Critical Reflection

        Censoring ideas and information has always been seen as unjust in our country; however, many schools are beginning to implement these restrictions into their curriculum and school systems. In this documentary, two language arts high school teachers describe their thoughts on book bans and how they have changed their way of teaching. While book bans can help omit harmful or dangerous ideologies from students, they can also majorly affect high schools' abilities to inform and teach their students because they censor the reality of the real world and falsely represent certain social groups.

        Documentaries are usually nonfiction pieces focused on a specific subject that presents information about the real world through people, objects, facts, or situations. To present these factors, documentaries have certain conventions that are commonly seen. To understand the conventions of this genre, I watched several documentaries to not only learn more about the genre but also get some insight into how to create one myself. Exit Through the Gift Shop is a documentary that follows the main subject (Thierry) through his process and evolution from a videographer and documenter on street art to being a street artist himself. I think this documentary made me love spontaneous B-roll. Several scenes in this piece show random crowds or buildings, and I merged that with my book-banning topic in order to add clips with buildings to not only add context but also variety.

        Abstract: The Art of Design also offered me various perspectives on the conventions of documentaries. This piece taught me the vitality of B-roll and using it to establish context. This made me embrace the art of B-roll and interviews. I think out of the documentaries I watched to learn about the genre, Abstract gave me the most insight as it connected the most to my topic and used similar techniques that I was planning on using. Therefore,  felt more comfortable embracing several documentary conventions such as indirect interviews, voice-overs, B-roll and parallel cutting, and a shorter time but still with full content. At the same time, our documentary challenged one certain convention: the movement of our shots. Instead of using hand-held shots, all of our movement came from pans and tilts or movement from the subjects or environments being shown through the clips. Our documentary also learned how to use the interviewees and our voice-over to express the same (biased) idea to proclaim our side on the topic. 

        In order to fully convey our purpose, my group and I had to hone in on who we were creating this documentary for and to whom we wanted to show our thoughts on book banning to. Our target audience for this piece is parents and conservative groups completely or mainly in favor of book bans. Although our whole documentary goes against what our target audience believes in, our B-roll, interviews, and voice-over should be interactive enough to convey our side of the idea. The length of the film also creates a more appetizing and appealing aspect to the viewers, because many people wouldn't consider watching something they don't enjoy for more than ten minutes. On the other hand, the somber tone that adds to the seriousness of the topic can definitely be unengaging for some audiences; however, these techniques also allow viewers to understand the significance of the impact of book banning on high school students. 

        Voice-overs are perfect mechanisms to use when needing more information as the production team can easily manipulate the script into including any necessary details. The voice-over for my documentary contributes to the gravity of book banning and includes a sense of professionalism through the classy-sounding voice. As I mentioned before, the various still shots used leading to a lack of camera movement could be a minor mistake as it could easily disengage the viewership; however, the variety and switching between the interviewees and voice-overs create enough change within the documentary to keep viewers attentive for the duration of the feature.

        In order to fully display our ideas and arguments, our documentary touches on how book bans are limiting the knowledge and perception of students towards the real world. Some of the books mentioned or shown in our piece represent the LGBTQ+ community and other minority groups that are often discriminated against. Our voice-over explains how vital the availability of all (or almost all) content is for students to learn the full reality of the world and what it consists of. Therefore, we use our facts and professional standpoints to go up against the ideas of our controversial target audience to persuade them (or at least inform them) about the danger censorship can pose. One of our interviewees, Ms. Herring, offered the example of the book Fahrenheit 451 which is a book about banned books. This book was once banned due to its controversial topics which spoke about the importance of silencing and censorship of certain contents. How funny that a book talking about the negative effects of book bans gets banned at some point in history.

        In my opinion, our documentary was partially successful in representing these minority groups. Although we did have certain sections of the voice-over (and B-roll to match) that talked about these social groups, the film mainly used these groups as an example or idea rather than focusing on it; however, the main social issue we talked about (which was our whole topic), I believe was perfectly represented. The documentary not only talked about the reality of book bans - what they are and why they happen - but also ventured through the deep mistake of book banning and its influence on younger generations (Sources: Extra Information) In fact, Ms. Herring (our first interviewee), talked about her opinion on the future of the world if book banning continues to happen increasingly.

        Although book banning can have the benefit of shielding students from controversial topics, the censoring and restrictions can lead high school students to believe in a fake perfect world. Leaving younger generations vulnerable to the real world by falsely representing it through only 'appropriate' books can yield and prevent the growth and development of the whole world. My documentary adequately establishes and supports this message by using various genre conventions and techniques and taking advantage of the professional standpoint offered by the interviewees.

-Dana

Word count: 1043