Creative critical reflection
In regards to branding, we chose a red and black theme. Our social media posts incorporate a red and black theme to signify danger and horror. Our link tree is also red and black. Overall, we chose dark colors and a dark ambiance for our film to represent the thriller and horror aspect. We also branded the protagonist and antagonist a certain way. Iman, the stalker, is seen wearing red and black in her opening shot. This is a subtle way of foreshadowing to the viewers that she is a villain. Ainsley, the good love interest, is seen wearing a light colors in her opening scene. We used light to represent good and darkness to represent the bad at the beginning. We purposely did not stick to this theme for all of their clothing because we did not want to make it too obvious and throw it in the face of the audience. We also chose to refrain from using too much lighting throughout the film. We tried to dim the lights as much as possible without obstructing the view of the scene.
We chose to use Netflix as our distributor. This is because Netflix viewers are statistically known to enjoy thriller, horror, and romance genre films. Drama accounts for 10.4% of the most popular Netflix films in the U.S. and thriller and romance each account for approximately 8% of the most popular genres of Netflix films in the U.S. We used a combination of all three to ensure we could appeal to as many people as possible. Netflix's popular show You is a combination of romance and thriller and has gained immense popularity with over 40 million views in the first month of release. Stranger Things, another Netflix original, has horror and thrill with some messy love lives mixed into it. The show immediately became a global hit. It was streamed for over 280 hours. We chose the perfect genre based on what is popular on Netflix.
Movies and TV shows often depict characters who are obsessive in love with another character. We wanted to rebuff this concept. In the show You, Joe is obsessed with Beck in the first season. He does not have any pure love for her. He views her as an object that is his and is extremely possessive over her. In the end, he did not get her or her love. The show reinforced the idea that the bad guy does not win in the end. We wanted to do the same. Iman, the obsessive character who did not care if she harmed Nina, won nothing in the end. The kind and pure lover, Ainsley, won Nina's heart in the end.
We focused on the representation theory with sexuality. We represented three women who are attracted to other women. This was not initially going to be the case. Iman and Ainsley were supposed to be played by men. However, in the end, we got to represent women with non-traditional sexualities. We wanted to normalize same-sex love. We challenged the traditional conventions of boy and girl love.
We did somewhat play into stereotypes when using the gender performativity theory. Usually, film and TV shows the woman chasing after a man. For example, The Parent Trap showed a young woman named Meredith chasing after a man named Nick. Furthermore, in the series You, the woman Love chases after Joe and even kills for him. We did show the woman as the typical person to chase after their love interest. However, we also rebuffed stereotypes by showing a woman chasing after another woman. The woman usually chases after a man. However, we showcased an atypical love triangle with three women involved. In The Parent Trap and You, there was a love triangle between two women both wanting the same man.
One major struggle we faced was having to start over the filming process. We initially casted our friend Brooke for Nina's role. So, we started to shoot some scenes with Brooke. However, Brooke had a busy schedule so she could not finish filming with us. Therefore, we had to completely start over and reshoot the scenes we had already shot. We still persevered to finish our film!
Another element that we faced issues with was the length of our film. We were initially aiming for our film to be five minutes long. However, we realized once we started filming that the script we created was a little too complicated. We packed way too much into our script. For the sake of having the film flow smoothly and being easy to follow, we had to shoot more scenes than we thought. Our final product is 8 minutes long. Looking back, we definitely should have chosen to write a simplified plot instead of a complicated story.
We included some jump cuts intentionally to create more tension in the film. The jump cuts along with the suspenseful music created the perfect ambiance we envisioned. We also included some static noises with white flashes to indicate Nina slowly recovering her memories. We used jump cuts to signify the shots being incomplete like how Nina's memory was incomplete. Nina's mind was jambled so nothing was a smooth transition in her mind or the film.
Overall, I feel that we successfully overcame the unforeseen challenges that came our way. I have definitely gained a newfound respect for directors and producers in the film industry. There is much more to directing and producing a film than saying "Action" and "Cut!"
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