Critical Reflection on Documentary Project

     The goal of my documentary Kids Helping KIDs was to explain what the organization is, what it does, and to show the real impact that a community can have. I think that I succeeded in accomplishing this goal by creating an informative and engaging piece. However, there is always room for improvement. 

    When it came to research, I didn't feel like my topic needed any facts or background because I wanted to focus on what we do as an organization and how we help, and I wanted it to focus on emotional impacts at the end. Therefore, watching different types of documentaries served as my research of the different techniques and conventions that are used in documentaries. Of all the documentaries I viewed I feel like Abstract and Exit Through the Gift Shop served as my major inspirations because of the way the b-roll was integrated and also to inspire me to include archived footage into my documentary. I like the way that Abstract showed its b-roll for context to what was being shown, and I took that as inspiration for my own documentary. I also really liked the branded introduction seen in Abstract, which served to engage people right from the start. This directly inspired my intro with the montage and title in it.

    

    The target audience for this documentary people looking to help in their community or want to specifically help foster kids. To keep my audience engaged, I included a lot of b-roll in my documentary, since it kept it visually interesting and appealing instead of just staring at a person talking all the time. It allowed for people watching it to have a visual representation of what is being described. Additionally, throughout the whole documentary, the direct interviews progresses the story, and I believe that cutting between interviews and intertwining them with each other also aided with the engagement of the audience because it wasn't the same person talking the same time and it added more. However, I do think that they interviews could have been framed a lot better and it would have been more engaging if they looked better visually with maybe a zoom or even a change in setting. However, the cutting between the interviewees also helped with the pacing of the documentary to make it more engaging and more easy to understand the information that was given. 

    We chose the structure of this to go from introducing the organization, to deep diving into the Thanksgiving Food Drive, to a more heartfelt conclusion, showing the emotional impacts that the people involved have. This allowed for the audience to get informed in an engaging and easily to follow structure. 

    Kids Helping KIDs is a documentary that represent two main groups: teenager and adults that are willing to help the community, and the foster kids who receive the help. One way that I chose to represent the teenagers and the adults is by incorporating them as interviewees in the documentary, as well as in the b-roll footage, showing their interactions with the kids. The documentary is all about the indirect way that we help these kids, such as raising money through drives. In this documentary, we represent the kids in the foster homes, that have been abused and neglected. This documentary highlight one of the many ways that someone may help contribute to the cause and the ways that teenagers and adults can help.

Overall, I'm extremely proud of what we were able to achieve with this documentary! Here's the link to watch it: Kids Helping KIDs