CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

My film ‘Tru 2 u’ delves into the journey of our protagonist: Lara, through her journey of high school. The film trailer exhibits Lara to be an awkward bookworm who struggles in the face of bullies, and how she may overcome these internal battle regarding her low self-esteem. The film asks the question: is she going to fall for the cool, popular jock or is she going to be ‘tru’ to herself? Lara represents the social group of young teenage girls who work hard against societal pressures to be themselves despite the strain to be popular and trendy. According to Hall, representation is the ability to describe or imagine. Representation is important because culture is always formed through meaning and language. Lara is constructed as a stereotype of a typical female teenager through our depiction of her character. Although my film is essentially a coming-of-age, light-hearted romantic comedy, under the surface it addresses imperative social issues.  In 2022 most prominently there is a compulsive need in young people – especially young girls – to be physically flawless: clear skin, slim body - or whatever society deems the most ‘beautiful’ at the time. Lara is a symbol of most teenagers; not managing to meet these strict, unattainable social requirements. The trailer of ‘Tru 2 U’ focuses Lara’s internal beauty – being good, kind-hearted, and embracive of her own high academic performance. At the start of my trailer, the protagonist is treated awfully by her classmates because of the way they perceive her: as uncool, introverted nerd who doesn’t ‘fit in’. Our trailer reinforces the impact of bullying and teasing has on a person and allows audiences to consider how this theme is relatable to real life issues. Research has shown that around 50% of young 13-year-old American girls reported being unhappy with their body. This number grew to nearly 80% by the time girls reached 17 years of age. These figures are dismal but prompt the importance of change and force people to recognise these social issues to be tremendously significant to young people. As Lara’s stereotyped representation does not align itself with societal expectation that women should present themselves in a certain manner; dressing in feminine clothing and perhaps makeup, she is treated differently. The fact that she loves to read and is often presented as alone makes it easy for bullies to target her. Originally, Lara feels the only way to catch the hot, popular boys attention is by dressing more revealingly, doing her makeup and straightening. The hint of comedy within the trailer of Lara attempting pull ups in order to change her exterior and physical appearance is humorous, but also sad, because it illustrates social pressures to be a certain way. However, Lara learns at the end of the film that she should dress for herself – however she decides to - and remain confident because she loves herself and is ‘Tru’ to herself. The moral of the film is that young girls should remain ‘tru’ themselves instead of shrinking themselves or changing physically or internally in order to impress a boy perhaps, or a group of bullies. Lara is characteristic of real life young girls and through her depiction and the film trailer displays real life issues.

We titled our film ‘Tru 2 U’ to create youthful, playful branding of our coming-of-age teen film. This was key in establishing our product's brand and 'look'. I believed this title was fitting for the genre of the film and was catchy and fun. The title as an abbreviation is unique and rememberable and aligns itself with the genre codes of a teen film. In order to successfully create a sense of branding in the promo pack it’s important to be authentic and not copy what other brands are producing. As a production team we carried out research to observe how competitors create a sense of branding across their products. We intended to pitch our promo pack towards a young audience (13-25) through the fonts, colours and language. As a production team we devised ideas and played word-association games to come up ideas for our brand name and slogans. After researching I learnt that focusing on striving to make our branding cohesive with the teen high school drama genre: light pink text and red hearts, then our production can gain popularity and reach the target audience. We first established our goals and planned how we would create a sense of branding across online platforms. We used the same font and brand logo on a variety of platforms: Instagram (which I created), Tiktok, and Twitter to make sure it was recognisable and established to audiences trying to engage with our film across different media platforms. We created consistency throughout the promo pack by exploring the idea of introducing an exclusive merchandise line, which includes an inclusive mini fashion line to promote confidence and individuality in teenage girls. All the different merchandising includes the title ‘Tru 2 U’ brand name, which is successful in creating uniformity for our branding.  Therefore in conclusion, across our promo pack, we stuck to our teen high school drama genre and created a sense of regularity and organisation the branding for our film ‘Tru 2 U’. 

Engaging my production with the audience was an imperative feature of my production. Engagement with the audience was beneficial to the brand after we established our target audience. We engaged and communicated with our audience through different social media platforms: Instagram, tiktok, and twitter. This was beneficial to our brand, for we could present relevant content in a number of places which target our chosen demographic for most 13-25s have typical use of these social media platforms. We have used high-quality photos and videos to give our promo pack a professional look. We diversified our content audiences across all platforms to ensure that it is not repetitive. On all platforms, we posted clips, stills, bloopers and BTS stories. For example, I took on the role of creating the Instagram platform which I could carry out with ease because as a media consumer and creator, I use Instagram every day and so am comfortable with the interface. I posted behind the scenes, shots from the trailer, Instagram highlights with links to our other social media platforms: Tiktok and Twitter, and the main poster – amongst other engaging posts. Instagram allowed me to present our film to young people in an absorbing way by allowing audience interaction by commenting on our posts, as well as audiences on Instagram having the ability to repost our posts in order to reach wider audiences. I further engaged with audiences by liking and replying to comments which are left on the posts which creates a sense of community and gives the audience an incentive to keep checking in our posts.  I kept a sense of branding on the Instagram page by using our consistent bright colour scheme of red and pink to keep our brand constant. Our film product has Twitter and Tiktok pages too (created by my teammates), which widens our change of engagement. Our signature style is unique and differentiates us from other brands which is engaging in itself. 

I researched myself and analysed packages associated with other films, and how to use and challenge conventions. I wanted to ensure that my products were fitting with the wider codes and conventions of promotion packages. After researching, I found intertitles and awards to be conventional of a film trailer and so therefore included these within our own product. My poster’s tagline: ‘imagine if you could be anyone you wanted to be’ used conventions because it informs audiences that our film is an aspiration, fun, coming-of-age film and so audiences can expect this. The genre itself is another convention and our film associates itself with typical conventions of a teen comedy. The creation of enigma is conventional of all trailers, which we created via the ‘makeover’ in the trailer. Through research I learnt the value of a striking poster which captivates audiences, so with my poster I emphasised the solo presentation of our confident protagonist Lara.  Additionally, I learnt that film productions the best outcomes depend on a productions creatively and execution. For David Aaker, ‘the best ideas not executed well and consistently will fail’, revealing that effective products move away from the status quo and attempts to be unique. I believe that our film challenged traditional conventions of a young female protagonist who is normally traditionally weak and needs ‘saving’, such as in seen in much media such as Disney princesses. Instead, our team challenged conventions by making Lara as more of a ‘warrior woman’ defying gender social norms and believing in herself without a man’s help. I believe as a film company; we have pushed boundaries and tested limits to immediately stand out through this representation.