Week 3: Creative Critical Reflection

Here is the link to my CCR video!

Script:

Hi. My name is Corazon Holloway and I directed the opening to the drama film “ A Prodigy’s Downfall.” To establish the genre of drama in our film opening, we used many conventions common to the genre. We used realism deliberately. While, of course, being a star athlete is generally not relatable to most people, it is a situation that most people will recognize and be familiar with. It’s not unusual or unrealistic. Realism and relatability are key conventions of the drama genre. Another common convention of drama is the buildup of tension throughout the film and its scene. The actor and I tried to deliberately increase the tension that the film created throughout our opening. As the music continued and intensified, and the scene switched from cuts of action and the player committing to play college basketball, we attempted to invoke feelings of intensity and urgency that the viewer was feeling. One specific cut that we included was the main character dribbling a basketball, and the camera began at his feet and moved up to his face. This was an attempt by me, the director, to build up tension, as seeing the basketball first dribbling but then making eye contact with the character would invoke intensity. The most important way that we created tension in our opening was at the very end, in which the scene of the basketball going through the hoop faded to black and sirens faded in. This was to signify that the character’s basketball career was in jeopardy, and that it was because of an outside event. However, we specifically did not put visuals by the sirens because we wanted to keep the event a mystery, such as whether it was an ambulance or police siren, which would mean very different things. Throughout the opening, we tried to evoke the audience’s emotions, which is a prime characteristic of the film genre. The music, cuts, visuals, and ending were all specifically chosen for this purpose.

These conventions helped us represent the issues that many athletes around the world face. One injury or other life events in an athlete’s time, specifically if they are very talented or well-known, can be detrimental to their careers. However, we think that our film would appeal to more people than just athletes. In the bigger picture, the main character is obviously going to face adversity in his future. Dealing with struggle and overcoming obstacles are a main component to a successful life that are relatable to many.

Our target audience would be primarily young people, as they are generally athletes and would experience the most relatability to the film’s plot. It would obviously evoke emotions in these people. However, other demographics, such as older people could also enjoy the film if they had experience struggling with adversity or simply wanted to learn about the story.

Our work was obviously just the opening to a film that has not been produced. However, if it were a full-length film, it could be distributed online or in theaters as a real-media text. In the full movie, an entire plot would have to play out and there would need to be a culmination of the plot.

I had virtually no production skills at the beginning of this project. I barely knew how to use my school’s editing software, and even simple camera handling was a mystery to me. Through directing this film, I was able to navigate the editing software and learned how to work with cameras and digital media files more efficiently. I also gained a better understanding of why certain aspects of filmmaking are so important. For example, I used the media codes and relied on them heavily. Seeing as I had never even heard of media codes before taking this class, it was surprising to me how big of a part of the project they were to me. Camerawork was a hard skill to learn, and admittedly, a fault of our film opening. The camera was unstable at times as I tried to follow the action of the main character. However, I do think that we had an adequate setting considering what was available to us. There were no state-of-the-art gymnasiums, or any that were empty, so we dealt with our available options. It was difficult to work around the fact that other people were trying to use the gymnasium at the same time, and we had to try our best to stay out of their ways. Finding new ways to navigate these obstacles was a surefire way in which my production skills developed.

As I mentioned previously, we used my school’s editing software to edit and produce this opening. This was Adobe Premier Pro, and I learned a lot from using it.  We also used online websites to obtain sound effects that did not have any copyrights. We used YouTube heavily to upload every version of our film and other projects. I became a lot more familiar with and knowledgeable about the digital components of filmmaking throughout this project.

Thank you for watching my film opening. I hope you enjoyed it.