https://docs.google.com/document/d/19AklqN1VTVE_XIY1LQng3lRdgyAO4flk0xsPF2JlVHE/edit?usp=sharing
How do your products represent social groups or issues?
My short film has an overall goal to display what betrayal looks like. The issue at hand was double disloyalty with attempts for personal gain. Everyone in their life, no matter what age, has experienced distrust. This can come from friends, partners, family, and even in relationships intended as a promise to each other. I knew that my content would evoke an emotional feeling to which an individual could relate to. I demonstrated this through two ways. One way was stealing from a close friend. The second way was manipulating your partner in order to have the item for one’s personal gain.I found this task challenging as I struggled with casting throughout this whole process. Let alone finding the perfect setting that aligned with the script. I had so many cancellations from close peers who agreed, leading me to go back to my roots. My family came together on a flexible schedule just to get this right for me. They found others who will fit a certain social group, to have a wide spectrum of differences to make my film more interesting. You could easily tell that this friend group I created, as part of the script, is diverse. So to have this come together truly enlightened a light in my heart. Furthermore, my product goes to expand what the audience themselves would do. Would they split the money with the intended partner as part of the plan? Or would they agree with the antagonist to collect the profits for themselves? It all tied down to a moral standpoint. Half and half or 50/50 would be the intended target as this film can be perceived through many different points of views and how other individuals would respond. Therefore, I perfectly executed my social issue as a director.
How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘Branding’?
The production was so strategic in a way that you could tell it was filmed and edited by me. For example, everything that I filmed had a certain color grading, which was either natural or edited in all had a pattern. The scenes contained a dimmed lighting mimicking the original park setting to follow a lead throughout the entire film. Also,I included the elements of mystery, such as the different suspenseful sound effects, the subtle movements of main characters, and even certain angles were purposely placed to have that fulfillment of what the audience would have expected to fit the genre.To me, this was the symbolism featured in the film. Later on in the scene, I had my cast, which resulted in being my brother last minute, include an inner voice-over to give that internal tone of the antagonist. But I questioned what was missing. After the first day of production, I decided to give my vulnerable character a sense of character development towards the ending scenes. She needed to leave a mark on the audience to reunite with my brand.
To add on, the scratched out fonts colored a deep red was chosen to give the audience a quick glimpse of what they could expect from this short film. Originally, I had the font bleeding out the letters, but from multiple viewings, I figured that it would be misleading into perceiving that suspicion would murder, which is completely off script. This led me to change the entire title, and having to thoroughly explore different editing softwares to get that perfect touch. It was then that I discovered regular patterned out fonts are best to follow up on my brand. All together, the elements followed proficiently.
• How do your products engage with the audience?
As a director I wanted audience participation. To do this, I implemented multiple scenes of my cast members making direct eye contact and using suspenseful methods. This ranged from sound effects, music, and even hand picked editing to familiarize the audience with my product. Even the setting seemed quite odd to viewers during the premiere as they described perfectly the task of the genre being mystery. It is just the emotional appeal that interested my audience to pay attention to every detail of my film. The prop that all characters searched for was a simple laptop with digital money. However, the laptop was the symbol of the film. It is what separates the pair from a once collaborative idea of doing together, to rapidly jumping to a solo action. Considering that many have related to this exact social issue at hand, my product reached a certain memory in their minds that caused them to react to every movement by the antagonist.
I went as far as including a small cliffhanger at the end. To clarify, there was a beginning, middle and end. I just wanted the audience to ask for more, which they did at the premiere. It had my viewers debating on what they would do in the antagonist and the vulnerable character shoes. The idea of the pair working together lingered to some but this is what I had planned out. The real problem was the theft overall. That spiked my social media interactions to the max, as I had fifty people questioning the overall ethics of the left out person in the theft plan. Some had sympathy, the majority argued that he was just as guilty.
So far after a week of promotion, I received six hundred viewings and engagement with the audience commenting for next films under my product. It can be agreed that this is great audience engagement.
How did your research inform your products and the way they use or
challenge conventions?
During my completed research, I found that most audiences prefer to have an antagonist lead in mystery genres. This is what led to the changing of my script and a new directional lead. It appears at first that there were two antagonists but they would take away from my genre making it appear more of a collaboration plan. This is why I had my main character take more of a selfish approach to think of himself in the plan. I discovered that the setting, background effects, and props alone is what would build my short film to fit my genre. I ran into the challenge of what I expected to be included as a convention. The team conversations were all a waste, as I had to think on the spot of what to alternate to make the film work. Three months of planning quickly shortened as time was ticking to get the plan into motion.
From multiple sources and other directional leads, I had the understanding that audiences prefer shocks and twists. This was hard to meet as my casts had trouble presenting an assertive tone that would not make it easy to guess future scenes. My findings further concluded that the heist would be expected to have loud alarms and extreme action to display the main character leaving the scene. With the resources I was provided, I deviated from that perceived expectation and went further beyond that convention. Instead, I had the alarm low and made the heist as broad in daylight. There, the vulnerable character’s judgement is immediately displayed, making the audience more aware of the whole motive from the main character comprehensively.
