CR Reflection

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSZa0b5K7kswghd0fBKhwHg-y1-cR2M91F3fwUsNt8vNkLD3_gghCkcZ61k4QKRyNDZR0flLvePETNe/pub

How do your products represent social groups or issues? 

   My short film ‘Outage’ explores mental health issues slightly. It is expressed slightly from the pov of the unseen antagonist. The mental issue the antagonist faces is sociopathy, it is portrayed through the techniques I used such as lighting, dialogue and the story overall. The antagonist is a sociopathic teacher who terrorizes the protagonist, Harper, who is also his student. Rather than directly showing the antagonist on screen who goes by Mr. Carter, the short film builds suspense by gradually upping the intensity and leaving Harper and the audience in a fearful state and becomes paranoid at everything. 

   Mr. Carters action displays sociopathy by rearranging the protagonist’s room, stealing items from out the room, leaving smudges on the mirror, leaving an unsettling note than ultimately reveals that he kidnapped her mother, creates a physhological experience that reflects sciopathy vs psychopathy. His actions are personal and suggest an obsessive, calculated person, rather than mindless violence and aggression. This highlights the sociopath vs psychopath discussion, since it is easily confused and misinterpreted by regular everyday people.

    The representation is handled through his carefully planned, emotionless manipulation rather than the common stereotype of violence and anger. Although his character isn’t visibly there, his presence is always there, which is why the mirror scene with his fingerprints is so important. His ‘presence’ makes Harper start to question things such as her safety and her mothers disappearance. Ultimately, the short film focuses on the aftermath of his actions rather than showing the actions directly, this approach allows the audience to experience Harpers distress and vulnerability. The film highlights her powerlessness and intrustion from somebody who is in her everyday life and works at a school, which is meant to be a safe place. Making the horror feel real in a viewers standpoint because it explores the idea of being watched and manipulated without even knowing it.

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

   The elements of my short film work together to create a cohesive tone and focusing on the theme of psychological tension by sociopathy. The short film it self uses dim lighting, sound and dialouge and narrative choices to reinforce the branding. The absence of the antagonist on camera adds to the psychological terror by making his presence unsettling through the unexplained mishaps in the environment of the protagonist, Harper. This subtle tension defines the brand because it focuses on the unease of the mind rather than extreme violence. The lack of jump scares also stays on brand with the movie. Besides the short film itself, I used websites and postcards to promote the short film. 

  The website serves as the hub for both the movie and the postcard. It has a dark background to represent the power outage and secondary colors blue and yellow to represent the light aspect. Those colors are also used as the title slides in the film, they also match the colors of the stuffed animals that were stolen by Mr. Carter. In the “Cast” section on website the pictures are of the stolen stuffed animals. I feel like that adds some uniqueness and a little bit of comedy to the brand. 

    Meanwhile, the postcard takes a completely different approach. The postcard is meant to symbolize the envelope that is used in the short film. Its different in colors from the film, the envelope is light in color and the font used is a bloody drip. It stays on brand because it revels Certain aspects of the short film, although the colors from the website and postcard are different. By maintain a consistent tone across these elements, the film produces a recognizable brand and allows the audience to experience the films eerie, tension packed world before watching the short film.

How do your products engage with the audience?

  My products engage with the audience through its immersive storytelling and interactive marketing strategies. By leaving the antagonist out of the film, it allows the viewers to pay attention to the unexplained events and piece together the mystery using dialouge and visuals. This allows the audience to be active participants within the movie rather than passive observers who are just there to enjoy the film. Hopefully the visuals and dialouge create a sense of dread that stays and creates a lasting impact that will lead them to watch the film.

   The website allows the audience to further engage with the film story and how the idea was create and put into motion, also features a short clip of the movie, backgrounds of the actors and how they can contact and leave a message about inquires and reviews.

   The social media aspect also reels in th audience, since the movie is mainly targeted towards teenagers and young adults. I only created and branded a tiktok page and instagram page because most young people aren’t on X formly known as Twitter, 24/7, and the majority definitely are not active on Facebook. Using these social media apps will also have the showtimes in post and on storie to keep reminding the audience about the film, this caters to the shorter attention span that most young viewers have. The apps will also allow viewers to interact with the engaging post and wil spark discussions and conversation with other views. This will allow the space for the audience to share theories and comment on any other things within the short film’s world before and after watching it.

    The postcard increase the curiosity and makes the audience feel intrigued upon receiving it. It highlights the social media accounts because postcards are great for 1-2 times, then after that they are forgotten. But most importantly, it reels the audience into the website and the social media accounts due to its great visuals.

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

  Last year I researched conventions for a thriller movie and I know them by heart now, everytime I watch a movie all i can think about are conventions. This year I researched short film conventions and that was new to me, because I never watch short films. I noticed they all got to the point and didn’t have any flashy animations and edits and they got straight to the point since they were all less than 15 minutes. In this case I had to plan my movie out quickly because I only had 5 minutes to work with. 

  I was able to go against a common thriller conventions because I approached it differently by creating an antagonist who presence was more felt than seen, which challenges the convention of an antagonist or villain who is physically present. I also don’t rely on confrontation or violence but I build up the suspense by using psychological tension to grow the sense of paranoia, which is often seen in thrillers. I don’t use action driven fear or jumpscares, instead I use disturbances and other unusual events such as the stolen stuffed animals and the reorganized room to show how suspense can be more effective than a shock factor in some cases. I also kept the characters limited in this film, due to the time I wanted to introduce memorable characters that could resonate with the audience, rather than having 5 or 6 characters that wouldn’t have a complete storyline. Another convention I followed was ending my short film on a cliffhanger, I didn’t want to wrap up the movie and leave viewers feel like the ending was rushed or unmemorable, instead I wanted to have an ending that would have the audience question the deeper meaning and think about the film after its completion.