This is my weekly progress and plan for Comp 3. Made by Kenzo
WEEK 1 For this week, we begin with term 2 and have decided on our new group for my music video. I wanted to have a different group than my previous group because I want to have a new experience and test out what I've learned from the past project on this music video. This week, we also studied media ecology, which is a study of how communication technologies and media shape human perception, society, and culture, focusing on the environment created by media rather than just the message content.
The problem we had this week was that we planned to finish the research blog this week and decide on a song that we want to use; however, due to the overwhelming amount of tasks we have outside Media Studies, we were unable to finish halfway through it.
The solution we used was to set a deadline and a progress tracker to finish the research, and most likely we would have to do it at the weekends.
Our goal for this week is to at least finish 65% of the research, and we may have to decide on the song next week.
WEEK 2 In this week, we work on our research and some of us has finished. This has allowed us to continue with the other task ahead of us.
The problem we had this week is that one of our group member did not attend the media class so we had difficulty on planning out the music video
The solution we had to tackle the problem is we communicate him through WhatsApp however this did not fully solve the problem as it is still difficult for him to visualize our plan through text messages.
Our goal for this week is to choose one music for our music video.
Here is my self-critical reflection essay for my team's documentary project.
CR 1 - How do your products represent social groups or issues?
CR 2 - How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
CR 3 - How do your products engage with the audience?
CR 4 - How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
For our crime documentary, my team created an opening entitled "The Cult of the Living World" that follows the story of a journalist who infiltrates a secret cult that supports environmental sustainability; however, it's more than just a cult.
As anticipated, our documentary also includes some noteworthy crime documentary conventions. For example, we got inspiration for the interviews from a Netflix documentary we studied called The Puppet Master, in which the interviewer is off camera and his voice isn't properly miced up, making it sound muffled and echoey. This is done to keep the audience's attention on the interviewee. Additionally, we used the interview scenes as a guide to determine when to cross-cut to evidence-related B-roll and when to add sound effects. The video game named "Far Cry 5" also had a significant influence because of its documentary-like introduction, which features interviews with various community members intercut with footage of the cult. "Fred Angles (actor)" was also inspired to portray a group of civilians who have seen the cult and are concerned about the future. The creation of the cult was inspired by a game called Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, "Cult of Kosmos", since they had a powerful female leader named Cassandra, with a mystical aesthetic type of vibe that my group was looking for. This is also a subversion of "The Shepherd"; according to Laura Mulvey's gender theory, the antagonists in media texts are typically men. This is because males are usually the ones who actively participate in stories, and women stay passive.
The portrayal of the cult leader known as "The Shepherd" is another common thing between our products. She is constantly hidden in the thumbnail and the documentary film. For instance, her eyes are continuously covered, which was done to conceal her intentions and feelings because the audience can read emotions from the eyes, which creates a sense of fear and mystery. According to Stuart Hall's reception theory, viewers can interpret media in a variety of ways, so in this case, rather than being mysterious and cryptic, they might view the documentary as scary and horror. We recognise this and lean into adding elements like low-key lighting and a forestry setting. The main theme/brand we show using technical elements like mise en scene and diegetic dialogue is to evoke a sense of mystery, suggesting that not much about the cult is known because they are very cryptic.
The crime documentary portrays the journalist (main character), the cult members (antagonists), and ordinary people (as side characters) as part of our social group. Our documentary represents the journalist as a daring investigator who is a hard worker and willing to sacrifice anything to expose the cult to the public, no matter what. For the cult members, we represent them as dangerous, mysterious individuals covered by darkness to create an eerie sensation for the audience. People in their late teens to early adulthood who are interested in spiritual living and horror are the primary target audience. We wanted to portray this cult as worthless and its message as defective; therefore, we incorporated the Chants "Lorem ipsum…." to appeal to those with spiritual inclinations. Using actual chants may offend some. As previously said, we incorporated elements from horror literature that we believe would resonate with fans of the paranormal or horror genres. As the thumbnail shows blurred footage with police sketches, scribbles (which also function as a hermeneutic code), and a red title, we hope to draw in true crime enthusiasts. We showed crimes like murder, kidnapping, and fraud, which further render it inappropriate for young children and teenagers.
To edit this documentary, Im using capcut and I bought the pro version. To help me editing in more advanced way and access all effect and tools.
1)
This is our first version of editing, using all of the footage we got.
The feedback I got from the teacher is to add more effect like the glitch, and resolution on the body cam to make it a little bit blur and low resolution to add the realism. Also adding few sound effect that could help to add suspense into the scene, also by removing things that are not important, like too long question from the interviewer, and also the time when the interviewee think and waste a few second. And by adding more footage while the interviewee are still talking, so its not boring for the audience to watch.
I got inspired by seeing some documentaries which about crime, thriller, they're showing lot of sound effect to add suspense and other stuff that conform to a crime, thriller documentary, and one of them is
Far War Cry opening scene, which also about a cult.
This in a new version with more improvements, as I got the feedback already. It is better because I try to put more of the footage and photos showing the cult to make it more interesting, rather than showing lots of the interview scene. Also I gave the effect on the body cam scene which is lowering the resolution and giving static glitch effect, as we want the audience to understand and know that its in the jungle, and its hard to get signals. I also removed the scene where the interviewee were asked a long question and just go straight into the point, because if I leave it like that, audience might get bored of just hearing that long question. Also I put Zoom in some photos and videos, to add suspense and make the audience focus only on that photo.
2)
This video shows where the subtitles are not consistent ,where it all have different size, our feedback to is to change the size and make it all the same, additionally change how the text popped out, where first one we use the typing effect, but Mr. Nick suggest to just put all the sentence without giving the effect of typing, to make audience easier to read and not making the audience in hurry to watch it.
I was inspired by looking at the Netflix documentary where the subtitles are clear and don't use any excessive effect, and just keep it simple for the audience to easily read it.
This how it looks, all of the text are already in same size, I also use a simple type face similar to Netflix, and eras the typing effect which now its much easier to ready and doesn't need to be hurry when reading it. This will help the audience to understand the meaning of the documentary better and doesn't miss information because its hard to read the subtitles.
3)
So this is the scene where the drone scene suddenly be shown out of nowhere after Zalfas Interview which is not match to Zalfas Interview or the plot of the documentary, Mr. Nick also said that it doesn't make sense and the context about the drone.In the drone shot, it shows that the drone suddenly crash because it hit the tree,but audience wouldn't know why did the drone hit the tree what is the problem actually until the drone was hit by a tree ans then fell down and stay still on the ground.
I was inspired by the other interviewee from Ambamovic and Fred,where every time they speak there is their own footage that is the eveidence of what they are saying and talking about,for example Ambamovic talking about the cult and the insider,then we showed the insider camera footage.
This is after we add 1 more interviewee which is the Hacker/Drone operator that worked together to investigate the cult with Ambamovic.In this interview the hacker explain in detailed about why do they flew a drone into the cult head quarters,and why do they crash into a tree is clearly explain in the interview,which now audience could understand about the drone scene.We also add hermeneutic code,which is from how we show the hacker with effected sound and we doesnt show the face, and only dark.In this new interview too,we add several camera angles which is from the side and infront of the interviewee,to make more variation and show to show important information when we shoot it straight infront of the drone operator.
This blog shows the progress of our thumbnail crime documentary. This post is primarily written by Kenzo, with suggestions provided by the other group members regarding the designs.
RESEARCH
This is how the overall crime documentary cult genre thumbnail looks:
Even though the thumbnails below are not from a crime documentary, these designs most likely fit with our documentary theme:
The purpose of a thumbnail is to capture the audience's attention at first glance and convey what the media text is about. It's some kind of a guide that helps the audience decide whether they want to click/watch, especially in big, crowded platforms like Netflix or YouTube. Matching the genre convention of the thumbnail makes the content look more legitimate and professional. Having a colourful, playful thumbnail for a crime documentary would defeat the purpose of having a crime documentary, as it misleads the audience from the intended content. In conclusion, a thumbnail is a visual hook that contains information regarding the media text, and the design must match the genre to avoid audience confusion.
Here are the three chosen thumbnails that will most likely going to be a combination in our final thumbnail:
Here are the two documentary thumbnails that caught our eyes at first glance. The Blair Witch documentary follows a horror convention of dark colour scheme, which emphasises fear through the use of colour red (symbolising blood and danger) and black, representing death or mystery, creating a powerful combination that evokes dread and anticipation in the audience who views the thumbnail. The font used in the Blair Witch is slightly worn out and has an uneven serif typeface, which gives a sense of seriousness. The genre convention this thumbnail gives unsettles the audience, suggesting something hidden happens behind the picture. I think the colour scheme and the font could be applied to our final thumbnail perfectly.
For the "In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal" documentary, the thumbnail uses a typewriter-style font, which makes it journalistic and instantly gives an impression of a real-life investigation. The title highlighted the word "God" in red, which shows the danger and corruption. The colour red might also connotate blood, which may imply there might be murder or a bloodbath in the documentary. The pinned photograph connected by a red string on a detective investigation board is a common way for most crime documentaries to make the audience feel that they are piecing the evidence together as they view the thumbnail. Unlike Blair's Witch silhouette, in this thumbnail, we see the real faces of the cult leaders, which suggests that this event actually occurred in reality. We are probably going to add this to give our thumbnail a sense of realism.
For the final chosen one, we decided to take from a documentary called "Escaping Evil: My Life In A Cult" because this perfectly fits with our documentary theme. The font choice for "ESCAPING EVIL" uses a handwritten, brush-styled serif font that creates an emotional, first-person connection, unlike the other cold investigative documentaries. The font choice of "MY LIFE IN A CULT" uses a factual, clear and serious font beneath the "ESCAPING EVIL" storytelling type font. The genre convention of a group of women dressed in long robes walking to an isolated landscape connotes a secrecy with the fact that we couldn't see their faces, also showing the anonymity within the cult life. The thumbnail was taken in a wide-open, desolate environment tells the audience that it is difficult to break free from the cult.
From these three chosen thumbnails, "Blair Witch" gives a greater sense of horror and less documentary from the use of the cult symbols and the disturbing colour scheme. "In the Name of God" gives off a more investigative crime evidence and documents. Highlighting the word "God" in red draws attention to the audience that there might be religion being twisted, which could probably be a good feature for our documentary thumbnail. "Escaping Evil" gives off a documentary of the survivor's story of personal trauma.
Here are the six ideas that I have sketched:
I decided to develop idea 4 because the corkboard instantly makes the audience feel that they are part of the crime investigation. The red strings connected to pictures of people show that there may be a hidden relationship or bigger scheme behind the scenes. The censored faces or the documents imply there is some hidden information within the investigation that the audience may want to solve.
Here is my first attempt at creating the thumbnail:
This will be the starting baseline of the thumbnail. Further improvements will be added. For now, I will use idea#4 as my reference for the thumbnail.
Here is the second attempt at creating the thumbnail:
I added more writing in red to give clearer information about what the board is about to the audience. However, some of the writings were off-placed and the colour grading was not enough, so I think I might fix that in the next attempt.
Here is the third attempt at creating the thumbnail:
I removed the off-placed writing and added some new elements into the thumbnail, such as sticky notes, black highlighter, red circled marker and a few dead plants covered in blood to give a more realistic vibe to the audience. I will plan to add darker lighting on my next attempt and do the final touches on my final attempt.
Here is the final attempt at creating the thumbnail:
This is Lamiya's attempt at the thumbnail:
The final choice: We decided to go with Lamiya's thumbnail as the majority of the group agrees.
Below is the reason why we changed the thumbnail idea. This is taken from Lamiya's Post
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The first thumbnail, which was designed by my teammate Kenzo, used a detective board style with notes, photographs, red string and sketches. This is a clear reference to how investigations are often shown in crime media, and it does link to the crime genre. However, when I looked at it in the context of our documentary, I felt that the colours and busy layout made it come across in a lighter and almost playful way. The handwritten notes and doodle like sketches gave it a slightly casual look, which didn’t fully match the dark and disturbing subject matter of our documentary about a cult that does shady things and also kidnaps people. It also looked quite packed with different details, which can sometimes be harder for audiences to read quickly, especially when thumbnails need to be clear even at a smaller size.
first draft
Because of that, I decided to redesign the thumbnail myself. For the final version, I kept the design much darker and simpler, drawing inspiration from Netflix crime documentaries, which often use bold and minimal images that immediately grab attention. I placed the cult leader as the main figure in the centre of the thumbnail, with shadows covering her face. This makes her identity mysterious and creates suspense, as the audience is encouraged to ask “who is she?” and “what is she hiding?” I also added eerie hand drawn sketches that my teammate Kenzo drew layered faintly over the background. This detail connects to the idea of madness and obsession, but in a way that feels unsettling rather than playful. The darker tones and high contrast give the whole image a more professional and cinematic feel.
Final draft
When the two thumbnails are compared side by side, their differences show how the project developed. The first one communicates the theme of crime through investigation imagery, but it gives off a lighter tone. The new one focuses on mystery and fear, using simplicity and darkness to create suspense. Both designs have clear links to crime conventions, but the second matches more closely with the style and atmosphere of our documentary. This shows how our thumbnail design developed from being genre linked where it's just being creative with it to becoming genre accurate and emotionally effective towards the audience.
This is our behind-the-scenes for our crime documentary. Kenzo made all the presentations however, there are some pictures taken by the other group members.
