A-level let's begin this CCR planning!

 Hello blog! Welcome back to my final post of the week, which is beginning the critical reflection process for my portfolio project. This week has been busy. With my dance studio preparing to compete, getting back into my last quarter of junior year, the year does not get any easier.  Especially since testing season is coming around the corner. 

If I'm being completely honest, I haven’t really planned out what I wanted to do for my critical for reflection. The reason why I have not dedicated time for my critical reflection earlier is for one main reason. I’ve been really been focusing on nailing the actual production process of the documentary and social media, that I haven't gotten the opportunity to really take a look at that portion of my exam. Which is why this post is dedicated to doing so. 

First, I’m going to lay out the questions that we were given in the CCR lesson. Then, I'll discuss how I'm going to approach it. 

Before I get into the questions, here are some standardized things to know about the critical reflection for media studies A-level: 

• - It’s worth 20 points out of the 60 points 

• - We're creating an essay about 1000 words 

• - We're focusing on all elements of our project and we're citing details precisely

Questions/ Format 

Intro/ thesis

Focusing on major themes or ideas conveyed throughout my project which is Latin American culture and symbolism. Keep this short and concise. 

1. How did your research inform your products in the way you use or challenge conventions?

This mainly focuses on your choices as a director. This includes the development of research and genres. Which specifically focuses on the bad bunny super bowl halftime performance. This includes observation within my dance studio and overall society. This section of the essay needs to fill out research and evidence to back up your documentary. 

2. How do your products engage within the audience? 

This question focuses on addressing your target audience and engagement. I consider this a very important question to address because it really creates the format for the overall branding of your production. Which will be discussed more in the next question. My overall target audience is about ages 18-27 But all ages are welcome to watch. 

3. How did elements of production work together to create a sense of branding?

In this question, it heavily focuses on your branding development throughout your production and how I choose niche production choices to strengthen the brand. My brand for my documentary is very distinct and very clear. My overall brand is very bright and very colorful, and it really targets unity and togetherness. 

4. How do your products represent social groups or issues?

For this last question, it homes in on representation within your production by giving examples, and you can decide as a director if it was successful and accomplished through documentary and if it was not, explain why. 

A-level production

    Hi guys welcome back to another productive week of making progress for my documentary portfolio project. In this post specifically, I will continue to be reflecting the production process as well as showing you some raw materials that will be placed within my documentary. 

    I started off this week with continuing to film my  interviews with the subjects. I started off filming the dancer. Her name is Gabriella Daise and I asked her one simple question. I asked her something along the lines of “ How do you feel learning different types of Latin style dances within your studio?”. She replied adequately and stuck to the to question. I then asked her to perform 2- 8 counts of a Latin fusion. 

    I really enjoyed filming this interview. This is because I got the opportunity to get her opinion on what she thinks about Latin American culture within society. I also completed the other interview, which was my dad. I asked him the same questions as I did for the first interview and things ran fairly smoothly. Which were: 

• Can you elaborate on how Latin American music has changed over the decades?
• Do you feel as if Latin American culture has an influence on creating unity within society?

    However, when it came to interviewing the other dancer, something came up and I was not able to interview them. Due to this, I extended my Dad’s interview. 

A-level production

 Hello!! Welcome to the second blog post of the week and this week blog post I will be  discussing the production process for my portfolio project. Last week we met with our teacher to do a little check in on how we’re doing on our portfolio projects. I expressed to her that I haven’t interviewed the remainder of the subjects and I also shot some b-roll footage. In this post, I’ll be discussing my stylistic choices for my b-roll. 

I decided shoot my b-roll for my Documentary project for several reasons and I also gained immense inspiration. Also, I wanted to collect as much footage as I could just in case if I needed it for editing purposes . 

The first reason I came across this choice was I was walking to my class the previous week, and I noticed the AICE Spanish hallway. The hallway is decorated with Latin American artist along with informational facts about their life and their flag that they represent. I thought this was very symbolic and match the overall theme of my documentary well. Because of this, the following week, I shot this b-roll.

As a result of filming the production process this week,  I feel like I have shown immense improvement throughout my last media studies project, which was the AS level short film. I really struggled with time management and finding the time to film.  I felt as if like this production was a perfect opportunity for me to improve my skills and I’m already seeing that along the journey.  

A-level production!

 Hello blog! Welcome to the third and final post of the week which is going to be reflecting the production process for my portfolio project which is a documentary about Latin American culture and how it influences society and creates unity within society. In this post, I’m going to be reflecting upon the first interview I conducted.

 

 I decided to ask my grandmother 2 questions based on the ones that I pondered about in previous blog posts.

 The questions are as follows: 

• Can you elaborate on how Latin American music has changed over the decades?
• Do you feel as if Latin American culture has an influence on creating unity within society?
• 
  

 I thought these questions were appropriate to ask because she grew up listening to Latin music throughout the decades and she is well versed on Latin American culture and the topics that are being presented within my documentary. First, I started by giving her the interview questions a couple days prior because she asked to have time so she would be able to formulate the proper responses and topics that she wanted to talk about within each question response. 

 

For each question response, she went over topics that she wanted to talk about and presented them to me before filming. Then, she came to me and decided to receive feedback on how we can direct the conversation to strictly answer the question.  My response was to give a lot of examples and really show the evolution of how Latin American music has changed over the decades and how the culture has influenced on creating a community and unity within society, she did just that. The interview went very smoothly, and I began by asking her to state her name and spell it out for editing purposes, I then asked her the first question off the screen and recorded her response. The same thing follows for question 2.

 

This wraps up the production process for this week. Next week I will be getting in more interviews for my documentary and recording more B roll footage. See you next week!

A-level production!

 Hello blog! Welcome to the second post of the week which is going to be reflecting the production process for my portfolio project, which is a documentary about Latin American culture and how it influences society and creates unity within society.  In this post I’m going to be talking about an additional introduction shot that I decided to include within my documentary. In my other post, I talked about how I wanted to include a globe for my introduction, but I also decided to give myself the option of using the map that I have within my living room and see which one would work better and which one looks more professional and more formal.

 

My original idea for this shot for my introduction was to get a red thumbtack and place it on where I wanted to specify in Latin America specifically. Then, I realized that I wanted to show the entirety of Latin America and the entirety of the globe and how I’m focusing on one specific niche which is Latin America. Since this is my first time using a professional camera for this portfolio project, I was playing around with the lighting and how I wanted to look on camera.  For example, I opened my front door which produces the most sunlight in my house and the back doors to see how the lighting would look, and it ended up being too bright which would later affect the saturation and editing.  

 

Additionally, I also decided to play around with some composition techniques such as pan and tilts to see how I wanted to angle it. I ended up deciding on a pan of the map.  In the first post I was talking about the globe as previously mentioned and now I’m focusing on the map for this post. I might decide to include both of those shots within my documentary or choose just one. 

A-level production!

 Hi guys, welcome back to my weekly blog post for my documentary for my portfolio project. Since we are off this week due to spring break vacation, we were given the task to begin the production process for our projects. This process includes beginning to record what we have envisioned and planned for a couple weeks now as well as show proof that we've been working (behind the scenes). As previously mentioned, these posts will demonstrate just that.

The first thing I decided to do was shoot some beginning footage. I decided this based on what I've been brainstorming over the past couple weeks directly from planning and straight from creativity. Since my documentary is about Latin American culture, I wanted to introduce the documentary excerpt by showing a globe spinning, complemented by a voiceover introducing the topic steadily. I also thought this was a cool idea because it provides a sense of creativity and provides context for people who may not know about

Latin American culture and how it creates unity within society.

 

 In this image right here, it shows that my body, and my hands angled directly towards the globe so it can reflect the sunlight of my backyard  windows.  Before I go more into detail, you can see I’m balancing the globe on a wooden stool and bucket for two reasons. One, the lighting was very pretty because of the time of day and the way I angled myself.  Two, my stabilizer decided to vanish (the show must still go on!). As i'm shooting this short clip, I'm rewatching the footage and I can't help but realize that my reflection is directly with the globe. After several adjustments I finally got it to look appealing to the point where you cannot catch my reflection, and the lighting still looks good.

 

A-level Print component research

    Welcome to another week of blog postings for my A-level portfolio project! In this post, I'll be reflecting and discussing some research I have done involving my print component. Since I am doing the documentary package, I will be doing a two page magazine article. The overall purpose of demonstrating mastery in the print component is to show marketing skills toward upcoming productions. Before I start researching magazine articles, let's go over popular conventions that are normally used in magazine article. 

    Magazine articles include: 

• pages numbers 
• title of publication 
• Two columns Maximum 
• White background ( Mainly because it is more cost efficient) 

    The first magazine article I researched from the website Ms. This website highlights many topics that are trending currently. Some of these topics include news and opinion, politics culture, women, Democracy, and many more. Specifically, I decided to take a peek at the Latin American posts. These posts talk about some of historic values that society appreciates today as well as fun facts (Poska & Delgado-Poust, 2026).

    What intrigued me is they have a section specifically evaluating the Bad Bunny halftime show and the message behind it (Jacques & Hobson, 2026). It talks about culture representation, and statistics that show how many people watched the halftime show (Jacques & Hobson, 2026). Shockingly, close to 130 million views (Jacques & Hobson, 2026)!! This magazine article, then ties back to the current political state of the United States and how his Super Bowl performance brought people together and created unity (Jacques & Hobson, 2026).I really like this magazine article because it touches on several different aspects of his performance and of Latin American culture which is something that I want to do within my documentary. 

Here's a sneak peak into the article: 

(Garcés-Vila, 2024)

    The next magazine article I researched is from magazine article Latinx pop Magazine. This magazine article strictly focuses exclusively on all aspects of Latin culture. The publication first starts off by exploring pop culture roots by highlighting superstar’s such as Carlos Santana and Rita Moreno who created opportunities for the Latino community (Team Latinx Pop Mag, 2025).

    It then talks about the growth of Latin pop culture in music. Which I thought was the perfect section to research since my documentary is highlighting music, pop culture and dance (Team Latinx Pop Mag, 2025).The article also mentions the impact on fashion and lifestyle as well as representation and TV and film production (Team Latinx Pop Mag, 2025). I also really like this magazine article because it specifically focuses on only Latin American culture within society and I’m definitely going to take some inspiration from this magazine article (Team Latinx Pop Mag, 2025).

(Team Latinx Pop Mag, 2025).

                                                                    REFERENCES 

    Team Latinx Pop Mag. (2025, April 11). Exploring the influence of Latinx pop culture today. Latinx Pop Mag. https://www.latinxpopmag.com/post/exploring-the-influence-of-latinx-pop-culture-today

    Poska, A. M., & Delgado-Poust, A. (2026, March 9). ‘This is our country too!’: The enduring legacy of Spanish-speaking women in early America. Ms. Magazine. https://msmagazine.com/2026/03/09/spanish-speaking-women-early-america-history/ 

    Jacques, S., & Hobson, J. (2026, February 12). Who’s American? Whose America? Bad Bunny’s radical halftime message. Ms. Magazine. https://msmagazine.com/2026/02/12/bad-bunny-super-bowl-halftime-show-puerto-rico/