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.
Products Made:
- Documentary
- Thumbnail
Branding refers to how products are connected together to form an image that attracts the audience to make it recognisable. Bulmer and Katz's theory on Uses and Gratification states the thumbnail serves as the bait and hook to draw viewers in, and the documentary acts as the meat and bones, used for surveillance to learn about the cult's wrongdoings and acts as an exposé. In this case, the similarities between our thumbnail and our interview are what produce consensus and unity, which can help streamline the storytelling and style. Our documentary wanted to call out extremist organisations that can be harmful to their followers when watching. Police sketches and pictures of individuals outside of the cult headquarters are similar to the found footage style of the thumbnail. These technical elements add a sense of mystery as the thumbnail contains a blurred figure in a forest setting that acts as a hermeneutic code, making the audience wonder who these people are. Fig 1.1 used a split composition design, where the left side features a blurry figure that hints at real documentary footage, and the right side is composed of sketched faces layered onto each other, symbolising psychological distortion and a mix of realism with surreal illustration, suggesting that facts are blurred with myth.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment