In the documentary called “ Off the Mic” created by my group, was created with the intent of showing poetry in a whole new light as an outlet for emotions rather than a boring subject in school we often ignore. Our two subjects, Anenaa and Sofia, are two young students who have decided to use poetry to express their feelings. The difference between the two is that Anenna is still in high school finding ways to share her poetry with her peers in any way she can, While Sofia is finding a way to be involved in her college and using poetry as way to help as as decided to pursue her major in creative writing and one of the major pieces they lean on is poetry.
As stated previously poetry is often seen as a boring piece of media we are forced to learn in school. Many times it's hard to even comprehend, because it is usually covered metaphors not understandable and overall hard to decipher what is being read, making a lot of people decide they dislike poetry just from seeing it in their school textbooks. In reality poetry can be a lot less complex than what we are taught in school. This documentary shows how poetry can be relatable to younger generations rather than be left only for the history books. The target audience was teenage kids who are interested in learning ways that poetry can help them develop a sense for themselves. It probably would gain a lot of attraction by poets who see themselves represented, but by bringing two teenage people for the documentary in different parts of their lives shows how poetry grows with you and how poets can adapt it into their lives no matter what stage they are in.
The documentary did a good job establishing the emotions behind the poets' reasons for doing poetry. By using the archive footage where they are presenting their pieces just to express themselves and not because we asked them too for this project. The subject looks like they enjoy doing poetry and brings a lot more emotion into then staged b-roll would've gotten. The montage at the beginning, which was an inspiration from Exit Through the Gift Shop montage of people doing street art at the start of the documentary, shows how powerful poetry can be and how personal the messages usually are. The indirect interview gives it the personal touch where the subjects seem to be talking to the camera makes the interviews seem more vulnerable which helps bring the point across that this is what poetry is all about, having a way to express your feeling without having to actually use the words.
If I was to redo this project I think I would add one more perspective maybe somebody older because Anenna and Sofia are both in similar ages even if one is in highschool and the other is college and i would like widen the age range and get maybe a little different perspective of someone who has been doing poetry for a longer time. To just see what they would talk about when looking back at how poetry affected their lives. It would be interesting because that is a possibility of how the other subjects will look back at poetry in their lives. And the contrast of ages would be nice to see and be represented.
Overall I'm proud of this project for my first informative piece. It was fun thing to explore poetry and to be able to share other stories with their experience with poetry and hopefully it can get other people to start enjoying poems. There were some mistakes with the audio being messed up from my groups lack checking even though we probably should've been extra careful to make sure the mic didn't die. We made it work, so the audio didn't sound wonky we used the camera audio for both interviews but it did serve as a lesson to always double check the equipment. And many plans were having to be cut last minute; it ended up being able to serve its purpose of getting the point across to the audience.
It really was a well-orchestrated project, and the effort put into it sure paid off in the result of the final production. Reflecting on this performance, I do think that Off the Mic did present how poetry can be one of the most relatable and powerful mediums for today's youth by urging viewers to reconsider their preconceived notions about poetry. I just hope this documentary might influence others to explore the world of poetry and find in it how to express oneself and deal with one's emotions. Not perfect, but this project stands to testify to my group's creativity and hard work; I will carry the experience in future projects.
