CCR blog

 

Creative Critical Reflection

1.       1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?

. My group’s product was a L'Oréal Paris Lipstick, and its company usually targets their products at older audiences, mostly adult women. The main theme of L'Oréal products is that they make you feel young once more, due to that their advertisements for the most part consists of women being portrayed as being energetic and living life to the fullest because of the makeup they use. Regarding the lipstick itself, is that it goes against the ideal of the cultural beauty standard that states that the idea of beauty only applies to youth. The colors that they use are to contrasts the colors (such as more skin tone, matted colors) that adult women would on a daily basis wear. The company L'Oréal, introduces these women as adults (older) yet elegant and pleasing to the eyes. My team members and I took an alike perspective when we were filming our commercial, we presented a young girl (a child) and an older woman to be able to illustrate both sides of the tale (a way of showing beauty throughout all of it stages, growth). Moreover, a huge issue in the beauty in the industry is ageism, as a group we realized that it was vital for us to challenge this and display the beauty of having various and distinct/unique appearances.

 

 

 

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

. Our product, which is a L'Oréal Paris Lipstick, usually engages with female audiences that are interested in the area of cosmetics. Through a marketing lens, our product would be advertised at beauty salons in order that women who usually go with their young daughters are able to relate to what they are seeing on the screen. In addition, our product would be advertised through television show that are aimed for a female audience and would also be advertised through the platform of YouTube showing for individuals who usually search/watch videos that relate to cosmetics. 

 

 

3.       3.   How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

. My production skills were nonexistent at the time. Before, I knew how to edit to a certain extent, but this was a whole other level and I had never filmed with an actual camera before (only a phone camera) so figuring it out was a whole adventure. I also became familiar with terms revolving around filming such as what a low and a high are, a tilt, etc... Being able to recognize them and how to include them in your projects. My team members and I spend time watching examples of angles that we implemented in our commercial were done in shows and movies to be able to use them with success in our commercial. Throughout the course of developing this project I was able to learn more about editing and filming techniques. In addition, I believe that my production skills have improved as a result of having worked on this wonderful project and I’m thankful to be on this educational journey. 

 

 

 

 

 

  4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

              . The way my group members and I Integrated technologies in our project through tools and applications to help put our commercial together. Technology resulted in being the heart of our project due to that without it, our video would not have turned out the way it did. In relation to the software, we used an app on one of my team member’s computer named Microsoft Edge Video Editor, this allowed us to edit our commercial with success (Assisted us when trimming, music, finding the right speed for each scene and organizing our video. Furthermore, regarding the hardware that we utilized, our primary devices were a camera, a laptop and a tripod. We used the camera to film the entire commercial (apart from one shot), we utilized the tripod to have a steady shot when did our scene that required a tilt, and we used the laptop to edit the entire video and keep track of our plans for the project such as the storyboard. In addition, we utilized two apps named PicsArt and Canva in order to create the last three slides of our video. This assisted use when we were in need of finding a way to display the lipstick at the end of our commercial and still meet the time limit (We were forced to use a picture of the lipstick in order to display it at the end due to that we were not able to meet again to film our final scene).