Entry One

The First Day

(first impressions)

     Back at it once more. Roughly a year since the AS level project which was one of the most challenging and interesting things I have done. I'm excited to begin my documentary piece and to see the process unfold bit by bit, allowing the pieces to come together. This specific blog posting relates to my first impressions of the project, and what I plan to do. I chose a documentary because I have worked on short films, trailers, and music videos before in other projects and the documentary genre is the one that I am least familiar with and I felt that challenging myself would make me more invested in my project. I welcome the challenge and look forward to dealing with it's many roadblocks. Since I chose my project at the beginning of this school year, I told myself by the time it was time to start working on it(right now) that I would have a well defined subject for what my documentary would be about. I had ideas throughout, all of them mostly relating to the underground music scene in South Florida where I'm from which is booming as of 2017. I had another idea for a more experimental documentary exploring the nature of humans not as individuals, but as a whole organism composed of smaller pieces that depend on each other. I wanted to do this by rushing strangers on the street, interviewing asking them about both what they did last night and an important event in their childhood. THis topic still seems so interesting to me and I'd love to do it, but the uncertainty regarding whether or not strangers will be the interviewees I desire them to be really puts me off. Somewhat inspired by the idea Humans of New York and the more abstract way of presenting your subject like in Cameraperson, Last Night(what I'm calling this idea for my project) is something I really want to do, but something I have to consider might present too many problems/ too unpredictable. ANother idea deals with immigration and South Florida being the multicultural melting pot that it is. I want to do something in this realm because of the current political sphere making this a a good subject in terms of marketing. I have no real defined way of presenting this subject, so as now , it''s only an idea.

     The final idea(and most probable that I will choose) is a form of observational documentary following Omar, an older brother of my friend who was incarcerated for nearly a year after being a star in track and letting a series of negative events lead him to catching a case. I spoke to him about it and he told me that he is willing to help me. I want to share a story that's so personal to many and hasn't had enough light shed on it. The "how a person changes in prison" stories are always ridiculed with stereotypes and I never think they feel real enough in movies and TV shows. They don't delve into what's really important, never exploring peer selection, coping, how people around you change, and just why it's hard to stay off what got you there in the first place. ALl of this I have briefly conversed about with Omar and I found fascinating. I would approach this technically as being nothing more than a cinematographer in the documentary, absolutely letting Omar tell his own story with me being his shadow behind the camera. Obviously, I must lead him to expose what I want to, but I want it to feel like Omar is making it about himself. I plan on making a layout for the 5 minute excerpt that I want to make the introduction of the documentary.

      Choosing my topic has been stressing me for far too long and I really need to settle on something rationally before more ideas flood my head.