For my final project, I decided to create a 360 documentary highlighting my grandmother's experiences as an immigrant wife. Originally, I had planned on making my film about both of my grandparents, but as I filmed over several days, I found that the more compelling story being captured revolved around my grandmother's struggles throughout her life. I wanted to capture the dynamic of patriarchy and female subordination, especially amongst immigrant and early generational people (in particular, my grandparents).

I used my grandmother's interview to move the story forward, layering B-Roll over the A-Roll Q&A, but making sure to include video from the A-Roll itself when her facial expressions and body language aided the story. I used titles sparingly, mainly to identify key characters in the story and to add a bit of context when needed. But, for the most part, my grandmother's speech carries the story and moves it along.

I chose not to identify every single person in the film, just because it seemed unnecessary. I only identified my grandmother (Lena), my grandfather (Brijlall) and my mom (Aneela) because they were the most important figures.

I added soft, emotional background music after the film begins to take on a more sympathetic and serious tone. I didn't include it in the beginning because it starts off relatively lighthearted. The film begins with my grandmother describing how she met and married my grandpa, and it ends with a video of my grandpa telling my grandma that he wishes her "health and strength" so that she's able to take care of him. I purposely included this video of my grandpa at the beginning and end of the film so that I could tie the whole thing together. Also, I thought ending with that quote was the perfect way to highlight the way that men thought of their wives back in the day.

Overall, I didn't have many issues filming or editing. I was able to place the camera in the correct position for each take I captured and the audio it picked up was pretty clear. The biggest struggle I encountered was adding titles to my film. Although I properly used the Mettle Skybox 2D feature, I couldn't seem to get my text to be in the position I wanted it to be. The titles were often twisted and awkward, so I had to omit many of them. Also, now in hindsight I realized that I should have filmed my grandma introducing herself with her full name. That is usually an essential part of a documentary, but I completely forgot to do it.

I had a really fun time making this documentary and I'm excited to share it with my family!