Critical Reflection

 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.