Critical Creative Reflection? Heck NO, I Didn't Forget About It!

Disclaimer: Just to be clear, this is not my official Critical Creative Reflection. I'm just answering the questions in detail and length so I can create the script to my CCR.

1. How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they 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 and how would they be distributed as real media products?
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

1. Really all my products (film, website, and postcard) embrace all of the conventions set in place before me. Products such as the website and the postcard were based off contemporary examples I found when researching how to brand a short film. Both the postcard and website don't really follow any specific convention set down for genre. The only example I could fathom would be the minimalist and white theme used as a motif through all products, this minimalism reflects on the portrayal of short films and the science fiction films. As for the actual short film, I specifically did want to represent social groups and social issues being how the sub-genre of social fiction is large on social commentary.
          Since the setting is within an American future that will take place during our lifetimes, I was targeting my social commentary towards the current society. My commentary is to represent the way how today's living generations are obsessed with the way they are perceived and with the newest technology. Combine those two and you have the implant talked about during the short film. Starting as a trend to level out emotions to make oneself more balanced and likable then became enforced seeing as how it made the population controllable and stable. My other commentary represents the youth generation of today who are constantly rebelling and are heavily involved with social drugs. Nous is supposed to represent a mass of drugs used today by the youth in order to "escape" the society they are trapped within.

2. As mentioned beforehand, one constant motif is the white and minimalistic feel. As is the gradient white background used for the title and other parts of the short film. All products are connected with this specific motif as well as defined by the promotional images of the main actor.

3. As I view it, the products I've produced relate with audiences as a way of engagement. Especially for my target audience, they could possibly represent with wishing to either control their emotions with  a device or to erase them all together. Or even those who've been pressured into taking a social drug. However, the ability to be able to learn about those who participated in making the film on the website and being able to go to film festivals and watch the film in a social setting as apposed to alone on a small screen creates an engaging sense of community. Also the idea of giving instant feedback at both festivals and online once again creates a closer sense of engagement.

4. I filmed everything, besides one or two shots, on a Canon PowerShot SX530 which I loaned from my older cousin. The other few shots I took on my phone, a Samsung Galaxy S6. The editing system I used was Filmora, which I have used before during the year. I purchased it at the beginning of the year specifically for this class. I obviously used the internet to facilitate my research, but also used it to find a free photo editor. I used Pixlr, an online and free photo editor to edit a my postcard slightly. Other than that, everything was really done on Filmora. I primarily used the green screen option to create the transparent shots and the PIP (picture in picture) for those as well.