CCR Question #2

 

Hello!

Today I am conducting research for the second CCR question:

"How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?"

There are a few important things I need to touch on when answering this-

• Who is the target audience (age, gender, commonalities.) How did you find this?
• How your choices engage the target audience?
• Discuss availability

Target audience is typically broad for drama films due to the many subgenres that branch from it. Mine, in particular are adults and young adults, because of the more mature theme of my opening. I also want to point out the importance of the representation of women in my project. I want to make it apparent under the surface of my general opening that the piece also depicts the diffuculties not only of adolescence, but of womanhood. Films that connect women through hardships with understanding hold a special place in the hearts of me and all of the girls around me and I want to touch on that within my CCR for sure.

Here is what I wrote-

Well, my audience is mainly teenagers and young adults, like many drama films, but more specifically I’m aiming this product toward young women. I find that getting a message across to an audience helps when you show them someone like them, in this case, a teenage girl. Being able to relate to a character is very important because the theme feels heavier when you see it happening to someone like you. It’s almost like a put-yourself-in-her-shoes type of thing. I researched popular going-out styles among Gen Z-written Vogue articles so that I could further relate my character to their audience and engage them through the current trends. As for distribution practices, so far, I am considering only small film festivals for now. This project will not be making it to the big screen, but hey, there’s always hope for the next one! 

When touching on the distribution factor of this question, I want to make it apparent that there would be no wide release for this project if it were to be distributed as a real media text. I do aim to keep the tone of my CCR lighthearted since I am considering different fun ideas on going about it. 

Throughout my research earlier in the semester on target audience and distrubution of media texts as a whole, I think I included everything meaningful within my response while also keeping it consise. I will further expand each answer through both my response delivery and added images throughout my video, but I think that the size of my answer for this question is just as it needs to be, because I do want to save time for the other two questions as well. 

Finishing up the questions and then onto scripting. See ya next time! (tomorrow)

Sources:

Brown, A. (2020, December 18). The importance of women in film. Medium. https://anastasiabrownn.medium.com/the-importance-of-women-in-film-6759b068c56

Independent Cinema Office. (n.d.). Understanding audiences. https://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/advice-support/how-to-start-a-cinema/understanding-audiences/

Lofthouse, L. (n.d.). Genre & target audience. Fiveable. https://fiveable.me/the-craft-of-writing-film-focus/unit-5/genre-target-audience/study-guide/6vbkvrIGBFFo1psY

The Los Angeles Film School. (2020, January 17). Everything you need to know about indie film distribution. https://www.lafilm.edu/blog/indie-film-distribution/

Stark, F. (2026, January). Portfolio Project Genre #2. Fiona’s Feed. https://fionasfeed67.blogspot.com/2026/01/

Editing- Beginning Timeline

 

Hello!

I initially began my editing process in iMovie, as reccomended by a member of Group Meeting #2 and a friend from CBTV. However, despite waiting and redoing the same edits millions of times, my timeline consistently loaded each clip irregularly and would undo my changes. The clips would either claim to be "missing" or would load in very poor quality. I don't know who lost it, but it wasn't me. 

So, I decided to try ClipChamp. I had used ClipChamp earlier in the year for the One Word Project and the Soundscape Project and had a pretty painless experience, so I switched my clips over to there.

My timelie went from looking like this-

To this! Although it is a minor setback, I am a lot more confident that my clips will stay now. Redoing some things is worth it knowing they will not be deleted.

More on this next week, along with CCR research and wrapping up this year's portfolio project. Thanks for reading! See ya later.

Editing process- Soundscape

 

Hello!

A big part of setting is contributed by sound. In my project, I need background noises such as objects falling, cars, and people. I intended for my setting to come across as a city, despite my character being in a secluded area, like a back alleyway or on a seperate street at night. 

Because production occured in an empty parking lot, I needed to collect sounds to create a city soundscape and add to the tone of my opening. Here is what I found:

I am using the website Pixabay for non-copyrighted sound. All of my sound effects were recorded during production, but the room tone that I did not have in my filming location I easily found by searching up "city sounds." In doing this, I found natural, indistinct audio that will work well along with the natural sound from my footage. I added them into a folder titled "audio", and downloaded them from Apple Music. Looking forward to seeing this come together! Thanks for reading.

CCR Question #1

 

Hello!

Today I am conducting research for the first CCR question:

"How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

What's good about getting this question is that I actually formulated my idea on a specific issue initially, so I have a lot to say about it. As well as this, I still have my research from my initial blog posts on genre, so that will definitely help me. While taking notes in class, I jotted down that when answering this question I need to be sure that I-

• Discuss the genre and the changes to it that I made
• Discuss genre is shown VS how I showed it
• Discuss representation

First I want to discuss the genre, as it seems like a good basic introduction for my interview. Describing the genre and how it's typically shown firstly will contrast my take on it later.

    The drama genre, despite being interpreted in many different forms, such as thriller, coming-of-age, and even romance, carries a similar theme of hardship throughout all of it's pieces. Many dramas tackle topics of moral struggle, mental health, and the complexities of life as a whole. Targeted mainly towards teenagers and young adults, drama films often touch on real-world issues and provide takeaways that leave you thinking at the end. It's common throughout these films to utilize low-key lighting and close ups, emphasizing both realism and emotion. What I love about drama films is that despite weaving around various subgenres, they typically avoid sugar coating issues and provide realistic performances for an abundance different situations. 

I think this is good for the basic genre description. I don't want to add too much about dramas as a whole because I could go on forever. The most important part of this description is to contrast the standard depiction with my own version of it.

    My take on this genre throughout my film opening was very similar, in the sense that I tackled a real world issue and depicted the complexity of adolescence and growing up too fast. Using dark lighting, close ups, and tracking shots throughout my piece, I emphasized my protagonist's emotions and depicted her navigating the world both physically and emotionally. Throughout my props, makeup, and costuming especially, I added many elements of realism that add to the overall storyline and represent my genre well. 

I want to be sure to emphasize the point that this topic is not typically viewed as serious as it is due to the lack of age-accurate casting. In this way, I technically do challenge the usual reflection of adolescence that consumers are used to.

    

    I challenged the idea of adulthood in my piece. In a typical drama, it's standard to cast an adult to play a mature role, but in mine I wanted to touch on the issue growing up too fast, and children feeling the need to replicate the adult things that they see. Casting myself for this role especially, I challenged the common casting in popular movies and TV shows of adults to play roles where they are in high school or college. By depicting a real kid doing these mature and unsafe things, I wanted to make it as real as possible. Normally if this issue is addressed, the person speaking on it is an adult themself. In being the messenger, I wanted to go to lengths to depict the troubled childhoods that you normally don't see in films and not sugar coat the topic at all. 

This is a good moment for me to piggyback off of the topic of casting and now mention representation.

    Because of this, I aimed for age accuracy for this piece on purpose. In representing my protagonist in this way, I reflect the seriousness of my topic and put into perspective how young some kids really are when they try to grow up too quickly. As well as this, I intended on this story to be about a young girl, because women specifically, from a young age feel pressure to conform to beauty standards and society's view of what a girl should be. There are many powerful stories like this, and growing up watching Mulan, Little Women, and Legally Blonde, I wanted to create a subtle commentary on womanhood as a whole, and how no matter where you are at in life, there are always unreachable expectations held over you. My protagonist in particular, is at the same time too young and too "old", representing the way that in adolescence or as a teenage girl specifically, it feels hard to find your place in the world. My film intro almosts acts as a PSA not to go down the wrong path, and shows the repercussions of biting off more than you can chew.

Wow. That's wordy. I will definitely workshop it so I have time for...you know...the other THREE questions...

But it's better to have a lot to say and to have worked with a purpose than not! In a seperate document I will condense each of my answers, but for now I think I have a lot of good stuff to work with. Catch ya later!

Sources:

MasterClass. (2021, September 3). Guide to movie subgenres: 21 popular film subgenres. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/guide-to-movie-subgenres

The Knowledge Academy. (2024, May 22). What are filmmaking techniques? A comprehensive guide. https://www.theknowledgeacademy.com/blog/filmmaking-techniques/

My own blog! Blogger (2025, January 23). Portfolio Project Genre #2

https://fionasfeed67.blogspot.com/

Cinematic on iPhone

 

Hello!

While filming, my cameraman made a discovery. Due to a certain scam through a certain Facebook Marketplace, we didn't have the camera we expected to shoot on. Because of this, we had to resort to filming on my 4 year old iPhone 13 on 42% battery. However, (not only saying this to be optimistic), I do think that shooting with a lower quality camera gave our footage a certain look that really added a lot to the visuals. The flash on the phone made the glitter pop more and specifically using the "cinematic" setting captured the movement really well. It added a lot to the rough, messy theme I was already working on, since my protagonist, herself is also on low battery in a way.

Although I would choose to shoot on a camera next time, I think we did really well with what we had. I'm excited to sort all of my clips out while editing and see what I can make with it. For the future, though, I really do like the effect given with "cinematic." The creation of depth throughout the entire picture really immerses you into it and creates a great touch in my project. Thanks for reading!

Group Meeting #2

 

Hello!

These are my notes taken from the second group meeting. This was a different bunch of people so I got a lot of good input. Here is what I jotted down:

• use final cut camera app for best quality video
• film each CCR scene with each angle first
• develop CCR idea!!!!!
• different costumes for each "character"
• purposeful imperfection
• imovie on desktop works well
• uppbeat.com for non copyrighted audio
• consider a variety of rock/metal/house music
• play on phone speaker rather than importing, sounds more authentic (?)

Regarding the possibility of re-filming, that all depends on the quality of the videos after I export it into my editing software. Worst case I will reshoot, but I honestly don't feel that I need to. I got pretty good advice regarding both editing my opening and beginnging scriptwriting for my CCR. My next mission is to find the audio and create a soundscape. More to come!

The Look- Dressing the Part

 

Hello!

The makeup look behind this project was very important. I depended on a certain visual to imply not only a night out, but a LIFE out, and a lack of supervision and self control. Because I had to capture this girl's story in a 2 minute timeframe, it was very important that I provide enough context strictly through costuming and mannerisms. Due to the lack of dialogue in my piece, this was extremely important as well. Because this girl is so alone, I decided on not even giving her a name, let alone human interaction throughout this opening. I wanted it to be assumed that she lacks a support system, so much so that she is shown completely alone throughout the entirety of the opening. 

I am no model or drag queen, but one thing I do know how to do with makeup is look like a MESS, and thankfully that is exactly what I expected myself to do. I figured a mess of mascara, eyeshadow, and glitter would get the job done. Here is what I ended up with. Thanks for reading!

The look:    

The aftermath: