Creative Critical Reflection Blog

 

Creative Critical Reflection

1) How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? My product uses conventions from multiple camera movements and angles, different props, settings, and costumes. My commercial opening starts out with a slight zoom in to focus on the Nike shoebox which I used as one of props. Throughout my film I used different types of camera movements, shots, and angles consisting of zooms, low shots, Steadicams, and more. My setting consisted of 3 main locations which was in front of the water, on a small bridge, and a bench, which all 3 were in the same general area. I decided to have an outdoor setting so there is a more natural, free vibe to the commercial. I also wanted there to be bright, natural light in my video as well. My outfits or in this case costumes were all apparel by Nike and each of them had a different style and colorway to it. I used different filters to match with each outfit and give each outfit its own aesthetic. Some props that I included in my film was my jump rope, my shoebox, and a few pairs of shoes that were used at the end of the video. My product represents all types of social groups in my eyes. Nike is not meant to be for only one person/personality, gender, body type, but for everyone. Nike has clothes and apparel for any type of person and allows anyone to express themselves in their clothing and also allows them to feel comfortable in their own skin. In a way my product helps solve social issues present day. The society that we have now in days has become more cruel and makes people believe that they have to reach certain standards in order to be "attractive" and makes people feel uncomfortable about the way they look. Nike enables people to feel good about themselves and has any type of style for every type of person whether they're athletic or not.

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

My product engages with the audience by being trendy and aesthetically pleasing. In my commercial I use Nike clothing that has a more streetwear aesthetic to it which is now pretty trendy especially in my generation. In my commercial I use filters that make it seem if I used a vintage camera and even turned around making it seem as if someone was indeed recording me. This interacts with the audience showing the fun process of making while displaying bright, modern clothes. The filters make the commercial more eye-catching and appealing to the audience and the background music that I chose matches with the "chill" feel throughout my commercial while being very catchy at the same time. I also included clips of me jump roping to include the athletic clothing that Nike is very known for. I wanted to include this because I wanted to present the range of clothing Nike makes. 

3) How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

I believe that throughout conducting this commercial my production skills have definitely developed. In general I wouldn't say I really had production skills in the first place, but while making this project I have definitely explored my creativity. Before this project I barely knew how to edit films other than cutting a video or change the duration. I even struggled throughout the editing process because I barely knew what to do. However, I actually figured it out and I can definitely say that I'm glad I did because it was fun taking it on. I learned how to add background music, how to split and modify clips, add different features to clips, and edit the appearance of how certain clips look. Other than filming and editing, I did come up with my ideas pretty quickly and created a vision of how I wanted my commercial to come out.

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

When filming my commercial we filmed everything on my phone and used filters from Instagram. After we finished filming I uploaded all of the clips that I preferred the most into my Google Drive. I then began to use Clipchamp and uploaded each clip from my Google Drive to Clipchamp. I started editing and placing and modifying each clip so that everything can all flow together. When I wanted to add background music, I took a screen recording of some beats by Lofi from YouTube. I edited the appearance of the recording making it black, then uploaded it to my Google Drive, then to Clipchamp. I then placed the audio under my actual film and now had background music that fits my commercial.

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