Now it was time to enter the world of foot opinions and instigate a range of reactions from people out in the real world, the part of the process that most excited us. Our filming dealt with four major parts:
- Main interviews: longer, more focused interviews that would take up around the second half of the doc ( interviewees included on specific interviewee list)
- MOTS ("Man on the Street style interviews; interviewees spontaneously chosen gave informed consent)
- Creator interviews
- B-roll
We already had our questions ready for #1 and #2, and some responses from our interviewee list, so we decided to get started as quickly as possible, as we needed the interviews to get any b-roll we needed.
#1- Main Interviews
We began by filming the interviews that were supposed to move the conversation of feet from mainly comedic to more thoughtful and meaningful. Below is a list of the interviewees that we ended up interviewing:
We brought the same tools for each interview, including filming equipment (a camera and a mic) that Zach obtained through CBTV and of his own, as well as the picture that we would be referencing when beginning each interview with "Does this make you uncomfortable?", referring to the name of the documentary. We started with Mr. Berna's interview, and it was one of my favorites of the whole interview experience. He was receptive and dived into realms of the topic with passion such as his observations on self-consciousness affecting people not just having to do with when feet are exposed in unconventional contexts, but the reasoning for the use of oversized clothing in Gen Z, or the reason why teens in his local environment where hoodies when it's close to 100 degrees outside. He gave us connections that we hadn't even thought of yet, all while also giving us really funny content to use that would develop an array of interviewee "personalities", also drawing in the viewer.
One of our favorite moments from his interview
We proceeded to film the rest of the main interviews over the span of the next week and a half, with multiple perspectives on the topic. The two teachers we interviewed definitely had more to say about the societal implications of the specific reaction that they have noticed/ are now aware of regarding Gen Z and feet, with Mr. Berna stating to have noticed it previously and Mr. Cano seemed to be just becoming aware of it, making conclusions based on other similar discomforts he's noticed in the generation:
The process of filming took about 10-20 minutes per interview, depending on who was being interviewed. While Andrea's took about 10, being that she had less to say about the topic, Mr. Berna's took around 18 minutes, as he remarked on personal anecdotes and made further connections.
#2- MOTS
These style of interviews took one day to shoot, including us going to a commonplace in our city known as Town Center and asking strangers these questions:
- Does this (picture of feet below) make you uncomfortable?
- Do you have any specific opinions/ feelings towards feet?
The piece of paper we showed all of our interviewees of feet
We used a two cameras this time- a modern and more "camcorder feel" camera to create a range of shots and textures in the visuals to engage the audience, as well as a different mic that would serve the style of MOTS and allow us to easily get better audio rather than mic people up which would take too long and even turn away some of our potential interviewees. We were in between Town Center and a local mall but ended up choosing the center because of the mixed age groups that we have each seen there, as well as that it was a more easily accessible place to all of us.
Handheld mic and camera (camcorder-like camera not shown)
Being the one that was asking the questions, I felt it was really important to constantly try to stay focused on the bigger picture during the interviews and meet the interviewees where they were at in terms of comfortability with the topic and being interviewed in a public place, as well as confusion on the topic in general (as in why were we asking them about feet). I made sure to start by quickly explaining what grade we were all in (as Zach and Dani were filming on two separate cameras) and what we were doing, saying something along the lines of "We are doing sociological study and wanted to see if you would be open to answering a few questions", also stating that it would take a maximum of 5 minutes.
The interviews included an array of responses, especially between the generations. We got further insight into people's different connections to feet, specifically adults who have a connection to dance. It informed us on the different relationships people can have with feet, specifically opening our eyes to Generation Z's attention to appearance as they all were focused on how a foot looks, smells, etc... Below are two clips from our MOTS interviews:
An older couple's "stance" on feet
Gen Zers joking about having a foot fetish
#3- Creator Interviews
At the beginning of the brainstorming process, we didn't know that we were going to include ourselves in the narration of the documentary, with the idea forming later on as we began to ground our approach and realize we needed a reliable voice to move the narrative along in a clear way to best serve the other interviews. We decided to film ourselves slightly last minute to piece the "puzzle pieces" that were the main interviews and MOTS together. We used the same filming equipment that we had used for the main interviews plus a different camera that is my sister's, a Sony ZV-E10, as I filmed my own interviews by myself at my house due to a lack of time to do it together. It didn't make too much of a difference as I asked myself the questions and pretended someone was there!!!
Dani's interview was filmed before school, giving insight into her opinion on the topic. While the full interview was about 4 and a half minutes long, post-production molded each of our interviews to better serve the flow of the narrative, which I will talk more about in the next blog. Zach recorded on his iPhone so I didn't include his clip during editing, which we will be reshooting as we continue to clean up the op-doc till it's finished.
Raw footage of Dani's interview
Raw footage of my interview
#4 - B-roll
This is the part of the filming that we definitely lacked in. Since we were racing against time and focusing on finishing the interviews, we didn't prioritize making time to brainstorm and produce b-roll to support our interviews. B-roll ideas that I had come up with included showing different types of shoes, which I demonstrated a draft of in the blog post "Does This Make You Uncomfortable? - Research", where we could introduce the aspect of acceptance of feet being exposed in specific contexts, being a reason why people feel disturbed by feet out in a classroom for example. A consistent and stylized form of b-roll to demonstrate items that some of the interviewees referenced such as Mr. Berna referencing Billie Eilish wearing oversized clothing, that wasn't included in the current version of the doc, or Mr. Canno's interview referring to "bandages" (pimple patches) that teens wear nowadays could be good options, but ones that we didn't implement into our doc.
A still shot of a draft of possible b-roll (pimple patch box)
Also, we could've implemented b-roll of people looking at others and being aware of others' perceptions of them or them on social media. Whether or not it would have to be staged, it would help develop the bigger picture and make the points the interviewees are saying regarding everyday awareness of perception feel more relatable to the Gen Z audience/ look more familiar.
Reflections
Stage 3 of our op-doc was the most fun and eventful, with the interviewee reactions to our questions giving us close-up reactions and insight into the topics we had researched, including control over external perception, self-consciousness, and conformity, both implicitly through seemingly just funny moments and sometimes explicitly through interviewed who has more to say about the topic.
In the moment it felt like having a scattered array of puzzle pieces that we had to fit together to develop a much larger conversation, and in retrospect, they would fit together (in post-production)! As someone who needs to see the bigger picture to feel like I can confidently approach a project, it was at times challenging to dive in without a clear outline of what would occur being that our interviews guided many of our choices. This stage taught me that it's key to be as focused on the bigger picture throughout filming as possible, or else it will all fall on the editing stage which isn't bad but can feel overwhelming when having so much footage and such little time. Additionally, having a stronger idea of our narrative structure (planning stage) would help this part, as it would've aided in knowing what we needed from our own creator interviews. We also didn't develop a specific script for the creator interviews and that had repercussions in the post-production process.
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