Reflection time...

   Me, Zach, and Vic spent these past two weeks planning, producing, and editing our documentary, Does This Make You Uncomfortable? which we used to try to understand Generation Z’ complex feelings towards feet and how that may be reflective of our society.

 
    When we started working on Does This Make You Uncomfortable?, I think we definitely didn’t expect the direction it went in. Of course, the concept of making a documentary about feet sounds very comical, which was not necessarily the tone that we were entirely going for, but a lot of the themes we ended up touching on in the final result came as a result of later research and interviews. With Does This Make You Uncomfortable?, we sought out to represent a side of Generation Z, the generation made up of people born between 1997 and 2012, that we thought was not talked about as much.

 
    This documentary was made with the intention of bringing awareness to the issue of body self-consciousness that Gen Z experiences through an entertaining lens, but that will hopefully leave audiences thinking about these themes once it has ended. We used two different approaches to represent Generation Z, a direct lens made up of our (directors) interviews and other Generation Z interviews, and through indirect lens of older and younger generations. We obviously wanted Generation Z to have a voice in a documentary about their own experiences, it would feel unreliable and borderline manipulative if we didn’t, which is why we chose to interview our three Gen Z subjects, all of them high schoolers, and to relate the documentary using our own observations, as Gen Z creators, to move the narrative forward. However, since the target audience was those in the Gen z age range, we thought it would be interesting to bring in voices from other generations. Something that we learned, was that each generation has slight misinterpretations of their peers. Many of the Gen Z interviewees claimed that they had no problem with feet, but their responses and the ones of the older generations showed the opposite. For older generations, we chose to interview two teachers because we found education to be a great career in which you could notice societal trends. Lastly, we opened the documentary off with a man on the streets, to get a more generalized, less location/age focused scope of interviews, this ended up being a great base for comparison with Gen Z.

    Going into this project, I think we all knew that research was going to be very important. In class, we watched multiple documentaries to explore the different styles and methods to approach a project like this. American Promise was a long-term production that followed two boys' experiences as they attended a highly prestigious prep-school. This slice-of-life style documentary was quite conventional, in the way the b-roll and interviews were presented, but we took inspiration from the way it narrated the story through the subjects’ interviews. After watching American Promise, we watched Exit Through the Gift Shop. Exit Through the Gift Shop I would say was definitely our biggest inspiration while working on Does This Make You Uncomfortable?, we sought to mimic its satirical tone in a way (obviously without ridiculing the audiences) and also create a tonal shift similar to the one that Banksy did with his own production. Our piece followed many conventions of a documentary inspired primarily by these documentaries. We conducted indirect interviews to further establish the topic and tone of our production. However, we did use some unconventional methods. For example, we chose to not include any b-roll. This was an entirely stylistic choice as we did film some b-roll early in production, but we thought it would be best to leave it out as we didn’t feel that it brought anything to the project. Additionally, we employed unconventional interview methods such as a man on the streets to challenge the typical documentary conventions, the man on the streets in particular was used to getting a wider, more representative range of opinions. Apart from production based research, we also did a lot of research regarding Generation z in order to represent the generation as truly and fully as we could. Our findings, which commonly brought up Gen Z’s relationship with vulnerability, sex, mental health, and intimacy, was very influential in the final statement that made up our theme of the documentary.

    With this documentary, we hoped to take an entertaining and unexpected topic and create a potential meaningful conversation out of it. The opening is purposefully comical and surprising to draw audiences in from the beginning. From there, we did a bait and switch to introduce the larger and deeper themes that we would be exploring. My hopes are that this production will leave audiences with a chance to reflect on the current state on Generation Z, and how the views that many interviewees describe about feet may be indicative of a larger discussion.

Feet Production 2

Kanno

So, the Tuesday after we filmed a big chunk of our interviews, we interviewed Mr. Kanno who is my sociology teacher. Luckily, he agreed to do this interview, even though he seemed a little confused when I told him what the topic was. Having had Mr. Kanno as my teacher for two years already, I knew he was gonna talk about social media, which was great because we definitely wanted to explore how much on impact body standards from social media may have on our perception of feet (can't believe I just wrote that sentence). 

While he was not aware of the shifting perceptions of feet, he brought up some other very interesting points on body image and body standards. For example, he has recently noticed his students using pimple patches to hide their acne, to which he said, "Now, you know, they've taken something that was like, you know, a source of shame. And they've now made it a piece of fashion." Overall this interview went really great, it was like over an hour and a half long and had so many interesting opinions. My favorite insight that Mr. Kanno gave was, "you got to you got a generation of kids, Gen Z, and probably even younger, who grew up. That's been amplified. And, and, and, you know, just like on steroids, you know, like, you have to look this way. You have to look this way. You know, some people really take that literally, you know, and so you see body transformations, things that they just try to scare. And so I think that that's probably why there might be a correlation. I don't think it's a causation, but there might be a correlation. Why Gen Z has a higher problem with seeing images like that, or they're disgusted by things like that." (This is from a generated transcript but basically he went really into how growing up seeing only perfection definitely would have an impact on self-perception.

B-Roll

The Wednesday later, me and Zach spent the entirety of our lunch filming b-roll. And you might be asking how we could've possibly gotten any b-roll for this. And the answer is exactly what you would imagine. We went around the school filming shoes. Unfortunately, as much as we hoped we could get footage of actual feet, the county dress codes restrict the exposure of feet (that's why there's so many socks and sandals around), so we had to adapt and only film shoes. I'll admit, while most of our footage was consensual, this was probably my top 10 most uncomfortable experiences of my life because honestly how do you ask someone if they would be okay with you filming their feet? I can laugh about it now, but Wednesday 12:30 PM I was not having a fun time. I don't have any of the b-roll saved on my laptop, but most of it was just shots of people walking or of their shoes. 

Vic's B-roll shot

Vic also filmed her own b-roll which was definitely more stylistic and it ended up looking really cool. Unfortunately, mostly due to time constraints during editing, we did not get to include any of the b-roll. 

Luke

The last interview we filmed was Luke's. This interview was a little last minute when we realized we should probably get a guy Gen Z interviewee. Honestly, I wish we would have gotten more of a variety of Gen Z ages, especially since we only got senior interviewees (17-18), while I don't think the answers would've changed too much, I do think it would added more validity to our documentary. Yk since Gen z is between 1997 to 2012, not 2006 to 2007. I was not present for Luke's interview, Zach was the only one who could that day, but I do like how it came out. Especially how him wearing socks with sandals contrast so much with Mr. Berna's statement about socks. 

And those were all the interviews we were able to get. Altogether, the interview transcripts added up to 25 pages on Google Doc (with a font of 9). Editing was mostly Zach and Vic, I helped with the MOTS and was available to help with anything else that they needed, but to be honest, I am so glad that they took care of the editing, because combing through all of that footage looked like a pain. 

Feet Production 1

Production stage yippee!!! 

Mr. Berna - 11/07

Sorry, this was the best screenshot I could get

The first interview we conducted was with Mr. Berna. He's Zach's English teacher and has a minor in psychology. This interview went so much better than I could've possibly imagined. He gave us so much interesting insight, from theories of why Gen z has this relationship with such a crucial part of their body to his own experience as a teacher with his students. He was really passionate about the topic which was soooo great for us. His interview ended up being about 20 minutes long (pain to edit). We filmed the interview during our lunch period (luckily my teacher gave me double lunch and I was able to be there), so he had to eat his ramen for the interview which was kinda funny. Overall, this interview went great and we got so much good footage.

MOTS @ Town Center - 11/11

When we first started planning out this doc, we knew we wanted to include a man on the streets segment. For two main reasons, the first one being that it was a pretty simple way to gauge general public opinion of all ages, and the second one being that it would make a great intro to hook audiences in. This was pretty daunting at first because, as you can imagine, going up to random strangers and asking their opinion on feet isn't what my ideal Saturday would look like. Zach filmed, Vic interviewed, and I got extra footage with my camcorder. I think after the first couple interviews, we started feel a little more comfortable, and we ended up getting some GREAT footage. Surprisingly (but not at all), most of the responses were the same. The older generations had no problem with feet, in fact, when we showed them the picture of the foot, many people commented on how well-kept they were, and even some on how beautiful they looked. The younger generations however seemed so much more uncomfortable looking at the pictures. Surprise, surprise!

Our man on the streets went pretty well, other than the sun setting pretty early on, the interviews were so perfect for our topic. And then Zach goes to check the audio. Completely unusable. Genuinely so crushing when he told us. We think it was a problem with the mic because it sounded fine in the camera. We were already trying to schedule a day to reshoot when I remembered that I filmed practically everything on my camcorder. I was pretty reluctant that any of the audio would be good since it's really old and I was standing pretty far away but, by some miracle, the audio wasn't horrible. I was literally jumping for joy in my room. That was so stressful.

Cecilia - 11/11

After doing our man on the streets, we interviewed Vic's friend, Cecilia. While I do think we got some pretty great responses with this interview (especially surrounding hygiene), the biggest problem was that it was pretty late at night, so the lighting was pretty bad. I also talked to Cecilia in class later that week and I feel like she had so much to say. I would love to redo this interview again because I feel like it could be so much better.

Feet

The other day, Stoklosa walks into class asking us our thoughts on feet. And like, I mean I’m aware that my generation is a bit weird about feet (from our vernacular to the way we dress ourselves, it’s rather odd), but I never expected this question to become a full-length class discussion. But either way, we’re talking about our opinion on feet right and then Zach jokes that someone should make a documentary on feet. And that kinda stays there for a couple weeks, marinating in people's minds for a while. Then finally, the time to start working on our documentary production project comes around, and to be completely honest, I haven't stopped thinking about feet since it was brought up, and lucky for me, neither had Zach or Vic. So as easy as that, we had our documentary topic chosen.

I'll admit (although I'm sure it's evident for anyone following this blog) that I'm usually poo poo from a butt bad at planning and pre-production, but I do feel like somehow it wasn’t that bad for this project (maybe it was just cause the people in my group can actually plan). In particular, we did a lot of research surrounding trends in Gen z, ranging from fashion to mental health (I'll link some interesting sources we found at the end of this post). A lot of the research we conducted was pretty eye-opening. Aside from reading a ton on the subject, I also asked a lot of my friends of their opinions on the topic, and I was shocked to find how averse they were to talking about feet. Like flat-out grossed out by it. After conducting our research, we began to structure out how the doc might look.

I would say that for structuring, Exit Through the Gift Shop was our biggest influence. We wanted the documentary to flow similarly to how Banksy made his flow. Start with more specific story (in our case, Gen z's aversion to feet) and then transition into a broader conversation (in our case, how our mental health may be affecting our views of our body, how social media might be making us hate our feet, and why the hell Gen z is so self-conscious in general). We also wanted to create a tone that was a bit light-hearted while not making the topic seem too comical (or too serious), similar to Sicko. I think what we struggled most on, throughout the entire production, was how we wanted to end the documentary. In fact, we're still struggling with that (more on that in another post.)

During our planning process, we also created a shot list for possible b-roll. None of it made the final project. We also created a list of possible interviewees, which was great because it really sped up the process and we were able to interview them somewhat early, and a list of questions to ask. 

Links for anyone wanting to read more about feet :P

When Did Everyone Get So Weird About Feet?

Why Gen Z Won't Show Their Feet | HuffPost Life

Why Gen Z doesn't like to show their feet - Upworthy

A moment that changed me: my feet appeared on a kink website that gets 20m views a month | Life and style | The Guardian

Gen Z Won't Let Anyone See Their Feet - The water cooler - The Last Forum 

How Gen Z is still falling into the trap of toxic body image | Metro News

Former Documentary Hater Gives Some Documentaries a Chance

Y'all (whoever is reading) have no idea how happy I am to be posting again. 

So, before we started working on the documentary projects, we watched a couple documentaries in class. Good news is that I actually like documentaries now! In fact, I actively seek them out these days. Character growth!

I Think This Is the Closest to How the Footage Looked

 

This was the first doc we watched in class. It was actually such a revelation. Being completely honest, I used to be really ignorant about documentaries and thought they were just boring nature docs about polar bears, but wow this completely changed my views on docs. I Think This is the Closest to How the Footage Looked was made entirely through inanimate objects (making it unlike any documentary I’ve ever seen), and it’s genuinely such a stirring story. I just loved how this doc was able to pull emotions out of basically everyone in the class through such an unconventional storytelling method.

American Promise

This one was definitely my favorite. I thought the subject matter was so interesting and the amount of work that it must have taken to edit it was probably insane. I particularly liked how the doc was structured, typically a narrator would be used for a production like this, but using the interviews to make the piece flow was great. As I was watching it though, I was a bit turned off knowing that the directors were also the subject’s parents. I don’t think the bias was too apparent (in fact, I think they included scenes where they definitely don’t come out looking great) but it was still somewhat noticeable. Overall, I think American Promise did a great job shedding light on a subject that just isn’t talked about often.

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Yeah this one was very good. The way the tone of this piece shifts is so so so cool. The implicit signaling of themes, especially towards the ending was so clever. I honestly don't even think the point of the documentary even clicked for me until it was over and we discussed it in class (I promise I'm not media illiterate...I think). After viewing, we had an almost hour long discussion in class about the meaning of art, what is and isn't art, etc etc. It was such an eye opening discussion. Honestly it may be one of my favorite school-related experiences. 

Abstract

This was more like the documentaries I would usually see. I liked how it used some more stylistic approaches for the b-roll (animation, staged footage, etc.) It was a clever artistic method for an...artistic piece. Yeah, I don't really have a lot to say about this one but I generally loved the b-roll!

NYT Op Docs

Oh my god I watched so many of these. First of all, I think its awesome that the NYT amplifies the voices of independent filmmakers. The subject matters of some of them that I watched were so interesting, just a bunch of stuff that I had never heard about before. I particularly loved Visible Mending. It just felt so warm and comforting. I loved the use of knitted animals to represent the interviewees (the doc is about the healing powers of knitting) and the use of music and stop-motion. I ended up watching so many of these just cause they were all so short and engaging. I loved hearing all the stories that were told.

I'M BACK

Hi!! I missed blogging so much I had to start using a diary. So excited to be annoying on here again for A-level.

 Film Opening 

After so much stress and nights without sleep, it's finally out, hope you enjoy!

Here it is.

Whoop whoop