And The Production Continues

With the first half of both Fernanda and Joey's respective careers portrayed, it's time to capture what the entire documentary is about: Shifting Success. Or, shifting careers. We made sure to convey a different tone between the first half of the piece versus the second half. Some people are forced to switch professions because they simply change their mind or what they are doing isn't right for them. But we chose two stories where this wasn't the case. Joey's injuries were too much to handle, especially as a professional baseball player. And Fernanda's family moving from Brazil to the United States made for a necessary transition. We attempted to use the first half of the doc to show what life used to look like, the middle for what happened, and the second half to show how they bounced back and turned what they have no into something special. 

Joey Norrito (current career)

Like I said in my last post, I thought my group and I did a good job at incorporating both interviews and b-roll to convey the message of our doc. With Joey it was much more difficult to capture b-roll of his current career since he works as a Fort Lauderdale police officer. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department is currently not standing and it is actually covered by construction. Because of this, we could not film here and had to get creative. Instead, we focused on the more general aspects of Joey's job and went with the wide shots of his car and him in his uniform. 

Again, I tried to attach a clip from our documentary but Blogger would not load so it won't appear.

For Joey's parts in Shifting Success, it was clear that it was mostly interviews, but that was because of the fact that we couldn't film inside of his actual job due to security reasons. I mean, when you are trying to film a police officer, there might be someeee pushback.

Something I thought we could have done differently was how we introduced Joey in the second half of the piece. In the beginning of the documentary he was shown wearing normal everyday clothes, but we wanted to make the transition into him being a police officer. We showed him wearing his police uniform, but I thought it felt too abrupt. It was like one of those videos where someone tries to see if you notice a change in a video. Anyway, I don't think it was entirely necessary to include Joey wearing the uniform in his interview since it was obvious we were talking about him switching careers through the other footage.

Fernanda Zalfa (current career)

We started Fernanda's current career part of the doc by interviewing her husband, Guilherme. We felt that it made sense to include her husband as they moved from Brazil together and opened their convenience store together. 

By interviewing Guilherme, the audience was able to understand why they opened their own business and how they transitioned from Fernanda's set design career in Brazil to owning their own store in Florida. Some people might not know the "strict guidelines" that follow holding an F-1 visa come with, so including Guilherme worked for many purposes. I felt that this was a very good introduction into Fernanda's current life for a few reasons. One, it clearly states why she became a small business owner. Two, it shows a look into her current life with her husband. 

The store they now own, Remembr, is a convenience store that sells Brazilian products. 

My favorite part of the entire documentary was the b-roll we captured in Remembr because it truly encompassed the meaning of Shifting Success. I loved how we primarily used b-roll in Fernanda's part of the piece because the interactions between those who work at the convenience store show what her life looks like now.  

I hope you enjoyed reading about my journey working with my group in creating Shifting Success!!!