Creative Critical Reflection

4 questions to reflect

Post post-production (meaning after we finished our opening sequence and screening), we set on to reflect and film our reflection as a group and as invidual to underpin the 4 compulsory question:

• Question 1: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
• Question 2: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
• For this question, I would seperate audience engagement with distribution, as I would go in depth about distribution in another format (as well as linking distribution with the last question of technology)
• Question 3: How did your production skills develop throughout this  project?
• Question 4: How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

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Introduction, question 1 and 2:

        For this question, I focus on the conventions of suspense movies and environment we build with our audience by following/challenge said conventions. I was surprised at the detailed and effort put into responding our survey form by some audience, which I also reflected a bit on these questions. 

    (also wait a bit in the opening as the video is glitching :) I'm not frozen)

            Another detail I want to clarify is regarding our presentation matter of the femme fatale - the reclamation and parodize on a trope that is rampant in media texts since the 1940s to 1950s due to the cultural zeigeist. The Take (a Youtube based creator) talks at length about the presentation of traditional femme fatale in various context. 

•  However, as we repurpose the appeal of the femme fatale into our opening sequence, we don't inherently using the trope in the male gaze (van Zoonen theory). The characters in our sequence are female-presenting, and thus there is no without relation or connection with the tradtional power play between the femme fatale and any men. We play into the stereotype by enhacing the sense of high authority and danger, as a way for the antagonist to reclaim her power and appeal. The moral ambuiguity of her action (the opening sequence doesn't suggest her action is wrong) is another way to deconstruct this trope.

• The antagonist is like a character with depth and autonomy, while carrying the appearance of this infamous trope - this is a way that we could borrow the aesthetic of the archetype without the cultural connotation of her. I believe the direct opposite take on a trope (for instance a " working woman" or "girlboss" instead of the "femme fatale") may not be the only way to deconstruct stereotype, because it enhances the rigid binary of one another. Building character with ambuiguity and purpose is a way to counter stereotype. 

         Therefore, although it seems like we using the femme fatale to reinforce stereotype of a "fatal woman", we actually appeal and "tease" onto it, and using that as an "shell" to construct a character, whether our intention and sincerity is not clear is like a post ironic take. 

Question 3 and 4:

        On a more personal note, question 3 and 4 I'm focusing on which skills I've achieved, and the following tools I used to obtain such skills. Another note of attention is that, I've learned all the production skills by helping my friends, learning from their experience, using them in practice myself and asking for feedback from our teacher. I could not have developed much without my groupmates. 

            Another point I want to expand is more on the managerial skill in the production. I took up the role of the Producer naturally because I'm coded to be an organizing and melticulous person in my group (here). As a result, it does give me various practical lessons within a production and applicable to other subjects and real life aspects, such as:

• Having an organizing platform - As I briefly mention in the video, our main resources navigation tool is Google Drive. We ultilize Google Drive a lot to share edits across all platforms, as well as record keeping for building our foundation portfolio, updating and measure progress in all written form. This is crucial to keep evidence of our production, as well as being a referencial point for future projects. It also cut time for members to communicate
• I would not suggest any organizing documents in general, as I think the importance of each is dependent on the nature of the project and the already progress of each team (mine has a general road map, detailed masterplan, checklist of each filming day, a shot list, a sound list)

• Having a roadmap and schedule- In production, there is a lot of compensation that we have to make, and thus having a clear outcome could help with making decisions. For instance, we have a general deadline while 2 of the last scenes to reshoot, and having 3 more footages that we want to film more. However, the final decision would just be reshoot 2 scenes and include 1 more footage, as we have to sacrifice time. 
• A clear outcome would prevent further conflicts, as we would all have to compensate our artistic choice with limited resources. 
• This also helps with team dynamics, and getting all members in the same mindset and goal orientation. Gather crew members, gears and mise en scene props are complicated.
• Establish communication line -  This is essential for group work. We did not run any apparent communication issue, as each member is highly responsible and agile in their own way. Thus, own communication line would just be a group chat on Instagram, and attach links to Google Drive for updates on resources.

            This project in particular, taught me a lot as as a producer as we have to manage a large amount of tasks and resources, as well as environmental factors.

Question 2.2:

           I took the distribution task seriously, as I thought it's the one thing to tie our production together, and place much attention on our end result. With this question I've demonstrated some ways I would distribute my product:

           

           Moreover, I want to display how our team play up our promotional campaign for the largest publicity. I would hope our opening sequence got more youtube views as well (at on 22/4, the vew count is 369 views)

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And that has been my reflection on this foundation portfolio