If someone were to do a study in our school of how many people enjoy electronic music or partake in DJing, my guess is one in 15 people will tell you they’re a DJ.
Music is an immensely broad element in our lives and the documentary “Remix” focuses on the alive and everchanging culture of DJing in our neighboring city, Miami. The genre of electronic music has grown immensely in recent years, but we wanted to delve into the past, present, and foreseeable future of this style. Three different subjects highlight the shared experiences they have as DJs, and their differences display an array of perspectives as each DJ is from a different generation.
When choosing this topic my partner and I realized that in our generation there are so many people who enjoy mixing music, yet they don't know much about the actual history behind it, much less what it takes to achieve certain goals. For that reason, this documentary was created to inform and hopefully inspire young DJs or people who enjoy electronic music. The development of who we wanted our target audience to be was crucial when deciding who the subjects would be. We knew we needed experienced people to speak on the topic, but also included a DJ that would serve as someone our audience could relate to. They would represent the broad culture of Miami DJs, so the combination of Jordan Sanchez, Santiago Duarte, and Alvaro Osuna, all from different backgrounds, with different goals, and different achievements demonstrated the dimensions of the industry. Their agreement and shared experiences showed how all DJs face similar challenges, in hand achieving the purpose of informing aspiring DJs of certain problems they might face. They opened a new layer to DJs that the general public might not take into account, that being the hate that they receive online.
I believe we were successful in representing the Miami DJ, but if we were to remake this, an interview from a female DJ could implement a new view, diving into the perception of female creators in a commonly male-dominated industry. When receiving critiques from older knowledgeable generations, we were told that there was not enough information on the background of the topic, and that we should have included more on the rise of house music, turntablism, and vinyl DJs. Our research could have been more thorough, that way we would have known to include these important aspects, but I also think if we had gone too in-depth on that it would have drawn away from the main focus which was Miami DJ culture. Definitely, with more time, it would be a sector we should consider including.
In a critique session we had with our peers in class, one of the comments heard was that it was very fast-paced and hard to absorb all the information when it was changing so rapidly. This was something my partner and I later discussed and while it is a good note, the pacing was purposeful. We engaged in practices that would keep the viewer attentive knowing that Generation Z has been proven to have a shorter attention span. Additionally, electronic/house music is commonly very upbeat and fast-paced so we wanted the pacing to match the energy of the topic.
A similar documentary that served as a big inspiration for Remix was “Changing Bearings”, a film made for Media Studies A a few years back and had a very successful outcome in film festivals. We especially took inspiration from the stylistic aspects of the film. Since the topic was skateboarding, the producers got a lot of b-roll at skate parks, from unique angles and with unique lenses. They also implemented graphics when speaking about history. Even though in Remix there is less information about the technicality of DJing and more about the cultural aspect of it, the inclusion of additional effects and filters when speaking of the past certainly was an idea we got from Changing Bearings to separate the present look from the past.
The b-roll we included was very stylistic, with various close-ups, colors, and of course music; however, when filming the b-roll in Miami we stumbled across one DJ and decided to include a few of her sets as part of the documentary which we were told was confusing for our audience as she was never interviewed. Had we found a few other DJs on the street or at a venue in Miami, the b-roll would have been more cohesive for this section of the documentary, but I totally see where this is coming from. Regardless, my favorite part is the B-roll because, for the most part, it helped maintain a certain look in the film. The purple lights and close-up shots from Alvaro’s DJ set the scene of a party and seeing Jordan Sanchez showing his students certain effects, etc.
We decided to stray away from a narrator and direct interviews as we wanted the subjects to share their experiences and guide the story with their own voice. This was a risk since we took into account the fact that there is a stigma behind DJs and how they don't normally like to speak a lot, but we somewhat got lucky with Jordan Sanchez because he loved to talk. Unfortunately, he was extremely loud and we didn't check the audio levels during the interview so for a lot of the time it was peaking and while we were able to somewhat fix it in post, it still was not the best audio.
All in all, I am extremely happy with the outcome. This was certainly a learning experience where we had to adapt to many obstacles. I now know want to do a documentary for the portfolio component of the Aice test, but I'll take all of the curve balls and mistakes into account when creating this one. While I believe wth more time the documentary could have been more thorough, I also think it's about time management and that is something I will for sure be planning better in the future.
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