1. How do your products
represent social groups or issues?
My short film does a critical thing to represent social
groups of film enthusiasts by forcing the audience to look for specific details
to figure out that the mystery has not been solved in order to try to connect
with the audience on a deeper level. The short film tries to talk directly to
the audience through the character's thoughts being told to the audience. For
them to not be held back from any information. Another social group I tried to
focus on was teenagers. By having the characters be teenagers and have a
relatable club setting, it will attract that age group. This will benefit my
marketing strategy as other locked room mysteries usually have only adult
characters like Knives Out and Clue. I think that employing this unique
technique as well as focusing on dialogue it will help make a unique mystery. I
feel like the mystery genre overall is pretty saturated with the same format
but a different setting (think the murder of the orient express). Sadly, my movie did
not do anything in the terms of social reforms or political issues, but that’s
because for a mystery I am more focused on presenting the case to the viewers
than anything else. With only 5 minutes for the movie, I simply did not have
the time to address social issues without wasting time to develop my
characters.
2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense
of ‘branding’?
I am proud of my
marketing for the project so far as I put a bunch of effort into my postcard
and have started on my website. I have gone for a more mysterious branding on
my postcard and website. I am going to try and not reveal anything about the
plot for my marketing other than the genre of the movie. Other mysteries have
done this and seen success such as the marketing strategy for Knives Out. While
filming parts of my movie I think I will use a filter to make the setting
darker. While filming the walls are white which kind of ruins the vibe I am
going with my movie. Luckily, I did this technique for my last movie in AS-level media, so I already know how to do this. I think in order to do the
majority of things I want branding-wise in the movie it's going to come down to
postproduction or editing. In the past couple of years in comm tech, I have become
certified in After Effects and Premiere Pro. I may be able to use those in
order to do some editing techniques. One thing I want to do for branding is
with my social media websites. I am trying to think of some posts I can make to
create a sense of mystery. Maybe make a teaser that also works as something to
generate excitement for the movie.
3. How do your products
engage with the audience?
As I said
earlier, my product engages with the audience by trying to get them to think
about the mystery as they watch it. I am going to try and make there be
obvious holes in the mystery such as with the ending. This way the audience
gets the opportunity to think. I think this is important for the mystery genre
as a whole. Furthermore, I want to make some teasers that interact with the
audience and talk to the audience. I don’t know how I am going to do this yet,
but I have some ideas. One idea is by hinting at the cast and then making it so
the audience can guess who the cast can be. I did something similar when
running the social media for a club I am in. I have experience working with
Instagram but not Facebook or Twitter so I don’t know for sure if it would work there. Engaging with the audience is one of the most important things you
have to do when making a film and I will make sure to do so when filming. I
hate when mysteries don’t give you some time to think about what just happened
and breaking the fourth wall is debatable for how well it works. Overall,
though, I think the plans for engaging with the audience will be sufficient for how
big the scale of this project is.
4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or
challenge conventions?
I did a lot of research when it came to choosing my topic.
Last year I had done a drama, so I felt comfortable making those but decided
that I didn’t want to make another drama. When I decided to make a mystery, I
knew I was setting myself up for a challenging experience. However, I took the
risk and decided that I would make the common locked door mystery. My research
tries to challenge the conventions by having a female lead. A lot of these
mysteries have male leads taking the charge in the mystery. I cannot think of
any of the popular locked door mysteries or popular court movies where they
solve a case having a female being part of the detective solving. In my movie,
I will challenge that convention. I also did research on the mystery genre and
as I said earlier, I will be using teens which is uncommon. It is mostly adults
who act in these mysteries, and I feel like it would be more interesting with
teens as leads. One thing I will not include is a red herring. A red herring is
a distraction from the main problem of the mystery, which is something that is
usually obvious, and I hate when mysteries do this. I find it a waste of time
and just annoying. For those reasons, I am not going to have any red herring or
related distractions in my movie. I may
find more conventions in the future that I might try and not use in my products.
I know I am trying to make a more unique advertisement than some of the generic
ones I’ve seen.