Reflection Blog

Creative Critical Reflection

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

The commercial is a parody of a Sour Patch Kids commercial and there are several things typical of their commercials. I have them posted in an earlier blog but they are as follows: a comedic sequence of events where sentient Sour Patch Kids terrorizes someone before showing some kind gesture, a voiceover to punctuate the sequence, and the title card at the end with the slogan. Each one was utilized in the commercial I made. I didn’t choose the first thing that came into my mind; I specifically chose Sour Patch Kids because the conventions in them allowed for a more creative and fun experience in the filming and editing process. For that reason, I always intended to follow the conventions of the commercials. The reason I chose Sour Patch Kids and not Doritos or something else with creative commercials, was because I always liked to make people laugh and Sour Patch Kids have this inherent comedic quality to them. If someone watched my commercial and they came away from it happy and laughing, then I would think that commercial is more valuable, even if it didn’t make them think of buying some Sour Patch Kids.

      As for the social groups it represents, I don’t think any one group is represented in a Sour Patch Kids commercial. Unlike a brand like Nike, that markets itself as the quintessential sports shoe, Sour Patch Kids have no real target audience. Maybe a better way to put it is that it is designed for a general audience. Anyone can eat candy and marketing yourself for one specific group of people might make you popular within that group but may isolate you from breaking into a more diverse market. I don’t know if that is the real reason why or if there is a target audience that I am just oblivious to, but in a Sour Patch Commercial, anyone can see themselves in that commercial. Candy is typically seen as something for children and the comedic nature of the commercial may be seen as juvenile. That might make someone think that it is a product meant to appeal towards children, but I would disagree. I think Sour Patch Kids are meant to represent anyone and I tried to reflect that “any walk of life” appeal in my commercial.   

 

 

 

 

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

      The commercial is meant to be engaging by design. The comedic nature of a Sour Patch Kids commercial, along with the other conventions, make it inherently appealing to the audience. When someone is laughing, they are usually putting all their focus into what is making them laugh. You can probably testify to this if you have ever watched a comedy special. If a Sour Patch commercial is successful in utilizing its conventions, it should have the audience’s attention since a Sour Patch commercial is designed to make the audience laugh. In my commercial, I used every convention I could find in a Sour Patch Kids commercial and I am confident that I used them effectively. Because of that, my product should be very engaging to the audience.

      A Sour Patch Kid commercial is comedic, but comedy is different depending on the media it is presented in. A joke in a book won’t be the same as a joke made on a comedy club stage. A large part of the comedy in a Sour Patch commercial is visual humor, so it must exist within a visual medium. That leads me to think that a Sour Patch Kids commercial would appear on television or on video sites. As I stated earlier, I think Sour Patch Kids are meant to appeal to a general audience, so I think it would be played when the most people would see it. Sometime like in the late afternoon when most people are home from school or work may be optimal.

 

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

When I started this endeavor, I had no experience with filming or editing of any kind. The closest I ever came to that was taking pictures at family gatherings. It is reflected in my earlier filming. I was constantly looking at the camera and accidentally breaking the fourth wall, I kept missing and messing up my lines, and I would scrap a successful cut if I don’t think it achieved the desired effect. The constant redoing gave me a little bit of experience and by the end, I was much more efficient than when I had begun. I have had to edit film in middle school, so I was a little experienced in that aspect. The software I was using was completely foreign to me (more in that later) but I persevered. I think I exited this project much better than I was going in.

 

 

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

            I used my phone for recording and two different editing software. My phone is a newer model android (insert android camera joke here) and honestly, I am happy with its performance. I did not expect anything near film quality, but my expectations were much lower than they realistically should have been. That made the quality of my video a pleasant surprise. Afterwards, I had learned that my phone has a built-in editing software. Nothing fancy, it only allowed me to trim the length of the videos. It did make exporting and saving them to my computer much easier. Once it was on my computer, I used the free editing software: Clipchamp. It was completely foreign to me, but it was super simple and ergonomic. It was so good, it made me want to kiss the person that recommended it to me. The software required me to convert the files to make it usable, but it was a minor inconvenience in an otherwise smooth trip.