Critical Reflection Blog

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

The main issue we discuss throughout our film is Alcoholism. This is a huge problem not only in America but around the world. This film shows many of the struggles and problems that come along with alcoholism. Families are torn apart because of it, relationships are destroyed, and people can get really hurt. According to the 2019 NSDUH, 14.1 million adults ages 18 and older, 5.6 percent of this age group, had alcohol use disorder. This number should never even have the chance to get this big, and this is including underage drinkers as well. We discuss another issue in our film that is too common in our society, abuse. Physical and verbal abuse rates in the US are disturbingly high. Our film brings light to these problems that almost seem to be ignored in society today. No one pays enough attention to the issues happening, and most of them are happening right under their noses. Having a film that is seen by a large number of people is the perfect way to inform others on this problem. Some might not know about this at all and or film could make them want to look into this problem even more. The male gender is represented in this film as well. With the male role being abused our film throughs a curve ball that most wouldn’t expect. This is another element being brought to light, that men can be abused just as badly as woman can.

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

The elements in our product that create a sense of branding can be seen all over. From websites to social media, our product is seen in multiple different places. Our website has multiple different uses to it, it stores all of the information you might need when thinking about this film. This is a public website that can be accessed by anyone. People would find out about our website because of the postcard that we distributed before. The post card could not only be found from mail, but also from putting it in stores. Including our social media, background information and more. We would have to pay these stores to put our postcard in them but that wouldn’t be much of a problem at all. Our post card contains a lot of key information. Firstly, it has our website on it, it also has all the social media platforms on it as well. The social media platforms themselves are a form of branding. With social media being as big as it is, you could even say most people would find us through social media. Our pages would show up on their feed and might interest them of the new and upcoming movie. After they’re interested, they may go even deeper into our film and learn more about it. That is a big benefit for branding our film, everything is connected.  

How do your products engage with the audience?

Our short film may engage with the audience in a number of ways. As you may know domestic abuse is a huge problem in the US today and a lot of people are going through these troubles probably as we speak. This film may actually help out some that may be in the same situation. The film is bringing a lot of attention to the topic, it is the main topic throughout the entire film. Our project is a perfect example of how a situation can always turn worse. With things falling apart for our characters, people can get another perspective. Watchers can use this as reference and even feel more comfortable about speaking out about this problem. When one speaks out, they may inspire others to do the same. This could lead to a title wave of people coming out about this and improve so many lives. Our use of camera angles and shots also engages with the audience. My personal favorite, the over the shoulder shot, is a perfect example of engaging with the audience. Shots like these are used to put the watcher into the movie. Putting the watcher into the characters shoes like this adds stronger effects. When feeling like you’re in the movie itself, the emotions of it come to you much easier. Felling these emotions and being in the movie like this connects you with the character and interests you in the plot even more.

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

With research conduced mostly on common elements in our genre, we have learned many new ways to make this film better. An example is how we film it, the camera angles, the shots, lighting and more. We have even learned some acting tips from watching some drama movies. This has all been put toward the creation of our film and to make it better. Due to our short film being about an abusive relationship, the acting will have to be very emotional and realistic which falls under drama.  We have started planning out how we are going to go through with the filming. There are a number of camera angles and movements that can be used for this genre that can help make our film more intriguing to the audience.  We can use pan movement as Sonali is yelling and hitting me to help show the setting as a whole. Another example is, we can use high and low angles to show the gender power struggle in the short film. On another topic, drama films don't include many costumes, props, or makeup which makes it easier for my partner and me. This allows us to focus more on camera techniques and acting. We will still use props as necessary but nothing too crazy will be needed.  Out of the other two genres we researched, we knew that thriller and action didn’t completely portray our short film. In action films, there is fighting involved, but our film won’t actually have fighting scenes considering the fact that only one character will be hitting the other.  Thriller films are darker and more suspenseful.  Our short film wouldn’t be considered a thriller since we won’t have any suspenseful scenes.  This then brought us to choose the drama genre. Now that we chose our genre, we will now make sure to include techniques and elements that are in typical drama films.  We will plan out our storyboard and make sure it portrays our vision.  As we create our storyboard, we might run into new ideas which might alter our vision, but we will make adjustments that are necessary as we go.