Doc Critical Reflection

My documentary, ‘Mic Check,’ focuses on techies in theater and the work they do, which is often not fully known.

For my doc, my team and I knew that we wanted to conform to basic documentary genre conventions. So, when researching, we paid attention to the common and prevalent techniques used in documentaries we viewed. In Abstract I noted how prevalent b-roll was used, with interviews being used as more of an audio technique, through voiceover, than used as visual substance. I found this to be a conventional characteristic of documentaries, as other docs reviewed such as Exit Through the Gift Shop, having b-roll serving as the visual storytelling to the audible storytelling of the interviews. In the docs I watched, indirect interviews were being used more over direct interviews, with direct interviews only ever really being used with children subjects in American Promise. I found that indirect interviews were much more natural than direct ones, as indirect interviews do achieve their purpose of making the interviews feel more like discussions rather than answers to questions. So, I opted to use indirect interviews in ‘Mic Check’ to make the doc flow smoothly and feel more natural, like the interviewees were discussing techies and their thoughts instead of being asked about it. This also allows the audience to connect with the interviewees better.

Notes taken during American Promise

The docs I viewed heavily impacted how I approached my own doc. The minimal use of b-roll in A Robust Heart informed my decision to challenge the genre convention of constant b-roll use at the end of my doc. I wanted to focus on Andrea’s expression and body language when she described an emotional connection that the teenagers, she works with, have within theater. Conventionally, b-roll would be used here to accompany and highlight what Andrea was saying, but A Robust Heart made me consider the approach of no b-roll, and only focus on what she is saying, and how she says it. I liked the approach, so I implemented it in the doc. Besides that, the doc followed standard genre conventions, conventions I reviewed and explored through viewing docs like Exit Through the Gift Shot or American Promise. From these docs, I learned the basics of doc conventions, like the use of b-roll in between and during interviews to keep the doc engaging, and the use of music to highlight emotions. American Promise (51:30) has a scene where its two subjects, Seun and Idris, hug when saying their goodbyes as an emotional music track swells up. I thought of this moment and the doc’s use of music when finalizing ‘Mic Check,’ as I wanted to highlight the emotions Andrea was conveying not only visually, but audibly. So, I used a slower piano track during that last interview segment, emphasizing what Andrea was saying and her emotions. My doc was able to convey its emotions properly by challenging and conforming to genre conventions at the same time.

The target audience for my piece was teenagers or young adults of ages 13 through 19, of any gender, who are interested in theater and the work that goes behind it. The doc entirely focuses itself on techies who are teenagers. Interviewees Sam and Isabella are both teenage techies, and Andrea works with mostly teenage techies on productions in Inside Out, so a target audience of adult theater fans would not correlate with the production since that aspect of the techie community was not explored. To engage this young target audience, the documentary uses b-roll during interviews to add more visual substance to the doc, instead of only having the interviewee answering questions as all the visual content. This is a decision and process I discussed in my post-production blog post. Only listening to the voices of the interviewees can become stale, so to keep the doc engaging, music would accompany the interviewee’s answers. The doc is able to be engaging and keep away from monotony through its use of visual and audio techniques.

It’s important to note where the doc fails to engage its audience, that mostly being with distracting technical issues. The placement of b-roll throughout the doc is not structured or planned out well enough, to the point where it’s distracting from what is being presented. B-roll should have been spaced out and aligned more with what was being said in the interviews, instead of being placed sparsely throughout. Audio was also an issue, with the music being too loud at times, which can be quickly solved by lowering its volume. The clear times the doc doesn’t engage the audience, is when it distracts them instead.

The main social group represented in ‘Mic Check’ is teenagers. Three out of four interviewees are teenagers, Sam, Andrea, and Natalia, and they discuss their experiences and thoughts on techies. Andrea, the only adult interviewee, works with teenagers in theater, so all discussion from the interviewees was focused on teenagers in the technical department of theater. We gave freedom for the teenage interviewees to discuss the topic in whichever way they wished to, so how they represented themselves, and their group, was genuine, it came from the source. Through their responses, the doc ended up representing teenagers as being extremely responsible people. Techies must manage lights, sound, sets, and costumes, tasks that take a great deal of attention and time. Teenagers were represented as being able to handle the work that is given to them, but they were also represented as being highly passionate about their interests. This is shown throughout the doc, like through Sam expressing how much being a techie and being a part of that community means to him. Notably, this is also shown through Andrea expressing how important the work and space is for teenagers, as a handful of them only have the techie community as a safe space where they feel comfortable. ‘Mic Check’ represents its social group of teenagers as responsible, passionate people who have a deep love for the work they do and community they are a part of.  

Watch Mic Check

Doc Post-Production

     Post-production of the doc began that same Tuesday. I volunteered to take care most of the editing, so that's what I did. I started by putting together the b-roll that is featured in the opening of the doc alongside a voiceover, then I structured the interviews question by question so the doc would be easy to follow with interviewees staying on the same topics. After that, I had to take a pause on editing to focus on other school work, but returned to it on that Thursday. I started to add b-roll during and in-between interviews, and I wanted to do this specific thing where the audio of the interview would start as a voiceover on the b-roll before cutting to the interview. So the audio of the interview would start before the visuals do. I believe I picked up this idea from Exit Through the Gift Shop, and I found it to be a very simple idea that made the interviews flow a bit better. This was a bit of a hassle to do though, as I had to extract the audio from interview clips, move it before the interview clip starts, and cut the interview clip down to find the length where the clips match the audio and there is no delay. Was there a better, simpler way to do this? Maybe. Did I know it? No. I don't regret doing that for every interview segment though, I think it really helped the doc feel a bit smoother so it was worth it. 

(Look how the extracted audio starts before the interview footage does!!)

    Editing was pretty straightforward all together. It consisted mostly of me placing b-roll where I found would be best, which was mainly in-between interviews, where the interviewee would mention something that can be demonstrated through b-roll (b-roll of soundboard when mentioning soundboard), or to break up the interview clip when it could be a bit more engaging. I did leave the last interview mostly untouched by b-roll, as Andrea was discussing how people find their only real safe space in theater, and I found that this genuine, emotional answer that she was giving needed to be shown in full by the doc, facial/body expressions and all. This is something I picked up from A Robust Heart, which did not use b-roll as it wanted to highlight its subjects' expressions and bodies. I continued editing on Friday, where Ale sent me the voiceover for the beginning and she came up with a title, 'Mic Check,' which is clever. She also sent me a heap of archival footage of past theater productions that Inside Out presented and behind-the-scenes rehearsals, all of which helped make the doc more engaging. I looked for music to use in the background on YouTube, I found one track I really liked and used that for about 3ish minutes of the doc. But I found that it would be pretty repetitive if I used the track the whole way through, so I decided to keep looking for more music to use and, eventually, found another track that worked with both the previous track and the doc itself, This, I think, helped the doc stay engaging and stray away from making the background music distracting and repetitive, allowing the viewer to focus more on what was being said. I also used slower, piano music for the final bit of the doc to highlight the emotions and it worked as a nice closure track. Is closure in adjective? I dunno. That was pretty much it for editing, my team said that at times the music was a bit too loud and the interviews were too low so I went back and lowered the music during certain segments, but I had finished. I honestly think I did pretty good. I think how I used b-roll kept the doc engaging and the music fit and it wasn't distracting, I did pretty swell I think. 

Doc Production

    Production of the doc started on November 18th, a Saturday. We met at a local park near a library at around 11 AM with the interview questions printed, a tripod, the mics, and an iPhone for filming. We filmed at this gazebo.

    Our interviewee was Andrea Chiquito, the technical director for an independent theater company called Inside Out Theater Co. We made sure to frame the interview well and check if the mic was working properly. The interview went really well, Andrea gave lengthy thought out answers to the questions we asked. We didn't run into any issues during the shoot, it went really smoothly. Though, I do wish the day was a bit more sunny then it ended up being, as lighting would be a bit better if that were the case.

    An additional interview was filmed that Monday by my teammate Gabi with the interviewee, Natalia Rendon, adding a performer's perspective to the doc. Then, for about a week, production was halted on the doc because we had to wait until the following Tuesday to get most of our b-roll and two additional interviews. I found no real point in starting to edit because it would be impossible to edit anything with only two interviews. So, filming continued on that following Tuesday with interviews of Samuel Gomez and Isabella Cadenas. We filmed b-roll of, pretty much, the entire auditorium, from the stage, seats, sound booth, backstage, to techie equipment.

    A problem we ran into while filming was that the tripod we were using was missing a screw, so it wouldn't hold up the phone properly. We tried many alternatives to wedge under the phone so it'd stay up, like an eraser or jolly rancher, and we even tried using a spare screw in the sound booth but nothing worked, so we resorted to just holding the phone in place as best we could when filming. It worked pretty well honestly, the phone was able to stay stable when filming interviews. So win. We were also on a bit of a time limit because some people could only stay for so long, which was only made worse when the door to the sound booth was locked, so we ended up spending a few minutes having to ask the drama teacher for the key. So, we were limited in how much b-roll we could get, but we still got a pretty sufficient amount of b-roll so it wasn't too bad. Filming was a very smooth part of the process, with problems being solved fairly quickly or being manageable. Though, if I could go back and change things, I would get a lot more b-roll than necessary just because it's a lot better to have more than having too little, lesson learned.

 

Doc Pre-Production

    Pre-production for my doc started with brainstorming with my team members the different possible topics we could cover. We created a list that composed of possible topics like immigration, teachers, community in theater, and single-mothers. The next time we discussed the doc, we landed on community in theater, but we thought the topic was too generic and a bit reductive. So, one of my teammates, Gabi, gave the idea of making the doc only focus on the technical part of theater and those who work in that aspect, the techies. The idea was great and pretty original so we decided to do that. Another teammate, Ale, had lots of connections to techies, so gathering interviewees was one of the easiest parts of pre-production. We then structured our doc through an outline and created a shot list of a variety of shots that we wanted to include in the doc. Most of them had to do with technical equipment and work done backstage.

    We also created interview questions, but they focused too much on the fact that techies were "underappreciated," so we changed them to focus more on the work that techies do, which is often not entirely known.

    Gabi also bought these little mics to use in the interviews (although they didn't work as well as we thought they would, they were still cool to use).

    Pre-production was pretty simple, until scheduling. We were originally going to knock out all filming before Thanksgiving break, with interviews being shot that Thursday, Friday, and Sunday (Thursday being CRUCIAL), but tragedy struck. School closed on Thursday, making it impossible to get footage of two interviews and all of our b-roll before break. The plan was to gather two techies, who worked in the school's theater production, in the school's auditorium, so b-roll of them working with equipment, of the auditorium itself, and interviews with them would all be filmed on that day. But it didn't happen because it rained too hard. The school's technical director was going to be interviewed on that Friday, but he was absent, so TWO DAYS of filming was thrown down the gutter. We considered changing our topic entirely to something more manageable, but I really wasn't a fan of that. Not only was so much work already done (and would have to be redone if we restarted), but I was genuinely interested in the topic and wanted to make the doc about it. So, we were able to get the deadline of November 27th to December 1st and I was able to convince my team to keep the techie topic. We were able to reschedule when we would film b-roll and the two interviews in the auditorium to after break, and we would keep the date to film an interview with another technical director on that Saturday. There wasn't much we really could have done differently, I honestly believe we did really good considering the circumstances. At one point it did feel a bit impossible to keep the techie topic but we were able to do it, so I'm pretty proud of that. Though, I could have reduced stress for myself by not worrying about the problems we faced so much. I should have controlled my worries, and just did what I could.

Here's my crudely drawn calendar of our schedule. 

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     Hi. It's been so long my bones feel different. Okay A-level I'm locking in. In class we viewed a number of full length documentaries and shorter op-docs, and as someone who never watches documentaries, they were really interesting watches for me. Usually I opt more for watching movies, so to see such a different style of production while being discussed in the same way was a pretty cool experience. 

    The first doc we watched was American Promise (2013). It was about two Black teenage boys in New York and their experience with attending a very demanding school at an early age. Although it was about their personal lives, it also went over deep discussion about the pressures that schools and parents put on children and the significance of race in these educational and demanding environments. I found the stories of both of the subjects, Seun and Idris, to be super intriguing with how their family and school struggles differed. It was such an engaging and interesting doc all together, I really liked watching it. Its use of music was a highlight too, I noticed myself getting a bit emotional at times through how the doc used music, specifically when Seun and Idris hug at their middle school graduation. It was a really memorable doc overall, though one thing I thought it was missing was how the production of the doc impacted the lives of the boys. Having cameras following you around consistently throughout your whole adolescence has gotta impact you somehow, would've been nice to see that. A good introduction to docs, especially since it was very conventional to the genre.

    The second doc we viewed was Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010). The doc told the story of Thierry Guetta, Mr. Brainwash, and how he became a renown "street artist" after following street artists with a camera for years. This one was very different... but super entertaining to watch. The progression of Thierry from start to end is so, so engaging to watch and it felt very unpredictable at times. Since the doc was talking about the past, I really liked how it used interviews in present day with interviewees who were a part of the story in the past. It allowed the viewer to pretty much get inside their head at the time and that was such a cool addition, alongside adding the interviewee's thoughts in hindsight. It also explored a world I was completely unfamiliar with, as I knew nothing about street art or who Banksy was beforehand. Really good doc overall, it showed me a different perspective on how to produce a doc, with it using interviews from the present while relying mostly on footage from the past.

    After that, we watched a much more forgettable doc, sadly. This was a doc series called Abstract (2017) on Netflix. I call in forgettable because I honestly forgot we watched it, but it is a really cool doc. The doc series covers a wide range of artists and the unique art they do. It was really interesting to see how different artists approach the art they do, but it was nice to find a common factor between them, that being that they all enjoy what they do and have a sense of pride overall. The first doc in the series we watched was about costume design and the subject was Ruth Carter, who work on the costume design for Black Panther (2018), Do the Right Thing (1989), and many other films that have to do with Black, American culture and community. Learning more about the thought process behind the costumes in these films was really interesting to watch, and as someone who is considering going into character design, pretty insightful. I watched the episode about illustration, with Christoph Niemann, independently. This episode was very, very different, with constant animation being added in its b-roll and most of the b-roll having a creative, not-very-slice-of-life esc style to it. Niemann said the reason was because he didn't find the personal aspect of his life necessary to show in the doc, only the art aspect of his life, which was a very unique choice. The illustration episode lies in creativity and untruthfulness, and I found that to be really interesting.

    The last docs we watched in class was the short op-docs featured on the New York Times website. I watched one titled A Robust Heart, it consisted of pure interviews with butchers, their relationship with their work, family, and fathers. It had no music, and never cut to b-roll, it was a very intimate doc and it clearly wanted the viewer to fully focus on what the subjects were saying and how they felt saying it. This would later come back when I worked on my own doc. It revealed a lot to me about these types of jobs that need physical strength and conform the societal idea of masculinity. The doc highlighted the emotions of these men, which isn't typical of masculinity. It was a really cool doc, one of my favorite we watched. I also watched Now I'm in the Kitchen, which was dramatically different than anything else I watched. No real footage was used, instead, the doc is made up of a crayon-esc animation as a daughter recounts her relationship with her mother and their connection to cooking. Its uniqueness made it very special and super cool to watch. Both docs deviated pretty heavily from doc conventions and really built their own identity, I admire that. 

    All these docs really helped me develop my doc later on, as they gave me a really good grasp on the aspects that make up a doc like when to use b-roll, when not to use b-roll, how to film interviews, etc. Like A Robust Heart and American Promise both helped me specifically in one part of my doc, where an interviewee started discussing something pretty emotional at the end. I decided to play slower piano music with no cuts to b-roll because they were techniques in the docs I washed. I also enjoyed watching these docs themselves since they were a pretty wonderful introduction to the genre.