The link for Emily:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSGTa07ByPM

For the documentary I named "Emily," there were many choices that I had to make that affected my documentary and made it into something that I wanted the audience to see. For my original topic, I was somewhat limited because it was difficult to find subjects. My original idea for my documentary was to create an  film about the troubles that girls in our society in America are struggling with  eating disorders. Not only that, but I wanted to connect that part of my topic with the idea of how the internet, or Pinterest, can shape the ideas of people with eating disorders. It was difficult for me to find subjects for the topic as I only actually know three girls who have eating disorders and found inspiration to continue with their eating disorder through the internet. It was even more difficult to find girls who actually used Pinterest. The subjects that I knew of mainly used Tumblr and one of them used Myspace back in the day. I also knew of other girls, but I was positive that they didn't realize that I knew and it would have been an uncomfortable situation for me to approach them about their eating disorder.
I chose to shadow my only subject, Emily, because she was uncomfortable and embarrassed with being documented as having these problems. It's obviously a very weak point for her in her life. I also chose to shoot the car scenes at night, since eating disorders are a dark subject, and it still effectively gives a mysterious shadow to Emily. I think I effectively shadowed her, but I also think I let you get a little glimpse of her as well, as it isn't as interesting to just be listening to a shadow talk. I shot Emily sitting in just the arm chair because I was hoping to make her seem somewhat isolated, because she is kind of alone in her life with her eating disorder, physically… But she also has the internet and the friends that she made online. I like to think that the arm chair shows isolation, but also comfort.
If I had another month to work on this project, I would have shot the scenes differently. By differently, I mean that I would have shot my scenese in more locations, I would have done more takes and I would have tried to reach out to more subjects. I also would have tried to find or create the perfect music to go along with my documentary to better set the mood. I was somewhat disapointed with how the scenes of Emily in the arm chair turned out. I filmed those scenes with my MacBook's webcam and I filmed the car scenes with the Canon camera I rented from the library. The cameras have two different frame rates, and I had to tweak the frame rates of the chair scene for some reason for it to work with the car scenes, so in turn, the chair scene looks choppy. If I had another month, I would also try to work on transitions more. I was disappointed with how my transitions turned out, but it was difficult to create something a little bit smoother with iMovie, especially since the frame rates of the scenes were different.

Shooting Script:

As I'm looking at my calendar, I think I might start shooting next Monday. I have definitely 2 maybe 3 possible subjects so far that I know of that I'm going to shoot. It's kind of a challenge to find people to shoot since my topic is based on thinspiration on Pinterest associated with eating disorders. However, my subjects don't exactly use Pinterest as their main outlet for thinspiration. My oldest subject used thinspiration back when myspace was big. My two other subjects mostly use Tumblr. Although they don't really use Pinterest as their main outlet, they do know that Pinterest does inspire thinspiration and I want to use them mostly to talk about how thinspiration affects/has affected them in their lives. I also want them to explain what it is and how they use it. I do have a few questions, but they're mostly just backups when I there might be a moment when they are done talking and I don't have anything to come up with.

My main subject and my one possible other subject I'm planning on filming week or next thanksgiving week. It depends on their work schedules. I want to try to check out the camera once, but since I want to film over thanksgiving, I might have to check it out twice. Since I have my meeting with you on Wednesday 11/14 I think I'm going to try to film my filler shots and at least one interview. My third subject lives in South Carolina right now so I'm planning on trying to film her during Thanksgiving break.

Other than the filming schedule, here are some of the questions I plan on asking:

• When did your eating disorder start?
• What triggered your eating disorder?
• How did the internet/Pinterest enable your eating disorder?
• What were thoughts you had during the worst part of your ED?
• How did you come to find out about thinspiration?
• Did you keep it a secret?
• Were you able to get help?

I know it was said to try and make my subjects feel comfortable so I'm thinking about filming them at one of the subjects home. Two of them live in the same house and the third I think will be okay with the location. This is subject to change of course.

For my proposal for my Pinterest related documentary, I've decided to focus on the topic of Thinspiration on Pinterest and how it affects people and can open up a world of eating disorders. I've chosen this topic because it has affected my best friend and other people that I know well in my life. If you are wondering what Thinspiration is… It's basically a combination of the words "thin" and "inspiration." Thinspiration. Another word for thinspiration is "thinspo," which is basically just an abbreviation of thinspiration.  I'll use the names interchangeably Thinspiration is the inspiration to become thinner. To clarify: thinspiration is usually defined as a image of a really fit or thin person. Someone with the body that you might want. Thinspiration could also be images of girls who were the extreme opposite of what you would want to be, for example, girls who might be extremely overweight. Those images are supposed to scare you into not being like what they might be. Another known way for one to create thinspiration for themselves would be to keep a photograph journal containing pictures of your body. Sometimes that's enough to keep one going.  Thinspiration could be inspiration to keep up perhaps your fitness routine, your diet, or to continue your eating disorder. I think thinspo creates a really unrealistic goal for people, because when you have an eating disorder, it seems like you can't be satisfied. I feel like when you have an eating disorder, you have it because you have a goal you want to get to, but when you reach your desired weight… It might end up not being good enough, and you might not get the outcome you desired, so in turn, you might want to keep losing more weight.

Thinspiration also has a deeper context. It is something that many people with eating disorders use for encouragement in their efforts to become thinner.  My best friend has struggled with her eating disorder for 3 years now and it's affected us both us in extremely negatively ways. It kills me to see her struggle with her weight and I think thinspiration enables a lot of girls and guys alike to keep going with their eating disorder. Like I said, thinspo creates a huge gateway and driving force for people with eating disorders to keep going and stay inspired in a negative way. When you look at thinspo, the whole point is to look at it and hope to see yourself as they are. The way you get to it is usually in an extreme way. It could be through extreme exercising, which is exercising in an unhealthy way by not eating before working out or after, or working out for extreme amounts of time. Another way you might try to lose weight are also through the more "traditional" and well known ways of losing weight in an unhealthy way such as binge and purging, and extreme dieting. Thinspo is a really serious problem, and Pinterest has a huge market for it. Pinterest creates a greater outlet for the thinspiration to spread. However, I did read some articles on how Pinterest is trying to regulate thinspo boards and posts, but there is only so much you can do. If you have an eating disorder, removing all posts clearly labeled under "thinspo" won't be enough to stop thinspo posts and eating disorders from continuing. The posts will keep coming, there will just be another word for it and eating disorders will continue to happen.

P.S. Please don't grade this too harshly… I had a hard time processing thoughts properly when writing this. Long week.

This was an interesting documentary. It seemed to produce the outcome that most documentaries try to achieve. I was informed on a not extremely well known topic: people who live in underground abandoned subway tunnels. There were things that I liked and didn't necessarily love. For one, this documentary wasn't really relevant to me, so it moved me slightly… But I didn't feel a whole bunch of sympathy. I'm also not exactly a sympathetic person. Either way, the relevance wasn't connected to me. It's a completely different world and lifestyle that I am confident I will never experience. However, I did like the framing and the story boarding I guess is what you could call it… It focused not on just one person, but many. That's one thing I like about documentaries. Most of them that I've ever seen hardly focus on one character, unlike in a scripted program. This one focused on many characters, with different stories for me to follow. They all had a common situation, and it helped pull together a sense of their lifestyle and community better.

About the black and white… I can't say that I can read exactly why the producers decided to do it in black and white. One of my thoughts as to why they chose black and white would be that it was chosen because the documentary's name is called "Dark Days." Why is this relevant… Well, although it was definitely dark in the tunnels (obviously), I think the choice to go black and white made the shadows more prominent and emphasized the name and subject of the documentary. However, it also gave me a feeling of oldness, which I can't really decide if that was relevant to the story or not. Anything filmed in black and white just gives me that affect since I was born into a generation where color television has always existed in my life. I also think they chose black and white because it reminded me of blindness. Many of the tunnel dwellers were very set in their ways of living, which I definitely understand why (freedom and whatnot) but once they moved out of the tunnels, they realized that they had been missing out and almost couldn't believe they let themselves live down there for so long. In the tunnels, it's a very sad and lonely place. There isn't any sunlight, and so I'm sure that the only lighting they had was very bleak. The black and white coloring also emphasized a kind of black hole feeling. One, the were in a tunnel, which pretty effectively portrays a feeling of a black hole. Two, the black and white emphasized the feelings of hopelessness and feelings of despair that might have been caused since they felt like they couldn't leave that place.

I also noticed that they didn't often play music (if at all) until the very end, where everyone moved out and seemed elated to finally be out of the tunnels. I felt like that was the most prominent time that music was played. In my mind it kind of symbolized hope and happiness. Music is a huge form of entertainment, and I don't think the tunnels were bustling with many forms of entertainment. It seemed to open up hope that the characters could now enjoy their lives like they should, and it kind of made me happy after watching about an hour of sheer disgust at where/how they lived their lives.

Possible Documentary Topics

Not really sure if there is much to investigate about Pinterest but here are some possible topics:

Pinterest is dominated by females. Maybe I can do something along the lines of that.

Pinterest is a place for thinspiration, which is basically inspiration to become thin. It seems to encourage eating disorders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uAMEscPOtb4