Blog Post #60- Critical Reflection

Throughout the creation of my A level project, everything I did from start to finish contributed to my overall knowledge and abilities to then create a successful short film with all my minor tasks.  

When I initially started the research phase, I needed to first review my current skills that I had before starting my A level project. This would be useful to me because it would allow me to identify my weaknesses and strengths and know what to work on to make my A level project better than the AS level project. One of the first things that I researched was genre convention theories. This was one of the main pieces of research that influenced the way my film uses and challenges conventions. The work done by Nick Lacey influenced me to add the introspection scene to my film because a scene such as the one I have within my film is very repetitive within coming of age genre movies due to the fact that the character has to think about their own actions and reflect to then become more mature. Steve Neale's theory also influenced me because I included a unique scene to my film being the neighbor coming to the main characters house which is the root cause of Alex’s realization on his bad decisions. By using these theories, this allows my product to represent the common stereotype that teenagers make bad mistakes and decisions while also representing a point in a teenager's life when they realize they need to be more mature. 

The introspection scene influenced by Nick Lacey's work

The neighbor coming over scene influenced by Steve Neale's theory

 

One distinction that is apparent between the AS level final and the A level final is the social media campaign. I knew that I didn’t have previous experience with creating social media campaigns, so I started researching social media advertising at a very early stage within my project. When I commenced my initial research, I found out that companies such as Blumhouse productions use social media campaigns to post things such as film posters, teasers for films, countdowns towards a release date for a film, and discussion invoking posts. This early research assisted me when I was creating my own Instagram campaign because it allowed me to have ideas for posts. Some posts that I came up with were posts that stated the remaining time for the film to release, casting calls, and bloopers for the film. This allowed for engagement with the audience because it allowed ordinary people to try for an opportunity to be an actor within the film and it also allowed the audience to be informed when the film would come out and how much more time was left.  

Blumhouse Film poster for a new release on Instagram

Casting call that is on my social media marketing campaign

 

After the research commenced, I knew that I could not just skip producing my film, but I needed to plan out certain ideas for my film to have the highest quality possible. My planning consisted of multiple tests and rough drafts such as storyboards, scripts, prop tests, sound tests, and editing software tests. The storyboard paired with the script allowed me to visualize my scenes with a general idea of what dialogue would be said within these scenes to correlate them to the overall theme of my short film. The prop testing allowed me to find out which type of juice I should use to portray alcohol within my short film. The testing of sounds and editing software tests allowed me to have an idea of what sound effects could be recreated using foley elements and the knowledge of knowing how to use editing software would allow me to edit and fix certain clips efficiently with minimal errors. 

Storyboard to my short film

The juice prop selection that best portrayed alcohol

 

 

After my research and planning finished, it was time for production to occur. My film production was spread over the duration of 2 days because my film had parts that needed to be filmed at night, and parts that needed to be filmed in daylight. My film had multiple indicators of time that showed the audience how much time has passed from scene to scene to make the overall film make more sense to the audience. An issue that is heavily represented throughout my film is the general problem that teenagers engage in underage drinking. This is one of the main ideas that connects back to my theme of the short film being that bad decisions can lead to negative outcomes. This engages with the audience for the film because it influences my target audience (teenagers) to rethink their decisions and try to make better decisions that won't negatively impact them in the future.  

Time indicator that is present within my film

Alex and his friends drinking at his house

 

 

Although production is one of the most important steps towards the completion of this project, I also needed to focus on making a social media campaign that would efficiently and effectively attract the target audience to the short film. Based on past research, I was effectively able to create many different Instagram posts that would attract potential viewers. I created a sense of branding within my marketing using a few steps. One of the most obvious steps was the usage of the Mesa Studios logo. On a majority of my Instagram posts, the Mesa Studios logo was present on my posts. This was for the purpose of showing the studio that is making the short film to the audience. This allowed for a sense of branding to be created around my project because the audience could make the association of my Instagram posts to the Mesa Studios brand. I also made sure to keep quality consistent across my marketing campaign so the audience would know what quality to expect from my brand. On the postcard for my film, the Mesa Studios logo is present but one of the awards that is present is an award that states that my short film will be shown at Sundance Film Festival. This establishes my credibility to the audience, and it lets the audience infer that my short film is of high quality because it is being shown at a film festival.  

Example of one of my Instagram posts showing the Mesa Studios brand

My postcard with the Sundance Film Festival 2026 award

 

 

Within my major tasks and minor tasks, the color green is used very frequently. Although this may seem random, it was not done out of randomness. Since my film is about the maturation and growth of the main character I decided to use green across my project because green commonly represents growth within media products such as short films. 

An example of the usage of green in my project