Critical Reflection

How does your product represent social groups/issues? How does your product engage with audiences? How did research inform your product and the way it uses or challenges conventions?

Faith is a documentary that seeks to portray religion as a universal experience.  As every individual is in the constant search of meaning, a reason for why things happen. For a long time religion has been a tool to relief this search, a search that is very human. The documentary represents two different religions and its communites, despite their differences, as equal in the quest they undergo. 

While trying to show the universal factor of it, it also tries to represent specific groups. Seekin to portray individual factors of this communities like their traditions and particular believes. While the believes is portrayed by stories from the devine texts and particular leasons or callings, other particular factors of the culture are enhaced by the actual filmming of both a Catholic mass and a Jewish service. With this their differences are shown, but by the cross cutting of interviews their similarities are shown. Two different religions that have a big focus on community, as well a strong moral code. 

Despite being followers of a religion, the documentary portrays their struggling relationship with God. It uses the story of Abraham and Isaac to illustrate a relationship that still despite the passing of time represents a important point for how religion is experienced for many. The documentary tries to make sure to portray religion and their believers as a mutualistic but in constant struggling relationship. This giving a more human aspect to it, as you can hear voices that indeed may not see what they believe in, and may recognize its hard, but anyways choose to do it. The documentary also uses a third voice that helps give a more objective view on both religions. But through the view of the proffesor the message is reinforced, as a external voice dives deep into the reasons behind this groups experience their beliefs. 

This piece uses a range of visual and auditory techniques to connect with the audience while exploring a wide range of topics. The piece beggins with a narrator, questioning faith. All of this on a black screen giving more weight to her words, quickly hooking the audience. In contrast to the black screen an animation of an ellephant works as the B-roll to a story that works as an introduction without giving away how the structure would be, making the audience wonder for more. 

Another important element to highlight is the music. Which played sinse the beginning evokes a mistery vibe, questioning and intrigue. And that evolves into a more celestial and devine melody with the tittle card and the B-roll. 

The B-roll works nicely side by side with the interviews. Mantaining the tone and not stealing the complete attention out of the interviews, since they are the ones carrying the narrative. The narrator is another element that works side by side with the interviews. Working as a breathing space, when the information may feel as too much, making the transition to another topic easier. The documentary goes back to the animation at the end, giving the audience a feeling of full circle, which not only helps the audience draw their conclusions but also helps with the pacing. 

For all this content portrayed, research was fundamental, giving their creators a path and tools to represent ideas through visual and auditory elements. As a start their topic is of a sensible nature, as religion plays a fundamental role for the subjects life. After reasearch on questions that would remain under a respectful margin but would still give us deep answers, the decision of making indirect interviews came. This would give the sensation of an intimate conversation with the audience that would help the better diggestion of the content. 

The research upon Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard was as well essential for the narrative of the documentary. The documentary was born from the idea that every religion is connected through faith regardless of how different they are. Kierkegaard proposed the concept of a leap of faith, where an individual abandons the rational thinking in order to follow a religion. This meaning following somenthing they don't have proves of. This research gave results on giving a north to the structuring but generated another problem for the documentary, as a very complex topic was portrayed in a 10 minute doc, making it hard to diggest. A narrator, in the form of V.O came as an answer. This gave the creators the opportunity to not deppend on the an external factor like the interviews and give the doc direction and breathing spaces when needed. 

Another convention that was used was the crosscutting of interviews. Sinse a deep research about two different religions was done, acknowledging how many differences they had, the crosscutting of this interviews was going to be neccesary to directly juxtapose them and be able to show the similarities between them. 

Post - production: help god

 This was very painful

We finished our production with two days to edit and fuck...We had like four hours of interviews and a bunch of B-roll. I had an idea of how I wanted to structure the film conceptually but not really a practical one. Sinse the transcript of hour interviews was like longer than a Shakespeare play I couldn't prepare more than the idea of what I wanted, not how. But I received a calling, and I answered. 

"Panera after school" - They said

Two days straight editing like 6 hours straight after a whole day of school, with only a ranch chicken bacon sandwich in my stomach. My brain never felt so fried after having to chop down six hours of interviews into a structure and message that made sense. But hey we did it. 

As we structured we decided to use the elephant which is somenthing we discussed with the professor as the intro. Afterwards a basic definition of faith and its origin in the story of Abraham. Then we wanted to highlight how this is somenthing difficult, not only because I mean noone sees God but because it also requires a calling, a moral one. We also wanted to touch in the community and later go to the most existencial aspect of religion answering the how  and why people believe through Kierkegaard's leap of faith. 

Looking back it is kinda crazy how much information we ended up putting into the doc, it is wild that this was able to fit in 10 min, Im lowkey proud.

The animation of the elephant I'd say played a huge role on connecting everything together and making both beggining and end more digestible. 

On more insights on how we edited it was pretty much I was cutting the interviews and I switched with Zach when my brain was fried, while Quinn made the graphics. Aneesa supervised everything and gave us comments on the structure and helped us with the V.O. It was like constant movement like at every second everyone was doing somenthing which is kinda crazy. 

The second day of editting was finishing the structure and adding the remaining B-roll, so it was a little more chill, but still very stressful.  

But I gotta say even though it was very hard I felt really good once the edit was done. I really loved this project. 

Production: Interviews are fun (specially when you talk about Kierkegaard)

 This was really tiring 

We had a lot of work to do, and I mean a lot. Two locations to get B-roll and several interviews, so lets go in order. 

As mentioned Zach's temple was easy to acces so that was the first place for us to do. We went on a friday so we filmed a service around 7pm plus some extra B-roll. We took two cameras with us, Quinn's and Zach's, we also took some lights since the place was a little dark and it was night time. We came back the next morning to get some interviews. We got one with the Rabbi, one with a member of the temple and one with a music teacher. We used two cameras again, and got two shots for the interviews, but sinse we intercutted a lot between interviews and we also used V.O and B-roll we didn't end up using them.

The rabbi interview ended up being the one that helped us the most from the temple, he presented very nice points that we could use across the whole documentary. 

Once we were done getting all we needed from the Jewish temple, we started to move on to our other interviews. And there was this very scary day in which we didn't knew if when we were going to talk to the professor nor the catholic priests. But in one single class period they both said yes, the same day. 

The interview with the professor was my favorite. I prepared a big list of questions and kind of wrote an introductory paragraph to them, making it more like a conversation. This got the professor to talk a lot. The paragraphs basically served to show a little bit of my prior knowledge and expand it. 

This interview gave us a lot of the guidelines we needed to write our V.O since it kinda worked as an squeleton to carry the narrative. The V.O. complemented the more specific details that were left aside, or worked as smother transitions within the different topics that we wanted to talk about. 

Oh oh and I talked with the professor about Kierkegaard

That same day after school Priest Omar was at school so we got his interview, and then the next day we went to the church to get father Saul. This two interviews gave us really good insights in particular topics and complemented each other very well. Zach and Aneesa got and interview with Aneesa's mom, and since Quinn and I couldn't go, that weekend we asked for permission to film a mass and got extra B-roll. 

Planning: Søren Kierkegaard I love you

 This was so much fun

When we made the practice planning or quiz I don't really know how that activity was called. Aneesa told me about her idea of making a documentary about religion ang my eyes light up. 

I have a very very extended lore with religion. To sum it up a little, my mother is a very weird very religious person. She believes on a side of Catholicism that not everybody does that is the side of exorcisms and witches and that type of stuff. 

When I was a little kid, from around 10, like any other kid my perfect Friday night looked like staying at home, and playing Fortnite until I had to go to bed. Instead due to my mother they looked like going on am hour long car tip to an unknown neighborhood in Medellin to see people get exorcised and kinda get exorcised myself. 

This just built a very conflictive relationship with me and religion as I grew. I'm the the type of person that like comprehending stuff even if they don't like it so this lead me to read about religion. I read and watched videos on many people, Sartre, Heidegger, Camus and even Nietzsche. But among them all, my lovely Danish boy Søren Kierkegaard has always been my favorite. 

For a topi like this where I had such a clear bias and I ended up playing such an important role as director and line editor, It was important to have a perspective that could help me balance my own thoughts. And who better than a guy who didn't get married in order to follow his vocation as a philosopher. 

Planning 

So as mentioned, religion ended up being the main topic of our documentary, more specifically faith. We choose this idea really fast after little discussion. We wanted to juxtapose three religions at first, but it would've been a lot so we just ended up going with two, Catholicism and Judaism. 

I started pulling from what I have read to see to what extents the faith affects other aspects of human life in order to write some questions for our subjects and structure a little bit according to what we could maybe get. I gotta say that it was a very fun experience, because looking in retrospective I did had a very narrow vision at the beginning when we first went to talk to Ms. Stoklosa. Thats why I prepared more questions that could get answers near the territory I wanted but didn't impose any of my visions, which is the right thing to do. 

I focused a lot in structure while my teammates figured logistics like calling the places in order to get permissions to film, and permissions for the interviews. Getting permissions from Zach's temple, Temple Beth Emet, was very easy. In the other hand for the catholic church it was a little harder, since it was hard to talk to the people at Saint Gregory church. So we had to bounce to our second alternative, but it ended up working at St. Catherins. 

I'd like to highlight an essential part of our planning that was getting a meeting with the NSU teacher Amanda Furiasse. When structuring I wanted her to give maybe some stablishing info, but she did so much more than that. She helped us to constantly connect between both religions and how faith plays a role in them. 

And I would like once again to thank Søren Kierkegaard for his beautiful book Fear and Trembling. I love this book and gave me the idea to ask about the story of Abraham which its an amazing instroduction to biblical depiction and experiencing of faith. 

Long time no see...

Havent done this in a while. 

How many big filmmakers say, watching movies is the best way to learn. The first time I watched a documentary on my own it was about Maradona, and a couple years had to pass until I watched another one, that was also about Maradona. This kinda shows that documentary watching isn't somenthing I spend a lot of my time with so it was kinda useful to later make somenthing good...

Doc #1 

We watched one episode of this episodic documentary, and later I watched one on my own at home. I'd say it was very enjoyable and I really liked how they presented their subjects. Basing all their objects around a single person made them very memorable. As a lot of facets of their lifes were explored. 

Their stylistic choices like color for graphics, and animation for the tittle sequence were standed out. Being very unique and to an extent worked as inspiration for parts of our documentary. Since it made the production feel a lot more approachable. This I believe was benefitial for our doc since it was such a dense topic. 

Doc #2

This doc was a very shocking one. How raw and real it felt, made me develop such a real connection towards its characters. This feeling was enhaced by visual and audio techniques. A lot of handheld shots, moments filmed on the middle of the street with a lot of ambient sound from the city. The documentary wasn't only making us see the life of this two kids, but making us feel it. 

The interviews from this documentary where the best. Seeing how the kids get addapted to them, to talking to a camera, at the same time as they gain more awarness of their problems makes their conflict hit so hard. 

I also think it portrays an interesting dilema even within the piece. I remember a lot when Ms. Stoklosa paused the documentary after the mother interviewed herself (sinse she is one of the directors) and it was pretty much just to make herself look better after calling up his kid. Its an interview that gives important information to why she acts like she does, therefore how she raises her kid. But its timming makes it feel as an excuse. Parenting is full of mistakes sinse parents are still just humans. Many times their mistakes can affect their kids due to the power dynamic intrinsic to their relationship. How this relationship is defied or reinforced through the making of this documentary was somenthing interesting to watch, and at the sme time a little conserning. Because I just think my parents are here just telling me what's best for me, and pretty much if I don't do it, Hey it is just going to be in a movie for everyone to watch!!! It's a pretty complicated situation that I feel many times gives  lot of power to the parents. And somentimes they abused of it, like that one time they got him crying in pure dispair.  

This was a very very interesting piece that made me think a lot... 

Doc #3 

Banksy, Banksy, Banksy... I kinda love this guy. This documentary has such a nice structure. The image that the documentary portrays on Thierry Guetta changes a lot. Almost like him and Mr. Brainwash are two different people. At first he is presented as a passionate man, capable of giving his life a 180 degree change to follow a passion. He dives into a long trip where all he does is start filming street artists for a passion project. The first half almost is just showing him getting footage and preparing his film, so I found it hilarious when Bansky just said it was kinda ass, that it was actually really ass, that it was unwatchable. 

It is like they construct a whole myth around Thierry, a man who abandoned his life for art but he isn't really an artist. This is later reinforced on how Bansky speaks about Mr. Brainwash (his artistic name as a "street artist") Where he pretty much says he sold out and doens't represent the values of an artist. 

This is contrasted with Bansky who is one of the few people in this world that you can call a true ARTIST all capital letters. His art is political, defient and he values for what it is, not for what it could get him. I remember this video Mr Berna showed me, it was a piece of Banksy that was going to be sold in a Museum and the moment somenone bought it a mechanism out by Banksy just destroyed the piece. 

Loved this as well. 

Op Doc #1

Will you look at me was amazing. The doc had footage very independent of what is being talked about. There are particular cases like when he is talking about his mom having plants on the rooftop, or when he is talking about his friends. But this mainly because the footage is mundane, from his daily life, which aligns with the rest of the footage of the doc. This footage is usually just what he gets with his own camera as he walks around the city. It is raw and handheld, very contemplative. The contemplative side of it contrasts, while the raw of it accompanies  a straight narration where events are described almost like facts, rather than memories. “She was the main actress for my thesis he works in commercials to pay the rent, they broke up” 

Another aspect to analyse would be the “interviews”, between quotation marks because they aren’t truly interviews. His conversations with his mom are recorded probably without her knowing. The audience feels almost like spying a moment of the director's life. But this is done to enhance the rawness of the documentary. This has an especial impact on scenes such as the climax where the director and his mom are crying after their conversation. 

I really liked this documentary. As I mentioned it has a very contemplative and slow pace to it that I really enjoyed. Many aspects of the director's life are portrayed that may seem unnecessary like just showing his dad likes going swimming on the lake, or that his mom likes plants. But they serve to humanize these figures. As they have a very opposing ideology towards its son’s identity. This gives a lot of nuances to the dilemma that is being presented and makes it very human. I felt really captivated as these elements were presented. I actually enjoyed the footage, it made me really focus on their conversations. 

And I gotta say I cried during the final conversation, As mentioned due to the way the audio was recorded, the rawness of it portrayed emotion in a way that just made me feel I was there. 

On another separate note, the author also connects the contemplative pacing of the beginning to himself as he questioned if he has become just like the 25 year old man from the story he told. Is a question which the viewer can’t give a clear answer as they don’t know much about this man, raising a final question to contemplate and think about what one just saw

Op Doc #2

The whole documentary is animated. This gives the directors more freedom on how they desire to use visuals. A lot of high saturated colors are used to match the style of the narration which in some moments addresses a very serious topic with humor. Music is used to balance these comical narrations. As for the major part of the documentary a slow and kinda sad piano is used to maintain things within a more reflective tone. 

Some symbolic and exaggerated animations are used to enhance the meaning of certain moments. A particular example would be when the subject goes to the show and the head of the presenter becomes a hand with a mic. This showcases how his main focus was just getting her to talk about what he wanted. Taking away the human characteristics of his face, matching the poor human behaviour that was exploiting a highschool student for a tv show.  

The aspect that catched my attention the most was the animation. It is interesting how it is used to portray a person how’s reality was being shifted due to other people's perception about her. Animation is perfect for this as it grants the ability to portray reality in a very subjective way. This boosted the narrative of the documentary. Allowing me to connect a lot with the subject whose experiences could be hard to really understand from the position of many members of the audience, who probably not in bad intentions and maybe not even conscious, may act in a similar way and look down on her because of how she looks.