My film is about gentrification, specifically how it affects San Francisco and New York City residents. It is visually told through footage of the Mission murals and San Francisco neighborhoods. Currently running as 2 minutes and 9 seconds, the film is pretty short and follows a more poetic documentary style. One of the films I watched in preparation was called “Exit Through the Giftshop” about street art and how fake the art world can be. I watched this because it was recommended to me by one of the people who helped me out with this project, but it turned out to be really helpful in seeing how to film artwork well and how to incorporate those shots into a larger story. I ended up using some footage from YouTube as well as some voices from interviews online.

I think one of the challenges with making a documentary is that you kind of have to be prepared for anything. There’s not really a lot of preproduction to it so you end up shaping your film after the footage you get. I didn’t expect my film to get this deep, but after going through all the content that I had, it just became how it became. And I guess that’s what I like most about it; it is genuine and is shaped around something that’s very real and close to me.