Hello blog, I hope your probably not-break break is going well! ( I say that because you might not be on break like I am, but if you are, happy break!) This week has been pretty busy, with my sister and I being very heavy on family time and trying to be heavy on filming time! To be fair, one of the things we have to film right now (being our introductory message to the audience as the "narrators", stranger interviews for the intro, and b-roll to use for the intro/ when introducing the type of connection we are focusing on in the first episode being through hobbies) we are waiting to do in a local gathering place in my town (the interviews), but the rest we have been filming stuff for.
For example, we went to a tourist area and got b-roll of people looking "disconnected", aka being on their phones while surrounded by people. We got a good amount of clips of this, while also filming b-roll for the hobby introduction while my grandpa, dad, sisters, and I played pickleball at a tennis court that belongs to the hotel we went to. I am happy with what we got (we got home today), but do think we might possibly need more. We will see when getting ready to edit, as we will view all the clips we have and make sure we don't need any more. If we see we do, then we can film them easily, as we can stage that b-roll easily.
Episodic Intro
Our main focus was the episodic intro, being the 30-second clip that is the same in every episode, summarizing/ overlooking the documentary-series purpose in a short, implicit, and entertaining way. While in most series it's skippable, we are making it embedded into every episode such as in the docu-series The Mind, Explained. While looking at inspiration from other Netflix docu-series, we stumbled upon this one, seeing some parallels in stylistic and filming choices that we wanted/ have already done. For example, we saw that it included stranger interviews to develop a point for the episode, something we might do for every episode but are for sure doing for the first one. We also noticed the style of the documentary series tends to be artistic/ includes sketches at times, and is visibly entertaining/ engaging. It uses a variety of colors and is simplistic yet intriguing. We want something similar for ours, which is where the idea for the episodic intro to be animated/ hand-drawn came into play.
Street interviews, The Mind, Explained
Hand-drawn visuals, specific artistic style from series
Artistic Idea
Before you freak out, I was also not completely sure that it could be a possibility. The project is due in around a week in a half, when were my sister or I going to learn to animate/ integrate art in this way on a digital platform and make it look good? We have looked at more scrapbooky artistic ideas before on Instagram, where people integrate stop motion with physical print-out art, but we haven't been home in a week so haven't had the resources to make anything. With my optimistic and sometimes too idealistic self, I began to ponder as if I had all the resources in the world:
I began to try to imagine a visual depiction of what my sister and I are trying to do with the series, grounding it's purpose through what the series actually shows: 5 different groups, each involved with a different activity/ "form of connection". The reason we're focusing on those groups is that groups create connection, so showing the disconnected part of our current reality is important to include in this episodic intro. While technology isn't the main perpetrator, it is a big factor of why people are (ironically) disconnected on a day-to-day in-person basis in local communities, so I also thought it was important to include that. With these specific goals in mind, I introduced an idea to my sister by making her close her eyes and imagine the descriptions I was giving her:
Basically, an animated version of my sister and me will walk through a crowd of people on their phones, trying to introduce the part of the reality of our current social world as well as introduce Sofia and I as guides for the audience. We will introduce each group that each episode will focus on by having the visuals pan from one to the next, with each one distinct in style. Finally, we will finish off with showcasing the title of the series, with some cool visuals to showcase how they're all connected and "intertwined" in their community. The background will be black, with color coming from the groups, to showcase how the life of the communities comes from the connection that happens in the groups. The title will appear with some cool visual involving threads coming together, to symbolize connection/ wrap it all up.
She liked the idea, and although she didn't fully have the visual of what I was telling her, she trusted my vision! We both liked the concept and after remembering we have a very artistic and very adaptive friend, we introduced the idea to her today and asked her if she could possibly help us out. After a bit of convincing, SHE AGREED. I WAS SO HAPPY! She said she will follow what we told her, but she also has a very specific artistic style so we told her that she can take some creative liberty with the style.
She will use FlipAClip, as she's tried it out before but never fully used the program for a project. I'll update you once she gives us some drafts, I'm very excited to see what she comes up with.
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