CCR Research Continued

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

My biggest concern by far when attempting to create my project's brand was finding a way to communicate the more humorous and more comedic tones within our film equally. My first and most direct effort at doing so was through this logo, which intentionally resembles the outline of a figure on caution wet floor signs, emphasizing the overall unlikeliness of such strange events within our film happening to our janitor, but it also works to symbolize the isolation and powerlessness caused by workplace hierarchy as I previously discussed.

The figure is lying motionless on the ground, surrounded by pitch black with nowhere to go. This serves as a visual depiction of all the emotions Robert must have felt when confronted with the realization that the fact that no one truly respected him, enough to the point where he could literally be framed for murder and people would side against him. Clearly this logo is a key element that fosters the branding of humor and more intense, serious tones.

I further embodied this dichotomy through the visual style of my social media.

On all of my posts in this meet the team format, I relied on a typewriter like format to enforce the grittiness of our visual style, as well with the school like setting. My color scheme enforced neutral tones mixed with the hazardous yellow of the wet floor sign. We also re-enforced the comedic elements through incorporating toilet paper and caution tape as overlays, once again capturing the overall absurdity of the plot.

How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

Even prior to conducting my research, I knew that a major influence in my final product would be Good Time, as I was a huge fan of the way the Safdies created and held tension throughout the whole piece. The way they rely on improvisation between actors which has the potential to elevate a scene's level of immersion is something I definitely took inspiration from, especially in the confrontation between Lewis and Bob. These 2 characters were played by Ale and I, and since we both had a clear image of what the scene was supposed to represent, improvisation worked really well here.

A convention in which it can be argued that I challenged is the thriller convention of intelligent antagonists that are aware of their target's weaknesses and situation, as while the teacher's wife had a whole plan as to how she would perfecty frame Bob, the freudian slip of calling him by his name, despite them never meeting face to face, reveals her as a relatively unmasterful villain, which challenges the fortitudinous villains typically associated with the genre.

Additionally, a key element of social media research I took advantage of was the use of teasers which work to separately illustrate comedic tones and serious tones from @crashsiteshortfilm on Instagram.

 

Group Meeting #2

Hello blog viewers. This past week we were given the second and final opportunity to confer with our classmates regarding our progress in developing our portfolio projects. I've previously posted about our first group meeting, and this occurred just as we begun developing our project ideas, whereas this group meeting occurred just a little over a week out from the due date, so we all definitely had a significantly clearer vision as to what exactly are end results would be and had more tangible elements to show.

 David - Producing a short film involving a coin that has the ability to teleport the protagonist around the world. He explained how the idea was conveniently planned as he traveled to Europe over spring break and therefore got most of his filming done in these abroad locations. He showed us some footage, some social media progress, and a rough draft of his postcard, all of which looked solid. Since he hadn't really started the editing process yet, we weren't able to provide as much guidance as a whole, but our confirmation as a group that he was doing good work must have stood for something? Obviously I wish we were able to do more but since we didn't have enough to go off of we weren't able to contribute as much as I would have liked.

Mariana- She showed us some of her social media progress but explained that her group has had some difficulty filming their short film as they felt the need to rewrite the script. As of now, this is their biggest obstacle but in terms of developing their branding on social media, the fonts and color schemes and overall style is super consistent and they seem to have a plan.

Me (RYAN) - I honestly feel that I gained a lot of valuable insight from this group meeting. I think part of what made this meeting so helpful was because I had worked on a lot of ideas but wasn't exactly married to any of them. There were 2 things the group provided me that were super helpful, the first being my postcard formatting. 

(This is probably a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea)

They basically said:

"Bro Ryan this is the worst formatting I've ever seen for a postcard what were you even thinking"

"I'm sorry guys i-i don't know it was just an attempt I'm open to change it"

"Never touch Canva again bro"

"What were you even thinking" 

"My dog could design a better postcard"

Ok I'm joking they were actually a lot nicer and helped me rearrange the back into something more presentable, so as of now this is the postcard situation:

I also got some advice on my creation of the jumpscare. I showed it to them, but they perceived it to be to zoomed out to create the tension I was going for, so I zoomed in and I think that may have solved my problems.

Zoomed in

Lauren - She also had a very clear idea of what she was going for and had made a lot of progress on social media. Her branding was very consistent, but she was only struggling with fitting the font on one of her movie posters (she was creating the movie promo package). I suggested she try switching the layout of one of her posters to landscape instead of portrait for both to see if it made a difference.

Nicholas- He showed us some  of his groups social media posts, and they are definitely the most advanced in terms of branding by far. Not only the posts individually but everything on their page fits together really well through the harmonious color scheme. This was more of a progress check than us providing any guidance because his group's footage and social media progress seems really well developed, they just need to start developing a postcard. 

Andrew- I met with someone else in his group previously and form the footage I saw, things are definitely looking quite satanic. He showed us part of his social media they definitely have a clear image of what they are going for and not afraid to communicate the satanic elements to their film. They are doing exceptionally well at incorporating behind the scenes looks into their process, definitely something that would engage their target audience really well.

Unfortunately, I don't have a group picture but I did my best effort at creating a detailed replica of what all 6 of us looked like sitting at the table.