Eight Steps - Documentary Behind the Scenes - video Dailymotion

MasinaT

Hi guys, in 2020 during the times of coronavirus lockdowns, I started my film directing course at Swinburne University. We had to make a short film production for an assessment task and I thought of many concepts. After some time thinking, I thought about how different my life was in the education system was and my autism spectrum experience.  Now how did I think of my documentary in the first place? and what did I want to make in the first place? I compiled a video outlining behind the scenes of Eight Steps.   FOLLOW ME Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/masina.taulealo.3 Tumblr: https://masinat.tumblr.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/masinataulealo?lang=en   SONGS The Endless - The Album Leaf Goodbyes - The Album Leaf  Music composed by Setu Taule'alo

Transcript

00:00The autism spectrum is quite a complex condition and it can manifest in many

00:04different ways in people. Schools and educators, specifically traditional

00:09schools, often have trouble understanding and accommodating those people and they

00:12naturally would exclude them or make their lives difficult in school. This

00:16has happened to be throughout childhood in the 2000s and a couple of years

00:20later I made a short documentary about it. So 8 Steps is a short expository

00:27documentary about my experience in the Australian education system and how

00:31differently I was treated. There are interviews with me and my parents

00:34providing input on what they went through to provide me proper education. I

00:38created this documentary at my first year at university and while making it I

00:42learnt new things in editing software. I also learnt of a film festival website

00:46that would later serve as a platform to distribute my documentary to the world.

00:498 Steps screamed at film festivals around the world which included North America

00:54and parts of Europe.

01:05During 2020, during my first time at university, there was a class where I had to

01:10think of an idea for a film. After making my short film Straight Home I never

01:14really thought of other ideas so I just thought of some basic ideas. I then got my

01:20parents to help me out with brainstorming. After a few short film ideas one major

01:24topic that popped into discussion was reflections on my experience. As I went to

01:29so many different schools the idea about a person going to different schools was

01:33quite an interesting concept. So I decided to go with the idea as I had a

01:37feeling that when I make future films that I would be able to incorporate my

01:41experiences as an autistic person in every film.

01:52The pre-production process was quite a complex process, at least in terms of the story structure.

01:56I didn't know what was going to happen in an interview so I wrote some questions to

02:00ask myself and my parents. I wrote a script with narrations and potential segments. The

02:06first part was me and my parents introducing themselves. The second part was me talking

02:10about my history of going to different schools. The third part was my parents

02:13talking about the challenges and conflicts I had with schools. And the fourth part was

02:17me and my parents reflecting on our experiences. The script right here is a

02:21little bit different from the finished product probably because I had no idea what

02:25would be said in the interviews. I then drew a storyboard. Aside from some basic

02:30camera shots there are also motion graphics of some sort in some frames. During the times of

02:35coronavirus lockdown in Melbourne I could not film outside on locations and I couldn't go

02:39back into university. So I chose to downgrade my production by not filming inside the university

02:45and only went outdoors to film schools and other outdoor shots.

02:57For my title sequence I wrote the title of my film and put a rainbow infinity symbol behind it.

03:03If anyone doesn't know the rainbow infinity symbol is used commonly by autism rights advocates.

03:08It represents that there is a broad range and varied experiences of autistic and other

03:12neurodivergent people and it shows the idea that different ways of thinking and being should be

03:17accepted. It was quite interesting to me at the time as I was using the symbol that most neurodivergent

03:22people are familiar with and that they are tolerant with. As my title sequence appears first in the

03:26documentary once audiences see the symbol they might understand the topic of my documentary.

03:31My title sequence is a particle motion graphic animation of a brain turning into an infinity

03:36symbol created with Adobe After Effects. My particle animations are similar to the particle

03:41animations used in the documentary The Great Hack and the title is similar to the one in this short

03:46film 3113. I looked for several After Effects tutorials and found a tool called CC Particle World which generates particles.

04:02Aside from some particle motion graphics I made other animations too. I made some simple 2D shape animations

04:08but there was also a map animation I created which was quite a lot of effort. From the map animation I used

04:14Google Maps Styling Wizard to create the map and modify it to be green but I also made it into a 3D model

04:19in SketchUp. I went into the JavaScript console and found snapshot files of the map of Melbourne. It wasn't one

04:25huge file there were little individual square photos so I had to save all of those and put it all back together

04:31in the 3D software which took a while. I also made basic 3D models of the schools I went to and made a moving

04:37camera animation file to put in the documentary.

04:49Now for the actual filming of the documentary. In the coming months I started filming the interviews and I

04:54had a blocking plan in place. When I interviewed myself I didn't look at my interview questions for

04:59weeks and my parents interviewed me and asked me the questions. The lighting and sound quality was

05:04not that great. I just started university and I had no idea how boom mics and sound design worked at the

05:09time. For my camera shots and b-rolls for my documentary due to coronavirus restrictions I could

05:14not go out and do some camera shots. So when I stayed at home I thought of compromises. For the intro,

05:20instead of shots at university there was a dolly shot inside our house moving towards me close to

05:24my head. For the introduction instead of a panning shot of university and a shot of me I used random

05:30photos of myself. I even shot a scene of me walking across a frame. When my mother talked about enrolling

05:35in grade 2 I shot a time-lapse of dismal clouds approaching. I also made a tracking shot of myself

05:41walking through the house and several wide shots of myself walking around a park.

05:44For the part where my parents talk about conflicts in the education system I mainly filmed random

05:52shots from inside my house. For example, a dark bedroom along with a close-up of blue and red

05:57lights, overcast sky with high wind blowing on the trees, several time-lapses of dark clouds and

06:02even a time-lapse of the sun shining through a hole in the overcast sky. I didn't even plan to shoot

06:07that, I just saw it one day and then decided to film it. I also went to a park with my family and

06:11film myself walking through a dense forest. All these camera shots taught me one thing,

06:17if there are lockdown restrictions I can teach myself to get creative in the safety of my home

06:22and I don't necessarily have to go out to do creative work.

06:33I then went to editing my documentary. I firstly edited the interview footage,

06:37arranging them in the way to tell my intended story. I also recorded my narration with a studio

06:42microphone. For my particle sound effects, I used a series of soundscapes from the sound

06:47engineering software Omnisphere and recorded them with Ableton. The soundtrack for the documentary

06:53was quite involved and I got my father, Setu Tau Lealo, to compose it. The music is atmospheric,

06:59eerie drone music of some kind. It takes inspiration from the indie movie The Endless,

07:04which has similar atmospheric music. Sometimes I would wait until my father was finished with

07:09composing the music before I edited again because I like to edit clips along to music.

07:15I eventually got the editing finished and all of my animations exported,

07:18before I even started filming the documentary. I made my animations in my spare time because I knew

07:23they would take a while to make, but I wanted them for my documentary anyway.

07:36I made a couple of trailers first and submitted my documentary to my university. Afterwards,

07:41I then published it on YouTube in Boxing Day 2020. I once thought YouTube and social media were

07:46the only platforms to publish my film. I had thumbnails, screenshots and posters for promotion,

07:51but that was about to change. In university, I learned about Film Freeway, a platform where

07:56people submit films to film festivals. My film got into about 14 film festivals around the world

08:01and it won two awards for Documentary Shot by the Accolady Global Film Competition

08:06and the Impact Docs Awards. I found film festivals were a good platform to get my films

08:12out there for everyone to see on the big screen. I didn't really notice when I made my debut short film.

08:17I sadly never got to see it on the big screen and some of the screens were online. I thought that

08:22coronavirus restrictions have hampered my opportunities to make a good documentary film.

08:26However, at the end, it turned out alright. It also taught me to experiment and get creative

08:30with what I had at home.

08:41So that is the story of my first documentary film and how I started writing something about my own

08:46experiences. It felt quite good to tell a story about my experience and after I made it, I learned that

08:51I am not alone and that there are other people that had similar experiences. Afterwards, I felt like

08:57exploring the topic of autism and neurodiversity further in my future film productions and set a

09:02standard for autism and neurodivergent representation in media. Thank you very much for watching and if you

09:08have a story about non-pleasered experience in the education system, it will be nice and important to

09:12hear about it. Most education systems are reluctant of change, but with the proper education and advocacy

09:18from autistic people, as well as proper collaboration with people, then accommodations and changes may be possible.

Eight Steps - Documentary Behind the Scenes

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