Group Meeting #3

We had our last group meeting today

We had our last group meeting of the project today. From our last group meeting to now, we have greatly progressed on our project. Though, we still have a long way to go. In terms of our project, I explained to my group members the concept and ideas we are working with. They were all interested with the idea, and were inquisitive about the structure of the documentary. One of the group members pointed out that it is suppose to be a 5 minute excerpt, so the topic we have does not need to be covered in a detailed format. This was something important I noted, because I personally tend to over plan what Colin and I should cover in the 5 minutes. Therefore, it was something to keep in mind, in order to construct the project in the standards it needs to be. 

I am continuing to work on the social media page and my voiceovers. Colin and I are planning to meet on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, to work on the project. In other good news, our instructor offered us an extension on our projects. I am really grateful for this, as it would help Colin and I to not rush on our project. Honestly, we have fallen behind, and we are working to catch up. This long weekend will be our saving grace, in order to meet our new due date of April 18th at 11:59.

What we did today

 We regrouped, and figured out what we needed to do for the next two weeks

We have about three interviews worth of footage, that covers 3 of the major continents. We still want to interview people who originate from Europe and Africa, to keep our documentary as representative as possible. We are planning to complete this interviews by the end of Thursday, so we are able to edit on Friday. We have a day of on Friday, so we would utilize this time to continue editing. 

We also changed the structure of our script to limit it to 1-2 minutes. We decided to split our immigration history section into time periods (1850-1950 and 1950-2021). We decided to do this because picking specific dates that involved specific continents of people would create a gap in our timeline. This would make the first part of our documentary difficult to understand. Therefore, we want to split our timeline into around 100 year segments, and pick events that fit in the time we allotted. Colin and I are each going to do one part, and record our voiceovers to gauge the time it takes. 

In terms of target audience convention, restructuring the first part of our documentary in this fashion fits our Generation Z audience. Due to their shorter attention span than other audiences, keeping the history part short and concise will keep them interested for the entire 5 minutes. 

In terms of our social media, we have an idea of what our introduction( 45 second) clip and logo are going to be. We want to make our title "__________ America" in a text format, and slowly have written words of the various types of Americans that exist. It is hard to explain, but I will attach the picture here. 

We wanted it to be a moving picture, where the written words slowly appear, and increase in speed. This would be something that would be in our social media page and in the introduction to our documentary. We also thought about our logo, and we are thinking to make it in the shape of the world. Each continent would have a certain color, and all colors will converge in America. This would represent the millions of people that immigrated, and make up America today 

We will plan to meet tomorrow to review our scripts and record individually. We are confident we can finish this project on time, and do it well. 

New Schedule

There are two more weeks left, and we are behind schedule

Colin and I still have the filming of the voiceovers, finishing more interviews, and constructing the analysis part of the documentary. We also need to work on the magazine and social media page, that would take less time. Here is the intended schedule up till the due date. 

March 29th: Gather current footage and edit/ arrange based on outline

March 30th- April 2nd: Film last interviews and voiceovers for first part. Edit to a rough cut point. Also, individually work on the social media and magazine respectively, and finish by the end of the week. 

April 3rd- 4th: Evaluate footage and come up with proper analysis sequences

April 5th: Film all of analysis sequences

April 6th-April 12: Edit the project & work on CCR essay individually

April 12th 11:59: PROJECT DUE

Our Social Media Page

I was thinking about our social media page

In my opinion, our social media page should contain many blank spaces or fill- in- the- blanks. To elaborate, our design should encompass our broad target audience of Americans, that had family born and raised in a different continent. Therefore, the design of our social media page should not be too specific on one certain color or design. It should be more broad, and fit some of the topics that are being covered in our introduction and interviews. This can be represented using numerous shapes that are not sharply drawn, as the background for our social media posts. This would create a more neutral background, and reflect the tone of our piece as calm and positive. Besides the structure, the colors in the background should express the diversity and variety our piece has in its history and topics presented. Therefore, I think that all colors should be represented in our posts background. Some ways it can be represented is by making numerous shapes, where certain colors are used in those shapes. Also, we could represent one color in various different shades, that are strategically placed in a certain design. Either way, this orientation can help create a design that is engaging, but not too flashy at the same time. 

One issue with this choice can be our desire to appeal to a Generation Z audience. The likings of this audience include more flashy and bright backgrounds or colors. Therefore, my thought of using more soft- edged lines may not be the best way to construct this social media page. The idea for the design of this page was based on a more consumer oriented perspective, and not completely from an audience driven standpoint. Though, I still though I should write this idea down before I forget. I will continue to work on this idea with Colin, and finish this page by the end of the week. 

Current Spring Break Plans

This week spring break begins

I am honestly really glad for this spring break week. This past quarter has been stressful to say the least, and I definitly need some time to relax. During this week, I will be busy though, because I am going to see my prospective colleges I may commit too. It has been challenging to figure out where to go, because of my broad range of interests. From an academic perspective, I have taken multiple STEM oriented and humanities oriented courses, and have done decently in both. Therefore, it can be difficult to pick a university, based on what they specialize in. Therefore, I wanted to get a first- hand experience at the university and understand the curriculum of some of my intended majors, in order to make the best decision about my future. In terms of the media studies project, I will not be able to work on it as often as usual. I am hoping to find time to finish up our script and start recording during this time. I really hope I can do it. 

Reflection on Interview #3

 I also interviewed another person a couple of days ago

She is a good friend of mine, and has participated in one of our previous class documentary projects. I had asked her a couple of weeks ago if she wanted to do this, and she was happy to do it. After completing two interviews, I felt comfortable with our prepared questions, and knew they were constructed well. As the interview went on, some of the answers she brought up were extremely relatable to my multi- cultural experience. She brought up experiences that were relevant in my life, which made the interview so meaningful and impactful. As recommended by a peer in our group meetings, I had asked her to bring a prized possession to our Zoom call, and explain the sentiments behind it, if she felt comfortable. The object that she had brought was something special to her, and influenced her success in many standardized tests and exams. I also carry a similar object like that, that brings me confidence and strength in important events in my life. It was so interesting to see how similar the application of our cultural heritage could be, and how it has dictated our lives thus far. Overall, the interview went well, and I gained a lot of knowledge and understanding about culture in that time. 

I will be going over the footage, and picking parts that we want to include. Colin and I are working to get these interviews done, in order to start formulating and recording the other two parts of our project. 

We interviewed more people today!

 We interviewed more people today!

Colin and I interviewed our friend Chelsea, who is also in our Media Studies class. She has a unique cultural heritage, and has a developed sense of her identity. When presenting her with this opportunity, she was very willing to do it. Colin was in- person interviewing her, as I was recording from another angle through Zoom. We had sent her the questions beforehand, so she would be prepared during the interview. She was very prepared, and had thorough answers to all the questions we had. The experience of interviewing her gave us another validation that our questions were correctly worded. Also, we were happy with the result of our questions, and did not make too many changes to its wording. We were thinking about asking her to explain one of her prized possession, but we decided not to because she answered all the questions very well. We were both really happy with the result, and cannot wait to see how our various interviews work in our final product. 

Group Meetings

 We had our second group meeting recently

In this meeting, I was able to ask more specific questions about by project, because many parts of it were more developed than last time. Two things I asked about were how to keep interviews informative and engaging, and how to keep the documentary engaging. In terms of the interviews, sometimes interviewees may not answer the question as in depth as desired, which makes it hard to cover the necessary parts of the documentary. Also, because our questions relate to the culture of a person, which is a pretty personal topic, it is not always appropriate to ask the interviewee to elaborate more. Therefore, one of the solutions that a group member recommended, is for the interviewee to explain about 1-2 of their prized possessions. This can be ones related to culture or not, because the meaning of it can still relate to the piece. When explaining this object, it can help an interviewee to elaborate more, because this possession is something that they know very well. It is easy to talk about something that one cherishes, and using this question would provide an opportunity to learn more about the identity of the interviewee, as well as cultural components behind it. 

The second question was in regards about how to keep the documentary engaging. Colin and I wanted the documentary to be educational, but have a tone that is more positive and upbeat, to a certain extent. One of my group members recommended animation. Sadly, I do not have a great talent of drawing, and even tried to attempt it at the beginning of the project. The process did not work well, which is why animation was not the best option. I told the group that my partner and I were thinking about using stop motion. The response about the idea was great. One group member said they liked the idea, and it would make the documentary more engaging and organized. The rest of the group agreed. They also pointed out that it was important for Colin and I to create good representations of our voiceovers, and explain them through stop motion in a way that makes the most sense. We will work on incorporating 2-3 scenes of stop motion, to make our overall excerpt as engaging as possible. 

2nd Part of the History of Immigration

Here is the second part of the history of migration to America

1956-1962: Refuges from the Cold War immigrated to America, such as people from Hungary. Operation Peter Pan involved 14,000 Cuban children coming to the U.S. 

1965- The Quota System ended, increasing the migration of people in various parts of Aisa

1980: 125,000 Cuban people seek refuge in Florida, and traveled via boat. 

1986: Ronald Reagan grants amnesty to 3 million people, using the Simpson- Mazzoli Act

2017: President Trump signed executives orders, that restricted immigration from 6 majority Muslim countries. Also, he signed executive order to limit people from North Korea and Venezuela from coming to the U.S 

The above events are more recent, and currently affect the collective identity of specific groups of people. With all events that are included in the history section of the documentary, it will be paired with specific interviews relevant to the event. This would provide a vast understanding of how cultural identity can change, due to factors unrelated to the specific person. In terms of the script, featuring 1-2 events from this list would give us a broad overview of immigration history, and the current state of the collective identities of all cultural/ethic groups in the U.S. We are continuing to write the script, and record our voiceovers. This will give us a good outline to base our graphics and videos on. We are working to get more interviewees, and have scheduled another person to be interviewed after spring break. 

Finalizing the Script

We have so much to do, but lets get to it 

We discussed the structure of our script, and decided it would chronologically cover the history of immigration. We wanted to introduce how and when major culture and ethnic groups came to America. Therefore, we could establish how collective identities of people were formed, that influences the culture learned from people who migrate later to America. Our script would include 5 major events, that include when all the major continents of people came to America. Therefore, we can get a broad understanding of how representation of culture and identify for groups of people formed. We will continue to write the script, and hopefully record the voiceovers this week. Since we are a bit behind schedule, we need to work fast to catch up and make the due date. 

Also, we are planning to schedule more interviews this week. We are working with two of our friends, to interview them before spring break starts. From the last interview, I realized that our questions worked well done, and covered the topics that were necessary to co- inside with the documentary. Also, we decided to have these interviews over Zoom, to keep consistent with the first interview that we did. I will have another blog post featuring those interviews. In terms of what we will complete during spring break, Colin and I decided to finish the script, and work on the magazine and social media component of the project. Since both of us will be out of town, it will be the easiest thing to complete, and will allows us to spend time on the documentary component. 

I interviewed someone!

 I interviewed someone today, and it went really well!

I interviewed my friend Danielle, who is from the Dominican Republic. She had a unique experiences regarding her culture, and establishing the duality between her Hispanic and American/ Western culture. We touched on aspects of religion, assimilation, and family. Her perspective on these topics is definitly something we can highlight in our analysis and relation to human connection. 

This was the first interview I did, and I was not completely sure how good our questions were. But based on her responses, I felt that our questions were specific and general enough, so she was able to answer the questions correctly, without any vagueness. Therefore, we will keep our questions the same. 

My partner and I decided to interview individually, but try to be present for the interviews through a Zoom call. We thought this would make the interviewing process easier, and we would get the interviews done in the next week. Our spring break starts on Thursday, so we want to make sure we can interview as many as possible and start editing the project. 

History of Immigration to America

I wanted to research about some important events about immigration to America. 

The immigration patterns of people coming to America can be categorized in waves. These waves can occur due a certain group of people migrating, new government regulations, and changes in the American lifestyle. I will organize my research in a timeline format, specific to when certain regions of people starting coming to the United States

1849-1850: The first Irish and German Immigrants come to the United States. They came to escape extreme prejudice and discrimination, with the hope of having religious and personal freedom. 

1880-1891: The Chinese Exclusion Act drastically reduced the number of Asian people coming to the United States. They began coming in the 1850's, due to economic hardships during a civil war. 

1892: Ellis Island opens, helping more that 1 million people immigrate to the United States. 

1907: The Gentleman's agreement was made, which prevented Japanese people from coming to the United States. They came starting in the 1880's.

1917-1924: The Immigration Act of 1917 and 1924 limited the amount of Asian people and general immigrates coming to the area. The acts created a literacy test for people coming into the country, and limited the number of national quotas respectively. 

1942: People from Mexico were used as agricultural workers, to cater to labor shortages happening in World War II. 

1952: The Asian Exclusion Act ended, which allowed more Asians to immigrate to the United States again. 

This researched covered most of the major continents, and highlighted some of the laws that were in place that affected immigration of specific people. I am not sure if we will use all this information, but I know events that increased or decrease immigration of a certain people should be focused on. This will provide context to how long a certain group of people have been in America, and how their collective identity has formed. I will have another blog post from 1950-2020 immigrations patterns, in order to find out more significant events of mass immigration. 

Script for First Part of our Documetary

This will be a quick post. 

From our previous meeting, we have decided to create a script for our first part of our documentary. This part will cover the history of immigration to America. This does technical start in the 1600's, with Pilgrims came seeking religious freedom. Though, I think we should start from the 1850-1890's, during the colonial era. People came to United States, with the hope of having greater economic opportunity, which the United States associated later as the "land of opportunity". 

This segment will involve Colin or/and I narrating this history. We want to establish these voiceovers first, because we want to make sure the proper context is established when completing our script. If this is not done, our topic can become a bit confusing to understand, or may seem poorly supported. We will plan to develop our script this week, and work on recording next week. In terms of visuals, we need to start looking for archived footage. Some significant footage to put would be major immigrations events: Ellis Island, Y2K Movement, Angel Island, and much more. We will start looking into that, and finalize specific events we want to cover that are representative of every continent. I will post about it in my next weeks blog posts. 

Interview Questions

Today we discussed the questions we would ask our interviewees. 

We wanted these questions to cover what the Generation Z experience is, learning, associating, and understanding their culture and heritage. Our interviewees would teenagers and young adults, that were born in between 1997-2015. One effect of this is our interview subjects may not have a personal migration experience to America; They could have been born in America. Therefore, interviewees can highlight their parents experiences in the interview, that we would supplement with graphics. and music. Our questions highlight their parents/ personal experience, and show how it is made an impact on their perception of culture and tradition. In terms of interviewees, most of them would need to highlight their parents experience, but some will have their own experience to base their answers on. 

Below are the questions we plan to ask

These questions will allow us to hone in on some common themes of culture and tradition that exist between all our interviewees. Currently, we are planning to gauge the answers of our interviewees, to come up with the "human connection" or further analysis part of the documentary we planned for. We know the topics we want to cover is stereotyping, Americanization, cultural homogenization, and overall development of self. These themes will be further developed when hearing what our interviewees have to say. There will be a blog post happening soon. 

Genre and Target Audience

Based on previous posts, I wanted to re- iterate what our genre and target audiences is. 

Based on the research I have done, my understanding of these two topics is more informed and should be clarified for future reference. 

Our genre for our piece is a cultural documentary series. We will have an expository format, narrating through the topics in the series, using archived footage and various graphics. Our topic is something that is educational, addressing the experience of living in America, and learning a culture of a different continent. We intend to use interviewees from across the world, to create representation that matches our target audience, being Generation Z. Our target audience are considered the most multi-cultural people in the world, and would have some relation to the topic at hand. They are learning culture from mediums such as media, technology, and their family. Therefore, there are aspects of cultural homogenization and Americanization, that are unique to their cultural experience. Therefore, this target audience and topic direction would be the most impactful for our series, and would provide a greater educational aspect to the excerpt we are completing. 

Next week, we will finalize our interviewee questions and start our Zoom interviews. Also, we will plan to create a script for our narration, in order to stay on topic in our excerpt. 

Week 3 Meeting: Excerpt Structure and Representation

In addition to establishing our documentary series structure, we made a structure to follow for our excerpt. 

Episode 1: This is America

1) History of Immigration

2) Interviewee experience of immigrating to America

3) Unique experiences linking back to common human condition

Our structure starts with the history of how people immigrated to America. We believed we needed to cover this because it indicates the beginning of multiple cultures of people existing in America. Therefore, our topic would not make sense without providing this context. We plan to use archived footage of certain times when migrating to America was popular. We would supplement this with voiceovers, based on a prepared script. This part would take up 2 minutes, including a short 45 second introduction segment. As clarified before, Colin and I are not the main focus of the documentary, but we plan to share the narrating role throughout the excerpt. 

The second part would involve multiple interviewees, who will speak about the process of immigration. Since our target audience is Generation Z, we would include people of that age bracket, that are multi- cultural, to be our interviewees, In the case of the immigration experience, the interviewee is not required to have actual experienced this, but will refer to their parents experiences. We can use there responses, to introduce how that has shaped there cultural experience, being raised in America. We are lucky to know people who originate from most continents in the world, so we will be able to have a diverse cultural representation. Further in our meetings, we realized the importance of this because our series is meant to target most of Generation Z. Therefore, our interviewee choices need to reflect who our audience are culturally, to a good degree. 

The last part of the documentary is contingent on our interviewees responses. What we are planning to do is analyze what our interviewees said, and reveal the positives or negatives related to their responses. We would be able to plan this out better when understanding what our interviewees said. We have prepared questions that do not focus on one specific topic, because we want to keep the conversation topic as broad as possible. Therefore, we have kept our third topic as mentioned, which will take about 1-1.5 minutes. As we prepared our questions, which will be featured in a couple of posts, we will work to figure how specific we want to get. We will continue to research more about certain early migrations to America, in order to reveal a more specific human condition shared between all our interviewees. 

And More Research!

The second documentary I researched was Headspace: Guide to Meditation. 

I chose this particular documentary because it had a structure that Colin and I wanted to have in our piece. The documentary established the concept of meditation, showed how it has changed the narrators perspective, and provided an opportunity to practice meditation. Also, the length of the documentary was 20 minutes, which correctly matches what are target audiences(Generation Z) desire in a production. In terms of the organization of episodes, it identifies mediation, certain parts that relate to meditation, and how to achieve limitless potential. This is a similar structure we want have in our piece. We want to have an episode defining culture. After, we would have various examples of how to learn and maintain culture in their lives. Lastly, we would put this together, and show how the dual culture experience affects their lives. 

I watched the first episode of the series, because it emulated the structure we wanted to have in our documentary. It started with an introduction from the main narrator, and how they were introduced to meditation. Also, he introduces the concept of meditation, and how versatile the experience can be for people. In our documentary, we intend to establish some context about the experience of learning culture from a different country. This context would include how people around the world moved to America, and the different experiences that exist. In the documentary, the speaker then speaks about the application of meditation, and provides the viewer some time to engage in meditation. In our future episodes, we plan to cover ways to apply and learn culture, such as technology, art, and food. Lastly, the documentary circles back to the concept of meditation, and reveals some positive effects of the activity. In our documentary, we want to end our episodes with an analysis of certain parts of learning culture, and what are the best ways to do so. We still need to discuss about this part of the documentary. 

Social Media Page

This douc- series also has a social media page. This page features various graphics, videos, and features related to the series. The post provide advice and motivation. They feature specific people, who have contributed to the meditation field or demonstrating specific meditation techniques. The consistent use of animation and graphics gave a whimsical and lighthearted feel to the social media page. This translates well to the actual documentary, which has a similar lighthearted tone. This tone is also displayed through the variety of colors. 

For our social media page, the use of varied color would create an inclusive color scheme. This would fit our target audience of multi- cultural Generation Z. Also, we create an "inclusive: social media page by including graphics, representing different cultures around the world. This can be the flags, clothing, or famous places. Integrating those graphics in our social media posts would serve as a perfect marketing tool for our target audience. 

Group Meeting Week 3: Planning the Series

This week, we decided to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday. We met over video call, to make more progress on our project, and reach our schedule goals. 

One part of the project we discussed were the structure of the episodes. From our previous conversations, we wanted to keep our series only 5 episodes. We already decided to use "Technology/Media", "Art", and "Food" as own episodes. We thought this would follow our concept, relation to person, and application structure we established in previous meetings. We wanted to introduce the concept of learning culture and heritage in a different country, apply this concept to existing people, and provide examples of how culture can be learned. Therefore, the aforementioned episodes would be great examples of how certain mediums can teach people aspects of their heritage, and the benefits and drawbacks from using those mediums. 

Taking our concept into account, we needed to identify what the next two episodes would be. Through further discussion, we decided on the structure mentioned below. 

Title: ____________ American

                            1) This is America                                            3) Art 

                            2) Technology and Media                                4) Food 

                                                      5) The ___________ Experience

The first episode would establish the context regarding people migrating to America. We would cover The second, third, and fourth episode would provide examples of how to maintain culture. The final episode would deal with all parts of dual culture experience, being American and another culture. This would encompass what was spoken in the previous episodes, to create a conclusion to the multi- cultural American experience. Additionally, we used the blank in the title and the fifth episode name to include a diverse Generation Z audience. Our series is not specific to any culture, and includes an experience that many people can relate too.