Documentary Part 2

    Entry 4: 2/14/22

    Now that is has come for Isa and I to complete our second documentary.. we are struggling way more than we did for Counter Conformity in terms of coming up for an idea. I have always been interested in being able to capture a piece of life and sharing the story behind it while raising awareness simultaneously. And while that had always been an easy passion of mine, I hit a roadblock this year. 

    I have been a part of the journalism/broadcasting/television production world since I was in 5th grade. I progressed from anchoring in Gator Run Elementary School's morning announcements, writing (very basic) stories, anchoring, and producing in Falcon Cove Middle School's morning announcements, to very small freshman starstruck by the opportunities available in a school like Cypress Bay High School. And now, a senior on the weekly school called Aftershock, but why I mention this? Well this is because, even with all my years producing news segments, interviewing subjects, and editing the piece all together, I had never been affected by one of the topics I had covered. I had never questioned my journalism career and why I was doing it. On January 29, 2022 I was doing a Student Television Network, STN, Feature Story practice with my group. This was as competition in which we had 6 hours to create a news package with a prompt that was released to us at the beginning of our competition. This is super clique, but this day was a turning point for me, one of frustration and one that led to several days of self reflection. Now let me stop dragging it on and jump into it. Basically, we ended up finding a story of a human trafficking awareness event. The participants were walking from their start point to city hall in order to raise awareness to human trafficking for black, brown, and indigenous people. One of my jobs on the team is to interview people for our video. That day, I had met human trafficking survivors, people who were older than me, and ones who were my age and even younger. They told me their stories and, frankly, I was heartbroken. I felt like I was not doing enough to help the women and children I meet that day. After the video was done, I was extremely conflicted. Was making a short 2-3 minute video all I could do to help these people? Was that what journalism was all about? Covering a topic that deserves all of the attention and then forgetting about it? I was completely overlooking the fact that I was helping these people in a way was different then what they had. I could not realize this until I talked to our teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa. I can not thank her enough because she made me realize that making the video was taking the story and sharing their experiences around the world. I was taking this small event that I saw with my own eyes and publishing it to be seen to several many eyes. It was inspiring, I had felt so refreshing to know I was doing such a task. Before realizing this, I had so many doubts about the path I had been building for myself since I was little, but now, the passion I have for journalism is even stronger. 

    After the human trafficking video, I had felt a spark being relit in me. I took the opportunities I had and used my self reflections to bring out the real story in all my videos and raise as much awareness as possible. My next story ended up being at a practice for STN's Crazy 8 News Magazine Competition. Basically, with a group of 23 students, we have an 8 minute show with news packages and a PSA following a prompt we are given. For this competition, there are 4 news groups, 1 PSA teams, 2 producers, and 2 anchors. I am on a news team and I am the reporter. That practice, I did a story on Make a Wish. I met children way younger than me who were telling me their experience with their condition and the parents who talked about their kids as well. It was heartbreaking. Another story in which the topic was a big one. But this time, I was not as conflicted as the last. I crafted the story in a way that I was extremely proud of in the end. Now, normally I am always proud of the end result, but this time it was different. This time I had learned so much from it. I allowed myself to really take in this learning experience and put my new ideals into this video. 

    So why did I go on and on about that to introduce the documentary ideas? Well, I felt as if it was important for me to realize how much I have changed in these past months and how I have become in terms of my projects. For the documentary, I want to raise awareness and create something that I will be proud of to look back on and call it one of my works. I want another Counter Conformity.. but even better. This is going to be (excuse my language) one hell of a project and I am looking forward to it.

Idea #1: 

    Isa has been following this girl on Instagram who skates nearby at a skate park. She has several videos of her skating online and is extremely dedicated to her craft as she basically online journals her progression with skateboarding. For this idea, it would be a documentary where we capture the story of her and her female skating friends to bring to light a serious matter. We would question the whole "girl power" ideal and how, even though many use it to credit woman, it creates more separation than empowerment. 

    A few issues that we have with this idea is that the skater may not have the same feeling about the term girl power. As much as I loved this idea and was extremely interested in the topic we would bring up. The risks that were present were too much for the time frame we have for this project. Something Isa was worried about with this idea was that our friends created a skating documentary called "Changing Bearings." Isa really did not believe it was the best idea for us. I disagreed because the topics are extremely different, just the sport is the same. But regardless, the risk involved with the documentary were too much and frankly, as much as I would have loved to do this, I think this is an idea that should be saved for another project. 

Idea #2: 

    This next idea is SUCH a good one but an extremely tricky one. When Isa first pitched this, I was in awe of how good the topic is but I almost immediately shut it down because it is a lengthy one. Basically, its on the effect called the male gaze. I honestly had no idea what this was before Isa brought it up but I believe she learned this from a Tik Tok video someone sent into our AICE Media group chat a bit ago and continued on researching about the topic. 

    Basically, the male gaze "invokes the sexual politics of the gaze and suggests a sexualized way of looking that empowers men and objectifies women. In the male gaze, woman is visually positioned as an “object” of heterosexual male desire."  The male gaze most specifically is depicted from the media and how women are represented there. 

    Here is the exact postcard Isa showed me when she first brought up the idea:

    As you can see, this documentary could be at least an hour long because of how extensive this issue is. I know that if Isa and I had the resources and more time, we could cover each and every bullet point in a very very long documentary. But unfortunately, that is not possible. We would most likely only cover a few points on this card like how the male gaze affects people's self concept and how they view themselves but then how individuals can break free from that view and have their own confidence. I brought up in our conversation that Isa is obviously extremely passionate about this idea so we most likely will end up doing it but we have to keep in mind how much we put. This is something I have had to learn throughout this year, as much as you may have a clear structure, it is so easy to veer off and find a whole new topic to add. If we were to do this idea, we would need to almost have the words of the interviewee's planned out ahead of time (I'm over-exaggerating incase you can't tell) so we do not veer off the message we want to bring out. And since Isa has been really passionate about this topic for a while, she has shared to me the stylistic view she has for the documentary and OMG! This documentary is going to rock. She has built a Pinterest board for the type of b-roll we would do and I need to share a view pictures of it.

    That pretty much wraps it up. One of the issues I know Isa and I will encounter during this project and even now is that we are starting to get a little burnt out. With our classes, making videos every week for Aftershock, competitions, and other personal things, it is definitely all a hassle. But, it is very refreshing to have an idea we are both interested in and I know that we want this documentary to turn out the best of the best so we are going to put our all into this. Will it be stressful? Absolutely but sometimes stress is good, it shows you care. I really love the ideas we have and I hope we end up doing the male gaze one now that I understand it more but we will have to see.