Critical Reflection

  Visual Analysis of 'Remix'

     The op-doc Remix starts off with a close up shot of The DJ walking with what seems to be a luggage that has a dj board inside of it. We then show quick shots of different angles of the DJ opening up his DJ board and as we see this, the music gradually gets louder to enhance the vibe of a DJ. Once the non-diagetic background song was clear to hear, we used match cut editing to show the introduction of each subject of the documentary with close up shots and used mise-en-scene elements with the blue and pink color in the background to match the dj vibe.

     The first interview with the DJ academy instructor was shot using an indirect interview and we had him be in the middle third of the screen with another camera capturing the same shot but at a different angle to make the interview flow more and not be so static. The b-roll consisted of old vintage house parties from back in the day and we chose to do this because it would add more depth to the piece and it matched with what the interviewee was saying about where the term 'house music' came from. This first interview gave us the jist about djing and some background information before we transition on to focus specifically on the dj culture in Miami. 

     The indirect interview with older DJ was shot using a mid shot with the same techniques we used in the previous interview. We chose to use the same technique so the interviews won't seem so out of place and unpleasent to the eye. We want everything to be organized. The graphic match of the part where the interviewee was talking about how DJ went from chicago, LA, New York, then to Miami was a really good way to show the audience that we are focusing specifically on the Miami culture and this showed the audience that we are really there with this edit transition. After this transition we incorporated more b-roll of Miami to capture the vibe of the city with long shots and establishing shots of the community. During this b-roll we start to hear non-diagetic sound of what seems to be a narrator however, we transitioned this to the actual interview we were doing with the third subject which was the younger aspiring DJ who also talks about the dj culture in Miami. 

     The scene of the b-roll in Miami using long shots and close up shots of the dj board of the women dj worked very well within our piece, however we should have tried and get an a very brief interview of the women dj'ing to ask how she feels and what she loves about djing in Miami. During this b-roll we see a change in style as during the B-roll, we can hear the interviewees voice talk over the b-roll and the subjects voices are going back and forth with each other so we can't see who is really talking without identifying them through their voice which makes them sort of VOs in this scene. This switch up in format overall helped the documentary to flow more as the straight up indirect interviews would seem lame and overall doesn't give much visual content to the viewer who wants to visualize what the interviewees are talking about. 

     The interview with the 3 subjects talking about the various music festivals in Miami helps give us more opportunity to use fun and exciting b-roll of rolling loud, EDC, Ultra and other festivals. We used mainly establishing shots and wide shots to show these festivals and still had the interviewees voice in the background. We then transition over to the segment of how Dj'ing feels to our subjects they gave great responses, and this is when we see the younger subject actually djing and we use close up shots of his face and close up shots of the dj keyboard to show the action he was doing. Overall, we used many tight shots in this scene as we filmed it in a garage, so the tight shots didn't make it seem like that. After this scene we see the other 2 older DJ's start to use their dj board and we hear their voices talking about how it makes them feels when the crowd likes the music they are remixing, and this gives the audience more context about the emotions that come with djing especially in the Miami culture as all three djs are from the Miami area.  

     The segment that follows is about the misconceptions that come with djing that it's very easy to do and requires no talent. We capture this theme within the documentary by having the interviewees talk about their own experiences when it comes to receiving hate and other forms of backlash on djing. The indirect interviews were close up shots to show the facial expression when talking about them receiving hate. We also used b-roll of actual hate messages that spread towards dj's and we have the interviewees talk about how they overcome this obstacle and the answers they gave were amazing and in depth. Every time Alvaro spoke, who is the younger DJ in this documentary we used b-roll of him actually djing as we a lot of b-roll on him mixing beats using long shots and him talking about how the dj genre is fairly new and that it is at its best right now in society. We used a lot of focus pulls on the subjects hand mixing to the Dj board itself to add more layer and depth to the piece add to show some skill to the documentary. The older djs in this segment talk about how Djing pushes and extends the boundaries of music and technology which was a very important part as it shows how different groups in society are now being incorporated with the music genre of DJing and remixing beats.

     Overall, this documentary was made top inform the audience about the beauty of Djing and to give insight on the lives of 3 DJs of a wide age range to show how art of djing does not have an age limit. The misconceptions of djing on our society is debunked by the 3 interviewees as they gave in depth answers from their personal experience about how they handle backlash and what they do to ignore the hate. This was shown through various techniques such as B-roll and close up indirect interviews that were shot at different compositions in the screen such as one of them being in the middle third and the other one being on the left third to add more space in the scene and not make it seem so static and stiff. The dj culture in Miami is clearly never going to slow down for a while and will continue being spread among generation after generation as shown in this documentary 'Remix'. The critiques that were given from my peers about this project was very positive and they offered very helpful critiques such as the length of the names of the DJs being displayed which was up for a very short amount of time and other minor details that could have made our project a little bit better, my group member and I also received very positive feedback from our teacher which also made us feel much better about our piece as we spent a very long time planning and producing 'Remix'.