Critical Reflection Questions- Commercial Project

 

1. My product uses conventions by mimicking a certain camera movement that H&M often uses. In H&M commercials, a tracking shot is very common. I mimicked this in my commercial by following one of my actors from behind as they walk towards the dining table. This is a great technique as it focuses more on the clothing rather than the action the actor is committing. Another convention I used was filming the actors in a natural setting. In many of the H&M commercials, there are a lot of scenes where the actors are being candid, doing normal activities. I exhibited that in my commercial; however, I was a bit more candid. This correlates with how I challenged certain conventions. Since I was a bit more casual, it seems as though the focus of the commercial was less on the clothing. This is because, in some scenes, the actors would somewhat strut as naturally as possible in the H&M clothing. I did not exactly do that in my commercial. My product represents social groups or issues by including actors of multiple ages. This shows that the clothing is for anyone and everyone. More specifically, my commercial is centered around Thanksgiving and the idea of family. This would appeal to the audience that is family-oriented and this would associate the H&M fall clothing to a happy family dinner.

2. My product engages with audiences as it provides a scenario that most Americans have experiences. It is the Thanksgiving family dinner that can somewhat trigger a nostalgic/longing feeling to the viewers. This good feeling could cause the audience to associate it to the H&M fall collection, as fall as a whole triggers those feelings as well. My product would be distributed as a real media text by appearing as Youtube ads, Spotify ads, Television ads, etc. Any possible platform that includes visual ads, that target the age group most H&M shoppers identify as, would be ideal.

3. My production skills developed during this project as there were certain changes that I would consider to be big. For one, I had to work with other people that were going to be a part of my video. So far, I have only ever had to deal with myself, dictate what I need to do and how I need to act. This time, I was thinking of how I needed five other people to act, not including myself. The transition was not as hard as I was already thinking ahead of how I wanted this commercial to go; however, giving directions and advice is a bit different than what I am used to. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the process of filming this commercial, even when it was awkward giving directions in the beginning.

4. I integrated technologies in this project by filming the scenes on my aunt's iPhone 11. I chose her phone since I felt the quality was better. After filming, I emailed the shots I took to my iPad. This allowed me to dump the footage onto iMovie. After editing the clips into my preferred commercial, I needed to find a way to implement the background music. I did this by searching up a song on Youtube and screen-recording it onto my iPad's camera roll. I proceeded to dump this video, detach the audio, click the "Background" feature on iMovie, and then delete the original video. This process gave me the background music that completely tied my project together.