AICE Media Studies: Creative Critical Reflection Blog

 Name: Thomas Smith 

 

Creative Critical Reflection 

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

    My project uses the conventions of long, panning shots that give the viewer a good sense of the item to its advantage by me using three, 8-10 second shots of the iPhone and making the transitions seamless by the fade transition. I had however had to challenge a few conventions such as the convention to start and end the commercial with the apple logo due to my limited time frame. Fortunately, I felt that the three shots of the phone and the iconic facetime call compensated for the absence of the logo due to the logo being on the back of the phone. As far as social groups I felt that I had good representation considering that many actors were told to emulate a middle class, working family and that who mainly buys this phone due to the price point it sits at with Apple and phone carriers. 

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

    My product engages with real audiences by being a real-world product and all the specifications listed in my commercial are true to the real product. As for being distributed as a real media text, I uploaded the video on my Instagram and YouTube, where it was shared by multiple parties. 


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

    Throughout this project, I feel that my skills have developed exponentially. Everything from my skills as a director, writer, actor, and editor has taken a large leap in the right direction. As a writer, I learn how to work a script around my actors' abilities to act well. As a director, I learned how to work with angles, lighting, and how to set a tone for a scene. As an actor, I learned how to speak at the appropriate volume and to make every scene with me in it seem natural. As an editor, I learned how to make hard decisions on what to keep in and scrap. From my last project where there was light editing and I didn’t truly have to make a decision on what stays in the final product and what stays in the drafts, to now where I had to do that and more, I would say that my skills have developed well.

 

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

     I used the camera app on my iPhone XR which has a 12 megapixel rear and selfie-facing camera to take the shots and I produced to use the “PowerDirector Video Editor App” to edit the shots together for my final projects. This was my first time using this software and I found that the learning curve was small and easy to work with. I used the built-in voice recorder in the app to do my voice overs and edit out the back group noises. I also used the built-in stabilizer to ensure that the shakiness of my hand was removed because I couldn’t use a tripod to film. 





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