Project Reflection

How does Lineage represent social groups/issues?

My film, Lineage, aimed to show how a community, that would otherwise never exist, forms around the "intergenerational shows" that the local theatre company, Inside Out Theatre Company, produces. My group had decided we wanted to use interviewees of two completely different ages to achieve this goal and properly represent two sides of the topic. 

Since me and Mariana are heavily involved with this company, and the show we focused on, we decided to also pick two very different actors that came from two very different acting backgrounds. Lito, is older, and has been working with gymnastics for a very long time, but has been doing theatre for shorter, whereas Brandon is still a teenager, and he has been participating in theatre since slightly before high school. The show itself is also heavily about Jewish culture and how hard it was to live in Russia during the time it takes place, and while we do not directly explain this story, it heavily implies that the show should be watched eventually.
How does Lineage engage with audiences?
Lineage strives to invest the audience in the concept of intergenerational shows, especially since they are open to anyone. That also means that you can be any age, with no experience whatsoever, such the aspiration and want to participate in the show. Our main target audience is all ages and genders, as long as they are invested slightly in musical theatre. It is slightly annoying since we were given specific instructions to not focus on how the arts effects our lives, but I wanted this specifically to be a sit-down lunch with all of the friends in the group.
To specifically engage with the younger audience, we decided to make it clear how the cast has many silly moments without knowing the camera is on them. A large thing I noticed about younger audiences is that they become too ashamed to admit that they love their passions. The talk of Fiddler on the Roof being like a large family definitely also convinces audience members that this is probably the type of documentary that they would like.
How did research inform Lineage and the way it uses or challenges conventions?
A very important thing I focuses on during both my research and the project itself was B-Roll. I wanted to capture perfect moments that represented exactly what my interviews would say. That being said, I used this plan as a reason to have the b-roll filming be after the filming of the interviews. Filming b-roll definitely would have been easy, but my group's cinematographer got sick the day we had planned to film this. This is when I had to challenge the conventions of a regular documentary, as our entire film only consists of b-roll that was archived footage. This, of course, didn't look bad, but it didn't have the same look as we had initially planned.
A convention that we did follow, though, was our particular USE of the b-roll. We had tried our hardest to make the b-roll directly relate to what the interviewees were saying (for example, when Lito talks about the man playing the Rabbi, we showed a video of the Rabbi on stage, or when he says it was a super fun environment and a video of the cast playing just dance is shown.) 

Link to Lineage :)

Almost done, done, done!

 Now we are in the post-production process! Originally, this post probably would have been about us recording B-roll during a rehearsal of one of the company's current shows, but Mariana, the cinematographer, got really sick and we weren't able to go. This is when I was super grateful that we had a TON of archived footage we could rely on. I immediately sent all of this archived footage to David, who was our editor, and we sorted through everything to find items that would be adequate for the documentary.

We reviewed all of our interview footage and decided our documentary name decided in planning was genuinely perfect, since Brandon had spent a while answering one of the interview questions by saying that the casts of the intergenerational shows was like a huge family, hence the name being "Lineage." After this, David unfortunately was on vacation, and it was a bit hard to contact him, but our group still managed. Since he was our editor, it was sort of as if the rest of our work was done unless he needed more footage. So, I was always on standby to send more B-Roll.

Something that slightly annoyed me about this was that he didn't have access to the original outline, so he wasn't able to follow it either. The final format of the documentary wasn't EXACTLY what I had hoped for, but it wasn't bad by any means. Lito's interview, which was supposed to have less focus, was featured for the entire beginning portion of the film. I wish that the interviews sort of went back and forth between each other, especially since the two interviewees said the same, or very similar, answers to the majority of the questions.

Finally, David sent the final product, and the group really liked it! I think if we had more time to do this project, it definitely would have been way better of a final product on our end, but overall, I think we did a good job!

In the works...

 It's time to begin filming! We had officially delegated everyone's roles in the filming of the interviews. I was specifically put in charge of asking the interviewees questions and adding more questions as we went if I felt as though it was needed. Below are the interview questions I had prepared for Lito and Brandon:

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 

Before beginning the interview, please be prepared to state and spell your full name 

BRANDON: 

What does ‘intergenerational activities’ mean to you? 

What experience do you have in these shows? 

What have you gained from these experiences? 

How was the environment different between the intergenerational shows and morespecified age group shows?

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 

Before beginning the interview, please be prepared to state and spell your full name 

Other Interviewees/ questions 

Why did you decide to join shows or a program like this? 

How do you feel when you participate in big intergenerational events like this? 

How do you think you have grown from this experience working in intergenerational shows? 

Were there any challenges while working with various ages?

Mariana was in charge of the camera and was zooming in and out when she felt it was necessary. In addition to this, David brought a bunch of equipment and made sure the audio was working while we filmed. Samara helped Mariana with the shots and sometimes adjusted the lighting. (Sadly, we didn't get any pictures of our setup ☹)

We filmed at the Sunrise Civic Centre, which is where rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof, and the production itself took place. We got special permission from Robin, the director and owner of Inside Out Theatre Company to film at this location. An issue we ran into was not being able to change/adjust the space to be more to our liking for the interviews, so there are some things in the shots that I wish could have been done differently.

What's up, Doc? (Planning post!!)

 After we finished watching all of the documentaries in class, it was finally time to start working on our docs! We got to pick our own groups, so I got to work with Mariana, David, and Samara. When we were discussing possible ideas of what our documentary would be about, me and Mariana brought up a show we were just in, Fiddler on the Roof. Of course, we can't make a documentary about a show that already happened, but we were more focused on an aspect of the production that occurs at the company we go to often.

Fiddler was what Inside Out Theatre Company calls one of their "Intergenerational Shows," since
anybody over the age of 13 is able to audition and be a part of these shows. The reason we wanted to focus on this specifically is because we figured it would be a great opportunity to hear from different cast members their opinions on how it differs from activities with specified age groups. 

Since me and Mariana personally know these people, we had to make the decisions of who we would be interviewing. Fiddler specifically was special, since this had the widest age range out of any intergenerational show done at Inside Out, so we knew we had to pick good representations of these people. A large concern that was raised was interviewing people under the age of 18, obviously it would be amazing to have these interviews, especially given our topic, but we would have had to get each interviewee's legal guardians permission too, to ensure no issues would come up when we are already in the post-production process. Since we knew we wouldn't have much time to make this documentary, we didn't want to risk having to wait even longer to begin filming, especially since it is hard enough already to get a date that works for the adult interviewees. Luckily, we had many cast members in mind that were on the younger side of legally being an adult (they were 18, to be exact). 

Me and Mariana immediately had two people in mind to be our main interviewees: Brandon and Lito. You might actually recognize Brandon from my project last year! He was one of the background characters and helped me a lot with the technical aspects of the film opening. Brandon is 18, so I knew he would be a better representative for the 'younger' ages. He also played Avram and the Constable in Fiddler, so there were moments when he worked closely with our other subject, Lito. Lito played Tevye, and he has been working with Inside Out for many years. We knew his work ethic and sense of professionalism would make him the perfect choice as one of our interviewee's.

After we had decided we were for sure going with these two, I had started planning interview questions. Samara had helped me finalize a few of those. Then I reached out to Robin Braun, the director of Fiddler to see if there was a date the production team and the interviewees could come in to film our interviews. Luckily, she said yes and we could come in on that next Monday! I reached out to the interviewees to confirm the date with them, and then my group prepared for production.

WE'RE SOO BACK (+ New projects in A level)!!

Hello Cambridge!! I'm so incredibly excited to come be back on my blog for another year of AICE Media!!! In class, we had done lots of research for our first big project, creating a documentary. We discussed the many different types of documentaries and the conventions they use - this is when I realized not all documentaries are boring - and then we started watching some documentaries to actually see these conventions in place.

The very first documentary we watched was an episodic documentary called Abstract. In Abstract, each episode highlights a different art form and a popular creator that specializes in it. In class, we watched the costume design episode with Ruth E. Carter. This was super interesting to me since, without knowing, I always complimented her costuming in any movie I watched that she worked on. 

After watching this we were told to go home and watch another episode of the documentary of our choice. Since this episode definitely would've been the one I picked it honestly took a while to figure out what I would want to watch, but I finally decided on Tinker Hatfield's shoe design episode.

These two episodes of Abstract gave me amazing examples of b-roll, which I definitely needed to know a lot about before planning my documentary. This also did a great job at establishing a branding and style for the documentary, which was consistent between the two episodes. It became one of my goals to be able to do the same thing.

Then the class watched American Promise. This was genuinely such a great documentary (so great that I went home and made my mom watch it). Watching this documentary has specifically helped me recognize how much time, money, work, and effort goes into some documentaries. Specifically, I had recognized just how much planning I would need to do for my documentary. It helped me set another goal for my documentary, find a way to make the film continuously entertaining and engaging. Something I noticed about this film was that I never got bored throughout all classes we spent watching it.

After this we watched Exit Through The Gift Shop, this one was a bit more confusing, but I still liked it a lot (maybe that is because I love street artists and was genuinely interested in the topic). Anyways, this film used a whole lot of archived footage. Knowing this, I loved being able to see how the archived footage could be used in documentaries as b-roll, or just regular footage, as long as it genuinely applies to the topic. This was super helpful for me, so I knew not everything needed to be staged to have fitting footage for my documentary.

Finally, we were asked to watch op-docs from the New York Times website. For this, everyone in the class got to pick any 2 op-docs that interested them. Knowing that our documentaries were most likely expected to be a bit more like these, I had decided to watch two completely different ones to get an understanding of different techniques and styles used by different creators.

After each documentary, the class was required to complete a set of discussion questions to help us recognize the different conventions and techniques used in each documentary. Immediately when I began to write my first one, I had recognized I would likely need to reference back at them so I could properly plan my own documentary, so once I had finally finished up the last questions for the op-docs, I was ready to start planning!

The End.

 Film Opening Link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4IHGJOrJHg

CCR Links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu05mnzLBTY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxSck6uGt3c

Resources:

Alvira Martasoebrata. “21 BEST PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER-HORROR-DRAMA MOVIES THAT WILL HAVE YOU on the EDGE of YOUR SEAT!” Medium, 11 Dec. 2023, medium.com/@alvira_martasoebrata/15-best-psychological-thriller-horror-drama-movies-that-will-have-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat-13b3a05729b0. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.

CData Software. “CData JDBC Driver for Instagram.” CData Software, 2024, www.cdata.com/drivers/instagram/jdbc/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2025.

Co., Amazon. “WKBYTUXR Sunset Lamp, Projector Rainbow Light 360 Degree Rotation Sunset Projector Lamps, Projection Night Light for Selfie/Photography/Home/Bedroom Decor/Living Room, USB Night Light (6 Colors) 1 - Amazon.com.” Amazon.com, 2025, www.amazon.com/Projector-Rainbow-Rotation-Projection-Photography/dp/B09BD4VYQ9. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.

Co., Apple. “‎Voice Memos.” App Store, 2024, apps.apple.com/us/app/voice-memos/id1069512134.

Giardina, Carolyn. ““Whiplash”: Editing Miles Teller’s Drumming, “French Connection” Inspiration.” The Hollywood Reporter, 27 Nov. 2014, www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/whiplash-editing-miles-tellers-drumming-751403/.

Logowik. “Logowik.” Logowik.com, 26 June 2021, logowik.com/adobe-premiere-2020-vector-logo-7470.html. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.

Nickolai, Nate. ““Joker” Reviews: What the Critics Are Saying.” Variety, 31 Aug. 2019, variety.com/2019/film/news/joker-reviews-1203320295/. Accessed 24 Mar. 2025.

Warner Bros. “A Minecraft Movie | Final Trailer.” YouTube, 27 Feb. 2025, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B1EtVPBSMw.

Winfrey, Graham. “How IPic Wants to Change the Future of Moviegoing.” IndieWire, 24 Oct. 2016, www.indiewire.com/features/general/ipic-future-of-moviegoing-nitehawk-alamo-drafthouse-1201738885/. Accessed 22 Mar. 2025.

That's A Wrap!

     And with that, it's over! I can't believe I actually did it! Overall, I think this project was a huge success for me. Not only did I largely improve over the past seven weeks, but I am happy with my final results and I am proud to say that I completed this project.

    For this final reflection, I'll go step by step to specifically talk about each thing I had done for this project. 

    First thing the class did to prepare was a TON of research. I put a lot of extra time and ca

re into my research to make my project the best it could possibly be. Although I came into the class with little to no experience with anything to do with film, I knew that me being in theatre would give me some sort of advantage when it came to research and script writing. I did research on genre, film openings, credits, and conventions; techniques, lighting, sound, mise-en-scene; and topics that I knew would be important for my film. The number one thing I knew I had to research was genre conventions, though. The genre I picked is generally uncommon, so I had to have a few commonly used conventions for Psychological Dramas to make it clear that's what it was within the opening. While doing this research, I also noticed there were plenty of conventions I wanted to avoid so I could get my point across within the two minute time limit.

    Next, It was production time. This is when I realized just how fast time started to move. I was set back during this time since my entire cast wasn't able to film on the original film date so we had to move the date back multiple times until we found a good day. This had also pushed back my editing, which I was worried about but that wouldn't even be the worst post-production issue I ran into. Anyways, during production I realized how much effort needs to be put into lighting elements for my film. Luckily, I had a hunch this would happen so beforehand I purchased two lights on tri-pods and a sunset lamp to help me get the exact lighting looks I wanted. This filming process went super smoothly since my actors are used to performing and needed little direction on how to play their parts, so any mistakes made were easy fixes and were usually just people forgetting lines.

   

    Then, I had to edit. Here is where all my trouble came in. I was doing perfectly fine for about a week, then all of my editing got completely deleted. I don't know how his happened or anything but there was nothing I could do about it, I had to start over. This time, I was more careful and saved my project every time I was done editing for any amount of time. This was definitely the most stressful time of the project but I was happy with the results, and even more happy that this part was over.

    CCR's were next! This honestly had to be my least favorite part of the project. I'd say I'm a creative person, but I had literally NO ideas for this portion of the project. After a while of brainstorming with my friends, they helped me come up with the ideas of two things I am super interested in, DC and Theatre. The first CCR I did was a mock-audition where I pretended I was auditioning for a role in a play or musical and the director was asking me questions about myself (or rather the film). I really liked editing this CCR over the other one since this was more like editing a film which I was used to. The second CCR was a street interview style video, but I incorporated some DC elements into it to make it different and more person to me. This one, though, was such a pain to edit since there was a LOT more work to be done.

    Looking back, I'm pretty upset that it's over. Yet I'm definitely also very relieved. I guess it's bittersweet for me, since this is one of the most challenging yet helpful projects I've ever taken on, and it has genuinely pushed me to look into some careers in film.