Helloooo Tampa Bay

We made it!!! Today was the first day of States and I already have some great footage that I'm very excited about. Since it was the first day, other than opening ceremonies, we had a relatively free day to roam around Tampa and explore. My main focus of filming today was following our troupe's State selected pantomime to their opening ceremonies performance and documenting their experience. Other than that I got a few interesting shots of our troupe rehearsing and just hanging out on the bus, which I know I want to include in the documentary, but since my excerpt is mostly focusing on already being at States, I'm still thinking of a way to incorporate it with out making it about the journey to States.

a sneak look at the beautiful Tampa Bay area and our hotel

Tomorrow our large group, which I'm a part of, is performing so that's gonna be all about capturing our rehearsals, our performance, and our troupes support. I also need to start getting a majority of my interviews and get footage of my troupe as a whole. It's a busy week, but I'm taking it one day at a time and I'm already off to a great start! I also have great friends who are helping me out with filming since I obviously can't be everywhere at the festival at once.

I was so set and ready to film my documentary that I kind of just dived in and realized I never updated you guys on some of my specific plans, SO, just a few updates!!! Last week my class met in groups to discuss our projects and they helped me decide on a few important factors of my project; the most important being that since I am so involved in my drama club and am part of two of the six performances that we took to States, I'm a rather large part of my troupe in this festival. However, the documentary is about my troupe and our community and being the documentarian, I felt that if I included myself in it, I would take away too much of the attention and the documentary would end up becoming about me, something I definitely DO NOT want. And so I struggled with the decision of whether or not I would be part of my project. Ultimately my group helped me decide that although I wouldn't be a main subject in my documentary, it would be okay and honest if I showed up in videos of my large group performance and acknowledged my participation in that event. Something else we discussed was concerning my usage of handheld shots, if they would be used and to what extent. I brought a tripod with me (thanks tstock) so I could easily and efficiently film interviews, establishing shots, performances, etc., but since my documentary is about bonds and relationships and is more of an intimate piece, my group and I felt as though a few handheld shots would be appropriate in making the footage seem raw, real, and making my audience feel as though they were involved in the festival and part of my troupe. If used purely stabled pieces I feel as though the final piece would look to picturesque and "fake".

That's pretty much all I have for now, like I said, today was relatively filled with free time so I'm happy I got a lot done for my project today and was able to focus on it. Hopefully the rest of the trip will be the same, if not, tough luck because it's gonna have to be!