CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTIONWANJIRA KARUNDITU (0764)

NAIROBI INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (KE045)

INTRODUCTION

This product is a documentary showing you the different

elements I love about my about my culture, and that I take

the initiative to own it is as my own story.

This documentary focus on my cultural and geographical

heritage, in this case Western Ugandan, it shows the

beauty of the country from the landscape of Kabale to the

Bakiga culture.

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

Well this product looks at the representation of African culture and countries, destroying the image of Africans living in the bush but also bringing out the fact that there are roads and that people are civilised but still culture-oriented.

One thing I realised about my product when doing my search on codes an conventions id that my product is a combination of two different types of documentaries, observational and expository

When it comes to observational, the codes and conventions that I followed:• My documentary has no interviews

• The use of actual footage- real events

• The sound is synchronous

• Use of natural lighting

When it comes to the codes and conventions that I followed for an expository documentary, were:

• Use of the voice over

• Use of images/text and titles

• Editing

The colour scheme of the fonts and text boxes match the central image. This brings a colourful aspect of the poster but also shows how subtle and simple the poster is.

Another convention that I followed when it came to creating the poster was that font type of the title. It’s different in colour and font type, his making it noticeable. The poster also has the director and the production company in the same text colour same font because they go hand in hand.

With the phrase ‘COMING SOON’ in a coloured texted box is to create hype for the documentary.

HOW DO THE ELEMENTS OF YOUR PRODUCTION WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A SENSE OF BRANDING?

The documentary, poster and website work together in the sense

that they all bring out 2 colours of the Ugandan national flag;

Black(for culture-colour of skin)

Yellow ( for sun and vegetation)

Looking how the website comes into this because with it having

a dull background, the images and text are able to stand which

bring out a vibrance but also through the website people can

access the photos on the poster and documentary in full size.

The documentary and the poster work together, because the font

type of the title remains the same, which brings in the sense of

branding.

Another example of branding, the poster is seen at the end of the documentary and is also on the website as the logo.

A way the documentary and the website work together is that I advertise each other, within the credits of the documentary, there is the link of the website. And the website contains little snippets of the documentary.

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

My product’s target audience is a general audience, with this documentary it is able to engage with the audience showing them an idea and giving them a feel of the Bakiga culture especially through the scene whereby it is a traditional function. The audience gets to see the traditional dance, attire and enjoy the traditional folk song.

Another way in which the audience gets to engage with this product is getting to understand why Uganda is known as the Pearl of Africa. In this documentary is the lovely landscape of Kabale, for example, Lake Bunyonyi and also the hills. I give a little historical background just to broaden the minds of my audience, just giving a sense of general knowledge. Also through this documentary the audience gets to know certain things that Western Ugandan is known for e.g. cows with long horns.

The poster being a collage, already

makes it stand out because of the

different elements that you see, this

already grabbing people’s attention.

With the phrase ‘COMING SOON’ this

creates a buzz for the documentary, and

with it being a red text box people will

attracted to it- this grabbing people’s

attention

If this product would be distributed as a media text, Iwould like for it to be sold online for easier access,especially for the people who do not have the energyor will to go to a store and also for people around theworld.

Another way, would be selling the documentary as aDVD at local bookstores and music stores, thisreaching the people who are still into or value thepurpose of going to a bookstore or music store to buyDVDs.

Or even on Discovery channel, this just because Iwant people to seen an African show the real roots ofthe culture and the landscape.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Through this project, I got to experience the pressure of film.

First things first how I came up with the idea to do this project was the fact that every Christmas I go to Uganda, so I was like why not do a documentary based on where I come from showing the things I love about my culture.

For my documentary, I did not require a storyboard but I still had to organise certain things, I decided to use our Christmas schedule to come up with a certain way to put my things together.For instance, the editing part was a struggle for me because it was my first time using Lightworks, whereby in the beginning I had to learn on the job or even in some moments I would ask my fellow colleagues who were using the same software. My main struggle was having to put images within the film, which was difficult because they would disappear – this just taught me that I needed patience, but all in all a skill I developed throughout is how to use Lightworks and learnt more on editing as I practiced daily.

I also used Photoshop, to add some creativity, this was just to add some vibrancy to the poster, I achieved all of this with paint. I downloaded an image of the map outline of Uganda and then I used the erase tool to remove the border s of the countries, then from there I started added the different layers, which came with these two on your left.

For the poster, I used Ms Publisher to do the collage. This was a bit of a challenge I had to come up with my own measurements to make sure I achieve exactly what I wanted.

How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and online - in this project?

1. Software

Lightworks

I used Lightworks as my editing software, the documentary consists of both videos and photographs. This also put in the experience of knowing how to edit. But this also just shows how digital technology has made it possible for anyone and everyone to call themselves an editor.

PhotoshopThis was used to an element of fun, by creating something very colourful, which is to get people’s attention.

MS PublisherI used this software to create the collage of photos which acts as the poster for my documentary. I used this in a creative with the pictures so that it can a catch peoples attention.

2. Hardware

The image beside shows the hardware used for this project; the camera and the two different lenses were used to take pictures and videos that were required for this project. The laptop was used to store the footage, to edit to come up with the final product, to blog and create my website.

There are two pieces which aren’t there which is the tripod –used to pan, take high angle shots while the microphone was used to record a voice over, its purpose is to give the audience information that they do not know.

3. Online

For this project I used webs to create my website, whose purpose is to sell the documentary. Which is brought out by the information and the sell the documentary. I wanted it to be fun and interesting, so there are a lot of images.

I used Blogger to blog, which was used to just show the process of the project showing the steps I took to come up with the final product.

http://whericomefromug.webs.com/

http://wanjirakarunditu.blogspot.com/

PROBLEMS I EXPERIENCED DURING THIS PROJECT

Like anything in life you must experience a few bumps on the

road, for this project the I experienced couple of problems, for

instance:

1. The Wi-Fi, which was always being shifty so blogging and

creating my website at home was difficult.

2. Lightworks, would at times stop working or while I’m editing

it hangs.