“How do you creatively and truthfully portray a significant person, group, place, idea, or issue in the community?”
For this junior documentary project, our assignment was to interview and bring to light an untold story of a person, place, idea, group, or issue from our community. Using both primary and secondary sources, we would elevate our interviewee’s voice. At first, we compiled all of our information and research into a paper for our English class, which we would then turn into an article complete with original graphic elements in InDesign. One of the main goals of this project was to strengthen our skills as writers and journalists.
Profile Research Paper
When planning my article, I wanted to both include Bears’ passion and experience in theater, his identity, and his journey. It felt wrong to focus on one or the other, as they’re both equal parts of what make up Bears’ whole. I realized sometime after my first interview that I had no clear way to connect the two, which prompted me to do a short follow-up.
Bears has expressed his frustration about how inconsistency, doubt, and refusal to correct one’s self can be just as damaging to him and other trans people as blatantly transphobic behavior, so I thought it necessary to call attention to that in my paper. There are some parts of the interview which didn’t entirely fit into the article, like information about his clothing and music taste- you can see a piece of that in this screencap of the transcript.
click above to read the finished paper
Working With InDesign
Our assignment in Digital Media was to translate our profile research paper into a six-page article spread using our skills in InDesign. I used Adobe Illustrator for all of the graphics, and utilized tools like text wrapping. I wanted to create a layout inspired by many of the same things that inspire Bears, and that shines through in almost every aspect of this article.
The cover page text is based on the title font for the film Beetlejuice and the fonts used for the paragraph titles resemble the title font for the movie Coraline. The crystal ball is a reference to a poster for the film Labyrinth (one of Bears’ favorites) and the clothing graphic is inspired by the character Draculaura from Monster High. I tried to combine Tim Burton’s stylistic trademarks with a callback to Bears’ hobby (theater) in the front page graphic as well. I thought the bones added some nice intrigue, and also served a functional purpose by separating sections and paragraphs from one another. In the background of each page, there is a slightly visible graphic of both of Bears’ tattoos.
click above for InDesign article !!
Animated Documentary
In our animation class, we were tasked with creating a documentary using a sound bite from our interviews. Going into this assignment, I wasn’t really sure what direction I wanted to go creatively. It took some trial and error, as well as a lot of conceptualizing, but I eventually settled on going with a black and white color scheme- with a sort of squiggle vision style to boot.
During this process, I animated each sequence in photoshop, utilizing the timeline and onion-skin feature. Because I was set on doing white lineart, I first had to draw everything with black, and then used a clipping mask to change the color- white doesn’t show up well with onion skins. I ended up having to export a lot of separate assets for each scene, as different objects needed to move at different frame rates or would be too tedious to animate on the same canvas as everything else. I put everything together in after effects using mainly keyframing. Features like the flip and reverse tools allowed me to recycle some of what I had already made for things like the speech bubbles or head-turning animation- which turned out to be a very useful time-efficient tool.
*Actual video ends at 1:28*
Due to some personal conflicts, I didn’t end up getting the animated documentary finished. The groundwork is already laid out, and I’m still very passionate about this project, so I hope to finish it on my own time sometime during the summer. It may not be where I want it to be right now, but I’m still proud of what I’ve accomplished. I’m also more confident that I’ll be able to tackle bigger projects like this easier in the future, now that I understand my limits to a greater extent.
I was a bit intimidated by the idea of writing a profile about someone I’m close to, because, of course, you want it to be good for them, but in spite of this fear, I think I was able to write something that effectively communicated the vision I had in mind- his mom liked it too! I had the most fun working in InDesign, although the process of getting everything made and formatted to my liking took a little over a week- also I find InDesign really frustrating to work with. I’d still describe the experience as an enjoyable one, though. I had something a little more ambitious in mind for the article spread- but I’m still really happy with how it turned out, and am glad others will see it in the printed magazine.
About the Interviewee
Bears is currently in his sophomore year at Piedmont Hills High School and plans on starting middle college next year. He has been very open about his experience exploring his identity as a trans man, and the ways in which that’s affected his personal and social life. Bears is a dedicated actor, dancer, and singer who’s committed to pursuing a career in theater.