Please Lee, Explain What a CCR Is!
Well if you insist! A Creative Critical Reflection, or CCR, is an overview done by yours truly of the entire process of my video product. I do this through two different media types, most likely a video that reflects on the production, responds to the questions, and expresses my personality! So, it needs to be reflective, responsive, and creative.
The Questions
- How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
- How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
- How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
- How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?
(Provided by my AICE Media Studies teacher)
Now let's dissect these questions! Not necessarily for you, but more for me so I can understand better what to research and make the video about!
Number 1 is how our product fits into its genre and what conventions are in it, out of it, or challenged, and why. Then I have to explain how these choices and other choices within the film's opening represent different groups of people. Other choices include costume, prop, and even set choice. Basically, what I have to address is the genre and representation of my film opening.
Number 2 drives me to focus on the target audience of my film and the influences that the target audience had on our product. To fully answer this question, I would have to break down the choices we made to reach our target audience and why we made those choices. The second part of this question is about our distribution practices. This has to be a genuine way we could realistically distribute our film opening. We may not get it to a big-time distribution company and get it seen in theaters across the world, but a film festival, YouTube, and even some streaming services may be a way for us to distribute our product!
Number 3 in the most basic terms is how my production skills develop through this project. This is the most personal question and therefore easiest to answer. It doesn't require research, just deep understanding and reflection of my growth. It should be specific and include details about everything throughout the product creation process, especially the challenges and problems faced. That's the most important thing to talk about, because describing how I overcame those problems is explaining how I grew into better production skills.
Number 4 is all about tech inclusion. It is about all the hardware and software I used to create this film. So the cameras, tripods, mics I used and the programs like Premiere Pro, Canva, heck even Blogger I used. This also doesn't require much research and is relatively simple to answer because we know what we used! To fully answer this question, we have to talk about how this tech helps solve an issue, causes an issue, or teach us something new!
My Quick Plan
To make this part of the project, which is almost worth half of my entire portfolio points, easier for me, I will split two questions into each of the two different media types. These media types are likely to both be videos, but who knows, I might come up with a new interesting idea to be super creative. We'll see. I also want to get started on research right away! So, let's get cracking on research for the (in my opinion) most research heavy question, number 1.
CCR #1 Research
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
Our film is definitely a coming of age movie! There were definitely some changes within our story to make it more so. For example, our first story was just a very speedy driver arguing with his girlfriend. She refuses to get in the car with him before their favorite song comes on the radio and he sings along to it to her. That convinces her to join him in the car and he puts power to the metal and speeds off. I felt like this didn't match the coming-of-age conventions, so we decided to change the story quite a bit in order to meet those conventions. What are those conventions? That's where research comes in handy.
Coming-of-Age film has themes focusing on youth (typically right before adulthood) growing up and maturing with a or multiple strong character arcs. Usually this character arc is of the protagonist/main character of the film. This character is usually facing a big event or a major ordeal in their life, which causes a shift in who they are and how they perceive life.
Coming-of-Age movies often include romance and are often the protagonist's first romantic interest to represent that "first love" many teenagers experience. These movies will have "slice of life" elements, as well as take a part in social commentary.
I've learned from my own blog post that when it comes to openings of a Coming-of-Age, it is very personal to the main character and represents who they are. That representation of that character can be seen throughout the entire film, and eventually that beginning fundamental part of them will be changed by the end. This change could be small or a major life change, but this special thing in the beginning should change.
Finally, the most important thing when it comes to Coming-of-Age movies is its characters. There are typically the same types of character archetypes. There's the awkward main character, the funny best friend, the bully, and the sought-after love interest that typically both the main character and the bully are both into.
Let's look at one of the most cliché Coming-of-Age movies, 'Tall Girl'
Jodi is the main character of Tall Girl and she feels awkward and ashamed because of her tall height. She falls in love with a Swedish transfer student, Stig, who is actually taller than her. The movie in turn follows her trying to get with this new student as well as trying to accept herself. Along the way she runs into conflict with her bully, Kimmy. Kimmy constantly tries to embarrass Jodi and get with Stig. Jodi's best friend, Fareeda, constantly supports Jodi and helps her get the confidence to face the bullying and get the "man of her dreams". Little does Jodi know that her other best friend, Jack, is the real "man of her dreams" and realizes so at the end of the movie.
Incredibly cliche, I know, but many coming-of-age movies follow this pattern. Some are done very well, like 'Perks of Being a Wallflower', and some are done like 'Tall Girl'. It all relies on how these character tropes and conventions are portrayed that make these cliche storylines feel genuine and enjoyable to watch!
Applying it
So how do these ideas connect with our opening? Well, it has many character archetypes seen in coming-of-age movies, but (hopefully) we represent them in a way that doesn't feel forced or cliche. They have intriguing things that make them special, which sets them apart from typical Coming-of-Age tropes. There is depth in each character and how they view the world. That is needed for a characters that fall into tropes to feel less cliche.
Our filming opening, and entire film idea, uses typical coming-of-age conventions, and we add depth to them, so we can represent genuine teenage experience and feelings.
And that line right up there, is how I plan on introducing my answer for question 1 of my CCR.
Sources are Awesome!
Kench, Sam . “What Is a Coming of Age Movie — Examples and Characteristics.” StudioBinder, 24 Sept. 2023,
MasterClass. “Coming-of-Age Movies: What Is the Coming-of-Age Genre? - 2024 - MasterClass.” MasterClass, 2020,
Katyayani, Mohini X. “Tall Girl: A Symptom of the Problem with the Coming-of-Age Genre.” Off Colour, 27 Sept. 2019,
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