The Final Production!

Documentary Excerpt- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y2pG26uvM9zqJnebhOQmem_xix7-WbCM/view

Magazine Article- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j0Qi5E3wQ8CZ2zHbSGi4tbUQ8svC6iws/view?usp=sharing

Social Media- https://www.instagram.com/thenextstepdoc/

Critical Reflection Essay

THE NEXT STEP- CCR ☆📽☆

Project Reflection

     As this journey comes to an end I wanted to discuss an overview of the whole process. This project has really turned out to be great and I am beyond happy with how it turned out. I am grateful that our plan A was able to work and I had such an amazing team to make it come to life. Under the circumstances we were given in order to get approval I believe this excerpt turned out really well, and we all learned so much about filmmaking in the process. We all communicated well and stayed organized when planning and carrying out our responsibilities. For the second year of blogging this journey I have learned so much and I feel far more educated about media and the film world than I was before. I have respect for documentaries and I find them so much more fascinating than I did before the creation of The Next Step. Thank you for joining me and following along behind the scenes of the production process.

Yours truly, 

Autumn♡

Instagram ideas

   I used the docu-series “Last Chance U” as a research example and inspiration for how to create a good social media page for our documentary series. I noticed that their was the link to the show via Netflix in the bio of the Instagram page which is an easy way to simply click it and start watching which I liked. I also liked the simple logo of the title that was black and white and easy to read and recognize. Another think I noticed was the bio was very simple and straight to the point, it stated “Last Chance U: Basketball debuts March 10th, only on Netflix.” This included the name of the series, when it premieres, and where to find it. Here is a picture of their official Instagram account for reference:

      Another concept I thought about for our Instagram page is to make sure to use hashtags so our post can be seen by people that view similar hashtags on our postings. This will promote our series and documentary to people that would be potentially interested in watching it (aka our target audience). A way to increase audience engagement can be to create story posts with a Q&A feature that followers can interact with, voting polls to discover who is watching the series and who finished, who is their favorite dancer, what episode is their favorite, etc. 

     As Jennifer completed her portion of the project and she has mentioned some ideas she had for social media that I will definitely be using. She mentioned the bio should state something like, “docu-series exploring the collegic dance world.” This is simple and to the point we may add the premiere date and where to watch it as well! She also created a linktree on canva that includes the hyperlinked attachment of our group members blogs that can easily be accessed to. We can also incorporate this into our social media. 

     

Here is the link: https://www.canva.com/design/DAEbMfQp1rA/C5b_Y2EKWnRO75BhVXeOMA/view?utm_content=DAEbMfQp1rA&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink

Meeting With Our Teacher

 On Wednesday my group and I were called into a breakout room Microsoft teams call to discuss our project and for her to hear updates and if we are facing any obstacles that she should know about. This meeting was very beneficial because we were able to tell her about how far along we are with editing and the magazine. I shared my screen on the teams call with my group and I showed them the progress I made on the magazine so far! This was a great way to use technology to our advantage during these times when we simply can’t show our peers our work. My teacher stated that the outline was a great pic and she liked the inclusion on the pictures. I mentioned I wanted to do a Q&A portion on the left column and she recommended I just incorporated that into the article. She advised me to try to come up with additional important information to include in that space and to remove some elements that may not be necessary that are a part of the outline. One thing she pointed out was that the location choice may have been poor considering the audio may be impacted by the outdoor sounds. We also noticed this problem right away as I mentioned before and the best solution was to record on voice memos as backup audio. Although, this still may have been a poor choice considering the low quality microphone and the outdoor sounds, Jennifer is using a software on iMovie to eliminate as much miscellaneous sound. Overall the meeting went well and she was proud of our progress and said we were doing well on our blogs! As we are getting close to our deadlines I am getting more eager to see our complete project. Stay tuned for more progress on our production “The Next Step!”

Progress update

 I am working on the magazine article and I was able to find a good newsletter template on canva. I imported three pictures one of the University of a Miami statue on campus and the two interviewees from the first episode of the docu-series that we are creating. I incorporated the title in big bold letters and used the font “Graduate” For the left column I am going to include some important info and quotes and I am getting the rest of the article together. Jennifer just finished her portion of the editing process and Janey is beginning her part which is exciting. Janey also created a title page to use so I will attach a picture of that below! I also was able to creat the instagram account @thenextstepdoc and I am looking forward to putting together all the posts, the logo, and what to include in the bio. I was thinking of creating a profile picture logo with the initials TNS to be a acronym and unique way for our target audience to distinguish our show in a short abbreviated name. I still haven’t discussed this with my group mates but I will see what they think. My goal is to continue working on the magazine and finish early next week and to get the social media done as soon as possible. 

Magazine planning

    After discussing in the group chat we agreed that doing a newsletter template with Q&A responses would be a good idea. Janey also recommended Phonto which is an app that has fonts we can use for the magazine and for our blogs. Here is some sample information that could be included into the magazine. 

Who is this docu-series about: D1 power five conference college dance teams 

What is this docu-series about: showing what a college dance team does and what makes each team unique 

When: a 5 minute excerpt of episode 1 will be released April 12th 

Where: (Still need to figure it out, maybe YouTube?)

 

Why: dance is misrepresented in the media and college dancers are underrepresented in the colleges, the NCAA, and the media. We want to show their hard work and dedication to raising spirit and supporting this universities

How: Talk docuseries structure and the different episodes

Editing Update

     As we continue to keep each other updated in our group chat, I was notified that the editing process is in motion which is a great update as we are getting closer to the finish line! Jennifer and Janey have decided to split the work to edit and both have different responsibilities. Jennifer is working on the interview portion of the documentary and due to the lighting of the raw footage being dark, she is also going in and editing the lighting and fixing the coloring of the piece by enhancing it on the software. Janey is helping with the process by editing in the B-roll footage that she was able to record on campus and incorporating that into the piece. 

    One important thing about the interviewing process is that the more footage the merrier, it is good that my group mates were able to get enough footage to make this project a success. There was a total of eighty two videos making the first stage of editing the interview responses at about thirteen minutes. This was then cut down to 9 minutes, later to about 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Cutting down the time makes us have an advantage because we are able to eliminate the parts that are less important and put the best pieces in. 

Magazine Research

     I have never created a magazine article, however I am eager to learn more and take on a responsibility that is new to me. I decided to do some research today since we have a day off from school. Today I realized that now in the final quarter of this school year I am so close to finishing off my senior year. I have really prioritized this class and blogging the process for this project. My goal is to finish as strong as I can despite anything that has been getting in my way. I want to do well and in order to do so I have been pushing myself as much as I can.
    Down below I attached a sample of some dance related magazine articles I found for inspiration. Although these aren't promoting a docu-series they capture the essence of dance in a way that can attract the audience that we are looking for that could potentially watch and enjoy our production. Also Jennifer mentioned that in her group meeting the guy in her breakout room mentioned the same Q&A concept I was recommended to do. She also said that she chose the font "Graduate" in which I plan on using as well, this choice is in order to create a sense of unity and branding for our production.