Creative Critical Reflection (CCR)
Click HERE to view my CCR
Law and Disorder was designed, produced, and edited by Madison Craumer and Astrid Nova. The CCR posted to this channel is made and voiced in its entirety by Madison Craumer and is my personal response to what I thought of the film making process. In no way does it copy Astrid's CCR and it is of my original thought and opinion that this reflection was based.
Questions:
1.How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
In terms of story conventions, mystery detective films are often characterized by: films that focus on the unsolved crime (usually the murder or disappearance of one or more of the characters, or a theft), and on the central character, which is a strong, confident, detective-hero, as she meets various adventures and challenges in the cold and methodical pursuit of the criminal or the solution to the crime. The plot often centers on the deductive ability, prowess, confidence, or diligence of the detective as she attempts to unravel the crime or situation by piecing together clues and circumstances, seeking evidence, interrogating witnesses, and tracking down a criminal.
These are the standard characteristics of the mystery genre, many of which we used. We used music, angles, storyboarding, mise en scene, and dialogue to represent the mystery genre. We also used elements of lightheartedness, exaggeration, and humor within our dialogue and body language, which represent that of the comedy genre.
We used similar mystery/comedy themeing to the movies “Knives out” directed by Rian Johnson and “Murder Mystery”, directed by Kyle Newacheck, where the detectives are following a serious case that they are caught up in. However, comedy plays a role in a manner that concerns the way in which they interact with their fellow detectives. The detectives were lighthearted and joking in many instances, which goes against what one would typically pinpoint a detective to be like. The plot has both elements of mystery, through the mise en scene, and comedy, through the humorous dialog. We tried to add the humor in the way that the detectives were so quick to give up on a suspect and were swayed easily by false testimony.
Our costumes were a trench coat and a blazer. Our setting was the detectives office, the crime scene, and the interrogation room. We labelled these different settings with place and time titles as mystery and crime movies often do to note a change. The board in the analysis of evidence scene was supposed to represent a source list, a drawing of the garden where the crime took place, a computer with a picture of the hammer at the crime scene, a description of our suspect, a picture of the victim (man in the uniform), and the student identification badge that was left at the scene. All of it was tied together with string as a detective’s evidence board would have. This helped represent the story conventions of the mystery genre, which was what we wanted our film opening to focus on.
Our actors were very different, Astrid played Detective Santons, who was a more straightforward, demanding, and confrontational character during the interrogation process where she was bold and wasn’t afraid to state the facts. I played Detective Lynch, on the other hand, and was a newer detective, still learning the ropes and trying to follow my partner's lead. In the voice over, it is clear I (Lynch) am afraid that I messed up the case and am easily persuaded by the suspect’s lame attempts at defending oneself. I even lay blame on myself for potentially choosing the wrong suspect and desperately seek the approval of my partner to keep my job. This can be seen by my nervous voice when I say “oh no, I hope Santos won't get mad”. The fact that I am so new, easily swayed, and a nervous, unsure detective is supposed to bring in the elements of comedy. Detectives are supposed to be rational, diligent, and most importantly confident, all of which I clearly lack in my voice-over reflection on the examination of evidence. Furthermore, a comical element is shown in the way we “give up” and release the suspect after barely questioning her.
I think the addition of my character to the opening is meant to display the issue of challenging the norm of the mystery genre by showing that not every detective has the perfect ability to sniff out any case, and there can often be a lot of doubt and nervousness surrounding a detective’s thought process, much of which usually isn't shown. Everyone has their roots and not everyone can be a stone-cold sleuth!
Aside from the issue we addressed, the social group best represented by this genre are young people and women in the workforce because they will be able to best relate to our immature “stupid” humor, if you will. By creating this movie we are representing a young girl, detective Lynch, and her entrance into the workforce, and she is challenged in a way that she never has been before. Is she not cut out to be a detective? This will be the highlight of character development in the plot of the movie, if we had continued filming. Her immaturity and lack of sleuthing would also be a center for comedy and relationships as she often seeks her confident partner, Santos, for guidance throughout the cases. We wanted to represent the group of people who pursue a career but quickly realize they are not cut out for the task, in a way, by watching the movie a lot of young people could probably identify with Lynch because of her internal (and external) struggles at piecing evidence together to find a suspect.
We decided to open the film the way we did, not only to show off elements of mystery and a slight amount of comedy, but to show one of the many cases that is messed up because of Lynch’s poor detective work. Astrid and I may have wanted to take the film’s conventions different routes initially but we were able to come together to make law and disorder display these themes accurately and tastefully.
2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
The film engages with the audience several ways. It is important to mention the attempted transition from beginning to end of mysterious elements to comical ones. Of course, the mystery genre is sustained through music, costume, and setting throughout the entirety of the film opening. However, at the beginning, the detectives are serious in their analysis of evidence and during the deliberation period. There is no dialogue exchanged, yet anxiety provoking, mysterious music plays as a non diegetic noise in the foreground. This is meant to engage the audience by creating a thought provoking scenario in which the audience wonders what happened to the man in uniform, and why. The examining of evidence here is purposely meant to be vague as to create mystery. The time, place, and date heading which comes up during this scene also helps the audience understand where Detectives Lynch and Santos are.
(2:00) Next, during the interrogation scene, I wanted to include another setting change heading, because I really feel as though this helps the audience understand what is going on. I have placed the camera at the end of the table so that the point of view is as if the audience is sitting at the end, watching the scene play out, which is a much more immersive experience. In my opinion, this scene was done very well and I enjoyed the embedded extreme close-up shot of the suspect’s eyes to hint at the fact that she was guilty and made nervous by the line of questioning. I also liked the voice-over of my thoughts during this scene where I am replaying the crime scene in my head. By adding the voice-over of thoughts in my head the audience is getting an explanation from my point of view that the other characters cannot see or hear. This is more immersive and also allows for the audience to get to know my character and identify with me.
If I were to distribute my film as a real media text, I would definitely like to have it on streaming services like YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu. This is because my main target audience is the youth and a lot of big name streaming services are gaining popularity among the younger generations as fewer and fewer people are renewing their cable contracts. Especially in a time like this, during the COVID 19 pandemic and global quarantine, many people are turning to these streaming services to fill up their day with movies, and many new ones are gaining popularity. Plus, another reason younger people might enjoy this movie is because it is relatable to young people. All of the actors are 18 but pretending to be in their 20s. Older generations might not enjoy our film in its entirety as much as young people because of the humor and references we will use throughout the length of the film that are catered to a younger crowd.
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
I originally had no skill or prior knowledge whatsoever and had no idea how to direct, edit, and produce a movie opening. This class really helped me to learn how to make cuts, edits, and use different angles, lighting, music, setting, and costume to portray emotion and emphasize characters. I wanted to try to use the green screen to perfectly capture the setting. My partner and I had to do several different takes so that we could get the perfect distance from the green screen so we would cast minimal shadows on it. The green screen’s backgrounds, which we implemented later on Premiere Pro editing software, had better or worse pigmentation depending on if we covered the lighting source or not. I learned that lighting is very important to making the green screen background, and thus the setting, better looking and more convincing.
Furthermore, playing around with angles was fun. I wanted to have the most immersive experience for the audience, which is why we frequently changed the angle from which the people were viewing. For example, the deliberation and analysis of evidence scenes began with an over the shoulder/ behind the back shot so the viewer could see the building that the characters were in and the desk with the computer and evidence board. Right away, this helped establish a setting. (:55) Then, a quick cut to the evidence board gave a close up of my hand following the connected evidence with the string. I was showing that evidence and clues can be linked together to help make deductions, and hopefully solve the case, without expressing that vocally. I liked how we used the hand to help the viewers interpret rather than verbally describing every little detail. I believe a key part of mystery is interpretation.
Then, the music abruptly stopped as the scene changed to take place in the interrogation scene. Same as the last scene, the heading displaying the setting contributes to the overall understanding of the time, place, and location of events, which makes it seem more realistic. Here is where I thought it important to stop the music so viewers could listen in on the brief conversation between detectives and suspects. Again, I chose the wider- angled shot so the audience could see the green-screened interrogation room in the background, as well as the table, and of course, the main focus was the people. Due to the COVID 19 outbreak and the stay at home order that was issued for the remainder of the school year, I was unable to return to school to reshoot this scene. Although I am pretty pleased with it, (2:00) I would have liked to reshoot to have my partner, Detective Santos, more visible. Furthermore, I would have liked to darken the lighting if possible to make it more low-key during this scene to create a tone change, as the scene should become more serious. However, I would have had to play around with the lighting in a manner that would not impact the pigmentation of the green screen. I feel as though the scene is fine how it is, but could have been better if we had been able to either implement a close up shot of her face, as we did for mine and the suspect’s, or had the table angled in such a way in front of the green screen so that her face was in better view. However, due to the unpredictable circumstances beyond our control I was unable to make this modification, but I do recognize how the scene could have been improved by making this change.
(2:04) Lastly, I liked how I did close up and zoom shots of the crime scene during the voice over. We thought the voice-over would add to the film opening because it would hint to viewers that this is the character whose personality they would probably find out more about. I also think that because we included varied forms of both diegetic and nondiegetic sound in our film opening it seemed more sophisticated and diversified then if we had only included one or the other. I was overall very pleased with learning how to produce a film opening and I feel like my skills improved immensely.
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
I filmed on my iPhone because my teacher said that it would be better quality than the cameras the school had provided. We edited our movie opening on Premiere Pro software which was really sophisticated and a great platform, once we figured it out. Premiere Pro allowed us to make sophisticated cuts, different types of sound, and cool edits.
I got my soundtrack off of YouTube free music which was perfect because I didn’t have to worry about being copyrighted but I also got a mysterious sound that was typical of a detective film. The tone of the song added to the intensity of the scene where the two detectives are trying to figure out the evidence of who the suspect is. Then, the music was reinforced again during the title scene to place further emphasis on the mysterious elements of the movie opening. However, when we exported our video from Premiere Pro and uploaded it to YouTube, the quality degraded and it would have been nice, if we were able to access our school premiere pro software, to be able to try to re-upload in hopes the quality would improve. Overall, I was very pleased with the way the different media types played a role in the production and editing of our movie opening and I think it was executed in a very sophisticated manner considering our armature knowledge on film making. (:22) Due to the COVID 19 outbreak and the stay at home order that was issued for the remainder of the school year, I was unable to return to school to reshoot the part of the scene where I walk towards Astrid (Detective Santos) with the camera in a sort of dolly shot. The green screen’s pigmentation was disrupted in that particular moment because of the shadow I caused over it as I was walking nearer to her and recording with the camera. This was the only fault we encountered with the green screen in the whole video. If we had returned to school I would have liked to redo this scene to fix the issue with the shadow.
Law and Disorder was designed, produced, and edited by Madison Craumer and Astrid Nova. The CCR posted to this channel is made and voiced in its entirety by Madison Craumer and is my personal response to what I thought of the film making process. In no way does it copy Astrid's CCR and it is of my original thought and opinion that this reflection was based.
Here is my script for the CCR:
Questions:
1.How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
In terms of story conventions, mystery detective films are often characterized by: films that focus on the unsolved crime (usually the murder or disappearance of one or more of the characters, or a theft), and on the central character, which is a strong, confident, detective-hero, as she meets various adventures and challenges in the cold and methodical pursuit of the criminal or the solution to the crime. The plot often centers on the deductive ability, prowess, confidence, or diligence of the detective as she attempts to unravel the crime or situation by piecing together clues and circumstances, seeking evidence, interrogating witnesses, and tracking down a criminal.
These are the standard characteristics of the mystery genre, many of which we used. We used music, angles, storyboarding, mise en scene, and dialogue to represent the mystery genre. We also used elements of lightheartedness, exaggeration, and humor within our dialogue and body language, which represent that of the comedy genre.
We used similar mystery/comedy themeing to the movies “Knives out” directed by Rian Johnson and “Murder Mystery”, directed by Kyle Newacheck, where the detectives are following a serious case that they are caught up in. However, comedy plays a role in a manner that concerns the way in which they interact with their fellow detectives. The detectives were lighthearted and joking in many instances, which goes against what one would typically pinpoint a detective to be like. The plot has both elements of mystery, through the mise en scene, and comedy, through the humorous dialog. We tried to add the humor in the way that the detectives were so quick to give up on a suspect and were swayed easily by false testimony.
Our costumes were a trench coat and a blazer. Our setting was the detectives office, the crime scene, and the interrogation room. We labelled these different settings with place and time titles as mystery and crime movies often do to note a change. The board in the analysis of evidence scene was supposed to represent a source list, a drawing of the garden where the crime took place, a computer with a picture of the hammer at the crime scene, a description of our suspect, a picture of the victim (man in the uniform), and the student identification badge that was left at the scene. All of it was tied together with string as a detective’s evidence board would have. This helped represent the story conventions of the mystery genre, which was what we wanted our film opening to focus on.
Our actors were very different, Astrid played Detective Santons, who was a more straightforward, demanding, and confrontational character during the interrogation process where she was bold and wasn’t afraid to state the facts. I played Detective Lynch, on the other hand, and was a newer detective, still learning the ropes and trying to follow my partner's lead. In the voice over, it is clear I (Lynch) am afraid that I messed up the case and am easily persuaded by the suspect’s lame attempts at defending oneself. I even lay blame on myself for potentially choosing the wrong suspect and desperately seek the approval of my partner to keep my job. This can be seen by my nervous voice when I say “oh no, I hope Santos won't get mad”. The fact that I am so new, easily swayed, and a nervous, unsure detective is supposed to bring in the elements of comedy. Detectives are supposed to be rational, diligent, and most importantly confident, all of which I clearly lack in my voice-over reflection on the examination of evidence. Furthermore, a comical element is shown in the way we “give up” and release the suspect after barely questioning her.
I think the addition of my character to the opening is meant to display the issue of challenging the norm of the mystery genre by showing that not every detective has the perfect ability to sniff out any case, and there can often be a lot of doubt and nervousness surrounding a detective’s thought process, much of which usually isn't shown. Everyone has their roots and not everyone can be a stone-cold sleuth!
Aside from the issue we addressed, the social group best represented by this genre are young people and women in the workforce because they will be able to best relate to our immature “stupid” humor, if you will. By creating this movie we are representing a young girl, detective Lynch, and her entrance into the workforce, and she is challenged in a way that she never has been before. Is she not cut out to be a detective? This will be the highlight of character development in the plot of the movie, if we had continued filming. Her immaturity and lack of sleuthing would also be a center for comedy and relationships as she often seeks her confident partner, Santos, for guidance throughout the cases. We wanted to represent the group of people who pursue a career but quickly realize they are not cut out for the task, in a way, by watching the movie a lot of young people could probably identify with Lynch because of her internal (and external) struggles at piecing evidence together to find a suspect.
We decided to open the film the way we did, not only to show off elements of mystery and a slight amount of comedy, but to show one of the many cases that is messed up because of Lynch’s poor detective work. Astrid and I may have wanted to take the film’s conventions different routes initially but we were able to come together to make law and disorder display these themes accurately and tastefully.
2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
The film engages with the audience several ways. It is important to mention the attempted transition from beginning to end of mysterious elements to comical ones. Of course, the mystery genre is sustained through music, costume, and setting throughout the entirety of the film opening. However, at the beginning, the detectives are serious in their analysis of evidence and during the deliberation period. There is no dialogue exchanged, yet anxiety provoking, mysterious music plays as a non diegetic noise in the foreground. This is meant to engage the audience by creating a thought provoking scenario in which the audience wonders what happened to the man in uniform, and why. The examining of evidence here is purposely meant to be vague as to create mystery. The time, place, and date heading which comes up during this scene also helps the audience understand where Detectives Lynch and Santos are.
(2:00) Next, during the interrogation scene, I wanted to include another setting change heading, because I really feel as though this helps the audience understand what is going on. I have placed the camera at the end of the table so that the point of view is as if the audience is sitting at the end, watching the scene play out, which is a much more immersive experience. In my opinion, this scene was done very well and I enjoyed the embedded extreme close-up shot of the suspect’s eyes to hint at the fact that she was guilty and made nervous by the line of questioning. I also liked the voice-over of my thoughts during this scene where I am replaying the crime scene in my head. By adding the voice-over of thoughts in my head the audience is getting an explanation from my point of view that the other characters cannot see or hear. This is more immersive and also allows for the audience to get to know my character and identify with me.
If I were to distribute my film as a real media text, I would definitely like to have it on streaming services like YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu. This is because my main target audience is the youth and a lot of big name streaming services are gaining popularity among the younger generations as fewer and fewer people are renewing their cable contracts. Especially in a time like this, during the COVID 19 pandemic and global quarantine, many people are turning to these streaming services to fill up their day with movies, and many new ones are gaining popularity. Plus, another reason younger people might enjoy this movie is because it is relatable to young people. All of the actors are 18 but pretending to be in their 20s. Older generations might not enjoy our film in its entirety as much as young people because of the humor and references we will use throughout the length of the film that are catered to a younger crowd.
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
I originally had no skill or prior knowledge whatsoever and had no idea how to direct, edit, and produce a movie opening. This class really helped me to learn how to make cuts, edits, and use different angles, lighting, music, setting, and costume to portray emotion and emphasize characters. I wanted to try to use the green screen to perfectly capture the setting. My partner and I had to do several different takes so that we could get the perfect distance from the green screen so we would cast minimal shadows on it. The green screen’s backgrounds, which we implemented later on Premiere Pro editing software, had better or worse pigmentation depending on if we covered the lighting source or not. I learned that lighting is very important to making the green screen background, and thus the setting, better looking and more convincing.
Furthermore, playing around with angles was fun. I wanted to have the most immersive experience for the audience, which is why we frequently changed the angle from which the people were viewing. For example, the deliberation and analysis of evidence scenes began with an over the shoulder/ behind the back shot so the viewer could see the building that the characters were in and the desk with the computer and evidence board. Right away, this helped establish a setting. (:55) Then, a quick cut to the evidence board gave a close up of my hand following the connected evidence with the string. I was showing that evidence and clues can be linked together to help make deductions, and hopefully solve the case, without expressing that vocally. I liked how we used the hand to help the viewers interpret rather than verbally describing every little detail. I believe a key part of mystery is interpretation.
Then, the music abruptly stopped as the scene changed to take place in the interrogation scene. Same as the last scene, the heading displaying the setting contributes to the overall understanding of the time, place, and location of events, which makes it seem more realistic. Here is where I thought it important to stop the music so viewers could listen in on the brief conversation between detectives and suspects. Again, I chose the wider- angled shot so the audience could see the green-screened interrogation room in the background, as well as the table, and of course, the main focus was the people. Due to the COVID 19 outbreak and the stay at home order that was issued for the remainder of the school year, I was unable to return to school to reshoot this scene. Although I am pretty pleased with it, (2:00) I would have liked to reshoot to have my partner, Detective Santos, more visible. Furthermore, I would have liked to darken the lighting if possible to make it more low-key during this scene to create a tone change, as the scene should become more serious. However, I would have had to play around with the lighting in a manner that would not impact the pigmentation of the green screen. I feel as though the scene is fine how it is, but could have been better if we had been able to either implement a close up shot of her face, as we did for mine and the suspect’s, or had the table angled in such a way in front of the green screen so that her face was in better view. However, due to the unpredictable circumstances beyond our control I was unable to make this modification, but I do recognize how the scene could have been improved by making this change.
(2:04) Lastly, I liked how I did close up and zoom shots of the crime scene during the voice over. We thought the voice-over would add to the film opening because it would hint to viewers that this is the character whose personality they would probably find out more about. I also think that because we included varied forms of both diegetic and nondiegetic sound in our film opening it seemed more sophisticated and diversified then if we had only included one or the other. I was overall very pleased with learning how to produce a film opening and I feel like my skills improved immensely.
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
I filmed on my iPhone because my teacher said that it would be better quality than the cameras the school had provided. We edited our movie opening on Premiere Pro software which was really sophisticated and a great platform, once we figured it out. Premiere Pro allowed us to make sophisticated cuts, different types of sound, and cool edits.
I got my soundtrack off of YouTube free music which was perfect because I didn’t have to worry about being copyrighted but I also got a mysterious sound that was typical of a detective film. The tone of the song added to the intensity of the scene where the two detectives are trying to figure out the evidence of who the suspect is. Then, the music was reinforced again during the title scene to place further emphasis on the mysterious elements of the movie opening. However, when we exported our video from Premiere Pro and uploaded it to YouTube, the quality degraded and it would have been nice, if we were able to access our school premiere pro software, to be able to try to re-upload in hopes the quality would improve. Overall, I was very pleased with the way the different media types played a role in the production and editing of our movie opening and I think it was executed in a very sophisticated manner considering our armature knowledge on film making. (:22) Due to the COVID 19 outbreak and the stay at home order that was issued for the remainder of the school year, I was unable to return to school to reshoot the part of the scene where I walk towards Astrid (Detective Santos) with the camera in a sort of dolly shot. The green screen’s pigmentation was disrupted in that particular moment because of the shadow I caused over it as I was walking nearer to her and recording with the camera. This was the only fault we encountered with the green screen in the whole video. If we had returned to school I would have liked to redo this scene to fix the issue with the shadow.
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