Critical Reflection - The First Cut

The documentary: The First Cut is a reflection on the effects of auditioning for a Batchelor in Fine Arts in college and university. It follows the journey of Martina Rodriguez and how she completed this process despite its challenges. Although this story does not at once relate to social issues such as world hunger it does stand for a part of the working artists of America.

The music, film, theater, dance and entertainment industry has proved over time challenging to enter. Careers as entertainers can be difficult as fame can often be overwhelming for performers. With this documentary we only highlight some of the challenges that come with wanting to peruse a career in the arts. Auditioning for a Batchelor in fine arts is an annual process in which students must complete their senior year to receive the education they need for their careers. A significant issue in the arts sector is pay, particularly for theater performers. Compensation is often low because fewer people are drawn to the arts nowadays. This decline in interest is partly due to the availability of many performances and entertainment options found online. However, shedding light on the early process of how an entertainer can rise to stardom may resonate with others by showing how much work it takes to accomplish those dreams. Earning the respect of others not in the industry can foster empathy and create a better world for tomorrow's performers.

The behind-the-scenes glimpse at the hard work and dedication required to be an artist can evoke empathy in others and engage the audience's emotions. Additionally, Martina's desire for perfection highlights a fundamental aspect of human nature—she ultimately learns to accept that not everything can be perfect. This acceptance reflects the reality that, as humans, our imperfections are what make us unique and special. Creating this understanding of what it is like to be an aspiring artist can lead people to respect the arts more as they see all of the work that goes into becoming an amazing performer.

The main convention addressed in our documentary is the behind-the-scenes aspects that many people may not be aware of or may not fully understand, particularly the prescreen process. Rather than displaying the exciting preparations for a character or a show, the documentary focuses on the more personal journey of preparing for college as an artist and as a person. One important aspect I appreciated is that it is called "The First Cut" and not "The Final Cut," which implies that there is still more of the story to be told and additional content that can be added later. Although it is not intended to be a cliffhanger, this ending piques curiosity and garners support for artists as viewers anticipate where they will end up in their future college lives. While this is not the main purpose of our story, it helps establish a connection with the audience, which is always important for a filmmaker.

After observing people's reactions, I was reminded of the importance of storytelling and effective communication through filmmaking. These reactions proved WHY it is so important to use proper filmmaking and editing techniques when storytelling through any art form.

Reflecting on my entire filmmaking journey, there are several aspects I wish had turned out differently. I would have loved to have more time to include more than one voice in the story. It would have been great to showcase other people's personal journeys alongside Martina's. Given the limited time we had, it would have been nearly impossible to film another perspective that would have had the same emotional impact as Martina's story.

I also found it interesting to note that in "American Promise," the filmmakers tell a personal story similar to "ETTGS," where the director has a personal connection to the narrative. I found it notable that Martina, as a director, was telling her own story. This emphasizes the importance of believing in yourself before expecting others to believe in you. It also conveys the message that everyone has a story to tell, and all that needs to be done is to film it in order to share it with the world. I write about this because it perfectly represents what the prescreen process entails: having the confidence and strength to compete for a spot in a prestigious college program because you believe you are good enough to go farther than you can even imagine in life.

I find that one of my purposes in life is to constantly encourage those around me to find their dreams and pursue them. That’s why The First Cut was such an important story to me.  By allowing Martina to showcase how she is achieving her dreams, I hope to inspire others to follow suit. This is my main goal in life right now—apart from passing prescreens.

Production/ Post Production

Two cameras were used to film the prescreens: a front-facing camera and an angled camera positioned as shown below.

   Much of the emotion in our documentary arose from the editing and the background music. Martina is a talented editor, and she utilized her skills to create poignant moments. We used Premiere Pro to edit the documentary, which allowed us to insert text and captions, helping us weave the story together effectively. 

    The purpose of our story isn’t just to document the prescreen process; it’s to demonstrate that while working hard toward your dreams can be challenging, hard work ultimately pays off. The feeling of doing your best is what we should strive for as imperfect beings every day. The journey toward our goals is what truly fulfills us as humans.

UPDATE: Now that a few months have passed, I am proud to say that both Martina and I have successfully passed multiple prescreens and will be flying out for in-person auditions. I wanted to share this to highlight the importance of the prescreen process for college applicants. 

Everyone has a dream school, but for musical theater applicants, you must gain admission not only to the college or university but also to the musical theater program itself. The competition is fierce because there are limited spots available, typically with fewer than 20 applicants accepted per school. For instance, Florida State University (FSU) usually accepts around 8 men and 8 women per year into its program. It is also a substantial achievement and documenting the process makes it feel so much more valuable to reap the rewards of hard work.

 

Production for group documentary project

     Throughout the production process, we experienced a lot of trial and error in due to scheduling conflicts and various issues that did not work out as planned. Fortunately, Martina discovered a collection of B-roll from her prescreens, all filmed with a high-quality camera, which could be used as valuable content for our documentary.

    We dedicated an entire class period to gathering B-roll footage and planning future B-roll and interview shot angles to create a solid plan. We also outlined the structure of the story during class since we could not meet up to edit together. I proposed the idea of introducing the story with a prescreen slate, and Martina took care of editing it in.

As for filming, luckily Martina had two cameras and a tripod, due to the number of prescreens she had to film or refilm. These were used and set up to create the shot of her looking at her mom. The interview shots were also used by the same cameras.

    An important thing I’m glad we did was we took inspiration from other documentaries and studied how their frames evoked emotions that created a certain effect. I personally see our documentary as more of an American Promise type documentary than an ETTGS and since this documentary was more about the effects of the process than the actual involvement of the process it was important and necessary to take this approach. 

     I really loved how this project turned out, but if I were to do this project agin I would’ve planned better or solidified our ideas before filming and in class, as many decisions were made on the spot.

 

Documentary Project Research and Planning

     Once we had established the idea, which was to focus on the prescreen process, the planning came naturally.

    We started by using a Google document to outline the type of story we wanted to tell and to make decisions about the number of subjects to include and the specific aspects of a theater kid's life we wanted to focus on. We asked ourselves questions such as: Do we want to create a hopeful narrative? Should we concentrate on the audition process? How deeply should we delve into the story? These discussions ultimately shaped the creation of our mini-documentary.

    We had some difficulty deciding how many subjects to focus on, but we ultimately chose to concentrate on one. This approach allowed us to create a more personal narrative and explore the narrative in greater depth. We also faced challenges in determining the storyline—whether to depict regular auditions or the first round of college auditions, known as prescreens.

    Initially, we intended to focus on prescreen auditions. However, for convenience, we decided it might be easier to conduct regular auditions since they were already scheduled for the weekend of filming. We thought this approach would allow us to capture more B-roll footage. Ultimately, we realized that the original story we wanted to tell was the best direction to pursue.

Martina in her prescreens 

Isabel Rodarte’s prescreen introduction 

    Since Martina and I both have extensive knowledge about the subject of prescreens, we recognized both the limitations and possibilities of this story. Ultimately, we wanted to share the experiences of various individuals during their prescreen and college processes. However, due to time constraints, it made more sense to focus solely on Martina’s journey. This approach felt like the most logical choice.

    We continued to outline our objectives, B-roll concepts, and interview shot types. Much of what was included in the documentary was conceived in the moment, based on what worked well with lighting, flattering angles, and inspiration from the story we aimed to tell.

Documentary Project Research

    Before embarking on this project, I had no idea what aspects made a documentary inspiring or effective. I I had watched a few documentaries before, but viewing the full-length documentaries in class was a new experience for me. To be honest, I am not a huge fan of documentaries because I often feel they lack a fast pace. So, making my own was definitely going to be a challenge. Fortunately, I was able to work with Martina and Samantha who helped form ideas and a topic to base our documentary on.

 The research portion of our documentary began in class, where we watched two full-length documentaries: “American Promise” and “Exit Through the Gift Shop.”  “American Promise” follows the experiences of two Black boys as they navigate their school years in a predominantly white school, highlighting the ways in which the school system treats them based on the color of their skin. On the other hand, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” focuses on how street artists gain popularity. Additionally, we viewed several op-docs from the New York Times as part of our research.

American Promise

After watching “American Promise”, I felt a strong connection to the subjects because I could relate to their stresses with school, difficult classes, extracurricular activities, homework, and ultimately, college applications. I witnessed these young men grow and mature as they faced challenging times, including dealing with deaths and cancer, which made me root for them by the end. I realized that this is how a truly beautiful and inspiring documentary should be made—by naturally bringing people together and fostering a connection, even without meeting in person.

Exit through the gift shop

I found “Exit Through the Gift Shop” (ETTGS) to be more entertaining but less impactful. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, but at the same time, I didn’t feel emotionally connected to any of the subjects or topics. I would recommend "American Promise" to anyone, as it presents a humanitarian tone and story. However, ETTGS didn’t change me much as a person. Although it wasn’t meant to be a deeply moving piece, I realized that those are the films I resonate with more. This understanding ultimately led me to work with people who also wanted to create impactful stories.

    We found that the documentary we drew the most inspiration from was "American Promise," primarily due to its overall tone and structure. In contrast, "Exit Through the Gift Shop" had a more lighthearted approach, leaving the audience with questions rather than a sense of inspiration. This distinction helped us establish the tone we aimed for in "The First Cut."The story progression of "American Promise" closely aligned with the development of our own narrative, reflecting the seriousness and audience interpretation we aimed for. We chose to adopt a serious tone because we believed it would resonate more with viewers, rather than opting for a lighthearted approach like a silly vlog.

CCRS

 First CCR: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/194VNzc8LCwCzetbJLy0PS6szBsPK5Tmt/view?usp=sharing

Second CCR:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-EmWeO9Z-7tBLKWe4DVc8HpsJ_N2Cdr-/view?usp=sharing

Film Opening

 https://youtu.be/CAfAQfCoVT4?feature=shared

Final day.

 Hey blog! So today is the last day of our project and I am so excited and glad with how it turned out. Eight weeks have flown by but now I feel so proud and relieved that we finished it. It feels like we climbed our way here and I am liking the mountain top. YAAAAAAAYYY

This whole process was a totally new experience that I throughly enjoyed from the making of the characters to the actual filming I loved it all. Seeing the progress as time went on was truly amazing and satisfying. There were a few arguments just on the timing of the project but now the crunch time is over and I can rewatch the opening again and again. I can’t wait for all my peers to see this and I really hope they enjoy! Lots of love, hard work, and talent was put into this so it’s a great feeling and I’m really going to miss creating and working on this day by day. Thankfully I am confident and proud of how it turned out and it feels like every single thing we have learned in our class has been put into this. I’m very grateful for this experience. Thank you for everything Mrs. Stoklosa! 

Writing the CCR

Inspiration

So I began my CCR as soon as I started watching the reference videos We watched in class. We took notes on what to do and not to do and I immediately knew how I was going to answer one of the questions, so I just wrote what I was gonna say in bullet points on the side. I also tried to find some past good CCR, but a lot of them have been deleted, and I wasn’t sure if I should pick any because they might’ve not scored as high. But anyway I began that moment in class.

Research

In my CCR I talk about The original trilogy of the Star Wars films, and how social media impacts the attention span of audiences. Since I am doing a an interview for my CCR‘s, I decided to keep the language colloquial, and the references that I make are the research part. I don’t directly quote, anything specific when talking about Star Wars because there isn’t a need since I am only discussing pivotal plot points. For the social media part, I reference TikTok specifically, but I don’t mention any reports because I don’t directly state data. Stating data would just feel unnatural in this setting and I thought it would be easier to just include it on screen. 

Planning it out

So tomorrow I will film with my father as the host. Planning out the script wasn’t too difficult because a talk show is a conversation that is question answer which is just great for this since we have to answer multiple questions. I plan to include a poster of Star Wars, an article cutout of the TikTok data and specific cuts and images of or OWN film from production and post production. I’d include things like this:

CCR Script #1

Script: 

Interviewer:

 Good evening ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our guest night. Isabel Rodarte! She is here with us tonight to discuss her upcoming film ‘ The Lost File’. 

Me: 

Hello everyone!

Interviewer: 

So tell us, what is your film about?

Me: 

Our story is about a boy who is sent anonymous files, and must work together with his long lost siblings to piece together his past, while fighting a certain villain in his near future. It sounds more complicated than it is.

Interviewer: 

haha Wow amazing! Tell us more about some genre conventions.

Me:

 So we chose to challenge a convention of the typical dystopian plot structure by starting in the middle of Doran’s story instead of the beginning, because he has amnesia, so he does not remember his distant past. We decided to start in the most pivotal point of the story, where the action begins so that the audience may relate to Doran in the way that he does not know what these files are, just like they don’t either. 

Interviewer:

Incredible, what are some other ways?

Me:

Well, we also decided to make the villain his biological mother, because: 1. she can get away with many unethical things in this world since her children are her property. 2. Because it makes the exposition more interesting and morally challenging. This is not often done, but the classic sci-fi films that are the original Star Wars trilogy do this effectively with Darth Vader, being Luke Skywalker’s father and Luke, not knowing that his whole life he was fighting against his father.

Interviewer:

Oh yes that plot twist was a cinematic historical event! So where does this story take place?

Me:

It takes place in 2050 and a dystopian world where children do all of the work and adults only supervise.

Interviewer:

How intriguing may I ask, where will we be able to watch?

Me:

Since target audience is young adults ages 14 to 20, we are distributing through YouTube and film festivals that part of the older target audience may be able to attend. In order to appeal audience, we included many cuts, and frame changes so that the audience stays engaged. For example, the longest frame is under 10 seconds because with apps like TikTok, people’s attention spans have been dramatically reduced. We also kept the cinematography simple so that it would be easy for them to understand. 

Interviewer:

Amazing! Let’s take a look at this preview we’ll be right back! 

Draft:

 

 

Editing audio

 All right, so as I said before, Victoria  and I are working on separate editing softwares (I’m using CapCut she’s using adobe). In the end, we are probably gonna end up using her draft, but I wanted to have my own draft in case of emergency or just to generally give her some ideas that I find. 

Trouble 

As I said, I was scared that something might get deleted or something like glitch on Adobe because it tends to be like that and as it turns out, Victoria’s draft deleted so she has to restart a little bit, but since I already have the structure of all the clips she can use that for reference. Thankfully she knows how to use all of the effects now that she tried it. But we’re still definitely rushing against the clock. 

In the meantime…

While, we have all the visual aspects of our film planned out and basically done the only thing left is the sound, which is something I was trying to figure out. 

For the dialogue it was sounding Too much like a voice recording so I found this effect on CapCut to make it sound more like it is in a recording, and Victoria is going to find something like that on Adobe.

The effect I found was called phonograph, and this is what it sounds like with it:

And without: 

Another thing I was focused on, is finding the music for the background office, which I searched on the YouTube music library, but then just searching for jazzy background music that was copyright free. When I started on the YouTube audio library I didn’t really find anything I liked until I found this: 

And this is what it sounds like on the film: 

I also sent this to Victoria and she’ll definitely do something similar it’s just for inspo! 

While I wait for her to respond I am going to work on my CCR! YAY