1: Creative Critical Reflection

1. Creative Critical Reflection Question One
By Richie Batey
How Do Your Products Use Or Challenge Conventions And How Do They
Represent Social Groups Or Issues?

2. Visual Codes:
I didn’t want to give away
too much of the plot in my
postcard so I kept it fairly
minimal, but one small hint
as to who the rivalry could
be between is shown by Vin
Stallone’s gun pointing at Kai
Royce and Kai’s pointing at
Vin’s head. Other than this
the only hints come from the
black and white filter.
Nominations And Selections:
I used fake short film festival
tags on the frontside of my
film postcard as I wanted it
to look completely
authentic. I claimed that we
won the 2016 Best Short
Film and the Best Short Film
award at the underground
film festival, this was purely
to make the postcard look
realistic.
Short Film Title.
Textual Codes:
I made made the O in the
Conned a magnifying glass
by typing out a capital I and
turning it to an angle that
looked like a handle. This
gives the audience a small
hint as to what could be
involved in the plot: it shows
that investigation is an
aspect of our short film.
I placed the tagline of our
short film around the
magnifying glass handle. The
tagline is another hint at the
plot: it shows that Art and
Deception are both aspects
of our short film.
Design And Layout:
I decided to make all of my postcard black and white as I think it adds to the shady
feel of our short film. I put a picture of a London skyline at night as the background
as I think it compliments the black and white filter. I also included pictures of each
character with the actors name below.

3. Textual Codes:
The textual codes on the
backside of my film postcard
are minimal. I show the same
placing technique of putting
the tag line around the
handle. I placed the names of
our accounts/pages/URL in
tactical places to make them
the easiest to read for the
audience. The URL also
looked best at the bottom as
it was the longest and
covered to much of the
photo when placed higher.
Visual Codes:
This picture gives the
audience more of a feel for
the plot than the frontside
as it shows one location
that we filmed at. It shows
Agent Royce in a fresh suit
which implies that he is a
professional worker.
We see Royce walking
down a street next to the
Thames River. The tall
buildings and the murky
grey water helps the
audience see that this is
the city of London and this
implies that the short film
is primarily based here.
Short Film Title.
Design And Layout:
I stayed with the Black and White theme to match the frontside of my film postcard as I
thought a consistent theme would look more professional than changing the colour
scheme completely. I placed the small text box containing the plot against a dark
building so that it was easy for the audience to read.
Film Website URL.
Instagram, Twitter
And Facebook Links.
Tagline.

4. My Film Website – About The Film.
Before making my film website I had a list of
sections that I wanted to add. Making a section
which talks about the film was first on the list. I
wanted to include a small overview of our
short film to give a viewer of the website an
insight into the characters and plot. I used the
text box tool on WiX to create this section.

5. My Film Website – Gallery.
I wanted to include a Gallery section
after giving an overview of the short film
because this will give a viewer of the
website a real introduction into the plot
and characters and it was a chance to
show off some of the best shots from our
project such as the Porsche and the
Cuban hotel. I used the import image
tool on WiX for this section.

6. My Film Website –
Meet The Characters.
I included a Meet The
Characters section into my
website to give a viewer of
the website a detailed
description of each character.
I based these descriptions
purely on the characters and
not the actors playing them. I
included who they worked for
and what their job title was. I
used the import image and
text book tools on WiX for
this section.

7. My Film Website – Awards
And Nominations.
To make my website look
as authentic as possible I
included an awards and
nominations section. In this
I wrote fake film reviews
and imported saved images
of nominations or award
winning short film festival
tags. I used the import
image and text book tools
on WiX for this section.

8. My Film Website – Trailer.
As a group we created a trailer for our
short film. We created this purely for
our websites. We made a one minute
trailer on iMovie/Final Cut Pro X
which shows the audience a selection
of short scenes from our short film. I
used the import video tool on WiX for
this section.

9. My Film Website – Film Postcards.
I included pictures of both the front and backside of
my film postcard which I have analyzed in slides two
and three. I used the import image tool on WiX for
this section.

10. My Film Website – Cast
And Crew.
I also included a Cast And Crew
section on my website. This was to
show a viewer of the website our
individual job roles in our short film.
As you can see at the bottom of the
photo I also included an About the
Actors section where I made false
actor profiles talking about our
previous “work” and the
“experience” that each actor has in
the TV/Film industry. I used the text
box and import image tools on WiX
for this section.

11. My Film Website – Contact Us.
As all websites should I included a Contact Us section where I put
links to our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. I used the
WiX tool ”Buttons” for this section: a viewer of the website clicks
on the social media logo of their choice it will take them straight to
our page/account.

12. How Does Your Product Represent Social Groups Or Issues?
As a production team, we were all
intrigued by the corruption in the art
industry; we read numerous articles
about the theft of expensive Art and
the deals of fake or stolen pieces. We
put articles based on these stories on
our Scoop.It boards.
Scoop.It is an interactive website which
takes into account previous articles you
have looked at and it suggests other
similar ones.

13. How Does Your Product Represent
Social Groups Or Issues?
The $500 million Isabella Stuart Gardener
Museum Art Heist has gone down as “the
greatest art heist in history that still remains
unsolved.” We were so intrigued by this specific
case because the thieves were never caught until
after they died; the story of how they did it was
fascinating, they managed to arrest two security
officers (while wearing fake police uniform) by
saying they had outstanding warrants but with no
evidence.
We were also interested by the impact Art can
have on a society for example, Islamic
State militants beheading a renowned antiquities
scholar in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and
hanging his mutilated body on a column in a main
square of the historic site because he apparently
refused to reveal where valuable artefacts had
been moved for safekeeping. These topical issues
helped us form a plot.
We addressed one of the main issues in the art
industry in our short film which is double
dealings. Agent Royce finds what he thinks is the
art he is looking for, but we find out at the end of
the short film that this was part of the thieves
plan all along and they actually have the real art.
Double dealings are still happening in the art
industry today: an example of a modern day
double deal would be the sale of The Salvator
Mundi which was advertised as a Leonardo Da
Vinci painting but 15 months after a Saudi prince
spent £342 Million on it, an art experts suggest it
may have been painted by his assistant.

14. How Does Your Product Represent Social Groups Or Issues?
As a result of these heists, many films have been created based on similar events,
such as The Monuments Men (2014), Hudson Hawk (1991), The Thomas Crown
Affair (1999) and Stolen (2005).
I think the reason why art theft is a recurring theme in the film industry is because
people are intrigued by the planning that goes on before the heist as it will be
professional, clever and most of all risky.
Stolen is a film based on the $500 million Boston art heist, in 1990 two people
dressed as police officers stole 13 pieces from the Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum in Boston. This heist has gone down as one of the most successful art
thefts in history, and none of the loot has been recovered. Among the 13 priceless
works stolen was Vermeer's "The Concert" one of only 35 of the master's surviving
works.

15. How Does Your Product Represent Social Groups Or Issues?
The locations of some of the scenes we filmed
were crucial when trying to create meaning.
We set important scenes in Havana, Cuba, we
introduced a whole world of location
appropriate backdrops that reflected where we
were such as the faded, crumbling hotels, cars
from bygone eras and the obvious sense of
“otherness” that a legendary place like Cuba
has.
The unidentified Cuban buyer is very
mysterious and is in a world of internet
scandal. He is very shady yet secretive. We
never see his full face, but we get short frame
of his sideburns and his sunglasses, the grey
hair and the gold rimmed sunglasses helped
add to the shady persona.

16. How Does Your Product Represent
Social Groups Or Issues?
The London docks in Canary Wharf were another location we used for
filming. We filmed at a construction warehouse and offices on the docks.
This location nicely contrasted the packed, sunny and run-down Cuban
streets as the sky was more of a grey colour. The buildings in the
background were tall and well-built and the criminals are shown to be
alone for miles in the warehouse as they wouldn’t hide their stolen Art in
a packed area of the city.
Cuba reflects the mysterious buyer just as London reflects Agent Royce:
the orange skies reflected the tanned skin of the buyer and the grey sky
reflects Agent Royce’s slightly more pale complexion. He is a hard-
working agent who has an element of sarcasm which is comedic
throughout the short film. Agent Royce is portrayed as a rich man we can
tell this by the car that he gets into (Porsche) and the scenery we see of
the holiday he was on at the start of the short film. The suit he wears
also helped complement his job title as it is very sophisticated.

17. Stereotypes.
• A stereotype is a set of overly simplified representations,
ideas or associations usually about people or places.
Stereotypes may not always be created by the media, but
they can be, and stereotypes are emphasised by the
media. This is because easy ways of representing
someone or something is very useful in making media.
• Vladimir Propp identified recurring character “types” in
narrative, such as the hero, despatcher, villain, donor and
so on. These easily recognisable roles enable audiences
to quickly grasp narrative roles.
• Audiences need to identify characters rapidly and easily
when introduced to new narratives. For Levi-Strauss, the
use of binary oppositions, such as protagonist/antagonist,
good/bad, old/young, native/foreigner, strong/weak, and
so on, performs this function. In our short film, the
audience quickly identifies the roles and representations
of the characters. However, our film also surprises the
audience with a twist at the end.

18. Dr Rebecca Beirne FutureLearn Video.
I watched a video by Dr Rebecca Beirne on a FutureLearn
course about Media Literacy and Representations. In this video
she talks about patterns of representation. She mentioned that
patterns of representation form when you tend to see people
of certain nationalities working in particular professions,
associations of levels of intelligence with certain hair colours or
genders, and many other examples that help accrue abstract,
oversimplified and often completely false characteristics about
people, places and concepts.
An example of media stereotyping can be seen in portrayals of
people of Arab descent. She also spoke about how groups with
more representation, are more likely to get a wider diversity of
character types and codes of representation.
In our short film, Cuba functions as “Other” with negative
connotations, as a stereotype of corruption, a place where
money can be laundered and dirty money changes hands.

19. Stuart Hall’s Encoding – Decoding Model.
This model focuses on the choice in
textual analysis for 'negotiation' and
'opposition' on the part of the audience.
This means that a text (which could be a
book, film, advert etc) is not accepted by
the audience but the reader/viewer
interprets the meanings of the texts
based on their individual background and
life experiences.
In our short film, the audience is given
very clear signals that Agent Royce stands
for British law.