Critical Reflection (CR)

This blog contains the critical reflection of the 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?

My team and I produced a crime documentary opening titled The Final Bell: Thirteen Seconds along side with a thumbnail. This documentary follows the incident of a school bombing that was caused by an unexpected student.

Branding is a way to create a label or identity of a certain media, and it is important because it gives the audience a main idea of what the product is about and audience will recognize the creation easily. In my documentary The Final Bell: Thirteen Seconds, the thumbnail (fig 1) and the video worked together to create this branding; where both used muted colors to build a serious mood. Bold fonts and an "Alarm clock" font where it gives an effect where the text looks like a time to emphasize the text "thirteen seconds". A CCTV-style footage is used as a background to set the crime documentary tone, where during the making I added a glitch effect of a VHS to add the low quality camera of a cctv. This was done to add hermeneutic code where the unclear chaotic scene creates with a dark tone makes it a mystery and they would want to watch more. The thumbnail was meant to be the hook that introduces the main idea while the intro of the documentary explains the deeper meaning of the title, this is use to encourage the audience to stay until the end. However, because of the lack collaboration between my team and I with our own busy schedule we created the thumbnail last minute which took a lot of my time especially in helping with finding pictures while juggling to finish the editing. Even so, the idea of consistency between the thumbnail and video was clear.

(Fig. 1, Thumbnail)

As I research through different documentaries following the crime documentary tropes, these strongly influenced these choices. I noticed the way they used bold typography, eerie sound, muted color palettes, and glitch or CCTV editing to build suspense. I conformed to these conventions by using handheld shots during the scene of the students having fun, muted tones, and eerie background music to create realism and tension. The editing choices that I use for the edits was jump cuts which helped in going back and forth to the day of the event and the interview which create instability. At the same time, I subverted conventions by making the bomber a girl, which challenges the stereotype of male perpetrators usually shown in crime narratives. This mix of choices and challenging conventions made my product recognizable to the genre while creating the documentary to be unique.

The target audience for my documentary was teenagers to young adults of any gender with the age range of 14 above, because they are the most likely to watch documentaries and they are closest to the school environment. Having the age range to be 14 and above is used because my documentary contains scenes and footages that conformed the convention of most crime documentaries, where there may be unsettling and violent imagery that are shown. To appeal to them, I showed teenage characters by using handheld shot (Fig. 2) from school footage that was taken as well as social media chat overlays (Fig.3) to reflect their daily lives. Where in the thumbnail it uses CCTV footage, chaotic environment of students trying to run away, and the title choice is used to raise curiosity. These hermeneutic codes made the audience question who the blurred person was and what the title meant, encouraging them to watch further. The documentary follows Uses and Gratifications through personal identity, as young people can relate to the school setting and bullying and social relationships where this shows the dynamic between the bomber and the victim. 

                                                                 (Fig. 3, Social Media)                                                 (Fig. 2, handheld)

Finally, the issue raised in my documentary was about bullying and how it can affect people long-term, even leading to extreme consequences such as a school fights, cyberbullying and in this case school bombing. This issue was shown by the teenagers perspective where using handheld footage (Fig. 4 & 5) this shows both the happiness of friendships and the cruelty of bullying. In the documentary the choice of styling and uniforms was used to create realism, while from their behavior it showed both positive and negative sides from students life. Teachers were shown as authority figures who are close to students but fail to notice the signs, as represented by how they reflect on missing the warning signs and feels devastated. This representation shows that jokes and actions can have consequences, and that teachers need to go beyond their role to truly understand and help students before it is too late. 

                                                     (Fig. 4, bullying, fighting)                                                 (Fig. 5, happiness of friendship)