Critical Reflection

Critical reflection

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

My documentary treats the issue of contemporary art through visuals and dialogue which narrativilise the story being filmed (the creative and technological process behind one of daniels art pieces) Treating the theme of modern art through the perspective of  ‘contemporary artists that work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse and technologically advancing world’ so this issue is quite relevant today, especially since the rise of new technologies that affect the world around us. Therefore my projects represent Daniels purpose of making data around us more ‘tangible’ and ‘visual’ in order to ‘humanise’ it or even ‘make it ours’ conveyed through his perspective. Especially since data is everywhere, the issue isn't necessarily specific to anyone therefore the issue treated calls for more inclusivity as these artists can create a bridge between art and technology to reflect our lives and ourselves as a society. In regards to representation of social groups, despite my target audience being females and daniels studio being composed of mainly males perhaps I'm underrepresenting women in the art sphere, nevertheless, as art is generally inclusive to everyone, (androgynous) I don't think it’s much of an issue however in a way I'm not appealing to my target audience due to (opportunity sampling - only male representation) Therefore my products do not subvert gender stereotypes

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of branding’ 

In terms of branding, I wanted to see what daniels studio main colour palettes were across his platforms to include in my own project to reinforce brand identity and authenticity. Therefore, used these colours for my social media website and advert to maintain that brand identity. The style, format, colour blocking and modern look align with my documentary’s style and the issues being treated. I used also screenshotted images from my unedited footage to create that similarity across, however, did more so for my website and my documentary rather than my advert. This is because I used a screenshot from unedited footage which was in Spanish so I couldn't use it for my final documentary but still wanted to include it somewhere. However, this may contribute to losing a sense of branding despite the style, font and colours being shared across all products however the images used for the advert contrast with the other products.  Nevertheless, we can still see that they all go together; I also used the same quote from the advert on the website to reinforce the documentary's purpose and portray a common theme/idea. Despite this, I forgot to include channel 4 as the broadcasting channel in my documentary and website so the institution is not represented equally across all products, which may again contribute to a loss of branding, and create issues with distribution and audience reach

How do your products engage with the audience?

Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck with audience reception or engagement however did conduct thorough research into the audience. At least 70% of the population watches documentaries every month therefore in terms of statistics people generally would watch my documentary. I also researched into a paper that discussed how ‘audiences play an active role in the process of constructing and decoding meaning about works of art’ Therefore inspired by Pennebakers filming technique in ‘don't look back’ I used the observational mode of documentary and a fly on wall effect like his as he did not lead the audience to a specific meaning and aimed at leaving audiences to interpret their own, therefore aimed to do the same and just have audiences be lead by daniels truth and make their own opinion about it. Therefore through an absence of the ' voice of god' narration, I've left room for audiences to have their own opinion inspired by Pennmakers approach in his documentary. My questionnaire results did align with my target audience (83.3%female) and the main purpose of watching documentaries being (process/work process behind a min subject) and 66.7% said they are interested in art as a journey as 83.3% found art interesting. The main responses were about the expressiveness of art and I think I achieved that in dialogue and filming.

How did your research inform the products and the way they use or challenge conventions? 

I research documentary modes, structure, and fundamentals. Initially aimed for it to be an expository but did not include interviews (despite this being a very common feature) as I thought they would disrupt the narrative sequence, therefore decide to make it observational and through a ‘fly on wall effect’ to capture the ‘truth’ as it it. My docs aimed based on the four fundamentals is to express. Involved dialogue and shakiness to increase a sense of verisimilitude. However, manipulated the narrative by editing the dialogue and choosing specific shots to create a story, especially including daniels speech towards the end to summarise his purpose as an artist and the documentary as a whole, followed by a clip of the finished product in the end to give a sense of finality. The observational mode positions the audiences as third-party spectators but can still feel they are vicariously on the journey with daniel. I carried out studies into real art documentaries which inspired my mode and initial ideas of using interviews ‘talking heads’. Carried a mini case study on youtube documentaries (shane dawson and jefree star) so uploaded mine on youtube(my website has a link to my youtube) (intertextuality and convergence). Conducted further research into institutions, and their marketing strategy and liked the way they used tik tok to attract more audiences which I think would've been effective especially to target ar GSCE or A level students. I also carried out institutional broadcasting channels (channel 4 and BBC) air time and time slots to decide on mine and concluded channel 4 aligned more with what I wanted to achieve with my documentary, especially since their aim is to be ‘innovative, creative, and modern’ Nevertheless, streaming services are increasingly popular since covid so maybe those would've been better options to attract more audiences.