Creative Critical Reflection
How do your products represent social groups or issues?
My movie is about a teenage girl who lives in a Christian household that struggles with living a holy life and enjoying high school activities. In the movie, the main character, Brooke, who plays Abby, is struggling to make a decision on the life she wants to live and the life she is supposed to live. Since quarantine started, teenagers have been able to reflect more on their plans for the future. This allowed many to reconsider their religious path and regain faith. In the movie you see Abby finally choose her religion over her friends in the end. I believe my movie portrays the youth of America struggling with balancing their spiritual and mental identity. The youth of today face many challenges with the current climax of society today. My product represents Christian families and the challenges of raising their children in the way that they should go and the way the child feels they should be raised. With society providing a template of “true” happiness, it's hard for teenagers to abide by the rules of their own household. This movie represents those parents that are religious and only wants the best for their children's upbringing. In the movie you see the mom, Sara, who is played by Barbara, trying to parent her daughter in a Christian way which also brings on the stresses of wanting her daughter to enjoy her life but also live a modest religious life. My movie represents a real-life situation that I, myself am also going through, trying to find myself in the world and in Christ. I wanted to use this platform to broadcast a real-life decision that is very important to some people all over the world.
How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of branding?
Starting with the title of the movie, I wanted to keep it practical but also unexpectable. I kept the font professional because titles let the audience know what type of movie it will be – like a comedy, horror or even romance. The font throughout the movie is consistent which helps to prevent confusion of the essential theme of the movie. Since the desired audience of the film was teenagers, I thought that I should connect with the audience on their most used outlets like social media. Because social media is used so frequently by young people it would only be smart to advertise the movie through social media. We used Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to promote our movie and gain an audience to watch our movie. The profile pictures of the social media pages are all the same to ensure that the audience knows it's all for the same movie. All of the profile pictures are all just the title of the movie in black and white with a common font. My brand would be plain and simple but also questionable because the audience doesn’t get what the movie is going to be about from the title alone. I also made a postcard listing where the movie would be played and all of the components that add to the making of the movie like the social media account names and the website link. Even though the social media accounts seem a bit plain, the postcard is anything but. I made sure to edit the picture so that the audience can observe the intensity of the decision and to enhance the dramatic effect.
How do your products engage with the audience?
The audience will receive this movie through the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival from January 12th-14th at 7:00pm. I thought since it would already be so many people there, it would reach a bigger audience. Because the storyline is surrounded by such a serious and controversial topic that alone brings people to want to sit to watch till the end of the movie. Because the audience will vary at the festival, I wanted the movie to be able to relate to every person present. With the title of the movie, I wanted the audience to get a clue of what the movie is about. I wanted the audience to start formulating ideas about the movie to draw them in to want to watch the movie. I also wanted my movie to be one of those movies you must watch in order to know the storyline because I know for myself, I always guess the movies storyline off the titles alone. In the movie I made sure to add music throughout the whole movie that would help to add to the storyline. Closer to the ending of the movie, I used cross-cutting of the main character in the car and her supporting actress, her mom, in the house. I did this to add suspense for the viewer because you didn’t know if she was going to make it in or not. The movie draws the audience in and puts them to the edge of their seat because they don’t know what's going to happen next.
How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
The genre of my short film is drama. Some of the research that I have done stated that drama films exemplify realistic situations with realistic characters, storylines and setting. Before filming, I made sure to set the scene with everyday props in the scene. I didn’t want the scene to look empty, I wanted it to look like someone lives there. My characters were also normal people, they didn’t have any costumes, makeup, or gimmicks because I wanted the storyline to be realistic and practical. In preparation of making the film I made sure to research other drama genre films to see some of the elements included making it the film it is. I noticed that the use of music is the most important element for a drama film because it sets the mood for each specific scene. Using music or ambient sound adds to the theme of the movie because it creates a tone to follow throughout the scene. I also found in my research that camera angles and shots is also another key component of drama genre films. In my short film I used a high angle on the scene where the main character was asking her mom if she was able to go out. I chose that angle to show that she was hiding something and wasn’t telling her mom the whole truth. Before starting to make the film I blogged about the research that I found about the common conventions in the drama genre and I found some of the common editing techniques, common camera angles, and common sounds used to make an affective drama film, like close ups, long shots, high angles, over the shoulder shots, medium shots, extreme close ups, diegetic sound, sound bridge, sound motif, dialogue, cross cutting, cutaways, inserts, shot reverse shots, eyeline match, jump cuts, and reaction shots. With this information I made sure to pay close attention to the shots I used along with the editing techniques so that it all can work together to enhance the quality of the movie.
