CCR

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

This was my final time filming and I had to incorporate many different concepts and realized how effortless it was to create a now 2 minute film with somewhat of a plot and story. It represents issues of working smarter not harder and to avoid unnecessary obstacles as well. Working smarter, not harder is shown by establishing a three tasks. The project, game, and extra shift which is iconic to the film's plot by immediately allowing the audience to know what the film is about without even saying a word. Moreover,  you have to work around obstacles that can be in your way whether that is film calling something off, asking for an extension, or turning people down. My product is a storytelling dramatic video that represents time management through the lenses of one person. This person is a regular school boy who is a smart, athletic, and hardworking character named Cleveland. Usually, dramatic films are revolved around a group of characters, maybe one that has gossip about the other, however, in this film, it is a fight between the character and themselves. An internal conflict that creates an everlasting cycle of not having enough time to do what you want or need to do. Additionally, this film is different because of the theme to try not to bite off more than you can chew, in other words, be mindful of the situations you put yourself in as they can be proof to a dangerous lifestyle.. in the film, there are constant triggers and cues. The constant alarm sound is a cue of times getting more difficult for Cleveland as it rings almost every time someone asks him to do something except at the end when Cleveland wakes up for school. The phrase " I need you" is also used as well every time someone asks him to do something. 

This represents social groups because everyone can relate to being late or not having enough time on their schedule to do the things they want. Also, everyone can relate to being stressed and having too much on their plate by someone or something even if it was a one time thing. By showing how one person can help themselves by realizing the predicament they're in and being able to avoid being overloaded, they can prevent being stressed out, tired, and upset. This is an important topic that should be spread to everyone, not just students as adults an be eaten up by their environment as well and may be even more extreme as they have to deal with kids, their job, cleaning, cooking, and their family. Additionally, not only would this reduce depression and stress, but it would inspire those to help others who have been stressed out. Most importantly, it would teach those who have been overworked in the past to take time for themselves and relax. It also puts people in the position to ask if someone is able to do something rather than to pile them up on work because you may just never know.

How does your project engage with audiences and how can it be distributed as a real media text?

My product is a dramatic film and it is a story that is developed to connect the author to the main character who faces a conflict. Here we see see through the lenses of all three characters, the protagonist, the boss, and a friend. Although there is only a short introduction to the protagonist, the situation can appeal to those in the audience that have also went through something similar as well, like depression, failing something you've worked hard at, or not reaching high expectations. By doing so, this connects the audience and makes them more likely to watch the whole project because, in a way, they are the main character.  This can be distributed on video sharing platforms like Youtube and TikTok, two widely known video sharing platforms as a short film video because of its short length but important plot which, in the end, might have implied a very important message. Distributors such as cinemas and stores would most likely not distribute my product because of its short length and no where near professional creation meaning people would likely not pay money to watch it. My product engages with audiences by exposing them to a new idea, whether that be the moral of the story itself, or use of editing and filming that allowed us to bring the film together. Not everyone will see important messages like these, especially in today's age where films that generally are for teens and young adults are usually on the terms of drugs and violence in media, so it is always important to take things slow and perform a wellnesss check. Also showing it in my film could be one more person who becomes intrigued and shares the message. My film also allows for people that are stressed ad have some sort of anxiety to realize that there are people that understand their situation and go through the same things. Sometimes, just by knowing there are people like you, you can start to feel better as you're not alone facing your problem. 

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

For this project, I had to film and edit, however with the help of a friend who was also on the project. This made the process considerably faster since there were two sets of eyes and ears to decide on the outcome of the film. I feel like there was a general amount of improvement to my editing skills because of how quickly I finished editing the product and that could also be a correlation to my filming ability. Likewise, since I minimized the amount of filming errors such as vertical filming instead of horizontal filming, poorly lit takes, holding the camera shakily, and directing the actor. This overall lessens my time to film and as a result, I had less mistakes to edit out and shortened by editing time. Lastly, one key improvement were the details in the storyboard. Since I knew exactly what I wanted by adding little notes and more details filming went smooth. I added transitions, music, more smooth cuts, and the film overall flowed better because it was less choppy. One thing that was important was the outdoor environment. While filming, it became hard to shoot clips without the wind, or other people talking in the background. At first we thought it was a hinderance and that it would be best to come another day to film, but then we began to think that it wouldn't be that bad. After all, who comes to a park and doesn't hear the sounds and voices of other people that are at the park. My time management skills improved a lot as well. With this big project at my hands it was important to set a set date and time to film and edit so that if anything went wrong, I would be able to search it out and to begin refilling to fix these error. Additionally, my editing has improved as well. Considering this was just a 2 minute clip, it took about 2 and a half hours to finish editing. I was able to add subtitles, as there were some scenes where it would be hard to hear the actors but I fine-tuned the audio to help viewers be able to hear exactly what the actors were saying to understand what would be happening during that shot. The main problem was cutting the video down. There were a lot of scenes, good and bad, however when it cam down to cutting the film down, there was about 5 minutes of raw footage that were generally important to keep in. In the end, however, I made it work. Some scenes just had to go completely while others were shortened and split. Finally, getting the audio for the film was difficult as well. I had to ask creators of the songs I had chosen to put into this video for permission to use their song. This took some time as some answered, some didn't, and some took a long time to reply back.

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

For this project, I shot using an iPhone XS Max recording at 4k 60 frames per second in addition to iMovie, an editing software on Apple devices. This became a huge problem because doing so asked for a lot of space on my phone. This caused for two problems: it took a large amount of time to share and upload the clips to my computer for editing and it caused me not to be able to share my shots with my teammate as there were too big to export on my phone. One clip at 4k and 60 frames per second took almost 250mb, way more than I was expecting or for any general clip to be. Consequently, I had to downgrade to the HD 60 FPS version on my phone which would take up less space but for the sacrifice of the high video quality. I used two songs, a happy song called "fun memories" and a dark dramatic song which doesn't seem to have a specific name. The happy song was used in the beginning of the film where the character is first introduced to set the mood and tone of the film however as the story continues, it begins to fade into a more dark and crude song. This dramatic shift was intentional as it shows the transition from enthusiastic to stressed. Additionally, on the topic of sounds, I added a lot of diegetic sounds such as the constant alarm in the film which served as a necessary part of the prompt.  Other technologies would be our props, the basketball, the use of object to create high and low angles, the use of uniforms to create the job scene, an additional iPhone in the final and beginning scenes as the alarm and clock for Cleveland as he is walking into his room and so on. All of these parts took to create this film.