get advice from during the weekend to figure out what I can do.

I was so so so excited and now I'm just a little bummed out.

Till next time

Mariette xx

Documentary title?

Hey guys!

Ahhhhh! So I have come to realize that I had this irking thought in my mind that was blocking me from making moves on many things with this project. The title...

Some may say that one does not pick a title until the very end, which is true, but I always title my projects before I begin just to have something to build off of and if my idea takes a whole different turn then obviously I change it.

But... here is my title for now: Disagreement: Election 2016.

I decided on this because I want to make sure that my audience has a clear idea from the get go of what the documentary is about. I want them to know that it is about the election but I want to make sure they understand that it is about the issues the election brought upon the society. I also want to make sure that the fact that it is about issues within families is concealed.

This title seems perfect at the moment because of the fact that this is supposed to be just a 5 minute excerpt of a TV documentary and TV documentaries could last a while or maybe not; but in the case that it does last a while I need to have a title that can carry on for many issues/disagreements. As a producer I might run out of families to talk about or the topic may get tiring; but with this title I can explore all that I want to with no limits!

Thanks for tuning in!

Mariette xx

Finding my way!

Hey guys!

Just like Gabriella Montez in High School Musical I have gotten to the point where if I don't figure out what I'm doing and how I am producing it I will be messed up; therefore, I gotta find my own way!

So here's my plan step by step:

1. Decide on whether or not I want to have 2 different families in the documentary

2. Once I select this I have to decide how exactly I am going to interview them without causing much of a ruckus in the household.

3. I need to sit in their household and let them discuss as naturally as possible so I can score some real footage and not have it just be interviews.

4. I have to shoot some extra footage of both members of the household living their daily lives and just going about it.

5. Put all the pieces together.

6. And voila!

Making this list will be a basic guideline to make sure I get everything done and don't make dumb planning mistakes. Apart from that step by step list I also want to share with you guys my storyboard which I created a little while back. I don't want to post it on here until I know it is going to be exactly what I go by.

This is a lot harder than it seemed and still seems!

Keep holding on amigos!

Mariette xx

Uh oh... #2

Hey guys!

Here we go again with some uh oh's... So since I spent this whole week at my state competition for drama I didn't spend a lot of time working on this but I did get to communicate with the people who I want to use for my documentary and I have some juice!

I have decided that my documentary for sure will be a political one. This is very broad so I will go into detail right... now.

By a political documentary I mean one that deals with current political issues, especially the ones the United States is dealing with right now. I don't want to create much controversy on it I just want people to see both sides of the situation. At the beginning of this year in my media studies class our teacher shoved us out of our comfort zone by throwing at us a project in which we had to select a controversial topic and through a website we had to present both sides with no bias at all. I chose the topic of abortion which was why I struggled so much to complete this project. I ended up doing very well on the project but the whole week and a half before turning it in I was full of anxiety and overthinking; which is sort of what is happening to me right now.

http://pro-choicepro-life.weebly.com/pro-life.html - this is the link to the website I created if you're interested.

Well, back to what my documentary will be about, I want to focus the documentary on the issues the current political controversies occurring in this country are bringing into families. By this I mean showing both the liberal and the conservative side of 2 or more members of a family (for now it's only 2 members) and how this created, creates, and will continue to create discussions and disagreements in between family members.

This is my idea which for now I think it has a good shape although I'm still thinking about how exactly I want this to look and when I can shoot it and when I can get real camera footage... We'll see how this goes.

For now, we'll talk later!

Mariette xx

Florida State Thespians

Hey guys!

       This week is about to be a very overwhelming week... Again. I will be competing this week at a state competition for drama. To get to this competition I had to go to the district competition first. At districts I performed a Duet Acting scene and got straight superiors. Superiors are the best ratings one can get at these drama competitions. My partner and I scored an 87 out of 90, almost a perfect score. Although we scored this high, we did not get to perform/compete at states. Even though we did not get to compete attending the competition is a wonderful experience.

      I didn't have much time to spend on working on my documentary but I did have time to work on research. Although this might not be sources that I can site, watching many performances at the competition gave me a lot of ideas and triggered ways to produce my documentary better. I was also surrounded by many classmates who also had to work on their final AICE Media A Level projects so it was interesting to share my ideas with them and to continue getting feedback about it.

       States was a very wonderful experience and although it threw me a bit off track with my work from school it was all very worth it.

Talk to you guys later!

Mariette xx