End Game: Critical Reflection Time

Below is my (lengthy) Critical Reflection of Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I's documentary Shifting Success:

The opinion documentary Shifting Success strives to respond to one primary question: Is redirection in life, although unexpected and unwanted, always a negative, sorrowful experience? Through the depiction of two subjects, Fernanda Zalfa and Giuseppe Norrito, the piece encompasses the positivity and brilliance that conditional career pivots may ultimately introduce, composing the thesis: Career redirection may fundamentally alter one’s reality; however, the changes one endures may nonetheless be beneficial and constructive in the long run.

Structured in a chronological manner, Shifting Success portrays the journeys of both Fernanda and Joey’s career redirection, intertwining their narratives in an attempt to suggest the overwhelming similarity between the two subjects’ experiences. While detailing Fernanda’s switch from a set-designer in Brazil to a small-business owner in Florida along with Joey’s adjustment from a baseball player to a police officer, the opinion documentary, produced by myself, and my group members, Lauren Del Barrio, Abby Chaiet, and Riley Orovitz, employs a plethora of technical elements aiming to effectively translate the subjects’ inspiring stories and communicating the overall enlightening theme of positive digression. One cognitive production choice made in Shifting Success was to adhere to conventional biographical documentary techniques, aspiring to construct a well-mannered extract detailing both Fernanda and Joey appropriately. As a group, we concurred that the primary conventions necessary to incorporate into the documentary included archived footage and staged b-roll, compliant choices that, in reflection, I feel were necessary and correct in order to properly convey the subjects’ narratives and translate the positivity and normalcy of redirection to audiences.

Providing the biographical genre of the documentary, archived footage became a primary, essential tool in Shifting Success’s storytelling. In order to properly convey both character’s stories, collecting and integrating archived footage of both Fernanda and Joey would be essential in illustrating the subjects’ experience in their past careers, a technique we gained knowledge and familiarity with by viewing a plethora of outside op-docs, predominantly by the New York Times. Two pieces that deeply impacted our execution were The Price of Certainty, by Daniele Anastasion, and No Guns for Christmas, by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, a couple of short opinion documentaries with a heavy reliance on archived footage. Utilizing our research and accumulated knowledge from both pieces, we concluded that, for Joey, this technique would primarily entail the portrayal of stored images depicting him as a baseball player through a range of ages, a decision I now partly critique merely due to the film filter attached to the images. Although a deliberate and meaningful choice, in hindsight, the filter appears as cheesy and mal-edited. On the other hand, Fernanda’s archived footage would be mainly composed of her past set-design and animation projects due to her lack of pictures from Globo, the TV company of her employment.

As a result of Fernanda’s scarcity in past personal images, the necessity for the biographical documentary convention of staged b-roll became increasingly apparent, another practice we explored through research. By viewing the Netflix episodic documentary Abstract: The Art of Design, specifically the episode following costume designer Ruth E. Carter, Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I formulated a proposition for Shifting Success. Similarly to Fernanda, it may be concluded that Abstract lacked footage from Carter’s initiation into costume design, leading to the piece including animated sequences and performed scenes to illustrate the subject’s past roles. While we would not mirror the documentary’s animation, my group and I took inspiration from the performed sequences in Abstract and concluded Fernanda’s past at Globo should be highlighted in a similar manner, a conclusion we carried out effectively through her staged working scenes illustrated in the documentary.

Through our adherence to conventional biographical documentary techniques, I feel Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I successfully represented Joey and Fernanda, in a fitting, coherent, and meaningful manner. However, beyond the two subjects, our piece aimed to encompass and reflect all individuals who have overcome career adversity, seeking to highlight the courage and determination the social group elicits through their stories. Initially, my team members and I were determined to formulate a piece merely depicting Joey’s transition from baseball to policing, focusing primarily on how unexpected events, such as an injury, may fundamentally impact one’s world, an obviously altered plan. Despite my personal excitement to capture my mom’s enthralling journey, in reflection I believe the expansion of our documentary to include two subjects was also essential in assisting the depiction of the intended social group: Workers enduring career-related hardships. By illustrating both Joey and Fernanda’s narratives, Shifting Success manufactures a greater sense of community, consequently suggesting that the subjects represent a greater force. The parallel editing between the distinct steps in both Joey and Fernanda’s stories further encompasses the idea that the subjects underwent similar career adversity and paved resembling new paths, thus effectively tying a group to the project through the double example and reinforcing the representation of the social group as a whole.

Nevertheless, the intended audience for Shifting Success is not composed of individuals who have endured career adversity. Instead, the documentary aims to engage with audiences who may encounter obstacles resembling Joey and Fernanda’s in the future. Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I primarily concluded that the deliberate target audience should include young adults of all genders, ranging from ages seventeen to twenty-four, attending school or preparing to enter the workforce in any manner. As insecurities from school and pressures from the outside world arise, young adults may feel increasingly lost and purposeless, a recurring process that magnifies insecurities and unfortunately debilitates many. Specifically, by aiming Shifting Success at this assortment of viewers, we purposed to demonstrate the positivity in switching careers and normalcy of career uncertainty, attempting to relieve the social coercion the audience may feel to make the “correct” career decision. Although, in hindsight, I would suggest to my group the addition of a voiceover in order to clarify the message to the young audience, I feel that by depicting two subjects, Fernanda and Joey, who had seemingly settled their adult lives and later completely altered their paths, Shifting Success demonstrates that even those who appear perfectly composed may endure professional adversity and humility, thus sympathizing with and reassuring the audience that their hardships are not uncommon or a result of incapacity.

Whilst a challenging and testing experience, my participation in the production process of the documentary Shifting Success was a deeply formative and insightful journey which strengthened mine and my group’s skills as media students and aspiring communications workers. Yet, Shifting Success was not merely impactful in the technical experience it provided me with. In actuality, as a member of the intended target audience, I too feel relieved and reassured that my future path may shift, many of which may ultimately result in my success even if unplanned and despite whichever decision I make as a young adult.

The Great Editing War

Luckily for Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I, my wisdom teeth surgery was the week of Thanksgiving break, meaning the only task on my plate was editing (figuratively and literally-eating merely ice cream for days is not for the weak). Given my (moderate) knowledge of editing and immense amount of free time, I devoted a great deal of effort to the post-production facet of our documentary; along with Lauren, I became our group's primary editor. Although an extremely difficult and frustrating role, I may truly state that I thoroughly enjoyed the editing process for Shifting Success.

On November 22nd, I opened the "iMovie" app on my phone and commenced the journey, unaware that this would become the longest editing process I have yet endured. The first, and most challenging, obstacle we encountered was the introduction of both characters, a hurdle resulting in our utter disorient. Considering the documentary covered two subjects with entirely different stories, the introduction was especially grueling. Needing to discover a way to present the beginning of both Joey and Fernanda's narratives in a non-confusing and thorough manner, I traveled to Lauren's house with my jaw sling wrapped on my face and ice packs prepared to be stuck in her freezer, hoping that together we would resolve the first editing barrier we encountered. 

I hope this video of us sitting in her room, editing, and singing Taylor Swift is amusing:

 

During our 3 hours together that night, Lauren and I constructed a plethora of rough-draft-openings for the documentary, attempting to eventually encounter one which satisfied us both and effectively introduced the subjects in a clear, coherent manner. Below are a couple of the introductions we each created. 

  

Yet, we remained unsatisfied. While the first introduction perfectly presents Fernanda's initiating steps into set design, the sudden switch to Joey in the middle of her narrative felt abrupt and confusing, leading to our denial of the idea. On the other hand, the split-screen idea, although seemingly perfect at first, later led us to increasing perplexity. The incorporation of the editing technique, in order to present as coherent, required reappearance as the documentary progressed, to once more switch between one subject to another; yet, this transition merely magnified the disconnect between Joey and Fernanda, completely isolating both stories and thus diminishing the communication of the redirection theme to audiences. 

Not allowing our frustration to inhibit our motivation, Lauren and I revisited the documentary outline I presented on my "Baby Steps (Documentary Version)" blog, thus concluding the perfect manner in which to configure the extract's sequence. On the outline, the interviews are separated by the foundational life events both subjects similarly endured. For instance, under the first subheading, "how subjects began their initial stage of their career," we outlined an interview with Fernanda describing why she went into set design and one with Joey stating why he began playing baseball. Employing this idea, Lauren and I concluded that the fitting manner to approach editing would be to present each subject discussing their experience under the individual steps (or subheadings), one after the other, before transitioning to another phase and recycling the process. Consequently, the two stories would be intertwined, as opposed to told separately and in full, thus accentuating the similarities between Joey and Fernanda and effectively conveying the piece's purpose to audiences. 

Below is our concluded introduction, highlighting the events under the first subheading referenced above.

Following our effective conquering of the introduction obstacle, the remaining editing journey, although time-consuming, streamlined extremely smoothly. We carried the introduction's principle throughout the entire piece, repetitively accentuating both subjects' life events in categorized and homogenous phases, therefore constantly translating the connect between their career changes and the theme successfully to audiences. 

Once the final sequence was contrived, the group concluded that some form of special-effects transition was necessary to maintain a coherent flow in the documentary, removing any "choppy" or abrupt shifts  between the stories. Firstly, I attempted to incorporate a fade transition between each transfer from Fernanda to Joey, or vise versa. However, this idea proved to merely magnify the "choppy" aspect Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I were concerned about, creating a larger disconnect between the stories due to the repetitiveness of the transition element. As a result, I instead attempted to include the technique solely between each phase described in the outline, a thought which proved itself effective. For example, following both interviews categorized under the first subheading, "how subjects began their initial stage of their career," a fade transition would appear, redirecting the piece to the second subheading, "subjects' lives in their initial paths." 

Here is a clip from the extract in which the fade transition is included between phases of the stories, specifically the first and second steps described above: 

Collectively, we felt this specific employment of the editing technique reinforced the idea that Fernanda's and Joey's journeys through redirection had similar, distinguishable phases, thus diminishing the surface-level differences between each subject's stories and effectively conveying the purpose of the extract through the hinted similarities.

Concerning the archived footage editing element I also referenced on my "Baby Steps (Documentary Version)" blog, our plans were once more altered. As stated on the blog, at first, the idea was to demonstrate archived images of both Fernanda and Joey with a picture frame green-screen effect, as demonstrated below. However, in practice, this editing technique did not, aesthetically, present well, thus requiring us to select another effect which elicited the same concept while visually matching the same aura as the rest of the documentary. Eventually, we landed upon the film filter below, which may also be seen in the final introduction embedded above. We believe this specific effect perfectly ties our B-roll together with the extract as a whole and fittingly illustrates to audiences the idea that the footage is, in fact, archived.

                           Original:                                                          Final-Cut:

Considering a large portion of the editing was then complete, we were merely missing finishing touches, including music, picture-labeling, and a title for the piece. Given the unsteady nature of each subjects' stories, we concluded that incorporating one song throughout the entire piece would not be effective due to the constant tone alterations in both narratives. Instead, Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I decided that merely editing stings of music, placed where the major tone shifts were presented, would be a more effective and meaningful inclusion of the element. The three vital moments we deduced required music are as follow: the discussion on how their careers ended, the statements describing their favorite aspects of their new positions, and the conclusion in which the subjects discus their happiness in their current home lives. Consequently, we would need one melancholy song and an upbeat one reused twice. 

Lauren took the liberty of searching for the music online, landing upon the two YouTube links below:

Upbeat Song

Melancholy Song

Following this conclusion, the next final-touch was placing labels on the B-roll included, a decision made from the deduction that the audience might require clarification on the visuals presented. Specifically, we felt Fernanda's set-design projects, convenience store, and Joey's surgery graphics would benefit from subtitles given their alienated natures. 

Here are a few of the settled labels we included in the documentary: 

                               Set-Design project title:                      Convenience store name and location:

 

                                                                      Surgery graphic label:

At last, the time had come to conclude our project and finally title our documentary, a credit which, once more, goes to Lauren, who brainstormed the name and designed the visual for Shifting Success, a label we unanimously agreed perfectly encapsulated the subjects' stories and the overall theme, highlighting the positivity behind redirection in life. Below is the clever title slide Lauren crafted, with "shifting" literally shifting as the video progresses.

As Taylor Swift once asked, "Is it over now?," a question I may finally respond "yes" to. 

I am happy to present the google drive link to our completed documentary: 

Shifting Success

Enjoy! (If not, I'll cry).

...Ready for production?

Surprisingly enough to all who know me well, I woke up at 8 in the morning on a Saturday and joined my mom on her drive to Miami with my tripod and exhausted brain. It was November 18th and her birthday, yet she was going to work at the newest "Remembr" location, seemingly excited to have her daughter follow her around with a phone camera. After a 45-minute drive, I finally commenced my part of the production journey. 

That day, I spent approximately 3 hours gathering the maximum amount of B-roll of the store possible, filming my mom, her coworkers, employees, inventory, and decorations, all in attempts to demonstrate the hard work, perseverance, and happiness Fernanda illustrates in her redirected path. Below are a few clips that unfortunately did not make the final cut of the documentary, yet nonetheless perfectly highlight the positivity and beauty of her current career and newfound life.

 

 

The following day, on November 19th, the time came to conduct the interviews with Fernanda and her husband Guilherme (my dad). In order to do so, I traveled to Lauren's house to pick up the tiny microphones she purchased for the occasion, which she had already experimented with through Joey's interview. Collectively, we concluded microphones would be crucial to gather the best quality audio possible, attempting to uplift the effective translation of our documentary's message to audiences. After gathering the mics, I tested them out myself at home; enjoy this clip of my dad complaining about the way I placed the microphone onto his shirt:

Me: "You look weird."

My dad: "Of course I look weird, (in Portuguese) this thing is here on my neck..."

After multiple interruptions from my two brothers and various instances where my mom asked me to turn off the camera so she could translate her thoughts from Portuguese to English with less pressure, I had completed the interview process. Consequently, employing the information I gathered from both Fernanda and Guilherme regarding their journeys, I was able to continue my search for B-roll, beginning the process by diving into my mom's photo albums. 

During my photo-album journey, the primary elements I searched for were college and immigration memories. Specifically, I felt these two life events were crucial to exemplify through archived images, considering the fundamental effect both her studies and move to the United States implicated on her career switch. In other words, by eliciting pictures of Fernanda from both the instances, I hoped to demonstrate to audiences the subject's story in a more clear, visual manner, attempting to diverge away from simply including clips of her interview as she dictated the events. Below are some of the images we incorporated into the documentary.

However, the B-roll journey was not yet over. In the interview with my dad, the topic of immigration laws was touched upon, a subject I felt would be best illustrated through information-backing text. After researching the regulations my parents referenced, I discovered two websites backing their statements: USCIS.gov and Travel.State.gov, both of which I incorporated screenshots from in order to better validate the facts to the audience and maintain consistent viewer comprehension of the matters discussed.

Moreover, as stated on my last blog post, my group and I decided Fernanda's story would require extensive staged B-roll exemplifying the subject's career at Globo TV, considering her lack of raw footage from the time period. Together, my mom and I searched her computer and files for past set-design projects that she could "pretend" to work on for filming, clips I felt were crucial in order to properly illustrate to audiences the extent of her involvement at Globo and her love for and dedication to the mise-en-scene craft. In addition, following the interviews, it became abundantly clear that we would need to gather staged B-roll of the subjects with their families as well, a mission we quickly resolved. Given both of their discussions on how their career change has benefitted their personal home lives, we felt this facet was crucial in maintaining the consistent, visual-dependent storytelling we planned on constructing for the documentary. 

Here are some of those staged videos:

  

While conducting the staged footage, I came to the conclusion that, in order to illustrate Fernanda's set-design work to the fullest extent, we would need to incorporate her projects alone as well, instead of merely including the staged clips of the subject "working." As a result, I dove, once again, back onto my mom's files and computers, attempting to gather animated videos of the sets she digitally built for Globo during her employment. Luckily for me, Lauren, Abby, and Riley, my mom understood the value of her work and treasured nearly all her projects, providing us with a pool of B-roll to select from. Below are a couple of the animations we decided would be beneficial to our documentary. 

   

At last, with this plethora of B-roll gathered for Fernanda, and the multitude of footage collected for Joey by my teammates, we were prepared to commence editing. 

The hard part was yet to come...

Baby Steps (Documentary Version)

After seeing the 450 point weight of the documentary project assigned in my media A level course, my initial instinct was to *calmly* panic. Like I assume most other stressed and overwhelmed high school students would, I instantly doubted my ability to complete the task on time and well done to my best efforts. However, when the planning process began, I felt my anxieties slowly ease. 

Along with my teammates, Lauren, Abby, and Riley, the first step we encountered was to brainstorm an idea for our op-doc, a hurdle Lauren quickly resolved with her proposal to create a piece covering her step dad's lifelong baseball career, the injury which led to its end, and how he turned his path around after recovery, deciding to become a police officer. The ultimate goal of the documentary became to demonstrate the fundamental power and meaning behind redirection in life through the depiction of a personal story which illustrated the idea. Below is a picture of our original documentary outline for the extract covering Joey (Lauren's step dad). 

Similarly to most initial plans, our idea did not realize itself the way we imagined. Upon meeting with us, TStok suggested we formulate a documentary covering two subjects rather than merely Joey, stating that by depicting two stories our theme and purpose would be further emphasized and translated to audiences (*light bulb above my head turns on*). Immediately, I ruminated who our second subject could be: my mom, a former set-designer turned small business owner upon immigrating to the United States. Soon enough, we outlined the newest version of the op-doc and were prepared to move on, commencing research on documentary techniques. The following image is the official outline for our documentary covering both subjects:

Almost instantly, Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I began brainstorming possible b-roll we could incorporate for each subject. For Joey, it was very apparent we would rely heavily on archived footage to represent his baseball career, a topic I chose to research through my viewing of op-docs. For Fernanda (my mom), on the other hand, we would need to think outside of the box. Considering she gravely lacked any form of b-roll from her time as a set designer, I chose to research alternative methods on how to depict her former career by taking notes and inspiration from the episodic documentary Abstract: The Art of Design.

On my last blog post, I detailed the technical aspects I highlighted from the plethora of documentaries we viewed in class, including American Promise, Abstract: The Art of Design, and the New York Times opinion documentaries The Price of Certainty and No Guns for Christmas, many elements of which I employed as inspiration for our project. Regarding how to correctly incorporate archived footage, I relied heavily on The Price of Certainty and No Guns for Christmas, both of which surround their main themes around the use of the technical aspect. For instance, in the poor quality screenshot below, a snip-it from The Price of Certainty may be seen.

In this image, it is clear the filmmakers utilized some sort of editing filter/technique which incorporated a visual element to the footage (the lines running along the screen), a decision I feel excellently highlights to audiences that the b-roll presented is archived footage. Drawing from this, I suggested to my teammates that we do the same, stating that we should include a facet into our editing which illustrates that the b-roll we demonstrate, primarily for Joey, is archived footage, an idea that became a major part of our project later on. My initial recommendation was a picture frame design for the images of the subjects, such as the one below (a mere thought considering we had yet to begin production and make final decisions). 

Concerning Fernanda's b-roll, I knew we would require creativity. For this step, I turned to Abstract: The Art of Design for inspiration. As stated on my last blog post, the episode of Abstract following Ruth E. Carter relied heavily on staged b-roll to depict her past career endeavors, stories which the filmmakers likely lacked raw footage of. Upon reflecting on this technique, I suggested to my teammates that we capture Fernanda in the same light, staging her past life in order to fully exemplify her story given the scarcity in organic b-roll from that time. Together, we concluded that a good course of action would be to film Fernanda pretending to work on her past set-design projects, an idea that greatly eased the rest of our planning journey. 

Our last major research obstacle was discovering a way to accentuate the similarities between both Joey and Fernanda's stories, despite their journeys being incredibly contrasting. For this, I drew from American Promise's use of both direct and indirect interviews, a topic also discussed on my last blog post. Although Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I had all agreed we would conduct indirect interviews, out of merely personal preferences, we soon realized this would not successfully translate our op-doc's message. Mirroring the stylistic technique demonstrated in American Promise, we concluded that including, at minimum, two direct style questions would be essential in illustrating that the subjects were asked the same forms of questions, thus highlighting the similarities between both stories and further emphasizing the theme relating to redirection.

Of course, this choice on our behalf was not nearly as heartwarming as the reasoning behind the technique in American Promise, which employed the element due to the child subjects' inability to properly restate questions in their responses. Seriously, I think about how adorable Idris and Seun were at least once a day.

Just look at them!😊😊😊

Following this research decision, we were then able to complete the last obstacle in our planning journey: outlining interview questions. Lauren, Abby, Riley, and I, based off our outline, discussed the format of our questioning, attempting to shape Joey's and Fernanda's as similarly as we could, and the phrasing we would employ in order to elicit thorough and revealing responses from our subjects. Below are the list of questions we finalized, with the direct style questions highlighted.

After this final, major planning and research conclusion on how we as a group would approach the production process of our documentary, we were prepared to commence filming. 

TStok Lessons

*Dusting off equipment*

Although it has been a while since my last post, I can sincerely state that I could not be more excited to commence my blogging journey once more. The blogging aspect of the AS level 2 minute film opening portfolio was a deeply formative and impactful experience and one I will always reflect upon fondly; I thoroughly enjoyed dictating my entire production adventure through this innovative writing mode and wholeheartedly missed expressing my ideas and over-sharing my inner-monologue on Lights, Camera, Blog, an activity I am thrilled to reignite now. 

"Action!"

Diverging away from the AS curriculum, recently, I have gained much familiarity with documentaries as taught in my A level class, a new variety of the media sphere I was previously unfamiliar with. Thanks to TStok, I have had the opportunity to both learn about different documentary aspects, including typical conventions of the genre, and view many amazing pieces, all of which aided me when it came time to create my own extract.

The first major stride we took as a class was the lesson on the documentary genre as a whole. Below, are the notes I took regarding that lesson, which I later used as a guide for my production process. 

As can be seen, my notes specifically detail the major documentary conventions common to the genre. For example, in the middle of the page, I distinctively noted the typical use of a handheld camera, archived footage, and indirect/direct interviews. Together, this bundle of knowledge allowed me to become increasingly familiar with this category of film, setting the perfect base for my research on the topic to flourish; without this lesson, completing the documentary project would have been near impossible.

Following our initial introduction to the documentary genre, we began viewing full length pieces in class, the first one being American Promise, directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson. 

American Promise follows the lives of two main subjects, Idris and Seun, through their lifelong journey in the American education system while attending a private school in New York City. Undoubtedly, this was my favorite piece shown in class; the raw emotion, honesty, and weight American Promise carries translated very well, thus allowing me to absorb a great amount of additional knowledge on documentaries. The major facets of the extract I included into my research on documentaries were the interviews and b-roll utilized. The mixture of indirect and direct interviews was an extremely interesting and unique aspect I had never before encountered in a documentary; the stylistic choice taught me that conventions do not need to be either followed or broken, they may be bent as well. Furthermore, the documentary's b-roll deeply illustrated the importance of a handheld camera in such pieces; the naturality and casualness of the footage created a sense of honesty in American Promise, therefore accentuating the importance of abiding by the specific convention. 

Another documentary I thoroughly enjoyed viewing in class was the episodic piece Abstract: The Art of Design. Specifically, the episode highlighting Ruth E. Carter. 

The episode of Abstract following Carter highlighted her work as a costume designer in film, a topic I found immense interest in. In terms of technical facets, the episode introduced me to an innovative and deeply valuable form of b-roll: staged b-roll. Previously, with American Promise, I had merely viewed organic b-roll, as the documentary simply followed the subjects through their daily lives. However, Abstract's demonstration of Carter, at times, required produced or performed footage in order to convey the story. For instance, in one segment, a hand cutting and stitching pieces of cloth is depicted while Carter discussed the hands-on labor she contributed during her time in musical theater costume design, a choice likely made because the filmmakers may have lacked actual archived footage from that time. I found this technical introduction profoundly necessary in order for my understanding of documentaries to magnify.

On my own, I was tasked with viewing a couple of short, opinion documentaries published by the New York Times. Below, are the links to both the pieces I watched. 

The Price of Certainty

No Guns for Christmas

Together, both these extracts provided me with additional, meaningful lessons regarding documentaries. The Price of Certainty and No Guns for Christmas were valuable in the archived footage they presented. The op-docs demonstrated to me how truly impactful and moving archived footage may be to an overall piece. In addition, the pieces illustrated perfect examples exemplifying how to correctly execute archived footage; the use of the convention in the extracts excellently demonstrated how archived footage should be approached and emphasized the value of the technical aspect in documentaries.

As a whole, the research I accumulated from the multitude of documentaries viewed and lessons taught in class allowed me to dive deeper into my documentary journey, soon prompting research specifically related to my own op-doc: Shifting Success.

I could not be happier to be back!

Lights, Camera, Blog!