Critical Reflection

             Entry 45: 4/10/22

     Here is my critical reflection! 

The episodic docu-series The Overlooked focuses on bringing awareness to topics that are normally pushed aside. Through its second episode Butterflies in a Glass Cage, the docu-series follows the genre of a expository mode documentary to put the audience in the position of the subjects and to create a personal connection with its viewers while raising awareness of the representation of women.

When Butterflies in a Glass Cage was first being developed, the inspiration came behind the awareness of the male gaze's impact on women. Fundamentally, the research from the beginning of the production was analyzed from Jill Soloway's Masterclass, Laura Mulvey and the Male Gaze Theory, & Portrait of a Lady of Fire as they dived into the wide topic on Youtube. Their introduction to the topic allowed the documentary research to have a base with its knowledge, especially since the subject is very unknown and had few resources to begin on. With an expository documentary following such an intricate subject, Butterflies in a Glass Cage had to challenge the ordinary documentary style. In contrast to The Future is Fluid and These Days the b-roll on top of the interviews was staged to create specific emotions for the audiences and constructs a more personal connection to the interviewee's. We also challenged the standard trope of the omniscient voiceover with just the interviewee’s talking. Having the interviewee’s tell their perspective allows viewers to live in the story with them and define their own experiences to the topic.

Due to the target audience the docu-series works with, there was an absolute need to make everything personal and intriguing. Teenagers, being especially young women (teens), who believe they are being influenced by the media and mostly consume media on mobile devices have to be captured by first glance. With the excessive amount of social media usage such as Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, young teenagers' attention is hard to capture. Knowing so, our product, the documentary made sure to have the use of eye catching b-roll was a necessity and searching for the televisions was a hard task. Our research for social media heavily followed Abstract: The Art of Design’s page as they promoted their docu-series. Although, we had to challenge the short attention spans of our viewers by making sure all of our products would have them take a second glance. For even easier accessibility for our viewers, we created a Linktree on the social media page for easy entry to EP 1 and crew blogs. The inclusion of the blogs adds an extra ring to the aura as viewers can read the director and producer involvement throughout the 10-week project. We also thought this availability of the crew thought processes would follow with how expository documentaries normally “don’t leave much to subjectivity” and show viewers how we wanted them to feel a certain way about the topic. With the interviewee experiences, rhetorical questions, and b-roll to support our purpose, the intent of spreading awareness and making viewers more conscious of the issue is clear.

Following the target audience and one of our products, an expository documentary genre fits perfectly since it "gives the narrator a role to explain or argue the film's rhetorical content." In terms of our product the magazine, the expository documentary genre combats the normal rules as viewers are put into the shoes of the director, Isabella Chiappini. She talks about how working documentaries influenced her lifestyle and how that awareness wanted her to reach others. With a cover page explaining the docu-series and its content and a page all about one of the crew members, Chiappini’s page challenges viewers to research on their own and see how the male gaze can affect them differently. This product also is able to represent women and female leaders. The representation of a woman director flows seamlessly for the brand we are creating.

Along the same lines, another product, the social media has teasers, BTS, and content that creates room for awareness in different areas while also representing the male gaze and different minorities. The highlights and posts showcase a variety of camcorder pictures of the members of the video doing various tasks. The simple click of the story allows viewers to quickly view content without getting bored or distracted. And, with a diverse selection of interviewee’s and crew, the social media demonstrates a manifold of different ideals and beliefs brought together to create one piece. Even if the decisions are completely unconscious, the variety of values that unanimously created Butterflies in a Glass Cage. This not only combats the issue of the male gaze but also follows our genre as the images on screen support the piece’s claim. Especially with Instagram, the docu-series lessons throughout the page uses audio to explain the specific story.

Jointly, all three products work together to create an aura of spreading awareness and feeling included. The brand we developed overall has the purpose of starting the conversation of awareness, representing women, and making the viewers feel as if they were a process of the project throughout all three components. The choices we made in the end, whether it was to challenge the standard voiceover, post behind the scenes content, or even have a two page magazine highlight on both the docu-series and one of the members of the project, etc. we made sure to intertwine all three products together and elaborately create our final branding. It was a challenge to make sure all three products were able to fall back on one another but looking back, I think we successfully got the job done.

Now that working with The Overlooked docu-series and Butterflies in a Glass Cage documentary has finished, having the time to reflect on the ten week project has made me realize how documentaries need time to be fabricated. You cannot create a whole docu-series, branding, and more just based on one project at the same time as studying in high school. I wish we had time, facilities, and resources to create an actual full length docu-series but it is not possible on the time limit. Even though I do believe with the time given to us, we were able to create a brand and follow through with it, I regret not being able to go further with it. 

     Now that that is all done, it was really refreshing to be able to tie everything back and reflect on how well Isa and I worked together!