The goal of our documentary I wish I had your class for lunch was to explore the unique benefits music education has for children with special needs, allowing for communication, expression, and also looking at the best way of effectively bringing music education into their lives.
The research for my documentary included a balance of both in class viewings to familiarize myself with the conventions and techniques associated with documentaries, as well as further technique and subject-specific information. Out of all documentaries that I viewed for class, Oasis, a New York Times op-doc was the biggest influence. While being similar thematically, centering around the distancing relationship between 2 brothers, one neurotypical and one neurodivergent, as they age, I found myself drawing from more technical and symbolic elements. I was heavily inspired by this documentary's emphasis on diegetic sound, as other documentaries we had seen had generally not constructed such lush soundscapes, but the nostalgic and sentimental tone throughout was heavily corroborated by such a vibrant soundscape. This can be really clearly seen where Dr. Laz talks about his student's reaction to a torrential downpour, and we cut to the long shot of the street light in the rain, accompanied with rain and leaves and wind in the background to create something that seems like a memory close to how Dr. Laz portrays it.
I also drew inspiration from the title card and the intimacy of certain shots. The title card below is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also serves to introduce setting and I felt it matched the sentimentality I was going for I so I was heavily inspired by it.
Oasis title card
My title card
I was staggered by how intimate the creators were able to get with certain shots while somehow still getting the subjects to act as if there wasn't even a camera there. This added such a level of realism to the piece that I really wanted to recreate, only mine was less polished and stylized in a grittier manner. I feel having a documentary stylized as aesthetically as Oasis almost reads like more of a third person observation than the immersion into the classroom that I was going for.
I also conducted research on effects like the typewriter effect as seen on Dr. Laz's name card and the title card and taught myself how to drag and crop each frame to produce the effect. I then researched specifically on the relationship between special needs individuals and music to inform my voiceover and the information I found shaped the direction my documentary went in, discovering a correlation with stronger absolute pitch and pitch discrimination, supporting that music can be used a strong alternate means of expression for special needs individuals.
The conventions we chose to both follow and challenge were all purposeful as a means of engaging the audience of my piece. The target audience of the piece is students with classmates who have special needs, educators looking for classroom strategies, as well as families and friends of those with special needs who wish to be able to engage and bond with them more effectively. Perhaps most notably, I included several segments in which no interview was being conducted at all, instead I featured performances by Dr. Laz and the students, including "8 days a week" and "I wanna hold your hand". I used inserts to highlight all the different student's levels of excitement and engagement through their facial expressions. This amplified excitement in turn engages my target audience through highlighting the profound impact music has on those with special needs. A crucial convention we followed was the use of interviews to create a narrative format. Dr. Laz's answers each red as short stories and I felt my task was to match the visual engagement with the auditorial engagement. I did this through additionally incorporating copious b-roll in the form of animation, static b-roll, and typical videos of Dr. Laz engaging with his students.
We structured the piece with the attention of engaging audiences throughout, mirroring a day in the musical education of a special needs student - walking into class, greeting the instructor, talking to him, playing some music, and expressing yourself. We similarly attempted to increase the level of intimacy of the questions throughout to mirror the effect of the special bond these students develop with Dr. Laz throughout their educational careers, starting broad - why did you become a music teacher for special needs children - to more personal and meaningful - what have your students taught you about listening and communication.
The introduction sequence fell short of fully engaging the target audience. It fell flat and felt sort of out of place since my voice never made a return. Had we included an animated sequence to tie the piece to a more coherent conclusion or a visual motif that recurred throughout the piece, the intro would feel a lot less out of place. To further engage my audience, I should have dispersed the research throughout the piece, revealing it as it becomes more relevant rather than frontloading abstract concepts to the members of my target audience less familiar with music. This would have created a stronger foundation and increased the likelihood of engaging the audience directly.
Surrounding representation, my documentary directly responds to and conflicts with dominant ideologies in the educational and disability spheres. Individuals with disabilities are often framed in a way that focuses on their deficits and hardships, with trends such as inspiration porn being at the modern forefront. For example, the Paralympics are recurringly plagued with coverage focusing solely upon the disabilities of the athletes, not their talents, skills, or even their personality. Framing disabilities in such a debilitating manner only fosters less understanding and human connection.
Instead of depicting special needs students as passive in their education, we depict them as active, motivated, engaged, and able. The b-roll incorporated heavily reinforces this through emphasizing independence in their musical education. We also challenge typical prevailing ideologies surrounding education with respect to how it should be standardized and non-fluid in order to effectively measure intelligence and success. The instrument jacket, as well as the vastly different ways Dr. Laz interacts with each individual student make it clear that especially in special needs settings, typical methods of measurement and standardization of education are outdated and ineffective.
Ultimately, through countering these dominant ideologies that are ingrained into societies globally, even without these societies truly realizing it, we clearly denounce feelings of pity and misfortune towards individuals with disabilities, promoting inclusion and making a true attempt to shift broader audiences away from a single-deficit-centered-story, and towards one of ability and equality.
With over a week left to finish bringing the project together, and my partner still working on developing the animation, I'll admit I took my foot off the gas a bit. I was running into 2 main difficulties that hindered my progress even more:
Getting the videos from my phone to my computer
I would normally rely on OneDrive to get my videos uploaded and then I would be able to just download them to my computer from there, but this was not working for some reason so I had to buy some storage on Google Drive and them get the videos on my computer that way.
2. GETTING MY COMPUTER TO RUN PREMIERE PRO
This has been an issue I've been dealing with since AS level, but my computer is essentially a bucket of bolts. I had taken a break from video editing for a while and I had forgotten this but it did not waste any time reminding me. The day I started editing my documentary Premiere crashed like 7 times. I ended up going to best buy to buy an SSD out of pure desperation, and it actually did help a little, and I was at least able to edit without losing all my progress.
It was Friday, I had made plans with my mother to get signed out early, sacrificing my education for the purpose of the documentary, so you guys are very welcome. I'm completely joking I actually didn't miss much apparently:
First, when I got to the school, Dr. Laz had allowed me to get b-roll footage from 2 of his classes, one with older students who were less severely impacted by their neurodivergence, and one with special needs students who were in wheelchairs. This turned out to be great for my piece as it introduced the concept of comparing these perspectives which I honestly hadn't even thought of. While this isn't really an area of emphasis within my final piece I think the subtlety of showing all the different types of students Dr. Laz works with reinforced how great of an instructor he is.
While attempting to remain as invisible within the classroom environment as possible, a major obstacle I faced was students wanting to interact with the camera, and sometimes, in the instance of my friend Jordan, helping film. Instead of trying to prevent this however, I decided to embrace it and Jordan actually helped me get a really nice shot which I ended up using!
JORDAN
The shot Jordan obtained
I also found myself improvising in the interview sequence a little bit, as one of the questions which I gave in the last post asked how Dr. Laz encouraged participation from those who were nonverbal. Thrilled by this question, Dr. Laz went into an in depth explanation of how his music jacket worked in the middle of the interview. While the content was great, I figured it would make more sense for him to show and explain rather than just explain, so I asked if he could demonstrate and he happily did so. I liked this part of my documentary a lot, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get any b-roll of Dr. Laz actually using it with a student which would have been even better.
Also, something that jumped out me as soon as I arrived to the classroom was a massive issue - he turns his lights off when class starts. When planning, I should have reached out to him and conducted preliminary questioning and I could have found a better way to deal with this aspect, but thinking on my feet I just cranked the exposure on my camera which, while it made all the screens and lights super bright in the majority of my b-roll, made it so you could actually see what was happening in the majority of the b-roll I gathered.
Also taking inspiration from some portions of Abstract, I figured static b-roll would not only be a safety net but also a cool stylistic choice to make so I took some pictures of pictures he had hanging on his classroom wall which I could add key frames to in post production. This turned out to be a really good choice and in some instances, provided context more than any of my b-roll ever could. This is also how I settled on the name for my documentary. A poster on his classroom wall with a picture of a tiger labeled "I'd like to have your class for lunch" was altered a little bit into "I wish I had your class for lunch". I felt it fit the lighthearted theme of my documentary and captured how much Dr. Laz values his students and vice versa.
Ultimately, while hectic no doubt, the production process was a lot of fun and filled with as much error as I expected, but I had left a lot of time for myself to attempt to fix these errors and glue the whole thing together into one doc.
After pairing up with my partner for the project, Andrew, we filled out a brainstorming sheet to generate ideas for what the heck our project would center around. To be honest, we were having a tough time. We considered making it on a student in our school who had found TikTok success through walking into random classrooms and playing the accordion. Recently, I'd had a friend recently detained by ICE and sent to Alligator Alcatraz and seriously debated trying to make a doc centered around it, but in all honesty, it just seemed like too big a task to tackle within the 2 week time slot we were given to make the doc. We also talked about making it about my friend Jacob, who plays drums in a math rock band, but he fell pretty sick right around when we reached out to him.
Our initial brainstorming sheet
Like I previously mentioned, the Oasis op-doc really inspired me when picking the topic for my group's documentary. I ran the idea by Andrew of making a documentary on my special needs brother's former music educator at his special education school, Dr. Laz. He also really reminded me of Christoph due to his immense passion for special needs music education, which I feel really shone through in my documentary.
Dr. Laz and my brother
After considering for a while, my partner and I eventually decided that having Dr. Laz as the only interview subject was the right choice. While risky in the case of being unable to film with him due to unforeseen circumstances, which would mean even more scrambling to find a subject and whatnot, not only would worrying about one interviewee be a lot less time consuming, but as I mentioned in my last blog post, the intimacy that Abstract was able to create with just one interview was unparalleled and something I desperately wanted to see if I was able to mirror. Our initial purpose was to educate people on the special relationship music and autism have in a sensitive and neutral way.
Loose shot outline
Rough outline with questions
Call it nepotism, call it resourceful, call it whatever you may like but my mother who works in my county school system and already knew Dr. Laz was able to reach out and ask if I could talk to him about being the subject of my documentary. He was enthralled and flattered at the thought and could not wait to get to work. In hindsight, I may have jumped the gun and could have benefitted from more planning but I interviewed him on Friday and we received the project that Monday. I was honestly trying to provide myself as much time as possible to edit and refilm if necessary, given that the only thing I had done prior remotely close to a production of this size was the short film last year, and given this topic is of such great value to me I really wanted to carry out the vision in my mind.
We also knew that we wanted to incorporate some research about the relationship between special needs individuals with autism, so I also did some digging online and made a rough draft of the voiceover for the introduction. I actually found some really cool info about how kids with special needs who experience music instruction are theorized to have a greater capacity for absolute pitch.
The questions I sent Dr. Laz:
What strategies do you use to encourage participation from non-verbal students?
Why did you become a music teacher for special needs children?
What have your students taught you about listening/communication?
What music do your students tend to gravitate towards
A sketch from Andrew's b-roll ideas
The creative b-roll I had additionally discussed from Abstract was also something that really stuck with me and I felt from the get go that some sort of animation would be really great to include as an introduction to the overall topic. While having minimal experience, he was open to the challenge and Andrew assumed responsibilty for producing the animation b-roll.
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Ultimately, while my project may have gone a lot more smoothly had I spent more time in the planning phase, I think the copious time we had left ourselves to navigate production and post production turned out to be a plus considering our lack of experience.
Guess who's back! Only this time, I'm not some puny AICE Media Studies "AS" level student, but I have evolved and adopted the title of AICE Media Studies "A" level student, which stands for "awesome". Since around October, we've been researching and familiarizing ourselves with the genre of documentaries and even had 2 whole weeks to create on our own op-doc, so over the next few blog posts I'll be documenting the process from research and planning all the way to final product.
I think this is the closest to how the footage looked (dir. Yuval Hameiri)
I remember this being the very first documentary we viewed, and I feel like it was such an important way to start our journey of learning about documentaries like this because it completely altered the way I understood what documentaries were supposed to be. Before, when I thought about documentaries the image I had in my head was some 2 hour nature documentary or a documentary about a band in the height of their career, but this showed me documentaries can really cover any topic, yet they all similarly work to illustrate a certain "slice of life". For example, this entire piece is a visual representation of the director's grief after his mother passed, recreating the image from his head with everyday objects and rewinding a tape incessantly to express grief and longing.
In all honesty, of all the documentaries we viewed in class, I feel this one had the most influence on my final product. It was just so stylistic and simple yet incredibly powerful and I wanted to mirror that within my own work, but more on that later. I also found it staggering how immediately after viewing this piece, we took notes on documentary forms, conventions, and techniques, and this piece essentially seemed to disregard all of them, most notably the lack of any interviews and b-roll whatsoever.
Abstract: The Art of Design
This is an episodic documentary focusing on different art forms, with each episode featuring a different subject. The purpose of Abstract is to immerse the audience into the creative minds of people who are well established within their respective art/design field and highlight their creative process. From the costume design episode we viewed in class, to the illustration episode I viewed on my own, the recurring purpose seemed to consistently be to document the subject’s creative process, both physically and mentally, and document their relationship and journey with the medium they are discussing.
The first episode we viewed collectively as a class and was centered around Ruth Carter, one of the great costume designers of our time doing most notable work in Black Panther and a number of Spike Lee films. I really liked the series as a whole's tendency to put equal emphasis on an artist's physical process and mental process, emphasizing how both are of extreme importance to any great artist. This documentary also introduced me to the beauty of staged b-roll as well as static b-roll, and how b-roll is more than just filming a subject do whatever it is they are talking about, and instead can be in the form of animated sequences, or symbolic representations of whatever it is they are talking about - something I really aimed to draw from in my own doc.
The episode I viewed on my own focused on illustrator Christoph Neimann. What most struck a chord with me was the docs use of entirely innovative and symbolic b-roll, often moreso than just typical context-providing footage of the subject. The frame above comes from a sequence where he talks about a time in his life where he felt trapped in New York and decided to move back to Berlin, with the illustrated door both fitting the lighthearted tone and serving as a symbol for his feeling of being trapped.
This doc also really showed me the importance of having a strong subject. Christoph was the only dude talking to us about his life for a solid 40 minutes, and not once was I bored visually or story-wise. I really liked the approach of just a single interview subject because when done as well as this episode, it just felt so intimate, lighthearted, and authentic. I felt like I was literally taking a glimpse into Christoph's brain whenever he thinks about illustration and in that way this doc was almost magical and really influenced the route I ended up taking with my own.
American Promise (dir. Joe Brewster & Michelle Stephenson)
I had never in my life seen anything like this documentary beforehand. It was filmed over the course of 13 YEARS and you saw 2 children literally grow up on screen before your eyes.
This piece documents the educational journeys of 2 young NY children, Idris and Seun, who received scholarships to the Dalton School, a prestigious academy in New York. The directors of this piece are the parents of one of the main subjects, Idris, and this seemed to immediately making it clear that this documentary would be nearly impossible to make without a degree of bias involved.
From start to finish, this documentary just felt so raw, like a true "slice of life", which makes sense considering the directors' hiring of verite editors who were tasked with presenting their sons in the truest way possible.
One scene that exemplifies how this piece achieves the verite look is when Idris talks to his parents about his college acceptance results. The raw, almost claustrophobic nature of the phone call with his dad certainly asserts that the editors made no effort to protect the image of Idris' parents. His dad calls him "lazy" and expresses how "angry" he is because he is metaphorically "in bed". In a time of emotional hardship and nearing a big change in his life, Idris' parents cut him little slack which makes the piece feel even more real, no matter how uncomfortable it may be to watch. Additionally, the emphasis on Idris through the camerawork, primarily two shots and mid shots, emphasize his isolated body language, slouched posture, and confused facial expressions to capture his negative mental state, especially in the face of being admonished by his father for his constant laziness. The raw, real nature of the phone call and focused camera work emphasize the realness and weight of this moment on Idris in this particular sequence.
This documentary showed me the power documentaries can have to elicit a variety of different responses just through using a combination of direct and indirect interviews, editing techniques, whether it be music, color grading, or simply pacing. There were times this documentary made me feel empty, or tremendously amused, or anything in between, which goes to show how far editing can go in eliciting emotional responses to any given documentary.
Exit Through the Gift Shop (dir. Banksy)
This documentary was my favorite we watched by far. The whole thing reads as a scaled down social commentary on the commodification of art and once it clicked for me while watching it blew my mind. To me, it seemed like Banksy was disguising this social commentary as a narrative about the main character Thierry Guetta and his development into renowned street artist Mr. Brainwash.
The overwhelming majority of the doc being centered around Thierry Guetta and his journey from ecstatic involvement in the street art community, to aspiring to create a documentary, to becoming an artist himself can easily make a viewer forget that the point of view they are receiving may in reality be entirely manufactured and constructed to fit into the image that Banksy wishes to convey. Banksy is illustrated as a secondary character in comparison to the numerous amount of indirect interviews and footage gathered by Guetta, making the film, on the surface, feel like a recount of Guetta's point of view.
One instance that particularly stood out to me is during a B-roll sequence as Guetta begins to grow more and more obsessed with Banksy's work, a video is shown detailing graffiti markings that read "Banksy is a sellout". The incorporation of this element stands for the paradoxical nature of the film's perspective. As he mocks the corruption and lack of inspiration that result from art's commodification, his own profit and fame make him an inherent part of this system. This instance clearly epitomizes the layered, beneath the surface point of view the audience is truly receiving, one complicit in exactly what it critiques, which begs the question: Can art ever really be authentic once it reaches the marketplace?
Okay I'm sure you can tell how much I enjoyed this piece by now, but in all seriousness this piece was so layered it was insane and I enjoyed it so much.
OP-DOCS
The final portion of our doc genre research included picking 2 NYT op-docs of our choosing to analyze.
Weekend Visits
I'm not sure why I did this to myself. This was not a fun watch. I mean it was phenomenal but there were so many other options and I for some reason chose to ruin my day by watching this tragic piece. Essentially, this piece follows a mother who is imprisoned for auto theft as she spends a day with her son at a visitation house in Virginia. The two watch TV, play outside together, and undergo deep conversations until the mother must make her inevitable departure back to prison.
Some technical elements I picked up on include the use of sound bridges between dialogue sequences to illustrate the quick passage of time likely felt by the mother as she spends fewer than 24 hours with her very own son. Additionally, in more intimate sequences like when the subjects are watching TV together, or discussing what the mother did to end up in jail, the use of tightly framed close ups of both subjects faces emphasizes the extreme, sometimes uncomfortable intimacy as the audience is interjected into the conversation of the subjects. The holistically diegetic soundscape is juxtaposed with the grainy, dreamy effect placed on the footage which gives a sense of the surreality the mother felt when reuniting with her son and the outside world, as if their reunion is quickly fleeting and too good to be true.
Just before she must give her son back to her father, the sequence in which the son hides from them behind a chair, while humorous on the surface, also reads as a physical representation of their incapability to develop a true relationship with one another. The mother says “I don’t have a choice” as the son begs to stay, which most directly illustrates this sense of desperation in the face of powerlessness. This theme is further layered through the climactic nature of the mother being forced to say her goodbyes accompanied by her outburst into tears. The use of a bare soundscape where the only real distinguishable sound is that of her tears as well as a handheld close up shot of her distressed facial expression created an emotional reaction for me, as I felt as if I was truly faced with the gravity of her situation. Because of a foolish mistake she made years ago she is unable to develop a complete bond with her son and barely gets to watch him grow up from behind bars. She is completely powerless over watching her son grow up, and instead must sit behind bars, consumed by her regret and guilt, seemingly incapable of doing anything to truly improve their relationship.
Oasis
This piece really resonated me, and played a huge role in helping me decide what topic I would settle on in my own doc. The documentary centers around 2 twin brothers, Raphael and Remi, and how their relationship changes over time because of several different factors. Raphael is neurodivergent and views his brother as his best friend, someone who is always there for him and has his back, while as the brothers age, Remi spends less time with Raphael and more with his other friends. However, in the summertime, the 2 brothers spend every day together, bonding, playing games, and swimming in a nearby lake. These moments of simplicity and connection offer contrast with the slow, burning realization that childhood won’t last forever, and life grows more complex over time.
Initially, emphasis is placed on the seemingly unbreakable relationship between the twins using diegetic sound and two shots. For example, as they row a boat in a lake together, the only sounds present are the rhythmic splashes of water and the oars, as well as the lighthearted laughter of the twins. In this particular sequence, the absence of background music immerses the audience into the purity of their relationship. However, in later parts of the summer sequence, such as when Remi helps Raphael ride a scooter, the introduction of soft, sentimental music in the background drives creates a sense of nostalgia and longing for simpler times, when all the twins had was each other, which was more than enough. Additionally, the use of two shots vividly depicts the extent of the twins’ unity and togetherness prior to experiencing the inevitable changes of growing up.
Having an older brother of 2 years with severe autism, I found myself heavily able to relate to many of the themes brought up in this documentary. As Remi is interviewed, he states that over time he believes Raphael will grow more autonomous and he will not have to stress so much about taking care of him. This is something I think about every day, as I’m not entirely sure of what exactly my brother’s living situation will be like in 20 years or so. His neurological disability is a far more severe condition than that which affects Raphael, so I am quite certain that he will not grow more autonomous over time and will instead continue to require assistance and surveillance. Therefore, this interview sequence, specifically alternating between the mid shot of Remi’s look of relative excitement for the future, and the mid shot of Raphael’s expression of emptiness as he stares at the wall in a separate interview, evoked a strong reaction as I wonder what the future holds for the relationship between me and my brother.
It's done. Well not really, technically I still have one more blog post after this. But the time has come to reflect on my project. I'm not just here to reflect on my project. I'm here to reflect on my life. I have come a really long way since I looked like this.
In all seriousness, this project changed me for the better. Not once in my entire life did I see myself making a "film opening" that I was sincerely proud of and happy with. The skills I learned and knowledge I obtained in just the past 2 months will stay with me forever. I now have another way to exercise my creativity and challenge myself when life feels dull.
I would be lying if I said the entire project was always unicorns and rainbows. I encountered many difficulties that I have documented right here on this blog that were the cause for stress and long nights. From communication errors with actors, to difficulties in editing, to incredibly awful time management sometimes, this project did not leave me untested.
However, I would also be lying if I said I didn't wind up appreciating and enjoying every second of this project in the end. It just goes to show that hard work pays off. No matter what score I get, I proved to myself that I have the discipline to do a lot more than I had imagined if I put my mind to it.
I also taught myself not to be afraid of taking risks. It could be very possible that my partner and I offend the wrong people with the representation of Christianity in our film, having both positive and negative effects on the lives of the main characters. However, we are proud of what we have accomplished, and it is by no means intended to offend or attack anyone or anything. As I stated on previous postings, the film is simply just an extrapolation of the observations and ideas shared by me and JD.
In short, thank you. To myself, my partner, and whoever is reading this for this opportunity.
Here are my favorite 2 minutes from any film ever to end it off.
Instead of depicting special needs students as passive in their education, we depict them as active, motivated, engaged, and able. The b-roll incorporated heavily reinforces this through emphasizing independence in their musical education. We also challenge typical prevailing ideologies surrounding education with respect to how it should be standardized and non-fluid in order to effectively measure intelligence and success. The instrument jacket, as well as the vastly different ways Dr. Laz interacts with each individual student make it clear that especially in special needs settings, typical methods of measurement and standardization of education are outdated and ineffective.
