CR Blog

 How do your products represent social groups or issues?

Our short film focuses on some of the troubles that highschoolers go through. In this case, the new girl, Macie, attends, once again, another new school. Being “the new kid” is already hard enough, but to make it even harder on Macie, Courtney makes her first couple of days at school even more difficult. Courtney gets jealous that her crush, Jacob, likes Macie more then her. This causes her to send out an embarrassing photo of Macie to the whole school, in hopes to get Jacob to lose interest in Macie. However, this makes Jacob see what kind of a person Courtney truly is. Courtney decides that she must apologize and make up for what she’s done to Macie. The short film captures some of the emotions that many teens and highschoolers often go through. Whether it be anxiety, jealousy, or embarrassment, my short film is able to capture all the feelings that the characters go through. This helps to represent how highschoolers are very emotional, and always care about what everyone else thinks, which can cause them to act out without them thinking of the consequences. These actions can often hurt many of the people that we care about. Our short film is able to show a lot of these issues that highschoolers go through and the outcome of acting out because of jealousy. 

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

There are a couple of elements that have a role in creating a sense of “branding.” Something that I like about our short film is that it focuses on an issue that a lot of people can relate to, especially kids around my age. I always find it interesting to watch a video or story that I expresses something that I have personally experienced or can relate to. By focusing on a topic that a lot of people can connect with, it can attract more people to watch. Another element is our website. Our website is able to highlight the main points of what our film is about. It includes pictures from the short film, information on it, and even reviews and awards that it has won. This is an effective way to get people more interested in watching the film. I made sure to have the color scheme of the website to be more bright and playful, and have the font be somewhat creative. I wanted the font to look similar to hand writing so it can relate to the topic revolving around school. Another element that shows branding is our postcard. This post card has images from our short film in it, information on it, cast an crew, and the release date. The style of our postcard is very girly, which I think helps to focus on the plot of our film. Both the post card and website has all the social media platforms that are short film uses. The social media platforms also posts about information of our film and images to get the viewers interested in watching the film. 

• How do your products engage with the audience?

The products engage with the audience because they both promote different aspects of our film. For example, on our Instagram page, we post different clips from our film that show a sneak peak of what happens in the story. In one of the pictures that we have posted, it shows a blurred-out picture on a phone that one of they characters in the film is holding. This picture can get the audience interested in watching her film because they will want to know what the picture was in what happened. The website that we created has many different components that tell the audience what our film is about. It has information on film places that it has been shown in awards that it has won, which will allow the audience to know that our film is worth watching. It also has reviews on our film included on the website, which tells the audience how great the film was and that everyone should watch it. By including all of this in the website, it gets the audience more excited to watch our short film. The postcard also has pictures from our short film in a brief explanation on the plot, which will help attract anyone that comes across it. As I said earlier, the main focus of our short film revolves around some of the personal experiences or emotions that many high schoolers go through. I feel that this will help our film attract more viewers and engage with the audience because the plot of our film is easy to connect to. The way that we are promoting our short film, whether it be through our website, postcard, or social media, it all shows sneak peeks of what the film is about without spoiling any major details, which will get the audience wanting to know what happens. 

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

When creating the idea for film, my group made sure that we followed the typical conventions that are usually found in films similar to the one that we created or revolve around the same issue. One way that we were able to show this was through the costumes in our short film. Before we started the filming process, we wanted to look at example of other films or movies that take place at a high school to get an idea of what how the characters in our film should look. I was playing the “mean girl” in the film, so I made sure that I dressed as a mean girl. In other films, most mean girls often wear pink outfits, whether it be a shirt, dress, skirt, etc. I decided that I wanted my costume to still be obvious to the audience that I was supposed to be the mean girl without it looking to cliché. I decided to wear a pink top with shorts. My group member was playing the new girl, so she made sure to dress in more of a shy, nerdy style. Another way we used conventions was through our postcard. Our post card is bright pink with playful fonts and shapes throughout. I feel like the boldness of our card is able to attract more attention, and also let the audience get an idea of the theme of our film. For example, since it is brighter and more playful colors, and lets the audience know that it would most likely not be a thriller or horror movie