The Creative Critical Reflection

    Hey blog! While I have been talking a lot about the actual film opening, the other portion of the Portfolio Project is the CCR or the Creative Critical Reflection. This part of the project is 20/50 points, almost half of the final project grade. While this information did make me realize the importance of this aspect of the project, I was still going to dedicate just as much effort to the CCR and am excited to incorporate different types of media products. In class on March 11th, our teacher gave us a detailed rundown of what we should do, with examples of student samples to help us visualize the instructions she was giving us. I want to dedicate this blog post to, putting it simply, rundown the rundown.

    Below are pictures of my in-class notes:

                                                                                                     

    

     

     

   

    The Basics

    The objective for the CCR is to reflect on the process/ development of the Portfolio Project creatively. We must answer the 4 specific questions asked while showing our personality and providing credible research sources. Our teacher advised us to split 2 questions into 2 videos and to not surpass a total of 10 minutes for the two videos combined (7 minutes being preferable). Each video/ chosen form to answer the questions must differ from the last, meaning we must have 2 types of media products minimum, ranging from examples such as a talk show, presentation with a voiceover, or even an enhanced podcast. This being what I expected, I was excited to come up with ideas from the beginning. Some of my initial examples include something inspired by...

• W Magazine's Screen tests w/ Lynn Hirschberg
• Actors Roundtable/ Actors on Actors (In this case it would be Directors on Directors)
• 73 Questions with Vogue

W Magazine

Directors on Directors

73 Questions

Questions

    The most important part of the CCR is of course answering the required questions. While how we answer them is also very important, making sure we give a meticulous and genuine answer to each of the four questions backed up by research (from the blog and not) is absolutely necessary to earn a high score. So, here are the four questions we must answer and how we should approach each one:

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

• Discuss genre conventions of the opening's genre 
• Discuss which genre conventions were chosen/ refuted and WHY
• Discuss representation- how choices made about individuals, groups, events, and issues are illustrated within the production.
  

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

• Define target audience (including age, demographic/similarities, and gender) and discuss how we arrived there.
• How did our production choices work together to engage our TA.
• How do I plan to make the film available to our TA? (REALISTIC distribution options)

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

• Reflect on the process evolution of the project ( all goods/ bads…).
• Discuss in how we began planning and researching (specific details).
• Discuss approach to production- what did we end up changing/ adapting?
• Reflection of where we started/ ended; May also discuss how previous projects done in class have helped with this one.

     4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

• Discuss technologies used while producing (software, hardware).
• Discuss HOW technologies were used.

Ideas

    After asking follow-up questions to my teacher, I crossed Actors on Actors off the list. My initial idea was to have Isabel and I ask each other questions about the process, as I watch those types of videos all the time and love learning about the insight of each person's own unique process, but because we need to have separate CCRs I don't think that will work out. The W Magazine idea came to me because I watch those videos a lot as well, as they make me feel more personally connected to the person being interviewed. The more raw and real feeling of the interview and the consistent person behind the camera (Lynn) make the short videos feel more intimate, which I would love to replicate in my video. I also like the stylized light black and white font along with the intensely black backdrop, which I know I can replicate as I have the resources, so this is a current option. The 73 Questions with Vogue series allows for an interactive and visually engaging approach, as I would move around the location while answering the questions. 

     As of right now, the W Magazine idea seems like the most reliant, as well as doing a segment in NYC (as I will be there during the break) and narrating the answers to the questions in a fun and connected way. I will update you on my CCR progress next week ;)))