Critical Reflection Rachel Toussaint Candidate 2418 Critical Reflection

Critical Reflection Rachel Toussaint Candidate # 2418

Critical Reflection How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? ØAqueous fits the standards for romantic comedies like Aquamarine and Splash in the sense that they all feature a mermaid. My product’s genre generally requires humor, and Aqueous relies heavier on the dramatic side to its genre. It hits the nail with focusing on a teenager’s perspective like JUNO and Napoleon Dynamite, but it is sadly lacking in the comedic department, unlike the other two films.

Critical Reflection How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? Ø The genre for my product was meant to be a dramatic romanticcomedy with a fantasy undertone, because of this silly theme I thought my product would not challenge any conventions. However, to my surprise I recognize some uncommon things. Bo, the mermaid is played by a Black teenage girl. Unfortunately, there has not been a variety of ethnicities playing “magical” characters as oppose to the white characters who have heavily saturated our media for centuries. For crying out loud, Disney finally added a Black princess in 2009 and made her a magically, stunning frog. Aqueous has single handedly provided the world with a beautiful Black mermaid without conveniently turning her into some awkward creature.

Critical Reflection How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? Ø Aqueous attempts to engage audience members throughout the whole two minutes up until the big reveal. Audience members are only able to view the film through Bo’s legs, because I wanted the audience to get the idea that her legs are important to the plot of the film. Maintaining that Bo is a normal teenager up until her human legs touch the water was pretty much the central theme of this secret mermaid rom-com. The WOW factor for this film is definitely the fact that she is a mermaid and is caught with her tail out by her boyfriend. Audience members should be left wondering how Steve (boyfriend) will react and what Bo’s next move will be now that her secret is out.

Critical Reflection How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? ØAqueous would most likely go on Netflix under the Independent Film section. Although, it is suppose to be a generic romcom, Aqueous just features elements that simply would not cut it for the big-screen. My product definitely has a bit of an Indie influence, because of the films I watch, so it would probably be advertised through the pseudo awards it won at a film festival.

Critical Reflection How did your production skills develop throughout this project? Ø I believe that my production skills improved tremendously. Last project I felt like there was no way I could do any better but then I really tried to out do myself for this final task. Though, with this project I was too overconfident and I felt like my creative vision was not really realistic, I still feel like I have really honed my directing skills. After this project it really has just made me more passionate about pursuing a Communications Design career. I really cannot wait to film commercials, come up with ideas, and use different media platforms to advertise a variety of products. As a hungry filmmaker, I can say that I definitely do not want to be an actor and my journey through the ups and downs of film making has just made me even more interested in venturing into other projects.

Critical Reflection How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and online- in this project? Ø I used a lot of computer software (including this program called Pinnacle Studio) as a resource for editing my product. The editing software that was on my computer enabled me to fix and compile the video clips into one video. I needed to download the audio files from the internet and place it in the editing software in order to integrate the music in Aqueous. I also utilized Photoshop for creating a custom title and specialized font for the opening. This time around I had to use a filming microphone and my phone’s microphone to get most of the voices onto the editing software. Without exaggeration the amount of technology I used for this task could probably get a small tech company started up.