CCR:1 written response

 How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Our film is about two opponent playing chess match, One who is an elegantly dressed man and one who is a more casual dressed woman. Our film has the more casually dressed woman win the game in the end after a dramatic match. Our film uses the conventions  of what people  believe a chess player looks like, which is usually a sophisticated man, to make the audience question their ideas once the outcome is revealed . At the same time this represents an issue that exists in the world of chess. Chess is a male dominated game, especially in high ranks. This has become a major topic of arguments in competitive chess, as it hasn't been a open space to women. This has been tried to be fixed a women's league but there is still the stereotype of women being worse. In our film we not only represented that women can be good at chess but that they can play and match against their male counterparts.

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

Our film engages with audiences by using their expectations against them. The game of chess comes with certain expectation of elegance  and sophistication, in the beginning our film follow these ideas. This makes the audience comfortable as the film is following their preconceive notions. As the film goes on the audience is surprised by the turn of events .The entrance of the rock music makes the audience confused yet makes them stop thinking about how the game is supposed to go. The audience start to enjoy  the dramatic and whacky actions that  are happening instead of taking the movie seriously. Our film would be distributed online through Youtube as its the best platform to show horizontal media that reaches a general audience and is economical.

how did your production skills develop throughout this project?

At the beginning of the film I had a general idea of what each role implied. I knew generally the goals of my role and the things I would be in charge of. But I didn't have any practical experience, everything I knew  was theorical. Which was a good starting point but throughout the production I learned more of the realities of making a film. A part of my role as a sound designer that I had to learn the most for throughout the production was the sound editing. It was my first time  editing anything, and through trial and error I learned important things. For example sound volume and mixing were very difficult to figure out. It took me a couple tries to get at the correct sound levels of the music, and making sure sound effects like birds chirping and chess pieces weren't obnoxious. One of the ways I figured how to make sure things weren't too loud was to get other people opinion that hadn't been working on the same clip for hours.