Critical Reflection

    The documentary Jonah serves to explain the contrast between outside perspectives on what autism entails by looking toward the parents and therapists of Jonah in order to explain what autism is and how it affects others around Jonah.  

    When it comes to certain groups that are represented within my documentary, I tried to make them explicitly referenced in order to give reassurance to that particular group.  This group that I tried to represent was not only autistic individuals themselves but mainly their relatives and how they have been affected by autistic individuals.  Speaking out beyond the surface-level things related to autism, like symptoms, is what I was trying to show within this documentary.  For example, I wanted to point out how my family, my parents, in particular, were affected by the diagnosis, along with the issues that arise when raising an autistic child.  By focusing on these abstract, less commonly spoken about topics related to autism, I hoped to shine some light on some of the less fortunate things that come with a diagnosis of autism.  By conducting interviews in which my parents would simply speak their minds and give insight on the true nature of the diagnosis as opposed to sugar-coating it, it would accurately describe what many other individuals with autistic relatives potentially faced.  However, I believe I pointed a little too much emphasis on the relatives affected by autistic individuals, as opposed to the autistic individuals themselves.  My brother, Jonah, was meant to be the main focus of the documentary, while also focusing on my parents in order to discuss more complicated topics, like raising Jonah.  I believed I didn't put enough focus on Jonah himself, which ultimately wouldn't accurately represent autistic individuals themselves since I didn't allocate enough time for Jonah to represent them.  I recorded Jonah over several instances of time, like here, however, I believed in order to truly represent autistic individuals, I should've conducted a more rigorous interview with Jonah, as opposed to the one slightly present within the documentary.  

    The outline, along with the interviews in particular was intended for my documentary to connect with the audience.  My audience would consist of people with autistic relatives, along with individuals wanting to learn more about autism, which would be about 18-50 years old range, with male and female.  When it came to my outline, I tried to make it easy to follow by having a slight narrative that goes along with it.  For example, I'd start with an introduction for Jonah, then move towards the diagnosis, then discuss what autism is, and in the end talk about Jonah's progress.  By pairing this plot with 'raw' direct interviews of my parents, it produced a more genuine feel for the audience as they were able to follow along with the story as a whole, but get invested when it came to instances in which my parents would get emotional, or talk about the future.  One video that I used as a production example is from a YouTuber called Mark Rober, whose son has autism, and he makes a video about how his son has progressed through life.  I followed this convention of having a narrative, similar to the video, however, I wanted to lean towards a more unconventional style that can be shown via the long interviews.  When incorporating these two contrasting ideas, the whole idea behind Jonah's diagnosis and other abstract ideas can be engaged with the audience by adding a sense of genuineness throughout the interviews, especially the ones at the beginning.  

    A large portion of the research behind this documentary was essentially living with my brother Jonah.  As opposed to talking about a subject I knew nothing about that I would go on the internet and research for, I've lived with my brother Jonah, which helped fuel this documentary itself.  Similar to the video mentioned above, this video was a major influence in producing this documentary, as I followed the convention of the narrative that went from talking about the diagnosis, all the way to my parents and therapists talking about the future.  But since I lived with Jonah, I had a rough idea of how my parents felt about his diagnosis, which I would show when conducting the interviews.  I wanted to ask questions that felt like a conversation but also wanted to actually know more about my brother's life from a documentary perspective.  

The Making of Jonah

I made Jonah pretty much as a service for my brother, Jonah.  A lot of individuals hear the phrase, autism, however, don't fully understand the full idea behind it, and since my brother has difficulty expressing what autism is truly like, I figured I'd do so using my parents, along with my brother's therapists, as ultimate leverage into understanding what autism really means.  

The first order of business is the outline for my documentary.  Whenever I start a new project, an outline is a must just so I can a) have a clear and coherent idea of what I'm doing throughout the whole process, and b) actually see if what I'm thinking is going to work out.  The outline for this project was different and strange.  I haven't made anything like a documentary before, in which there would be extensive narration or shooting of impractical subjects (i.e Jonah in public, or old photos).  Usually when I produce something, and I plan with an outline, I know what I'm recording.  With Nat 20 for instance, I knew exactly what I needed to record, beginning to end because recording a narrative film is a lot more straightforward.  But for Jonah, I had extremely prominent, rough ideas for what needed to be recorded, like the interviews with my mother and father, b-roll shots of jonah, and interviews with therapists, however, actually getting all these required luck, planning, and some determination!

Above this body of text is an example of what I mean by why this documentary, in relation to the outline and its prominent components, was more difficult than a traditional outline I've done in the past.  I knew what I was gonna ask my parents, where it would fit into the documentary, and how it would progress the documentary itself.  The only thing that I really couldn't predict is what my parents would literally say.  I wanted them to essentially tell me whatever they wanted when I prompted them with questions in order to eliminate a superficial vibe I could've potentially drawn in, however by doing this I risk not getting proper answers that could excel my documentary further.  I had hopes for my interviewees, since they're my parents and all, however, it is still a little jarring when a large portion of your outline relies directly on these interviews since I had no idea what they would say until I asked them.  

When it comes to production, I'd split it into three parts: interviews, looking for old photos, and Noa-looking-like-a-creep-recording-my-brother-in public-for-what-seems-like-no-apparent-reason.

The interview portion was tricky to handle. I needed to coordinate the days that I would interview my parents and the therapists.  My parents, especially my father, work pretty long hours and they're not always home at certain times.  However, I managed to land a day when they were both home and would sit them both down back-to-back and ask them the same questions, while also improvising with others.  

Here is my father, who I interviewed after my mom.  I made sure to interview them during the same night in order to ensure that the camera angles and lighting would remain consistent throughout their interviews, which was important considering how my parents, in terms of their shots in the documentary, are played back-to-back, which meant keeping the background and camera angles the same is crucial.  This night ended up being a good night, and I got some really great answers from them!  I told them prior that I would ask them about Jonah, however, I didn't explicitly mention exactly what I would ask so when they would end up answering, I wanted to hear exactly what they thought of at moment.  

When it came to the therapists, the interviews were harder to obtain since they don't live at my house, and are only here for specific times during specific days, meaning my window to record them was shallow.  I managed to nab a schedule off my mom and determine when they would stop by the house and help Jonah, and proceed to ask them if they would mind getting interviewed.  Fortunately, they said yes.  Below is a photo from an interview I conducted with Mia, one of Jonah's therapists.  

Lastly was the b-roll, which was made up of me recording Jonah throughout the week, along with looking through some photos in our garage, and coming up with what adorable photos I'd find of Jonah.  The garage digging didn't take too long.  Fortunately, we just moved, which meant all of the photos were consequently in one box that was easily salvageable.  I think I found about 20 photos of Jonah from his youth, ranging from infant, all the way to about 4 years ago.  I always criticized my parents for all the photos that they'd keep, especially embarrassing ones of me.  Glad they've actually held onto them.  

Recording my brother in public, although a little strange, wasn't that hard.  He often would ask me what I'm doing, and I just told him I'm recording him, which he'd shrug off and look the other way, which always made me chuckle.  Especially this video.  Watch till the end.

And after I collected what felt like enough footage, it was time for my favorite part.  The editing.  Although this was a documentary, the editing still felt natural to me, which was good, however editing for as long as I did was rough, but I persevere!  The picture below shows the timeline for Jonah, which was longer than anything I've made in the past, but I still managed to get it done in just a couple of days!

But after the editing, I turned it in, showed it to my parents, and they loved it!