reflection

Hello!!! I am back! Two days ago, I filmed some cool stuff with my friend who is playing Blake, but I will touch on that more in my next blog post. Today, I am going to talk about my critical reflection. Here is what I know about the critical reflection essay:

-It is an evaluative essay

-It should be around 1000 words

-It should answer 4 key questions:

1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?
2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
3. How do your products engage with the audience?
4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

-It doesn't have to be in the order of the questions

This being said, I already have an idea of the things I would talk about in each of the questions so I am going to write bullet points for each question covering what I would like to discuss

How do your products represent social groups or issues?
-My products represent young adults and teenagers

-Touches on the process of maturity and growing up

-Discusses idea of big changes in life

-Touches the idea of perception vs. reality

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

-The idea of the vlog that is being filmed throughout the film is something that I used to market the film in my social media

-I use cooler tones and filters throughout my trailers and posts on Instagram to create a nostalgic feeling and tie back to the idea of growing up

-Wake up being the name of the film and utilized throughout the marketing (countdown, vlogs)

How do your products engage with the audience?

-Everyone experiences the feeling of leaving childhood behind, and the themes in this movie are very relatable to all audiences

-The target audience is young adults. By having the movie surround young adults, this makes it more engaging

-Marketing utilizes short vlog clips serving as a teaser for the film, which is something that engages young audiences as vlogs are a popular form of storytelling

-Countdown on Instagram (wake up in 5, 4...) is engaging and intriguing for the audience because it seems like marketing is speaking directly to them

-The second trailer utilizes text like "We all just want to feel secure", " We all grow up eventually", and "Will you embrace it or fight it?" to speak directly to the audience and have them feel personally connected to the product

How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

-Research on genre and its conventions helped me shape my film and characters

-Research on marketing (mix of fictional and promotional), coming of age films

-Research on movie posters and what they look like for coming-of-age films, theatrical release vs. streaming

-I wanted my products to use conventions of other coming-of-age films and this research allowed me to do so

-Conventions I followed (taken from my initial research on coming-of-age films): Emphasizes the internal thoughts of the characters as opposed to just focusing on external action, centered around teenagers, centered around major life changes and milestones, includes dramatic elements and often inject elements such as comedy and music, highlights the awkwardness and uncertainty of youth, is a slice of life narratives and highly personal story. As for other conventions that I picked up, some coming-of-age trailers use text to directly speak to the audience, most movie posters feature the protagonists and main characters as the films center around them, and most coming-of-age trailers are romanticized and dreamlike (not realistic) 

I just made a google document called "Critical Reflection" and I put these four questions and the planning I did for them. Here is a picture:

I think I did a good amount of planning, and I have a good idea of what I want to say in my reflection. I will continue to work on my reflection as I get further into my production and post-production process. See you soon!