Critical Reflection Essay

The docuseries, Fighting for Change, aims to educate audiences about the racial injustice faced by local communities and the steps that can be taken by citizens to combat it. The piece focuses on the perspectives of different members within BLMWeston, a student-led organization dedicated to spreading awareness and increasing the involvement of young people in these issues.

After compiling research, I established the target audience for my docuseries as being males and females from the ages of 16-35. Since my docuseries focuses on a specific social issue, the target audience will also be individuals of a more left-leaning political ideology since the majority of people who support the Black Lives Matters movement are registered Democrats. In terms of race, I aimed for my docuseries to appeal to all races regardless since statistics showed that there are a large amount of BLM supporters from different races. All socioeconomic statuses will be included in the target audience, since my goal is for people of different backgrounds to learn more about the movement. To cater to my younger audience, I opted to use Instagram as a tool to promote my project since the app is most popular amongst the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups.

Considering genre, I followed some conventions of the documentary genre such as indirect interviews that progress the story, a narrative format, and an established POV. I chose to focus entirely on displaying interviews in my excerpt, since I felt it would be most appropriate for each person to tell their own perspective. I lacked the use of voice overs for this very reason, as I felt having an outside person narrate these personal experiences would not convey the message as strongly. Another way I challenged conventions was by not including any re-enactments in my docuseries, because after seeing the heavy use of re-enactments in The Social Dilemma, I felt these scenes were often over-the-top and created a more light-hearted tone that would not fit well with the serious nature of my docuseries. To keep the engagement of my audience, I instead opted to use b-roll footage and a multitude of clips displaying social media posts and infographics that were relevant to what the interviewees were describing. Since my target audience consists mostly of a younger generation, I thought the inclusion of all the social media posts would feel familiar to them, since I previously mentioned how popular Instagram is amongst their age group.

The Instagram page for the docuseries works to advertise the project, including several quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists which are frequently referenced by BLM protestors in current times. Additionally, it features posts with a comprehensive list of BLM resources such as places to donate, educational websites, and lists of other organizations to support. Most importantly, there are various posts with simple phrases and graphics encouraging people to use their voice and educate themselves on the topic of racial injustice. The ultimate purpose of my brand is to encourage others to speak up and make a change in their community, which is a message constantly relayed by the interviewees in my docuseries, as well as in the magazine article, where my director interview explicitly states that I hope people who see these docuseries continue to educate themselves and not stay silent in matters of racism and hate. Therefore, I believe all three components of my project portray this message in a straightforward and efficient manner.

Besides being consistent in its message, the brand for Fighting for Change is consistent in its physique, as I made sure to use the same font and brown/white/black color scheme across all components of my project. Moreover, the photographs used in the magazine article and Instagram page all have a brown coloring to correspond with each other. All products also follow a simple, clean-cut aesthetic with minimalistic designs to make it easier for my expansive target audience to read/view the products.

Considering my liberal-leaning target audience and the topic of my docuseries being focused on Black Lives Matter, I realized it was important to showcase a diverse group of people in my project, which I succeeded in doing. In my excerpt I interviewed a white, black, and mixed person, all from different backgrounds. Besides the necessary representation this choice gave me, I felt the diversity in their perspectives contributed a lot to the development of the story.

Evidently, the primary social issue my docuseries represents is racism and discrimination, with my interviewees making several references to the George Floyd protests of 2020 and how it influenced them to start their own protest, which eventually turned into the BLMWeston organization. The focus of my excerpt is on the student-led protest that BLMWeston held last June, representing how the younger generation, or Gen Z, is actively trying to make a difference when it comes to these pressing matters. Furthermore, the interviews showcase how a group of teenagers were able to plan and successfully hold a peaceful protest in their city, with no outside help. Anti-Black Lives Matter sentiments are also depicted in the docuseries, featuring comments of a local conservative group criticizing and insulting the members of BLMWeston for their plan to hold a protest. Lastly, local racism is touched on as well, with some of the interviewees sharing their stories of any racist behavior they have faced while living in Weston.

Overall, working on this project for two months has made me grow a lot as a person and as a filmmaker. The extensive research I did relating to my target audience allowed me to successfully create products to cater specifically to them, and I learned about the importance of consistency when developing a brand. My goal was to adequately represent all these social issues in a powerful way, so I feel accomplished in that sense. I believe all components of my project can stand on their own and still get the same message across, which is definitely the biggest strength of my project.

Project!!!

Voila! I present to you, Fighting for Change:

Docuseries Excerpt

Magazine Article

Instagram Page

Final thoughts before I go :’)))

What a ride this has been. I can say that I successfully created a docuseries during a pandemic. Although time consuming and incredibly stressful for my senioritis self, I can say that I am very content with all components of my project. I love how the aesthetics of the Instagram page and magazine article turned out. I learned that a microphone really makes your life so much easier, since I did not have one and had to resort to correcting the audio in post-production. Anyone reading this, please invest in a microphone. I found out that the real work of a documentary is trying to keep the engagement of the audience, so I spent much of time desperately looking for any b-roll or photos I could use. I discovered the severe headaches that editing for days on end can cause. I recognized that Canva is one of the best applications ever created. I realized the importance of communication with your interviewees and sticking to your schedule. Overall, I feel accomplished and I hope my project can touch or inspire other people.

This feels like the end of an era. I will really miss this class. I don't wanna get too emotional. Thank you for following me on this journey :')

All good things must come to an end...

I wanted to give some final updates as the last week of the project approaches.

I still have to write my CCR and make some finishing touches to my docuseries excerpt which I am super excited to finish! I am having some issues with the audio at some points still, and I am playing around with the “DeNoiser” effect on Adobe Premiere and it’s been successful so far. I don’t think the background noise is too horrible and it’s just me being meticulous :0 but since my teacher has granted us extra time, I keep rewatching the project over and over and wondering if I should change anything. But - I’m still pretty content with how’s it’s looking at this current moment. I didn’t include a voiceover because I felt it was unnecessary and the interviews were amazing by themselves, especially since it’s just an excerpt. The pictures and footage from the protest day really added a lot to the piece... I just asked Anya and Lexi once again if they have anything else from that day to make sure there’s no super cool video or picture that my docuseries is missing out on. Otherwise, editing is typically a source of stress for me to be honest and I’m glad it’s almost over LOL - the struggles of being an intense perfectionist😩I’ll post the final product next week, yayyyy!

Done with my print components😩

To create a sense of ~branding~ with my products, I hoped to achieve a similar aesthetic on my magazine as I did with my instagram page. To do this, I used the same color scheme and font, and I of course tried to center my answers around how I hope this docuseries spreads awareness to local racial injustice. Canva really came in clutch and I just used a simple template and changed it up a lot until I felt it fit my brand.  I put some visuals symbolizing the BLM movement like I did in my doc, and included a still from the excerpt of an interviewee. Overall, I hope my answers to the questions were interesting enough to motivate people to watch the docuseries, since that is my full intention with this Q&A format. I tried to keep it short and sweet so I could fit more questions and organize them cleanly on the page. Is cleanly the right word? Idk. You know what I mean.

The gram has been made!

I finally created the instagram account and went for a simple username @fightingforchangedoc because the title of my documentary, fightingforchange was taken😐can’t blame the person though it’s a great phrase. I decided to go through with the simple, brown aesthetic I mentioned a few weeks back. My first few posts are meant to engage my target audience with quotes and visuals representing the BLM movement, and I may post stills or the title screen of my docuseries in order to promote the actual series better. I made it a business account so I could have the word “movie” under the account name, I thought it was a nice touch. A business account would also allow me to view specific insights relating to my audience and when they’re most active, which could be helpful for future postings. I don’t have followers right now since I’m still playing around with the layout of the future posts, but I will start promoting the account on my personal instagram and sharing it with friends and family members! I’m pretty content with how it looks right now - I included a link with many BLM resources in order to encourage viewers of the page to get involved. I will replace this link with the link to my actual docuseries excerpt when the time comes, so people have easy access to it. That’s all for today, I’m just gonna keep making these posts on Canva until the page feels more complete!

About the ‘gram

^^As in Instagram... I wanted to do more research to make sure this platform would be the best for my docuseries. In terms of aesthetics, I felt the layout of Instagram allows you to share all forms of content, from photos, to videos, to links in a way that is easy for people to find. Other apps such as Twitter focus more on just written tweets, and apps such as Facebook are seen as being used more by “old people” (I mean no harm with this statement as I am a Gen Z facebook user... yes we exist lol). Anyways this is clearly all subjective information and upon further research I discovered that Instagram is the second most popular social media app in the world. Additionally, Instagram is most popular amongst the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups which are conveniently my target audience!

Interviewing Myself???😳

As promised, I came up with questions which will make up the entirety of my magazine article. They are pretty basic yet I think it would influence some people to go out and watch the docuseries, since q&a’s with directors allow you see their personal insight which can be super interesting. Well anyways, I present you my article interview questions that I’ll be answering myself (duh). Voilà:

• What influenced you to make a docuseries about BLMWeston and the general racism in the community?
• What do you hope people will get out of this docuseries?
• Did you face any major difficulties making a series about such a sensitive topic?
• How challenging was making this series during the pandemic?
• Will there be more seasons?

Adding some ~spice~ to the doc

After compiling all the interview clips together, I began to go over some of the b-roll footage I filmed of the exteriors of the library. Apart from these few clips, I think it would be gr8 to mostly include pictures and videos taken from the actual protest day so the audience can visualize what the interviewees are describing. I asked some of the members from BLMWeston to send me basically anything and everything they have from that day, preferably videos. Anya got back to me with a couple of videos/photos her sister took of the protestors walking across Weston, which could definitely work! Apart from these clips I got from Anya, I’ll keep asking other members to keep looking for things I could use so I have the most options possible. I also looked at the articles posted by local news outlets again since they have some awesome photos of the event that I’ll insert down below because I’ll definitely be including these!