Sunday, 15 September 2024

Critical Self Reflection

This is my Critical Self Reflection


    Our group was tasked to create a 3-5 minute opening for a crime documentary according to the brief. Our documentary is about a young celebrity named Resha. Because he’s newly made, he’s unable to take the horrible comments given by haters and other celebrity artists. Because of this, he results in killing his rival artist that’s been insulting and slandering him. From Stuart Hall's representation theory, This documentary represents social groups such as celebrities not being as they seem and having to put a mask on whenever a camera is present and usually having a hidden agenda away from all the cameras. Our dominant or preferred reading for our documentary is that the celebrity’s hidden meaning is most commonly something negative or fatal, involving murder or other types of crimes. We do this by using technical elements such as camera, sound, editing, and mise-en-scene. By using a handheld camera, it mimics the way paparazzis and news reporters use their camera to quickly capture the celebrity since they only have a tight window. Handheld is also used to show that something is off and not entirely stable. Indicating that there might be something slightly strange that’s going on in the background. Non-Diegetic Sounds such as slow melancholic music can be used throughout the interview and during celebrity interviews to further keep the mysterious tone that the celebrities may have under the rug. For edits, including J-cuts can be used to follow typical crime documentary characteristics, as well as having more time in between shots to grow suspense when the celebrity is about to kill. Keeping the viewers on the edge of their seat, anticipating the murder but not knowing when it will happen. Mise-en-Scene such as having daytime and nighttime be have different feelings. Daytime being safe, as the celebrity is more seen putting their mask on in the day and being friendly towards his fans. However, when night falls, that’s when the celebrity is about to strike. Meaning that night time has less of a safer feel and the viewers must be on edge.

    Crime documentaries have a certain genre or convention that they follow and use in their technical elements such as having a CCTV footage shot to show that the events that happened are based on true events, and have a historical record of it. Sounds like eerie, creepy, and music is used to build suspense during murder scenes or build mystery in crime scenes. As well as using audio recordings to have historical records. Mise-en-scene of poor and dimly lit lighting is used to keep a mysterious and uneasy feeling whenever scenes including these are present. This is to signify that either the crime happened at night, or to establish that night time is an unsafe time. The editing of crime documentaries usually have fewer time in between shots to give more of a fast paced feel, as well as exposing the audience to their product quickly so that viewers remain hooked and continue to watch the crime documentary. I conform to most of these technical elements, to show that my product is a crime documentary, and so that viewers also realise it’s a crime documentary. The only conventions that I didn’t follow are the audio recordings, as well as the fast paced editing. I didn’t follow the fast paced editing, as I feel as if I could take my time to slowly establish the characters in the universe and the viewers may understand the characters more. My research on Always sunny in Philadelphia, and Worst Roommate Ever heavily influenced the production of my documentary, as they exaggerated conventions, and that would help my documentary easily follow conventions. Next time, I think Instead of adding more case studies, I think ill enjoy to have fewer case studies but have more in depth research.


    Branding is important because It promotes what the documentary is going to be about, and is needed so that it stands out among the other crime documentaries, to catch the viewer’s attention and gain watchtime. Our documentary uses a thumbnail that can be displayed in the netflix homepage. This is done because viewers mostly watch crime documentaries from the netflix live streaming service, since most of the good crime documentaries are present there. By being associated with netflix, our documentary automatically has a high quality expectation from the viewer because they usually connect netflix with good quality, having a higher chance that they would view our documentary. The purpose for the thumbnail being displayed in the netflix homepage is so that viewers click on it, since netflix mostly has good crime documentaries. It promotes a documentary in a quick and snappy way in the form of an image that can be easily digested to grab the viewer's eyes in a short amount of time. The audience will decode that the thumbnail and the documentary are directly related. This is done by having the thumbnail and the documentary have the same tone, using the same colour palette, or dull colouring to lean more into the adult themes that the documentary is going to touch on, as well as using the same font. Having the face and a name of the main character from the documentary be included in the thumbnail also directly tells the viewers who and what our documentary is going to be about. Bothe the thumbnail and the documentary in netflix creates a brand image that our product is high quality. Making people able to talk about it without viewing the documentary since they automatically have a positive view of the product. Engaging Blulmer and katz social relationship, which also helps promote our product to more customers


    My thumbnail engages with the audience. which are Teenagers to workers (aged 15-45) That may take an interest in crime documentaries, documentaries in general, or any crime related media.  These teenagers may also be fans of their own celebrity. The demographic documentary are people aged 15-45, middle class/upper class that either lives with their family, or are in college or university, and are either situated in or around Indonesia. The psychographic for our documentary, are people who seem to have a celebrity as their idol, or do not believe a celebrity to be how they are on camera. As well as a lifestyle including their celebrity in their daily lives, like listening to their favourite artist’s songs throughout the day. Our documentary includes characters that represent some of our target demographic as well as unfolding rumours about celebrities. Our product fulfils all 4 of Blulmer and Katz uses and gratifications criteria by allowing viewers with a boring or mundane lifestyle may have a sense of escapism when engaging with our product. Besides that, audiences may want to be more like how some characters are portrayed, like using the same sunglasses and ring as Resha. Our product allows audiences to learn to second guess their favourite celebrity, and may begin to think big celebrities have a possibility of having hidden agenda behind the camera, that’s typically bad, conversing with others about how they’re favourite celebrities are two faced. Audiences looking at our thumbnails may wonder who Resha may be, and wonder how if he was famous, why don’t they know about him. Resulting in them clicking on our product. Using Barthes’ hermeneutic code, it's  hinted that the documentary is tied to murder, using blood splatter on the thumbnail. This makes viewers wonder who was murdered, as well as why they were murdered

 

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