The documentary “Make It Happen” is based on my Dad’s company called Sumiflex. When people immigrate to the United States, they tend to have one thought in common: the American dream. However, there's also one struggle they have in common: the language barrier. “Make It Happen” tells the story of how a successful business owner had his struggles when moving away from his home country.
Before making my own documentary, I did my research so that I could be prepared to make one myself. We watched documentaries in class such as “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” and others. By doing this, I had a good enough idea in my head of how a documentary should be. There are a few conventions that exist when talking about “Make It Happen.” For example, the original story was based on my Dad and his company. However, I wanted to change the story and make it seem like the documentary was about me (as his daughter) growing up with a father that owns a company.
In my spare time, I watched as many documentaries as I could. All documentaries are always the same in some sort of way. So I took notes on these documentaries and studied the editors' decisions and why they did what they did. While editing, I also had a convention with the colors of the piece. When I uploaded all my footage into Adobe Premiere, they were all extremely bright. I didn’t think it was normal for the videos to be so bright, so I had to fix the problem so that it would be easier on the eyes for anyone watching. It took me a while to figure out, but the problem was the “whites” in the editing. I had to lower the whites so that the videos would look normal again. When I was viewing documentaries to have inspiration for mine, one of them was called “Abstract: The Art of Design.” This series was great to watch because it was more on the creative side. The editing techniques used in the episodes were amazing, and I took note of the tricks they used, so that I could use them in my piece. One of the techniques I thought was done very well was in the episode about costume design. The episode was never boring, and I always wanted to know more. When watching this episode, I realized this is what I wanted for my documentary. I wanted people to want to know more about Sumiflex, and its story. Without the research I conducted, I would've been able to make my documentary. There are many things that looking back, I couldn’t have done without doing research, and getting help from other documentaries.
For this documentary, the target audience was around the age of 15 to late adult-hood. This documentary was meant for everyone to watch, since it was an inspiring piece. The piece being about immigration and language barriers could’ve related to anyone, meaning the target audience had to be wide. The target audience was wide because there could be teenagers going through the struggle of having to deal with language barriers. On the other hand, there could be older people struggling to start a new business in a foreign country. Furthermore, backing up the reason as to why we made the target audience so wide in range.
The b-roll was a very important aspect when it came to this documentary. As mentioned above, we didn’t want the documentary to seem boring at any point, so lots of b-roll was necessary. When I went to record all of these videos, I made sure to go to my Dad’s office on a day he was busy. This soon became a challenge. Since I was taking my Thanksgiving break to film and edit, I only had limited time to get all of the editing and filming done. I ended up taking around 50 videos for the b-roll. And every single video was used in the documentary. I used little bits and parts from each video to put in the piece, until it felt complete. The b-roll ended up turning out amazing, and there was a whole lot of it. When I watched it back for the first time, I never got distracted or bored, which was what I wanted. I also showed my family members and they loved it.
When conducting the interviews, there are some things I would’ve done different. However, there's nothing I can change now. The interviews were harder to do just because I had to figure out where to put the interviewee and where they would seem more comfortable. In the documentary, there was a mix of both direct and indirect interviews. Looking back now, I would’ve changed this to make it just indirect interviews. The direct interviews seemed too formal, and that wasn’t the purpose of the documentary. It was supposed to seem inspirational and “life-changing.” There was also a part where I was interviewing my Grandmother, and there were some mistakes that I would’ve edited out. The video was also super back-lit. I filmed it with her sitting in front of the sun, which wasn’t the best choice.
Overall, I felt good about this project. I spent around a week working non-stop on it. Looking back, there were lots of things I would’ve done differently. As always though, learning from mistakes is always beneficial. I know for next time that all these mistakes are just to learn for the better, and that I will do great next time. I can’t wait to improve more throughout the year!
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