Studio Reflection

As the semester comes to an end, we produced an impact documentary film, called “Roofless Realities” in the studio class. The film conveys the critical housing issues faced by international students in Melbourne, and the subsequent mental health crisis. The goal was to resonate with the international students in Melbourne, providing a mirror to their struggles, validating their experiences, and giving them a platform to be heard. For universities administrators and policymakers, the documentary serves as a reminder of the pressing need for change in rental, urging them to take effective actions to address this issue.

The film was screened in week 13 at capitol, I’m expecting the screening could engage some certain target audience, including international students and universities administrators. Before the film is played, we could do a little speech to the audience about what the film is about and why we made this film. After the film, we can do a post-screening discussions and Q&A sessions to facilitate direct dialogue between the audience and us. This effective interaction heightens the awareness while encouraging a collaborative brainstorming of potential solutions. The ultimate goal of making this film is to provoke concrete actions, I hope the film could inspire university administrators and policy makers to implement practical solutions, such as providing available housing to international students with affordable pricing or reducing the rental price for international students. In conclusion, we hope our documentary could make a huge impact by raising the awareness and provoking actions for the international students’ community.

To keep further developing on the film, I would improve the skills of storytelling in the film since our interview with Manu, the international student, didn’t go well, his response was not continuous, resulting the lack of narrative structure in the film. Thus, the film doesn’t have much tension and impact on the audience as his clips feel fragmented. If I were to further work on the film, aiming to make a bigger impact on the audience, I would rearrange another interview, eyeing on coaching the interviewee to provide responses with a clear narrative structure that fosters emotional connection with the audience. To expand the documentary, I would explore the housing issues faced by international students worldwide. The increasing number of students studying abroad has led to a shortage of housing resources in countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, and throughout Europe. This housing crisis has become a global problem affecting many international students. I hope the film can raise awareness and inspire action to address this issue.

I watched the short documentary, “Rewilding”, from our studio, and I like they are trying to spread the main message, protecting the ocean environment from plastic pollution. In my opinion, they have done a great job of conveying their message by incorporating lots of b-roll footage of plastic pollution in the ocean, also putting the statistics and facts and the website link into the film. This allows the audience to grasp the urgency of improving the marine environment, achieving the goal of making an impact on the viewers. Another documentary I watched is “Where Are All the Queers?”. The film successfully illustrates the interviewee’s story with a clear narrative structure, enabling viewers to understand the perspectives and experiences of LGBTIQ+ people. Consequently, the film can inspire people to open more lesbian bars, expanding lesbian communities in Melbourne. In conclusion, every impact documentary film from our studio has reflected the key idea, making impact and provoking practical actions on viewers.

I watched the film, “Izabella’s editing series”, which there are three different genres of film. I think the studio is exploring different editing skillsets when filming different genres of film. For example, the first video is a documentary called “Second Home”, conveying a performing arts student experiencing the change of home lifestyle while living away from her home. The editing has simple cuts between interview shots and b-roll footage, while playing background music. This editing style could simply convey the interviewee’s story. On the other hand, the second commercial video, “The Cookie Cart Melbourne”, features extensive motion graphics, animation, and numerous transitions in the editing. This dynamic editing style can effectively capture the viewer’s attention and encourage them to purchase the product. The last narrative film, “To Every You,” presents the essence of love across different universes. The editing style focuses on the rhythm to switch between clips from different universes, especially building to a climax that incorporates a match cut at the end of the pinky promise. This technique effectively conveys the film’s main message: love exists indefinitely, even across different universes. The key idea of this studio draws my attention as I’m interested in the potential of editing, same footage, but with different editing style could result in completely different meaning to the viewers. Thus, I would like to participate in the studio class in the future.

Reflection

This is my first attempt at making an impact documentary. At first, I thought it wouldn’t be much different from a regular documentary. But as I did more research, I found out that impact documentary is “a film-led communication designed to inspire positive social change and make a lasting impact” by focusing on addressing specific issues (Damodharan, 2024). Therefore, my ideas have changed throughout the semester, from the perspective of how to precisely convey a personal story to the perspective of how to provoke actions and raise awareness by resonating the audience through the film. In our filmmaking process, despite filming the interview with the student, we also arranged an interview with the social worker, Jenna, from RUSU. This not only provides the audience with detailed facts about the housing problem from an objective perspective but also motivates more our target audience, universities administrators and policymakers, to take action by showcasing Jenna’s commitment in her role.

To further explore these ideas in the future, I would like to delve more into the audience engagement strategies for the film, such as, organizing screenings beyond the campus, delivering speeches at exhibitions, or hosting an immersive exhibition related to this topic. I am curious about how these promotion strategies would make a different impact on provoking actions.

I hope our final work could engage with its target audience by shedding light on this pressing issue. The aim of this documentary is to raise awareness, inspire action, ultimately drive positive change in policies and support systems for international students. As the research shows 67.5% of international students reported that the cost of accommodations impact on their negative well-being, subsequently worsening their mental health issues (Corney, n.d.). Thus, I would like to see our final work make a positive social impact on the specific issue.

During the process of filmmaking, we had faced lots of challenges. Initially, our communication with Manu, the international student we interviewed with, was not smooth, leading to him speaking continuously for 20 minutes. Our original plan was to ask him one question at a time to facilitate easy responses. However, he preferred to start with the first question and then seamlessly transition to the subsequent ones. Thus, he went off track sometimes and the responses were not ideal. Also, we tried to hint him to wrap it up, but he just immediately ends up what he was about to say. What we might do differently next time is to conduct a better communication with the interviewee, telling him how we want the interview to be done and how much time we only need for one question. I believe this would alleviate much stress and time for the editing.

Moreover, we encountered difficulty in securing an interviewee from supportive services. Despite reaching out to organizations such as Study Melbourne, Trinity College, and The Couch, we received no response. Subsequently, our emails to the counselling service at RMIT also went unanswered. Eventually, we took the initiative to visit RUSU’s office, where Jenna, one of the social workers, graciously agreed to be interviewed. This experience taught me the importance of proactive engagement in documentary filmmaking. From the research, Amelia says “we must proactively start making contacts early to give ourselves the best chance of success,” (Dewi, 2021). It’s crucial not to hesitate in reaching out to people; if email correspondence proves fruitless, don’t hesitate to approach them in person.

In terms of audience engagement, I’m considering organizing a screening in the school theatre and creating a digital flyer that offers a brief overview of the film along with its key message, accompanied by some compelling stills. By including a QR code, viewers can easily access more information about the film. The combination of captivating imagery and concise text aims to effectively convey the housing issues faced by international students to the audience. Additionally, we’ll establish an Instagram account for the film’s audience to follow, where we’ll share experiences and stories of international students, along with updates on housing in Melbourne. This platform will serve as a space for international students facing housing issues to seek assistance, with the hope that policymakers and university administrators will take notice as our social media presence grows. Additionally, we can make this crisis visible to other countries, where might occur the same issue as Vakhtin says ‘Social media planforms break geographical barriers, allowing film promotions to reach audiences worldwide instantly.’ (Vakhtin, 2023). Furthermore, it’s a cost-effective option, ideal for university students like us who may have limited budgets for promotions. Hence, our primary focus will be on promoting our film through social media channels.

In terms of the engagement outside of the campus, I’m considering screening our documentary film at various universities in Melbourne, including the University of Melbourne, Deakin University, RMIT, and Monash University, as well as organizations that provide support to international students, such as The Couch and Study Melbourne. The aim is to expose the film to more university administrators and international students. Additionally, I found out the Melbourne International Student Week, which took place in March 2024, presents an excellent opportunity to showcase our film (Melbourne International Student Week, n.d.). This festival gathers a diverse array of international students, offering a platform for our film’s publication. Moreover, we plan to set up a collaborative booth with RUSU, where we’ll provide counselling services specifically related to housing issues and financial stress, reinforcing the tangible actions we aim to take in addressing the crisis.

If I were to continue working on the documentary, I would coach the interviewee to provide a more detailed story of their housing experience, ensuring that their narrative forms a coherent and compelling storyline. While editing the film, I discovered that Manu’s context lacked a complete narrative. To further develop the documentary, I would extend the film’s topic to international students’ housing problem across worldwide. As BONARD states, “In 2023, BONARD researchers observed rent levels increased more significantly than in 2022, both per region and tier city in Canada, Europe, and Australia. Based on the statistic, Canada’s rents increased the most (15% year-over-year) followed by the UK (12.9%).” (Student housing crunch worsens across Europe, Australia, Canada, 2024) This data highlights the urgency of this issue, which prompting to become increasingly prevalent worldwide. I believe it’s crucial to delve into how international students manage financial strain while securing suitable housing through the film.

In terms of collaboration, I believe our group fostered strong teamwork consistently throughout the semester. Throughout our filmmaking process, we have always allocated the roles for each of us effectively, for instance, while preparing the pitch, we easily discussed and allocated roles amongst ourselves. However, we not only accomplished our roles, but also helped each other to spark more inspirations and ideas. On the shooting day, though we had our roles for the production, we still switched the roles sometimes to help others. For example, Jeffrey, our director, was sick on the day of shooting. Thus, I took the responsibility of communicating with the interview and conducting the questioning. However, during the moments when I was setting the camera for the next shot, he would step in and engage with the interviewee, ensuring they were informed about the upcoming proceedings. On the other side, Lachlan and Ashley were managing on the second camera, lighting, and setting the scene. Moreover, we were struggling to come up with ideas for b-roll footage since our issue is a bit abstract. However, we took the initiative to book an editing suite to review the interview footage while sharing our own ideas and ended up with lots of compelling ideas. Overall, our communication went smooth, and each of us was proactive during the filmmaking process, resulting in excellent collaboration.

Reference list:

(No date) Melbourne International Student Week. Available at: https://www.misw.org.au/ (Accessed: 17 May 2024).

Corney, T. (no date) Relationship of accommodation to wellbeing, INTERNATIONAL STUDENT HOUSING & MENTAL WELLBEING & THE RELATIONSHIP TO ACCOMMODATION. Available at: https://universitycollegesaustralia.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/International-Student-Health-and-Wellbeing-and-the-Relationship-to-Accommodation-UCA-Forum-November-2021.pdf (Accessed: 17 May 2024).

Damodharan, K. (2024) Impact films, Moonshine Agency. Available at: https://moonshine.agency/impact-films/ (Accessed: 17 May 2024).

Dewi, A.R. (2021) The 3 factors that drive success in film industry, Medium. Available at: https://amelia-dewi.medium.com/the-3-factors-that-drive-success-in-film-industry-9b5e5d1acf46 (Accessed: 17 May 2024).

Student housing crunch worsens across Europe, Australia, Canada (2024) ICEF Monitor – Market intelligence for international student recruitment. Available at: https://monitor.icef.com/2024/02/student-housing-crunch-worsens-across-europe-australia-canada/ (Accessed: 17 May 2024).

Vakhtin, D. (2023) The impact of social media on film promotion – filmustage blog, Filmustage. Available at: https://filmustage.com/blog/the-impact-of-social-media-on-film-promotion/ (Accessed: 17 May 2024).