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HALF WAY
INTERVIEW

2/12/17

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NOTE:

My footage of blog in this video may be different to the final one you're looking at right now as the screen captured back in 2017

CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

1. How do your products use or challenge conventions          and how do they represent social groups or issues?

In our short film "GratiFly", we went for a comedy drama approach to the film. In this we utilized 2 of the 3 conventions of a comedy films which are comic timing and pregnant pause. Comic timing essentially refers to uses of rhythm and tempo in order to enhance the humor of the scene; the comic timing in GratiFly is the scene that I personally refers to as the"Hallelujah Sequence". Without the music, the scene would make the protagonist dance to nothing which is humorous on it's own but the music is there to "enhance" the humor even more. As for pregnant pause, it is the scene which is one of my proudest shots as a cinematographer which is the scene where Richy was attempting to sit down on the toilet for the second time but get disrupts once again but this time the camera pans up with him to a close up. This only took us 2 attempts as the first time Richy could not resist laughing. The second attempt Richy successfully resisted not to laugh and we managed to pull of the pregnant pause.

In GratiFly, we have also borrowed and utilise conventions from various other films, some of which are also comedy drama.

"The Perfect Boy" in GratiFly wears black in the film to symbolise that he he is DOMINANT one; he is the point of attraction. Surrounded in mask people which represents the 'mainstream media'. "The Boy" however, represents the 'niche' trying to fit himself into the mainstream but gets rejected and the fly was sent off to disrupt him from sitting down. This scene is a strength of the film as it is full of meaning, however it can also act as a weakness of the film as this shot can be a little bit confusing for some people. Arguably, this shot is ambiguous and is likely to draw in attention to the active audience who may want to watch the film over and over in order to analyse the scene fully.

The Boy then runs off to the spot a niche group; he then attempts to once again 'fit in' but was disrupted but this time by the fact that instead of talking normally like the others, his voice turns into statics and and old mainstream advertisements sound. Out of embarrassment The Boy then get out of the situation to then encounter yet another problem.

As he's walking down being ashamed for what he did, The Boy had then been attacked by The Perfect Boy with THE DOMINANTER (Giant Sharpie pen) and through the use of cinematography and props on set we managed to make a POV shot where The Boy is getting black ink all over his face. This then transitioned to the next sequence where The Boy is washing off his face to just uncovered DOMINANT IDEOLOGY on the piece of tissue. This is then followed up with a mid long shot of what is supposed to be The Boy looking into a mirror only to notice that he had turned into the mainstream media. This was a huge strength in GratiFly as we were struggling to come up with how the SOCIAL SEQUENCE and the TOILET SEQUENCE could be linked together. Richy happened to wore black on the day(which he wasn't supposed to) and he told me to come up with an idea to deal with this problem. Therefore, whilst in Business Studies class when I was fiddling with my Sharpie pen I came up with this absurd idea of having Toy, The Perfect Boy write all over Richy, The Boy.

Instead of taking a conventional approach to our film website, we instead decided to make a fake governmental website which we used websites such as the DEA for reference. The aim of this website is to put the audience into perspective of the GratiFly's side. We even dedicated one section called the SURVEILLANCE to make it seems like the protagonist is being watched from various voyeuristic angles. This website immerse the audience more into the fictional world of this film however it may be confusing to those who haven't seen the film and maybe a conventional take on the film website may be better. 

Our film does not follow the Torodov's Narrative structure as our film does not have the stage of repair nor new equilibrium. However, as our film is a comedy "drama", we followed the convention of a drama of it ending with a cliffhanger. GratiFly ends with the Fly coming back then cutting to black.

As we are aiming our product for middle class teenagers, we tackled the social group according to the perspective of an outcast in a school which is the representation of a hegemonic structure which leads to the social issue of oppression. In order to show oppression as seamless as possible, we decided to show this through the use of cinematography.

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This scene uses the utilises the micro element of mis-en-scene through the forks we see the protagonist as if he is captured which supports the idea of oppression      

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END OF QUESTION  1

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

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In the short film (GratiFly), the color palette of the logo does not really come into play. When it comes in for the stage of marketing, the logo is easily the most important part. The light blue in contrast with the orange really makes the poster stands out. The main branding material of this film however is the GratiFly itself! Hand-drawn by Richy and animated by me it was simply an amazing idea to combine the aspect of non fiction with fictional computer generated sprite which gives our short film an even more unique brand than what it initially had.

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The dark red utilized in our website(MEPA) provokes a more serious side of what is the government agency representation in our film. Furthermore, both our poster(left) and the website(right) had a quote in order for an identity of the brand to be established. The poster is against the GratiFly, the website quote however is the total opposite and signifies that in the new age we're living in it's the "media" that most influences us.

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END OF QUESTION 2

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Other than this, there is also the RyuTecha Productions which I initially was going to use as a fade in at the beginning of the film but later removed with the glitchy font as it seems too out of place. This logo however can be seen throughout my blog as a method of copyrighting my own work.       

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In addition, all the paperwork the team and I ever did we all had our own versions. In order to retain the sense of the GratiFly brand, I've always colored them in as the light blue and orange that was utilized in the GratiFly logo.

3. How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?

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In our film GratiFly, we based the entire film on Blumler & Katz 'Uses & Gratification Theory'. Each SEQUENCE of our film represents one of the four Gratification. As for the 3V's that was shown throughout the film.

DIVERSION

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

PERSONAL IDENTITY

SURVELLANCE

In our website MEPA, it is a fictional government website in which it allows the audience to explore the antagonist side of the story. We have an entire section dedicated to Surveillance and Voyeuristic. This section showcases the protagonist in his daily life being spied upon. This was pulled off using the combination of my camera on burst, gifmaker and Adobe Premiere Pro. This adds a whole new dimension to our film website. It is really something we are pleased (especially the left one). One thing we could improve upon is a section where it is spying on someone else besides Richy as he is both the victim and the Head of Department and that may cause a little bit of confusion to the audience if it were to be distributed as an actual product.

In terms of distribution, we will mostly rely on digital distribution as the main mode of advertising but also create guerilla marketing as well.

We are also submitting our film to the AAYFF which is a film competition based in Asia and I will be submitting the film under the genre of Experimental as it can be confusing to people who does not study films.

Using synergy, in order to reach more of the mainstream audience we might decide to release a special packaging cleaner with GratiFly logo written on it. This way potential customer will be influenced without even knowing it. 

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There could also be drinks sold that are designed similar to the one in the poster in terms of colour.

END OF QUESTION 3

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NOTE: I created this video in order to answer both Question 4            AND Question 5 in one by editing everything together             with the help of Adobe Premiere Pro and Key Framing. 

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Where do I even store all my files!?

This external hard drive is really handy as it is portable therefore I am able to bring it anywhere with me and do work when ever I want to. The downside of this is that there were some day that I forgot to bring it and those day I really do felt unproductive as if I had nothing besides my blog to be working with even though the software are always available and ready for me. I also almost lost it once and that really made me think I should maybe buy another one for back up in the future. 

END OF QUESTION 4 & 5-ish

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As stated in the video, my production skills had developed massively and I had found that making videos is more than a hobby for me. It is essentially my source of motivation for attending an event, trying something new and many more. In the skills development section of my blog I have documented about EVERY SINGLE project that I had either experimented or had actually worked on that is published to either the school community, among friends or even publicly to the whole world to see and ENJOY! 

5. How did your production skills develop throughought        this project?

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Overall, working in this project had really been something much more than an exam to me. It was more of a friendship adventure with Richy and Toy; they probably think the same as well. We all have rough times together but we got through all of it in the end and we were proud of what we have produced. GratiFly... What a name!?

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Who would knew back then that from Toy's survival drama idea and my bullying drama film (both are heavy subjects on its own) would then take a  massive leap in the total different direction to a more light comedic approach which even incorporated elements of animation which we all agreed at the beginning that we weren't going to the use of animation but we instead did the total opposite in the form of the GratiFly in which it was actually an element in the film that brought the narrative together.

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I never thought to have done a project this massive this early in my life and this project had taught me countless and gave me priceless memories with my teachers and friends that I will never ever forget. NEVER! 

END OF QUESTION 5

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