CCR

 Creative Critical Reflection

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

 Nike has taken part in many political issues. Their mission statement is, "At Nike, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture and breaking down barriers for athletes* around the world. We celebrate diversity and strive to create equal playing fields for all. Our work to promote equality starts with our employees and the people who make our products, and extends to people in the communities where we live and work. We know that we won’t prevail Until We All Win." When Colin Kaepernick was the hot topic in media Nike voiced their support for him and his movement. They included him in their 30th-anniversary commercial for "Just do it". "Kaepernick was the first NFL player to kneel during the national anthem before games in protest against racial inequality and police brutality." Nike has also produced a line of shoes composed of recycled materials to minimize waste, and reuse old products. They also stress a great deal on fair trade and child labor. They also donate to charities, "Over the past five* years, Nike has invested more than $400 million to drive positive impact around the world. We proudly support — and partner with — national and local organizations that focus on education, leadership development, coaching, getting kids active, mentorship and other community-based initiatives."

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

Nike engages with its audience in multiple ways. Some being through social media. They have tons of accounts across many websites so they may easily show off their products and speak with the people directly. Not only that but they also do multiple fundraisers and are a non-profit organization. "The Nike Foundation in 2004 began investing in adolescent girls as powerful agents of change in the developing world. Nike Foundation's support covers programs focused on the basic needs of girls such as safety, health and education." 

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

My production skills developed because I learned the terms of angles and movements and understood how to perform these. I also learned how to take an idea and act on it. For example going from an idea to storyboarding, to filming, to editing, and lastly to having the final product. It also taught me how to brainstorm with others in a project. And how to work well with others and respect their views and opinions.

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

 To film this project my groupmates and I used our phones. These being iPhones. To film our shots smoothly we used a phone camera stabilizer. This mechanism was a big help because it allowed us to create steady shots that we would have not been able to produce with just using our hands. After that, we used iMovie to put our clips together and edit them. Then we uploaded the final product to Youtube and embedded our videos into Google Blogger.

Final Product

 

This is our group's final product. I believe our commercial came out really nice. And I am very happy with the end result. This project was very entertaining. With the many components that this project entitled my groupmates and I did a great job. It was tedious at first with figuring out the specifics. But once we figured it out it was really easy. We had a few bumps in the road but we overcame them. Overall this project was very fun. And I look forward to our next project.

Final Edits

 On October 8th, my group and I continued our editing process. We started the day by reshooting one of our scenes. This scene was the one where we have Sean draw s checkmark on a graded piece of paper. The check is to foreshadow what our commercial is all about. The check is supposed to resemble the Nike logo. We had to reshoot this scene because we filmed it with our camera vertical. While all our other shots were filmed horizontally. So, we reshot the scene then airdropped it to Julianna's computer. We imported our improved scene into iMovie and began editing. We began by adding background music. For this, we chose Eye of The Tiger by Survivor. Then we decided what clip of the song we wanted to use and trimmed it. Then we arranged the scenes in the order shown on the storyboard. We had to cut some scenes. This was so that we did not go over 30 seconds because it was our maximum. We did some editing with the sound and picture. We even smoothed out some transitions. Overall we were very productive today. Our project came out looking amazing. And I'm very happy with the work that my groupmates and I did.

Editing Blog

 On October 6, my group and I began our editing process. We chose to edit our scenes on IMovie to create our final product. IMovie was our first choice to use for our editing software. This being because IMovie is accessible on Apple phones and Apple computers. We filmed our shots on our groupmate Julianna's phone. So to pass them to her computer we had to airdrop them to her computer. This is where we ran into technical difficulties. The files were taking forever to load. In fact, by the end of the class period, which is an hour and 30 minutes the files still hadn't loaded. The screen kept showing us that it loaded to 25% and thats it. While we were waiting my groupmates and I decided to do something else. Instead of the project we decided to do classwork and study. Julianna and I decided to study for our Chemistry exam. Beckett helped us too. He quizzed me on my knowledge of the chapter. Julianna did this too. We took turns quizzing each other on the material. Sean pitched in and helped me too. He explained many things I did not understand. Such as, how to do certain math problems. Hopefully next class we can begin editing.

Wrapping Up Blog

 Today was our second day of filming for our commercials. All that was left for us to film was the check mark scene. In this scene we take an old assignment and film Sean drawing a check mark at the top. Then we zoom in on the check. This is the very fist scene in our commercial, and it will transition smoothly into the next few scenes. After filming this we decided to redo some scenes we had previously filmed. There was also this other girl that asked us to help her with her commercial since she was working alone. Her name was Rashell and she was creating a water bottle commercial. I was told to to run the outside track as she filmed. I started on the track block for it to look realistic. A track block is the thing that a runner will start on before a race. I would run around the track once then stop for water. The water I would drink would be from the water company in the commercial. In total I probably did 4 takes. It was very exhausting. Considering that it was very sunny out. And it was hot and humid. Overall today was a pretty easy day. In the next few days we will be editing our commercial. So that our final product is seamless and ready for submission.