1. Ashley Ferguson Period 7
Critical Reflection
Ashley Ferguson
Period 7

2. Question 1
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups and issues?
My product uses conventions to convey the overall message of bullying and making new friends. One of the main conventions my group used was a black and white filter. We used this to emphasis that the main character was dreaming of having friends and the clip was a daydream, so it was made to look different then the rest or the present day clips. We also used black and white towards the end to show a flashback to another part in the clip. This black and white clip of the girl being pushed also went with the lyrics “out of the darkness and into the sun” from the song we used, and this developed the meaning that the girl went through hardships or “darkness” to get to the happy or “sunny” moments in her life. We took inspiration from the music video for the song “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten. In her video she also uses low key lighting and darkness to show sadness in her video, and then high key lighting when the main character in her video is happy. This leads me to another main convention we used, which was high key lighting. The high key lighting we used was mainly at the end when the girl was riding her bike and feeling strong and confident and when she was at her happiest moment taking a selfie with her friends. The bring lighting brings a joyful feel to the happy moments in the video. The last convention we used involved our soundtrack. We had the main character actually lip sink certain words in the video. We wanted it to really seem like the girl was living the lyrics of the song and not just acting to them. For example in the beginning we had her lip sink “I would pray” this was to show the connection that our storyline, of a sad girl praying for friends, had to the actual song. In the beginning of our video when the girl lip sinks the song and she is shown as being depressed we took this central theme from Kelly Clarksons music video for “Breakaway”. In her video a young girl is shown going through hardships with her family.

3. Question 1 Continued
Our video represents the social group of insecure teens. The central idea of our video is bullying and being strong enough to get past it. Many teens are currently bullied weather it be physical, verbal, or through the internet. We wanted our video to be inspiring, and something that boys and girls going through hardships can look to for support. Bulling is a very large issue and we wanted to take a part in the fight against it. We took inspiration from the music videos for the songs “Love Myself” by Hailee Steinfeld, “Fight Song” by Rachel Platten , and “Breakaway” by Kelly Clarkson. All of these videos have the same theme as ours, and that is to be strong and confident in yourself and to never give up on the dreams that you have.

4. Question 1 Continued
The black and white chip from our video that shows the main character day dreaming of having friends
The black and white moment in our video showing the flashback to the main character’s dark moments
Rachel Plattens “Fight Song” music video’s low key lighting during the sad moments

5. Question 1 Continued The clip from our video with voice over.
High Key lighting in our video showing the happy moments.
High key lighting in Rachel Plattens video showing happy moments.
The clip from our video with voice over.
The voice over in Kelly Clarkson’s video “Breakaway”.

6. Question 2
How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
My product engages with a teen audience. My group and I wanted to make our video as realistic as possible so our audience could relate. Because our overall theme has to do with bullying I feel that viewers will be able to take something from the video. We also included teenage actors in the video to clarify who it was targeted to. After doing research we found that the music videos “Love Myself” and “Fight Song” also used teens in their videos. Their videos also promoted self confidence and had some touchy subjects, including hard family life and being insecure. Our video is unique because it has a full story to follow, and touches on topics that are not the easiest to see or talk about. Like the other videos, ours would probably be distributed first through YouTube on VEVO and then sold on iTunes.

7. Question 2 Continued
Screen shot from the “Love Myself” music video showing teens dancing
Screen shot from the “Fight Song” video showing the teen target audience
Screen shot from the “Fight Song” video showing the teen target audience

8. Question 3
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
Throughout the project my production skills developed tremendously. I had already had past experience because of the horror movie project, but I learned even more this time around. In the beginning of the project I had a better idea of what I was doing so I was able to come up with a story faster, and it all came together easier. Since we already knew how to use the editing software Adobe Premiere Pro we just learned some new features. For example making some of our clips black and white like I showed in previous pictures. I also learned how to put text on the screen and change the timing of it so it would appear and disappear. Lastly I learned how to cut the sound at the end of the video so it fades out. Overall I think my group and I are ready to take on the AICE exam.

9. Question 4
How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?
We used lots of different technology to create and produce the film. The two main things we used were my camera ,the Canon Rebel T3i, to film all of our scenes, and Adobe Premiere Pro to edit all of the clips together to form a cohesive music video with a sound track, text, and black and white scenes. We also incorporated technology in our video by making the main character text on her iPhone, as pictured below. To share the film with our class and teacher we used YouTube to create a link. We also used the website Wordpress frequently throughout the filming process to keep our teacher updated on our progress. We also used Wordpress to post our final draft to be graded.