It's hard for me to find the right words to describe things that have shaped my life thus far (i'm sure i'm not the only one). To connect with a part of myself that I rarely talk to others in depth about, I had to go back to the very basic thing that solidifies a part of my identity- food. Specifically, polish food. At first, I wanted to make it broad. Sticking to the niche of my video ended up bottlenecking that homing-voice in for me, and helped to center my focus a bit on figuring how to make the montage reflective of me while also being reflective of to other's feelings about foods that might be true to their cultural experience with food.
After watching it more and more times, and after having critiques in class, I realized that I wasn't satisfied with the message I was trying to bring forth. I was too ambiguous with who the person was starring in my video (Eden, a fellow busser of mine at a restaurant) and the relationship I had to him. I thought it wouldn't matter too much bringing into the video my work relationship to him, but it definitely ended up blurring the line between private and public. My audience could no longer see meaning in what is was that was personal to ME, despite Eden talking about family in the restaurant, and me making polish cookies for my "family" here at school, as a way of my coping with being away from family back at home (in the same way that Eden talked about his association of work family to his real family). It was kind of disheartening to see my message come across as unclear. I feel like I started with a strong storyboard but then led myself askew from it, possibly overthinking it and trying to make it about more than it was. I wish I had cut a lot of the scenes out and edited in some scenes from my personal life at home (my old pictures, mom cooking, etc); just some snapshots to relating my family presence with the work family dynamic I am trying to communicate.
I liked a lot of the shots I took. I think more of them could have varied, especially in the restaurant. I think I could have processed the story of me making the pastries a bit more orderly, timely, basically more chronological. There was room for improvement on many of them.
I'm proud of myself for tackling this personal subject, but I don't think I went all the way that I could have with it. I made it personal but bordering the line of impersonal, my feelings towards the subjects and/or my source of it wasn't relayed through me in the video. As I grow to learn myself better, as well as come to understand how my own familial cultural experiences played a role in how I feel about food and relationships, I think i'll be able to understand better how to put together a vision that is truly encompassing and projective of all the feelings I have had about food throughout my life (good and bad), and perhaps an opportunity to be a reflective piece for others who have also had similar stories to relationships and food.
