Creative Critical Reflection

 1. How does your products use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?

My products used conventions by utilizing the factor of showing the distinctive designs and colors that JanSport backpacks supply. Most of the original JanSport commercials showed the patterns and creativity of the bookbags, so my group and I thought it was an excellent element to the film and decided to use it. In addition, we used the brick edge to sit and show your feet in the camera with the bag. This was seen in the first shot. On the other hand, my product also challenged conventions due the fact that in some of the actual JanSport commercials the actors threw the backpacks in the water to show durability and sustainability. They also used skateboards, showed students sneaking out of campus, and portrayed them running on the beach, however we couldn’t do this since we were on campus and had restricted sites of the school. Furthermore, my commercial represents social groups, which are teenagers and students, by offering a relatable and familiar location to them. This includes school settings such as building stairs and fields. There was also an inclusion of a ringing bell that sounds when class starts or ends. 

2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?

My product engages with audiences, the students, by relating to the atmosphere that they are usually surrounded by. I tried to intrigue the audience by showing a variety of designs and capture the interest of potential buyers. My group and I wanted to get the watcher to feel like they need to buy JanSport backpacks. In addition, the music I added was upbeat and fast-paced to make the audience feel joy and evoke serotonin. Moreover, the commercial will be distributed throughout YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. These are all applications full of young people that will be willing to buy JanSport backpacks. My group and I would show our commercial on these platforms and include a link to the JanSport website where the audience would then find their preferred design. 

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

My production skills developed tremendously throughout this project because I learned many things when recording as a whole and filming different angles and takes. First of all, I challenged myself to hold the camera still. I realized that it was much easier to do this when having a stand or something other than your hands helping you support the phone (which was our camera) up. Overall, my commercial did not come out as blurry or shaky, because of this lesson learned. Next, I never knew the meaning of most filming terms. Not only did this change my perspective on how movies work, but it helped my own commercial contain camera angles and movements that I purposely wanted to use. These included eye level angles, a low angle, and one tracking shot. Lastly, I realized how vital communication is between your teammates. My group and I became more effective when we learned that we could come to each other for questions, had to see what each other's opinions were on certain details, and that we had to compromise some things to come to an agreed solution. 

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

The recordings were all done on my iPhone and the editing was completed on an iPad. When choosing which phone was the most useful to record, we decided on the latest one that had come out because that is what had been improving throughout the making of Apple phones. Therefore, we chose mine which is an iPhone 11. It has the best camera quality and clarity, so we wanted to use it. Furthermore, we had to look for different editing applications to see which ones were free for us to use and then find which had no watermarks that would be seen in our commercial. In the end, we found CapCut. I integrated the program, CapCut, by using it to edit all our shots together. Once my group and I had finished recording, I took all the takes and chose the best ones of each scene. Then, I inserted them into CapCut and uploaded the music, filters, voiceovers, and the JanSport logo.