CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION-CCR

CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION-CCR

Q1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

The story I have portrayed in my film is based on child labor abuse. Child labor abuse is very common these days. Due to pressure of household owners and verbally abusing them the child is very weak to standup for his/her own rights as being afraid of the fact that they might lose their job for which they are making themselves a living. 

The conventions in the film represent a picture which intend to show the plot device and story background to the audience. The point of view shots that emphasize about the girl which directs us to be put in her shoes and see how it feels. It later on shows the impact and reaction of her master towards the burnt toast including on how the plot changes from the girls point of view then to the masters. It also changes on how the audience would feel disheartened seeing the girls story at the start. But later on when she intends to change her facial expressions in the last, it causes and interprets the audience to react to be against her while being with her from start. 

The last scene grabs attention of the audience creating a thrilling impact about what the girl would exactly do with the knife as she holds on to it with anger and frustration. The kind of people they work with are aggressive and tend to abuse the child in certain ways by scolding them, verbally abusing or just by violating them which is not a good thing as it can lead to causing negative impacts in the child's brain. I have also created a suspense in the end of the opening scene of my film, so that it leads to the audience to be attracted and grabs the attention to know what's happening in the next scene. These kind of social issues are really important to be portrayed so that it can lead to a positive impact not only around us, but to the person around us who is actually going through child abuse whose facing difficulties in his life and probably leads him to suicide or something because of these issues, so it is really necessary to portray these kind of social issues in our daily lives.   

Q2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

The film that I made basically engages with audience in a certain way that they would prevent to stop abusing as even old people get abused. Child abuse is very common, child labor abuse is also very common, but the target audience are mostly labors and household owners, as well as young teenagers, who tend to watch child abuse films or any other sort of social issue films. These kind of social issues are very important to be raised as people have different perspectives to lives on these issues. It also involves people being extremely relatable to this issues, which gives them a deeper thought about how to react to these kind of situations 

I would be distributing this through the  production company 20th Century as it is involved in making films based on social issues which would increase the hype and target a specific audience to come alone and watch the film. The films are similar to 'An Inconvenient Truth' and 'I Am Not Your Nergo' which are based on social issues. This would be portrayed through different streaming line on social media.

Q3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

The entire film was a challenge as being a media student and a beginner it was not easy for me to make a two-min film, it was very difficult to build up the story, but when the story was built up but there were reshoots and retakes that had to be done, but after producing the film five times the final film actually gave a good comeback because I learnt about different camera angles and media studies and  the way films are made as it requires a lot of hard work and a lot has to be done before producing a film the scenes, the location every camera angle, etc. In this entire production process I have learnt about how to edit it, the camera sounds, background music, each scene, shots, etc. I have even learnt a lot from my classmates and from my sir, so Media studies has been going quite well for me and I didn't regret too take it at all and am looking forward to it in the future as well.

The entire film production process had brought up confidence in me, which made me independent into taking decisions myself. As a leader I was responsible for every drawback that was caused in the film, and take certain reliable issues to resolve them. It was also my job to help others in their project and expect the same from them as well. Being the filmmaker, producer, director, editor was not so easy as I was the leader and was responsible for assigning the actors their roles and how to perform. There were many ups and downs that I had to go through but in the end I was confident enough into resolving them without any hesitation.

It also made me to be creative before coming up with an idea. It is efficient for filmmakers to put in creativity as it is very necessary in order to get the final film made with innovation and creation. Whatever role I played whether it be a director or producer I made sure to add originality and my own imaginations to expect a perfect result. My imagination and creativity increased throughout as I put a lot of creativity in the film as well as in the editing techniques involved. Talking about creativity it is not only essential to put creativity in the role we are specialized, but sometimes we may confront weak creative people, and it is necessary for us to put our creative skills in other roles as well in order to produce the film as a whole.

Perhaps the entire process was not as successful as I expected. I happened to try out different angles from different perspectives and made the whole process plan from the start to the end. There were many ups and downs many reshoots and retakes because it was the first time shooting a film and a lot had to be diverted for it. It did not go beyond my expectations as I had imagined it to be more successful but however it did reach some what of my abilities. I must say after so much of hardwork, now the film I made is a whole lot of different cuts making it descriptive, so it was a bit successful but not as much as I expected it to be.

Q4. How did you integrate technologies-software, hardware and online-in this project?

Before producing the film I used equipment's, such as tripod stand and selfie stick for using shots such as off-the shoulder shot, over-the shoulder shot and tripod stand for stable shots, but later when I made the final film I used my hand to do the entire close up shots because my entire film was based on close-ups. I used my phone Tecno Spark 5 pro, for shooting the film. For editing software's I went through Filmora, but since I am a beginner it was not easy for me to use Filmora as I had to go through each and every detail and features of Filmora, but however I used Capcut which is not an editing software but is an application. I went through different music backgrounds, sound effects and also created my own sound effects for the film which made it seem very realistic and made it very suitable for the film. Furthermore, I used blogger.com to create my blog, which was very fantastic. 

To end, the entire journey was amazing, challenging and it was hard too, but I have learnt a lot as the modern times have arrived Media studies is actually a really pleasant subject and should be taken and experienced by others too.

MY FILM ANALYSIS

I intended to pursue different angles and shots in my film to make it seem more informative and grab audience's attention.

The starting of the scene focuses on the girl, and for that I have used a Close-up shot so that her expressions are shown clearly. The next shot is changed by her side posture of face being shown, and expressions being focused on.

She tends to pick up the picture and a closeup shot of her hand and then her hand slowly moving from the table towards her laps. Later on, an Over-the-shoulder shot is used, where she visualizes the picture and later a front shot in medium height is used and she sleeps.

Just like this later on there are camera movements used starting from the bottom, in the mirror scene and focuses on her preparing herself as before that a knock on the door is made. The sound of the door is used as J-Cut transition where the sound starts from the part where she's sleeping.

My entire film mostly suppresses Close up shots so it can bring a wider range of details in the film.

The last part where she holds the knife involves Extreme Close-up and her face expressions are shown in the end that focuses on her eyes directed towards her master, with some dramatic music background that I used, that would lead the audience to be keen about what's about to happen next.

My most favorite shot was the shot where I had to focus on her hand while she was holding the knife as she was also putting the bread on the plate and the camera sort of stayed still while she held the knife.

The most challenging shot while shooting was the over-the-shoulder shot as it was intense and hard to shoot with the beds wood on the side, there was no space for my hand to hold the phone.

DIRECTORS COMMENTARY

Taking Media Studies was one of a worth in a while. It was quite difficult on deciding what film to make and what should the story be. But my inspiration named Dhar Mann whose videos are very inspirational, helped me choose what I should make my film on.

I decided to make a film based on a gold digger wife, who doesn't appreciate her husband for anything he does, but just keeps demanding him for luxurious things. I shot the scenes at my house but as a beginner the shots were not up to point so I had to reshoot. But because of the actors difficulty reshooting wasn't possible, so I decided to build up a story by getting the shoot done at my own comfort of my house with my younger sister playing the role. As time was short, I decided to shoot on a Child Abuse Film, but after shooting the shots, the final video was not so accurate, it turned out to be an inspirational video, so I obviously had to change the setting of the story and reshoot again.

The third film I made was at a friend's home, but because of the lighting and the shots the video did not make sense, but I used the same story and reshoot at my house, I discussed everything with my sir and the advice he gave was to shoot even dark scenes in a brighter light, so I could reduce the exposure, to make it look more realistic and things wouldn't fade away. I did this entire shoot at my house again but due to lighting glitch, continuous shots and hand movements the film didn't turn out to be as better as it should have been. So I had put a lot of hard work in just making a 2 min film and reshooting 4 times.

There was a lot of aggression and less motivation but even though I was told to take exemption, I did not want to, but there was some motivation or something that kept pushing me to make the film. It obviously frustrated me to reshoot not once not twice but 4 times, but I kept doing it till the end. 

I sat with my sir and discussed with him about the film and then I discussed with him all the shots all the scenes and he gave me an advice, that was that the more the shots the better the film so I used this advice and got everything down , I did the story boarding and I told my sister about how to perform every scene. I started shooting and I started shooting smoothly I did cuts after every shot, it took me at least three hours to shoot it and then I used Capcut to edit the entire video in a sequence, which turned out pretty good. It took me at least 2hrs to edit and finalize the entire video. Before sleeping I prayed and prayed that the next day it would hopefully get accepted, now I do wonder why it got rejected 4 times, maybe God wanted me to do something better and each time I had learnt something new. My film had got accepted finally and it was the best moment of my life I couldn't thank God and my sir who guided me and helped to hopefully get a good grade.

This film is based on major events that take place in countries especially like Pakistan and India. It involves a child labor who is working at a luxurious family's house, she misses her family and wants to go back to them, but during those thoughts she sleeps. She lives in a very aggressive household owner, which is shown as she by mistakenly burns the toast and gets scolded harshly, which is why she holds the knife and the film is ended in a cliffhanger to increase and grab the audience's attention to know the suspense part.

It actually makes sense now that why do films take at least one year or more to shoot an entire film. As a director, producer, camera person, and editor it was actually hard to keep reshooting as it was just me and my younger sister. I had watched different videos which included different camera angles and different shots in different ways, so that's why every small shot in my film made it seem detailed.

I tended to improve my wrongs and help my classmates as well, in improving what they are weak at. I may not be perfect but I intended to be a helping hand towards others.

I had learnt a lot about shooting as it actually takes a lot of hard work in brainstorming the film, every shot, every scene, the location of the scene, but for us beginners even a 2min short film was harder than it seemed.

But my motivational quote that would motivate others too is:

"There are no shortcuts, work hard, be patient, consistent, and never give up".

Too end it all, it was fun shooting and being part of bloopers and behind the scenes as well, which made the subject more interesting, now it would be eligible to say Media Studies journey isn't going bad and I'm not regretting to take it, but as modern times arrive on its way, Media Studies is worth the hype, you should try it too.

Until next time!!!