CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

 In Off The Leash, there are many social groups represented. One group is the protesters. The protesters show the unrest and unhappiness of the public and how they are discontent against the lockdown procedures. They are a group of people who protest against the lockdown procedures and campaign for freedom and justice, and believe we shouldn’t live in a world where the government controls whether we stay indoor or outdoor. The protesters are the antagonists in the trailer and are the villains. They are perceived as the bad guys due to how they are constantly threatening and chasing the teenage boys.

The audience is made to hate the protesters for two main reasons; how they are picking on and potentially harming teenage, innocent boys and how they are showing their unhappiness with the government through taking it out on the general public. This perception is made by how the protesters wear animal masks. Them wearing these masks segregates them from the general public and makes them look like social outcasts, through how they are hiding out in the woods and running up on people, trying to frighten them. The reason they are protesting is the lockdown procedure of 2020, showing their anger with the rules, presenting how they are anti-establishment and do not agree with how the government runs the country. I would relate them to Elliot Woods, popular conspiracist who led thousands, opposing the Covid-19 guidelines, dismissing it simply as a ruse. This also brings current issues into our production, relating the happenings in our trailer to things that are occurring in real life, right now; current issues. This makes it easy for people to put themselves in the shoes of the character, as they are experiencing the issues seen in our trailer in their day-to-day life. 

 

Another group in our film is the four boys; Blake, Tommy, Kyle and Sam who are looking for the protesters in the woods. They are all 16 years old, which is uncoincidentally the same age as our target audience. This is effective as it makes it even easier for our target audience to relate themselves to the characters shown in the trailer. This is a real asset as the relatability between the general audience and the characters shown in the trailer effects the viewing experience, with a high level of relatability enhancing the experience for the viewer as they are allowed to fully immerse themselves into the production and imagine themselves in the shoes of the characters. The boys are dressed in mainstream clothes, wearing known brands such as Nike and Adidas. More specifically, Matt Heyns, one of the actors in Off The Leash, is wearing a full Hoodrich tracksuit, which is extremely mainstream and what the young teens of today are wearing. Their dialogue also reflects the teens of today, using some slang words. In every aspect, generally, the characters displayed in our trailer go with the stereotypes of their social group, which is what we wanted to increase viewer relatability.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To completely understand my production, it is essential to be completely familiar with the concept of branding. Branding is the act of marking a specific line of products or services under the same umbrella term. The word branding is generally used in the same sentence as synergy, which plays a large part in my production as a whole. Synergy is how everything is linked, and the answer is branding. This can be done through keeping consistency between different aspects of the production. For example, a time where there is synergy in my production is how all the social media pages associated with Off The Leash have the same style of profile picture and profile art. This creates synergy and makes people recognise our film for what it is, increasing brand exposure and recognition simultaneously.

 

Having same profile picture and profile art for all of our social media pages on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok has been a real asset to our production as it has given people something to remember our production by almost as if it has acted as a logo for our film trailer. These profile pictures shared the same font, text, images and colouring, creating synergy across the social media platforms that we were active on. Additionally, the posts on these social media accounts on different platforms feature the clips from our trailer. This means that certain scenes that play to people’s interests and demands stick in their heads, meaning they are constantly thinking about our trailer and what happened in it. On top of this, the comments section in our social media has acted like a forum for people to discuss our film on, talking about aspects of the trailer, the release date, cast and other questions surrounding our film. These social media posts all had hashtags in the caption of the posts. On top of acting as a place for fans to share thoughts about the film, the hashtags also drove up traffic to our posts, as now followers of the hashtags featured in our captions would see our posts, not only those who have searched for our film or following our accounts.

 

Another part of our production that created branding was the merchandise that we created to support the release of the film. Pictures of the merchandise can be seen below. The merchandise includes coasters, T-shirts and phone cases, all designed by the members of the group, I designed the clothing and Matt Heyns designed the coasters in his design technology course, actually producing them. The merchandise gets the film in peoples minds and gets people talking about the film, increasing guerrilla, word-of-mouth marketing for the film. In conclusion, the clothing would be an extremely successful way of marketing the film, whilst also gaining revenue for the film by selling the products, essentially being paid for marketing the film.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many reasons that our products encourage the audience to watch our film, engage them and captivate them; the fact that the main characters are fairly stereotypical and reflect the demographic of our target audience and how our film is set during a current timescale and reflects real, genuine, current issues – lockdown, Covid-19, public unrest, political mistrust and instability within the government.

 

The four boys; Tommy, Blake, Kyle and Sam are extremely stereotypical of four boys living in the UK of the age of 15-18. This is through what they wear and say, how they act and their characters as a whole. One example is what they wear. They are all dressed in a mainstream fashion, wearing extremely stereotypical clothes. This engages the audience as it increases audience relatability to the main characters, as our target audience fits the demographic of our main characters. This then makes the experience for the viewers more indulging and increases how realistic our trailer seems as the viewer is able to put themselves in the shoes of the characters easier.

 

The suspense of the trailer also increases audience engagement. This is because the viewer is anticipating a jump scare at some point in the film, being drawn in on the edge of their seat when they are watching the trailer, not knowing when they are about to be scared. An example of a scare in our film is when there is a large bang heard in the forest, then the camera suddenly shuts off and another scene plays. On top of the suspense there is also a slight fear of the unknown, as the viewer doesn’t know what could have caused that loud sound; is it a threat to the characters, is it a protester, is it an animal?

 

The issues displayed in our film are extremely current, displaying things that have occurred in the last 12 months. When thinking of ideas for our film trailer and production, we quickly thought of the fact that there have been no films made about lockdown and Covid-19 over the time that it has been occurring and affecting the world population. It has taken the world by storm and affected everyone on earth, leading to us thinking that it would be a good thing to base a film off, as the target audience is global with everyone being affected. Additionally, as we have experienced it first-hand, we were able to accurately capture the frustration of some of the general public who have taken matters into their own hands and decided to protest against the controversial procedures done by the government. The currency of our film is one of our greatest assets and is a huge tool in creating excitement and hype around our film.