Production (Behind the Fire Wall Documentary - 3/5)

 Hello, hello, hello, dear reader!

Producing this thing was a nightmare, but hey, at least I got to wake up this time. Did that make sense? I'm so tired right now. I hope you know what I mean. 

I'm watching you 

Interviews:

I planned to film before, during, and after my school's literary club meeting because that is the place to find well read queer kids. I knew that interviewing strangers would be the go-to move for getting a good student perspective. If my memory is serving me right, we included 10 of the 13 student interviews. It was a lot, and I went home at 8 pm that night, but at least I got it over with.

As for the teacher interviews, I filmed both teachers interviews after school, and Mr. Kelly's during 8th period (I was given permission to leave, thank you Mr. Cummings, mwah). All teachers and Kelly graciously offered their time, and I am eternally grateful for that. If you are reading this Kelly/Kanno/Bueno, thank you. You also get a kiss mwah, mwah. 

I had someone behind the camera the entire time. In my many years of CBTV wisdom, I know to ALWAYS have someone listening to the audio for you. Most don't know it, but audio is incredibly important. Student interviews were staged with the same background to present a unified front. During class critiques, I was told this made the documentary unengaging. Which, yeah, but I'll fix it with more b-roll. I don't regret filming with the same background. 

B-roll:

The absolute G.O.A.T., Ms. Bueno, allowed me to mic up her students and film them during her 6th period. I'm so grateful because that was my one and only opportunity to film b-roll. If she didn't let me visit her class, the doc would've gone to hell and I would've cried all day. 

That being said, I didn't have the time or mental capacity to shoot more b-roll and that made the documentary fall flat. I tried to make it up with drawings made by Emi, but she didn't get through the list I provided her, and that fell flat too. The lesson here is to do big projects like these with more people. If I had more hands or more time, I would've gotten everything done. Frickin' sucks I can't escape my physical limitations and become an omni-present divine being. Imagine how much homework I'd get done that way. I could take up a side hustle. I could steal the pope's hat. I could impersonate the pope. I could convince his wife I'm the real pope. Dedicate my life to the bible. Argue with her. Come home to divorce papers. Lose everything I love...

Intro and Outro:

Both the outro and intro were written a day in advance and shot in 30 minutes during my lunch period. I think I made it clear how short on time this filming was. We will absolutely refilm these two parts.

(Me realizing I had to get all the filming done in 3 days)

I knew Emi would have difficulty memorizing everything so I designed the script so that she's be able to read off it while filming. Though, we didn't get enough shots of her research, so it just looks like she's breaking the forth wall. Not to mention, in my diluted mental state, I though that having my friends in the background laugh at Emi was a good idea. A good idea. When she's talking about Hitler. What??? Why???? I don't understand why I said this in the moment. I think I wanted some comedy, but it was at the wrong place in the documentary. When we reshoot, I will absolutely have Emi just be alone in a classroom. 

Okay! That's it for tonight! Good night one and all, and to all a good night.

(Someone should buy me this for the holidays)