Critical Reflection!

 In the documentary “JAGGN”, my group and I aimed to capture how life is in a high school band through the multiple personalities within the band JAGGN. It includes the good, bad, and funny moments within this band and aims to give the viewer a complete and rounded look on this type of unique experience. 

Before we began any sort of production, we had to research specific techniques that we could use in our documentary to make it as good of a product as it can be. When researching, we discovered one of the main conventions of a documentary we could use were montages. We knew that if we could create a montage good enough in the beginning of our documentary, it could help immediately set the tone for the rest of the film. Music also played a huge factor in our documentary, not only because it could help us set a vibe, but we also discovered that we could use the band's music to show our audience their product to help give them a deeper understanding of the band. We came to the conclusion that the combination of these two commonly used elements in documentary production could help us introduce the band while setting a tone for our film simultaneously. 

As a rockumentary about a highschool band, It was immediately obvious to us what our target audience would be. That being mostly highschool students ranging from the ages of 14-18. We also figured that our target audience would predominantly be male teens. We made sure to include humor into this film. There are some characters in the band which helped build this humorous element we aimed for. Whether it was the band members messing with each other mid-interview or them trying to explain to the camera what the name JAGGN means, we thought that these types of humor techniques and elements helped cater to our target audience. Other things like us showing clips of the band performing at a highschool party and homecoming also bring a connection to our teenage audience. 

The main social group represented in the JAGGN documentary were high school students. Representing them was almost inevitable in this film as the band we were filming and interviewed consisted of 5 teenagers. In the documentary, we tried to display the raw nature of the members in this band. We decided not to provide  very professional interviews for a reason. We included the moments when members that weren't being interviewed talked in the background and them laughing and having a good time to show you what it's like to be surrounded by all of your friends in high school. Going back to the clips of the band performing, they also represented what brings joy to a lot of highschoolers. We included videos of the crowd partying, dancing, and simply being teenagers to show a form of representation. The atmosphere of these videos also was a big symbol of teenage life in high school as they took place at homecoming and a highschool party. I think our documentary successfully developed a sense of representation but could have been done better if we put more thought into representation in the planning stages. 

Through our research, meticulous decisions on techniques and elements, and making sure that our project represented and catered to our target audience, I believe that we gave our audience a better look on what life is in a highschool band. We aimed to give the audience a look past the surface level and really show them the characters of each member in this band and how their dynamic nature makes them into the band JAGGN.