I LOVE JIMMY G!!!

 Alright. Pre-planning? Check. Props? Check. Location? Check. Equipment? Here we go.

    About two to three weeks ago, I contacted Jim Guarasci, the founder of ShortCuts, a show that highlights student work like short films, documentaries, music videos, and more. He has had a bunch of equipment be donated to him in order to support student filmmakers (which is how we got the equipment for Counter Conformity), so Kim and I definitely wanted to take advantage of this again. I sent him a message through Instagram and mentioned that we would like to check out some equipment over break (I made sure to do this early since I knew many people would be filming over break). He quickly responded and assured us that as long as we reminded him closer to the pick-up date, he would have the necessary equipment ready for us. 

    This week (on Monday), I sent him a follow-up text just to remind him again, and we ended up scheduling the check-out for this Friday (today). He said that because a lot of AICE Media Students were using the equipment this week, that I would have to share some of it with a friend of mine from my A level class (Maya, whom is coincidentally also one of our interviewees for the documentary). We ended up making this list to keep things organized and keep track of our equipment:

    After a quick birthday celebration at my house (today is my birthday!), Kim and I quickly headed over to BECON with a cart (it was a lot of equipment) and checked everything out. As we filled up the cart, Jim explained how to use the SONY a7iii cameras, how to properly change lenses, and other important information in order to refresh our memories from November, since that was when we checked out the same equipment for Counter Conformity. Here are some pictures of him giving us some quick tips before we took the equipment home:

    In addition to teaching us some quick things, he took the time to give us a quick tour of the actual TV station, which I found super interesting. They have a multitude of employees working constantly, a bunch of crazy wires connecting the equipment to computers from room to room (that must have been a nightmare to set up), and we also found out that there is a podcast studio, a music studio, a printing center AND a production studio inside. When Kim and I walked inside that empty, white room, we looked at each other and gasped (especially because it fit EXACTLY what we were looking for from the beginning. Here's a picture of the studio:

I KNOW!!!!

    He told us that without School Duel going on (a televised gameshow for high school kids that he runs) we were able to use the studio, we just needed to let him know ahead of time. It was a tough decision to make especially since we had been looking for something similar for weeks, but we decided that we were going to stick with my living room for multiple reasons:

    1. Getting all the props all the way to not just BECON but inside into the studio would have been a HASSLE.

    2. We were unsure about whether or not we could leave the props in the studio. Plus, because the props were not ours and the studio was not ours, we decided that leaving our things there may not have been the best idea (and traveling back and forth with them every day was completely out of the question).

    3. We want to be able to take our time with filming B-roll, and we certainly do not want to intimidate our interviewees. Having people watching us as we work may have been much more stressful for not just Kim and I, but also everyone else that is involved.

    4. An unfamiliar location also comes with unfamiliar equipment, especially a studio like this. Jim said he would not mind teaching us how to use the lights above, but with all of these "new" factors we already have to worry about, Kim and I just decided it was best to stick to something familiar. However, it was definitely great to know that a place like this was available to us if we ever needed to use it. I LOVE JIMMY G!!!!

    Looking back, it really is such a privilege to have access to not just all of this professional equipment, but also such a helpful resource like Jim. Both Kim and I are very grateful for him (I try to tell him this as much as I can, because without his help our projects would definitely not reach the level that they have so far). I definitely will miss BECON and all of the opportunities that come with it once I go off to college. 

    Once I dropped off Kim and got home, I put all of the equipment in another corner of my house (sorry mom) and began testing out some cool set-ups for the props. I did this for a couple hours, and I enjoyed every second of it. Being able to finally physically move everything around and see it come to live was quite the thrilling experience, especially now with all of this new equipment to test out as well. I cleared out a part of my living room to be able to do this. Here are some pictures I took on my phone as I moved things around (I didn't want to waste the camera batteries or take up more storage on the cameras). 

I also included a picture of some potential set-ups that I sketched out for future reference.

    Kim also came over after another commitment she had and we were able to take some photos for the social media, as well as plan out some possible social media posts. We looked at other docu-series such as Abstract: The Art of Design Netflix series and some other ones like Ultra saw what they posted. Overall, it was a mix of interviewee features, behind the scenes posts, teasers, and stills from the project. Here are some screenshots from their Instagram pages:

    After seeing all this, we decided to make a model posting schedule for our doc-series's Instagram page. We wrote this down in our "Planning" document on Google Drive. We decided that because Counter Conformity would be the first episode to our docu-series (and this documentary would be the second episode), we would include posts from both, but of course mainly focus on this upcoming doc. Here is what we came up with:

    This is just a rough outline that we may or may not stick to, but it is definitely helpful to know what exactly we would post in order to meet the requirements for the project and build excitement for this upcoming documentary. We already have around thirty or so followers on our page, so now that we will start posting, we hope to expand our following and get some real experience on what it takes to run an docu-series Instagram page! Kim will be doing most of the posting and I will be doing most of the production for the documentary, so it all works out.

    Anyway, today was a great day. We really made a lot of progress on the doc and after a lot of uncertainty, I think we are finally in a really good spot. I'll be posting more soon considering this pre-filming time will be quite busy, so keep a lookout for those posts! There is still a lot to do before we get filming.