Critical Reflection

                                                                Critical Reflection

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

1-    My products where based and researched behind the topic of horror specifically about two incidents, kidnapping and murder. Both of these topics are real world issues that affect multiple people worldwide and are a cause for many people to end up depressed or even kill themselves. Well within the world of film certain movies will have topics based upon real world events, as my short film represents two of the most known horrific incidents caused around the world. My products of my social media accounts/website and 5-minute film portray these actions with pictures and dialogue. A picture can be seen on my website of a man tied up with duct tape fearing for his life, not only was this the premise to my story of one man trapped within a house with no way to escape, but it just brings effect to the sad and scary idea that something like this can be done within the real world. As it goes for my short film, the end scene of dialogue includes the realization that the main character had killed his family in order to escape the monster, which in return did not happen. A target social group which correlates to my own short film are families and young men under thirty. A family was introduced in the end of my scene as a memory to express the concern that my main character was a murder, as well as my character also being a victim of kidnapping by some strange entity.

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

2-    Within the production of my film came multiple steps of branding our title including social media accounts, film website, and a postcard. These all contribute to spreading the message of our film in unison by targeting younger teens with certain aspects such as color, wording, and teasers. My film website included a brief description of our film including a photo of the main character and certain details of the location and date of release. These titles and pictures are spread out through the different platforms which are accessible to these young thrill-seeking teens. Social media accounts contribute a way of expressing our production to random people on the internet by targeting horror lovers with the #horror title. Posting (Behind the scene), or (Progress updates) on our social media accounts engage with our fellow audience giving insight to the upcoming film for them to experience. Specific details are what truly give way into a mass spread of viewers for a short film, within my film website were certain posts based on rating by higher professional reviewers, as well as production sight/location and YouTube release date. Twitter/ Instagram are also used frequently by younger teens which is a great platform to express my film. Each media platform contains one picture of the film whether it be of my main character or the monster to give insight of how they look, as well as brief summaries of what may be going on only including small yet interesting details to create a sense of branding.

How do your products engage with the audience?

 

3-    My product engages with the audience by introducing them to a horror based short film. The website for my film includes the title of the film being “Trapped”, as well as a man being tied up, these aspects alone signify that this film will be surrounding the theme of horror. As far as each social media account goes for, I have produced multiple pictures for each website to include details of our film whether it be character headshots of the main character and monster, or failed scene attempts within the movie. My main audience attraction would have to be the postcard, this post card was produced to be a symbol for my horror short film. The front page shows the monster standing over the frightened main character as the title overhead of them scream “Trapped” in a blood red color and decently scary font (Including a ghost icon). The way the audience may be continuing to engage is by subscribing to the social media accounts posted onto the website itself, my film website has a link to 4 social media accounts which have tweets posted every production day until release to engage the audience with sneak peaks of our upcoming short film. Color scheme was also a keen insight to the idea behind our horror based short film, all throughout the website and post card are certain pictures and text that either include the colors of black and red which are seen throughout multiple horror movies for many years.

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

4-    My form of research was based upon the horror genre. My specific products included pictures and reference from multiple types of horror movies produced in later years. The challenging of conventions began as research on movies specifically related to horror alone which are even more targeted on the idea behind murder and kidnapping. An old classical horror title was “Psycho”, and “Scream” both portraying murder and kidnapping of either a woman or young male. These bigger titles gave inspiration to develop a title and picture idea behind my own short film. The website included a picture of a man being tied up with duct tape as this picture came to my mind through reference of a man being tied up with rope inside of a dark room from a horror genre-based movie. My production of the postcard had a picture of a ghost type of monster with a frightened character at the age of a young teen/adult. This came from reference and information gathered by research pertaining to watching the film and studying the layout of the posters/characters. Now none of these pictures and titles where copied at any point in time, however the similarities all fall down the same title of murder and monster. The difference being the design, name, and color scheme between the short film and olden time movie. Finally came the character models and their own use of conventions of the horror genre, my main character being a young male and my second a monster/ghost.