Week 13 was the week where we got to see our works exhibited on the big screen and on the studio website. This was a great way in understanding ways to promote or showcase our film to make it attractive to our key audience, spy genre fans and young adults. Our synopsis of the film demonstrates a glimpse into Agent Whyte as a ‘bumbling spy’ and a goofy character, connecting to the key concept of having exaggerated characteristics for each character. Agent Whyte’s mission through 2024 helps her discover the ‘bewildering, unpredictable and bustling new world’ and her reactions to each situation. This idea taps into the idea of satire. We hoped to create an experience that the audience could relate to, seeing familiar situations such as an addicted vaper, a tik tok dancer, a coffee connoisseur etc. but also with a comedy spin. I believe that our exhibited work was able to communicate the idea of taking comedy beyond the genre through the techniques mentioned above but most dominantly, genre hybridisation. Combining the comedy and spy genre helped to connect to the interest of our intended audience, help balance tension and humour and demonstrate diverse storytelling.
Looking forward if we were to continue to work on ‘Rogue’, I would like to improve elements such as creating an in depth storyline that dives deeper into portraying Agent Whyte’s mission and the satirisation of ‘modern’ technologies. This would raise the stakes of Whyte’s mission and make the characters’ struggles feel more meaningful to the audience. In regards to satire, I would expand on the topics and lean more into the message of the scene, not just for entertainment purposes but to provoke reflection or even change. Both these elements would come from having more time to work on the project and a stronger and bigger team. In regards to technical things I would improve our lighting and sound. As there was a tight time constraint, we had to fit our filming days over a few days. There were a few scenes in the film where the sun was coming down but in the next scene it was bright and therefore looked inconsistent. I would designate more time for shooting the scenes while the sun was up to combat this issue. We ran into issues on set in regards to our lapel mics not working and being visible on the actors, making the film look unprofessional and destroying the world that we built. We were able to fix this by using different takes in post production and fixing the sound quality, but for future reference, testing our equipment before filming is more ideal.
‘Operation Superstar’ was an enjoyable watch and stuck out to me because it tackled both the comedy and coming of age genre in such an effortless way connecting it to genre hybridisation. Their use of comedy through characterisation of The Elites or The Rat man are a subtle nod to teenage Melbourne culture, relating it to the theory of satire.
On the other hand what ‘Situation Tragedy’ did well was to preface their story around the idea of absurdity. Making the caterer place a condom in a cast member’s sandwich without hesitation and openly admitting it to the investigators is breaking the norm and reaching absurdity. I also enjoyed how in pre production, ‘Situation Tragedy’ was able to use the technique of cutting on absurdity. An example is how Arthur believes he is liked by others but it cuts to everyone’s view on Arthur as the worst person on the team.
Both projects were a treat to watch and seeing how the projects progressed and became reality made me feel more connected and made it personal.
In engaging with ‘A Case of Scrambled Eggs’ from the Reimagining Crime Club studio. Their film engaged in creating a true crime style documentary. According to the studio’s description, the main idea of their studio was to explore the use of cinematography and sound design in regards to true crime. Aspects that illustrated the ‘A Case of Scrambled Eggs’ team’s engagement with the class were their stylistic choices; dated television overlays over their footage, recreations of the crime, crime scene photos, interviews, a voiceover etc. These elements were successful because it recreates the conventions of a true crime documentary differentiating it to a traditional documentary. In their documentary, when the murder weapons were described, the still image of the candlestick and scarf accompanied with the sound of a camera flash and camera recording overlay appeared. This connects to the key conventions of a true crime documentary but also demonstrates their exploration of sound design and cinematography. Overall, their film is scattered with true crime conventions that are hard to miss which engages well with their studios focus.