Music to my ears

 Welcome back to my blog! We are certainly approaching the end to the project and there is still a bit of stuff to do left. This week I’m finishing up the project, on Wednesday next week, that’ll be the FINAL day we can submit the project. Crazy how it really is almost completely over, so much time passed and so any things have happened regarding the project. One of those things actually is the music for my editing!

While the main video for the project was focused on music, and the main man of the project was a musician, it felt almost perfect to integrate his music into the project. I looked over back at some of the documentaries we watched and though music was integrated, it wasn’t always prevalent. I wanted to use music that would fit the vibe of the documentary, as well as be appropriate for the scenes they were being implemented into. This gave me the chance to go down his catalogue of songs that he has on his YouTube channel! Let’s see what we found!

I felt like the song “Petals of Warmth” would fit the vibe of a good background music when speaking of the more sentimental topics, such as his original reason for starting to create music. It a more nostalgic tone that I feel would be appropriate for looking back at the memories that he had with his brother, playing the piano and learning it to further express himself. I think however that a song like this cannot be intrusive. It needs to be played low. I’ll keep that in mind when further editing and mixing the voice.

I think the song “Sweetened clouds above a candy sky” works super well for the upbeat more hopeful atmosphere of the ending of the exert. It really makes me want feel hopeful. Gasim actually taught me in songs, there are certain core progressions that make people feel certain ways. I feel like you can get that feeling from the dialogue as well as the music. He really wasn’t kidding; music can tell you a whole story without words.

We also utilized a cool effect that goes from the songs playing on the piano, to the actual songs playing themselves. Of course they are all original covers played by Gasim himself so we could avoid the copyright. They are integrated pretty seamlessly so I’m proud of that. Finally of course, I got permission from the artist himself to use the music. He even signed it, the image below shows that.

I’m very happy I got that done! Let’s see how it turns out! Until next time!

Agenda & Dates

Since I was not here for the class discussion and was sick, I was told to make another post that goes over my project. After finalizing what exactly my project was going to look like, I needed to start thinking about planning for everything. The upcoming week schedule is what you see bellow:

To explain further: 

This Monday I’ll start off with the production on the Instagram videos. While there is promotional pictures for the page, there is also to be videos of the project. Things that would be in snippets for people to get a general sense of what the documentary is about or maybe what goes on behind the scenes. Something to spice up the page to not have it just be images. This will be the start of the recording process. I will try to get different people because of the theme of people each getting their own episode. I already had an idea of using someone who was previously in another groups film, Kyle Dutra, as his creative way of making street art would be perfect for a small snippet.

Next is having the main interviee start facilitating themselves with the interview questions I have prepared. I feel it’s better, in this case, to have them know what questions are to come rather then have them answer on the spot. I have prepared a few questions that I will ask on the spot but for the most part, giving a general idea should be good.

Working on a teaser for Instagram is what Wednesday has planned and that will mostly be story boarding for that. The teaser will most likely have parts of the actual documentary from it so I don’t feel the need to do too much separate from actual filming with it. However, the teaser should be able to build up anticipation for the episode, I’ll run a poll amongst a group of friends when I’m finished with it to see how it comes out. Maybe that’ll be better for having feedback before it’s actually graded.

Thursday is all about finishing at least setting everything up for this teaser. There isn’t much more to say then that I should have it finished by then to stay on task.

For Friday specifically, I’ll dedicate the day to touching up on my blog posts and such. Making sure I’m up to date with everything and that for the end of the quarter, all the blog posts I need are in. It’ll be good to go back and fix everything that needs to be fixed.

For now that’s about it, thank you for tuning in and I’ll see you next time!

Interviewee found!

Hello and welcome to today’s post! It looks like I’ve finally found the person I’m going to be doing my documentary on! 

My good friend of 7 years Gasim and I have always been close. Not only through school but in our interests as well as being neighbors. The main thing I feel like defines our friendship is each of us finding ways to create things. For Gasim, his way of telling things is through his talent at making music. So much so that he’s even started his own music channel on YouTube

I’ve actually helped him produce a few of these songs. I’m not a music genius but when it comes to helping him portray a certain feel I think we make a pretty good team. I was thinking about using this in conjunction with the interviews to create a truly unique documentary on how his music and the many different songs he’s produced. I’m sure this will prove to be great, I’m very much looking forward to it! If you have time, feel free to listen to one of my favorite songs of his.  https://youtu.be/4fwU2lQ-QIg?si=b7_c-GvVfRHd1QIR 

Welp, that’s all for today! See you next time!

Interview questions

 Welcome back to my blog! As the first post of the week, I wanted to go over my interview questions that I will be presenting. I have a bunch of them! While I don’t think I’ll be using all of them, I’d like for Gasim to be able to choose which one he specifically wants to do out of the selection. I organized them into groups for him so that at least one of each section get answered. I’ll explain the groups as we go on.




Inspiration & Creative Process: How exactly he came to these ideas

1. What first inspired you to use Music as a way to tell stories?

2. How do you come up with the stories you tell? Do they come from personal experiences, observations, or something else?

3. What themes or messages do you find yourself returning to in your work?

4. Do you plan your stories out in advance, or do they develop as you create?




Medium & Expression: How does he use his specific medium to effect people and why it’s different

5. How does Music help you express your story differently than other forms of storytelling?

6. What techniques do you use to make your stories more impactful or immersive?

7. How do you use elements like color, texture, movement, or sound to enhance your storytelling?

8. Are there limitations in your medium that force you to be more creative in how you tell a story?




Challenges & Evolution: the trials and tribulations he might have felt making them

9. Have you ever struggled to tell a story the way you envisioned it? How did you overcome that?

10. How has your approach to storytelling evolved over time?

11. Do you ever worry about how your stories will be received? How do you balance personal expression with audience interpretation?




Meaning & Connection: His intentions with his work

12. What do you hope people take away from your stories?

13. Do you see your work as a form of personal expression, a way to connect with others, or both?

14. Is there a particular story you’ve told that means the most to you? Why?

15. If someone were to interpret your work differently than you intended, how would you feel about that?

These interview questions should help me get a good conversation out of him as well as room for good background footage and b roll. That’s about it for today. Until next time!

Genre research: An idea of what I might want to write about

I started watching the first part of this documentary of what I might want to do my documentary on: writing. Watching the first bit of it this is what I was able to discern:

The core idea is to prioritize getting a screenplay written over making it perfect from the start. The advice, "Don't get it right, get it written," encourages writers to push through initial fears and complete a first draft, understanding that rewriting is where the real improvements happen. Conceptualizing the story and characters beforehand is important, but during the writing process, maintaining momentum and avoiding over-analyzing every detail is key. Setting daily writing targets and giving yourself permission to fail can lead to surprising results and a more enjoyable writing experience. It's about valuing the process of creation and recognizing that the first draft is just the beginning.

https://youtu.be/V6Yql0jrjow?si=kLLxwPNJMrFlcryL

Scheduling and Planning START!

Every year the time of the project that takes weeks initially seems like a long time but time doesn’t wait for you. Those weeks turn to days, turn to hours, turn to deadlines. It’s easy to think you have all the time in the world but that’s not realistic. Let’s see what I can really plan.

When looking at everything right now, I don’t think I have any exact dates for things planned yet. I’ll have to make a more concrete timeline the week after this one but for now I have ideas of things I need to do and things I already have planned personally. For example, I have university orientations during the coming weeks and I have family events and even my drivers license pick up during the time of March. March will be hectic so I have to take full advantage of the times in class accordingly.

The remaining weeks of February should be good since I don’t have any other major events planned but I also need to think of possible club meetings that are coming up. I’m in the schools NHs and in order to stay in the club a certain amount of hours are to be gotten within an allotted amount of time. How will I navigate this with the deadlines I set for myself with this project? All things that must be considered. 

 I know that for this project, I need extensive B-roll and that I need interviews. For the ideas I have I think the interviews will take a lot of time to get as well as making interview questions and topics. Setting up the baseline for these will be the most important in these starting weeks. I think that if I can manage to organize myself these next two weeks and stay on task with my blogs and work I should be able to get things done quite easily. In order to motivate myself to stay on task, I’ve challenged my brother to keep each other in check. Me in posting my blogs on time and him on staying on tasks with his sports activities. Maybe I’ll be able to use him in an interview. I’m getting off topic. 

With these things in mind, I’ll be able to keep myself on task and develop a more wholistic plan for my schedule. Until next time!

The time has finally come… A level Project, START!

So it’s been a year since the last As Level project and a lot has happened both in and out of school. I think I’ve learned a lot and even though I still have a few problems from last year lingering, I think I’ll still be able to fix it up this time around and produce a project that is truly worth while, with that being said…

Welcome back to my blogging of the A level media course. It’s about that time where we finally lock in and buckle down for the main course of media: the final project. During this time I’ve had a lot to think about as well as many things to think about over the year. All the different projects we did and the different ideas that we got from them. I’ve got a good idea of exactly what I want to do.

The documentary project earlier this year was very fun. As I foreshadowed in my previous posts: I will be making a documentary as my final project. As for what in, I have a few general ideas but nothing quite so concrete as to reveal right now. I feel some brain storming would be needed in order to really bring out these ideas to the max. I am not just brain storming ideas though. I feel like this time around early it’d be important to start thinking about a timeline for how I want to do things and really get organized. I want to be ambitious with my final big project of high school but if I’m not organized, nothing will come of it. Let’s hope this time I can really show my stuff. Until next time!