Planning our Documentary

When this project got introduced, I immediately knew what I wanted my documentary to focus on. I am part of an organization that helps foster kids in South Florida called Kids In Distress. In Kids In Distress, there is a part that is student run and student led, called Kids Helping KID (KHK), and I am the social media coordinator for it. I am really passionate about helping these kids and I knew that I wanted to make my documentary on this. 

The only problem with this topic was some legal issues surrounding the kids, since they can't be photographed or interviewed without permission. I contacted the Vice President, which I have constant contact with, and she gave me the green light to make it, as long as no kids were interviewed or showed their names for safety. 

Once we got permission, me and my partner started working on the outline to organize the flow of the video so that the delivery of information is clear and it maintains engagement.

At first, our outline included an intro to what the organization does, an intro to activities, and a deeper dive into our tutoring services for the kids, and our annual Thanksgiving Food Drive, and then a heartfelt conclusion. However, when scheduling interviews and times to go to get b-roll for the tutoring sessions, we got told that we were not allowed to film there because the campus had an official photographer and videographer and no one else was allowed to record. NO ONE PANICKED. Im kidding, I did panic a little but we figured it out! We just had to tweak the stuff around a little, which ended up serving us better at the end! I don’t know how we would’ve fit the deep dive into the tutoring AND the Thanksgiving Food Drive, so I’m really happy things turned out the way they did. 

As for scheduling the rest of our interviews, it was really easy to convince the VP to help us with the interview because of her deep passion for what we do. However, finding volunteers to interview was harder, which is why we ended up relying mainly on one volunteer. For the questions, me and my partner had a clear idea of what information we needed, so I created the questions for the volunteers and she created the questions for the adults. 

After that, we were set and ready to start bringing our idea to life! 

Here's a picture of our final outline that we used!