1. How do your products represent social groups or issues?

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Social groups are a group of people who have similar characteristics and might follow similar ways to do something or perceive something. I made my short film for a crowd that truly understands and sympathises with the idea of women's rage. My target audience is anyone from any age category, caste, or gender. Social groups that would potentially relate to my short film would include close friends in the primary category and in the secondary category, specific genre book club members. I try to break out of the dilemma of how men are always those in power and how they are always perceived as not decent. I try to face the issue of misconception, insecurity and miscommunication in modern times. The narrative is such that one understands that events lead to bad things and small lies ultimately lead to bigger ones.

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My short film starts off with the introduction of my lead; the narration of her state is that of a young, confused, anxious, stressed and depressed woman, which is an aspect that creates relatability instantly. The narration connects to friend circles, families, university students, et cetera. This sense of relatability creates depth in people's minds, almost messing with their heads and forcing them to pay attention to the rest of the short film. The moment a media piece becomes personal, it makes one like it. The film then shows us the leads, love interests, which represent young teens, bachelors, those who prioritize relationships and those who are lonely. It sets a mood that is comforting because of the fact that a person feels seen by another. In the first minute itself, one can tell the target audience and age category my film is targeting. 

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Teenagers may seem like too vague of a social group, but they are in fact more detailed than one would think. Teenagers and the ones to instantly feel invegorated after seeing my short film, as the direction is such that it follows the steriotypes and ways of the people who are from 13 to 19 years of age (in 2024). I feel that they are my main audience because they can instantly understand the message of my film as well as predict the plot and meaning of why the storyline is how it is. I emphasize the topics of procrastination and boredom because it makes sense to this generation, as the evolving world and the never-ending influence of toxic standards and trends make one feel defeated when they're unable to meet them or achieve them. This constant feeling of being demotivated is a factor that brings people together, ultimately making it a common characteristic between people, which forms a social group. Certain features in my short film, like how the inspector is not too harsh with the lead, are clearly for the reason that women are not perceived as criminals and because of this assumption, people take serious crimes with women suspects extremely lightly. Even though I am a woman myself, I feel the need to point out the discrimination. Even if I did make the scene differently, that is, make the inspectore way more harsh, people would question it and call it unrealistic, unconsciously, as we all by default always think that women are kinder and calmer compared to men (mostly they are). 

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As an artist, I find myself feeling the need to put out creative work out there and sometimes these artistic ideas are not commercially fit for most people to be attracted by them. These thoughts and ideas make me feel angry and I go through this feeling of 'harm OCD', a term used in psychology, which means having intrusive and unwanted thoughts. Whenever I get irrational ideas and wants that I know are not good for me, I instantly take my head to the idea that so many people are struck by failure on a daily basis and that if others are able to learn from their mistakes, then I should too. In the same way, that is what I try to do with my short film. Although my short film is open to interpretation and one can choose to believe that my character did in fact kill her partner, one can also see the exact same storyline as such: the first half is the true flow of events and the second half is how the lead wants to believe the events actually went. 

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My short film is directed such that it is chronological and I made sure it was this way to ensure that people understand the narrative and intensity of events. There's this sense of uncertainty in the film itself, like the characters in the film are themselves facing the impact of interpretation. Which makes one watching my short film smile at themselves because they overthink about what the film was trying to convey versus what they think is apt, which unconsciously makes one think about the intensity of their life and how if only they could face issues that bother them with methods such as 'escapism', like how I have portrayed in my film because such things as 'getting away with murders' only exist in imagination, books and TV.

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I want to conclude by noting that every media piece has its own representation of social groups, but there is one in common: those that find peace in enjoying media. Most of the time, a movie is made with the intent to attract a certain set of audiences, that is, with a certain taste in genre, such as what kind of actors they like playing certain roles, what kind of aesthetics they like, what kind of music they like, et cetera. So, ultimately, every piece of media always represents a social group, sometimes being extremely specific and sometimes indirectly to social groups that they usually don't mean to interact with, which is in fact ultimately a 'win situation.'

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The quote 'one watches movies to escape reality', is really a message that my short film ultimately conveys. Thus, the world is my audience because makers and viewers only produce and watch, respectively, to escape their own current problems. 

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2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of     ‘branding’?

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Branding is what creates the identity of an idea. It's a name, term or even a symbol that creates a sense of familiarity. An amazing example would be 'Nike', a billion-dollar company; its tick (trademark) and slogan ("Just do it") go a long way. But one misconception, in my opinion, is that one always thinks that a certain aspect is what really makes one entity stand out from another; however, logically, it's the effort of that entity and its persistant effort of putting their brand out in the open. For instance, 'just do it' instantly makes one think of Nike, but it was not always that way. It took Nike a very long time to promote the slogan to create recognition for its brand, and without Nike, the slogan would seize to exist. In the same way, I use such aspects to give my audience a chance to recognise, relate to and react.

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My title, 'Do we deserve the love we choose', is inspired by the famous quote, "We accept the love, we think we deserve." The heading in itself creates a sense of familiarity, making one instantly think to themselves, "I feel like I've heard that before." The quote comes from a famous book, now also a movie, 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', a bestseller known by everyone from my time (Gen Z). I do not intend to use the title as a marketing tactic, but simply because it is nostalgic and to me, evokes a feeling of warmth, and that is merely why I liked the heading for my short film. 

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Then, with the help of my social media page, I market and sell the idea of my film. I start off by promoting my production house, 'vibez house'. I do this to create hype around my identity as a producer and to reveal to my audience the artist behind the craftsmanship. One more factor about the word 'vibez' is that it's a term I use very often and in fact, I even have a tattoo of it on my left forearm. That's why I knew that those who knew me would be able to instantly tell that 'VIBEZ HOUSE' belongs to me and my production house would always remind people of Samhita Das. Then I move on to picture and word promotion, which is putting sneak peaks from my production work together step by step to create hype around my film. Such as, announcing my cast and film release dates, et cetera. Then finally posting live motion content to feed the hunger of my audiences, who have seen too little but want to see more of my short film.

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Further, I go ahead and post snippets initially, which are tiny clips from my short film, to ignite people's curiosity. Finally, after building anticipation for my film, I go ahead and post a trailer, but only a short one. Finally, my end step in my social media promotion would be announcing the final date for the release of my short film, after which the end process would be putting my short film out for the public to see. 

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But it is not just big procedures like promotion that mainly create brands, but tiny aspects like using fun personalities and clever wordplay to attract consumers. Idealy speaking, my short film in itself is a brand, and so am I, the actors of my film, and the music used; literally, everything that makes up my short film really is a factor in creating the sense of 'branding'.

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Other strategies used to create a sense of branding are selling merchandise, collaborating with different companies or industries, vertical and horizontal integration and creating specific products (core products and unique selling points).

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One incredibly smart way of promoting a media product, according to me, is through 'meme' creation. A meme is, as defined by Google, an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations. Production companies like 'A24', a broadband production company known for its beautiful and unique style of movies, emphasizing 'hyper realism' When 'A24' had just begun buying movies as a distributor, it didn't have high budgets and chose memes, a widely known trend in Gen Z, to promote their movies. I found this extremely clever and decided to do the same on my Instagram account for my film. One more very creative way of creating branding is through symbolising colours. For example the use of red in my short film, if you notice carefully you can notice how my Instagram account is extremely 'red coded'. This is solely to put out the idea of my short film connecting to the colour red. So, when one thinks of red they'd think of my short film. A very good example for this is 'Barbie' the motion picture making their main branding through the colour pink, so when one thinks pink, they think barbie. A very clever way using 'multiple touch point'.

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Another tactic I used, like I mentioned above, was slogan usage by Nike. I also used a catchy and simplistic quote to support my short film's title. 'Innocenec, a tool to lie', my slogan. Despite my constant stress towards creating dramatics throughout every process, I felt the need to make my tagline match my story, which gives my audience the freedom to make assumptions. One more thing I keep in mind is the usage of appropriate words to convey messages, so I use promising and strong words to make the audience understand immediately what my short film is about without even having to see a trailer. Words like 'innocence' and 'lie' are both strong words that only exist in extremes in the age and time we live in and despite being contrasting words, they fall in the same line, as shown in my quote and I think that is something that will truly keep my audience wanting more and questioning its purpose. This also creates huge depth in my branding, as it creates recognition not only with the slogan but also with individual words and everything else that corresponds to the quote. 

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I want to conclude by saying that, branding may not be everything but it indeed does make anything seem like everything. Thus, I think branding in a media aspect and really anywhere really helps a product grow just like how i explained the factors that helped mine grow as well as create the recognition I wanted it to give my consumers. 

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3. How do your products engage with the audience ?

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The art of showing what you want to the viewers is cinamatography. A camera is a mediun, much more advanced than eyes, I can show an event in 100 different ways and make all of those ways infer a different meaning. In my case, I follow my concept and mise en scene to show the viewers what I want, which is a more broad minded aspect of cruel society and people's wrong conseptions taking over the world.

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I use camera play to keep my audience engaged and complicated techniques to execute depth in editing. To excite the audience, I start off with showing multiple versions of my lead but in the same frame, as if there are 3 Sami's in the same frame. I also use this so that the viewers watching find it easy to understand the message, that is, off wasting time. It was necessary for me to ensure that my visuals were easy on the eye, aesthetic and understandable, which according to me are factors to keep and audience engaged. 

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Considering my target audience would be young adults, I found it important to make my short film up to date, in the sense, not using formal tone of language, or boring background music, et cetera. I had previously done a little research on consumer taste, from which I found that loads of people prefer unrealistic genres to watch rather than reality genres or romance genres. After making this observation I realised that people liked spontanious shots, special effects and artificial concepts. I took these factors into consideration for the purpose of being able to commercialise my short film, in this way I'd be sure that the people would like what they watch based of previous research and data collection. 

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I think one thing that people never mention is colour grading, the god of storytelling, really. There are certain colours that mean different feelings or scenarios to people as well as set different moods and I as well use colour to keep audience hooked to my short film. 

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I use warm colours and extreme saturation to describe heavy emotions, like lonliness and joy, the saturation infers depth and vivid feelings, such as nostalgia, which to me as cosumer or rather a prosumer really makes me sit back and appreciate the beauty of elements in visuals, describing its intentions. I also use black and whites to make the consumers understand that the scene is from the past and doesn't exist anymore. I also make sure that all my frames are bright and clarity is as clear as possible because I think that even tho my film might require my dark colour palates as a consumer myself I like watching things I can see thus I made everything easy on the eye.

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The main way to engage audience according to me, is definitely by creating a feeling of understanding, recognition and familiarity. Which I felt could be done using steriotypes. Some evident steriotypes I used include youngsters bored; the whole first minute is primarily dedicated to describing how my lead feels as a young adult, as a human being with sensitivity and fragile feelings. The fact that she explains how tiny things mess with her head and change the flow of her life really keeps the audience at the edge of their seats because these are things that youngsters and the general public can relate to because sometimes when one is unstable mentally, they tend to find every little thing annoying. After researching consumer reactions to media, especially video forms, I understand that people love to see things they know, although their understanding varies from person to person. 

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Role model culture, a culture that just cannot exist, is the idea of looking up to people. We as consumers tend to like consuming media that is pretty and when I mention pretty, I literally mean beautiful people. Thus, I use attractive and well-put-together people that consumers would like to watch. In the age we live in now, we constantly create high complexes for people who are above average in terms of the way they look. When people watch Samyuktha, the girl who plays my lead, they can instantly feel that she is a suitable character to head the short film and really put together the story given her role in it. She is beautiful, fit, but most importantly, confident. Being confident really makes her body language and her ways of doing certain activities seem so much more presentable and bold. When consumers see strong characters, they tend to want to look up to them, act like them, and be as confident and presentable as them as well. Also for the cast, Dhruv is a tall young man who is fit and has a positive and outgoing character, something consumers truly enjoy watching in male characters. 

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Other factors I've used to keep audience attention include my shots being taken in bright blaces with apealing and simple backgrounds, as well as elegant and simplistic costumes on my characters. 

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I want to conclude by saying that what one sees is what one believes' and I think the purpose of the director is for consumers to understand a story and it is to tell it to the consumers word by word, which in this sense means that every single aspect that makes up my short film should be in such a way that the audience is told what they should understand. That is exactly what I try to do with my short film at every stage of its promotion as well.

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4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

Conventions are defined as things that follow traditional ways to present aspects. In the end, I will conclude all of the conventions that I followed as well as give supporting evidence for them. 

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It is easily said just by observing my blog that my research was vast and prolonged, as I had found myself doing my research at least for 6 months. My research process involved a good amount of time. I had dedicated my time to watching different genres of short films as well as a couple of movies. After which, I initially wanted to make a short film of tragedy and suspense because, at the time, I was very eager to play with different genres and create a piece according to those specific conventions. But with time and more further research, I realised that I had only chosen my previous genre out of excitement and only later realised that it was not a genre I wanted to work with. Thus, I switched to 'phycological thriller', a genre that felt more breathable and not so dicey, unlike my previous genre. I chose this genre for another reason, which was to make my short film open-ended; thus, with a strong genre, I was able to build that type of look and feel. 

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I liked sensitive genres because the conventions that I observed in the short films that I saw during my research were very accurate and relatable to me. For example, the introduction of fear was usually more well calculated by women compared to men, and loads of colour palettes of warm tones, such as red, were used more often to depict strong feelings of pain or suffering. These conventions are just a few of the many examples that I saw and incorporated.

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Firstly, for my specific research, which is watching short films that were only related to my genre, I went ahead and looked for more specific storylines. I want to talk about a short film I remember watching, whose story I honestly did not understand as it offered way too much room for interpretation, but I still thoroughly enjoyed watching it as the music buildup, echoing diegetic sounds and beautiful use of colour play really kept me on my toes. Immediately after watching this film, I knew that I wanted my short film to put me through feeling like such. During my research, I started to realize that many things that often happen in reality are what truly build up fictional genres and even sensitive ones. Often, aspects that one doesn't notice much are those that help create solid ideas. 

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My whole short film almost only uses conventions throughout. I wanted my short film to be attractive but most importantly relatable, for which my game and main strategy were to go ahead and put in aspects in my short film that people could relate to, which are conventions, respectively, to my genre. The first thing I considered was industrial representation in film, which is everything that happens in reality being depicted in film. Thus, my main convention was the lack of gender equality and neutrality. One such aspect is how the cop is easy on my lead as she is a woman. This is a common feature I see in my films, especially in Indian cinema. Truly speaking, given the scenario, a missing person is a serious issue and as shown in most films, it is usually shown that when a male is accused as a suspect for a crime, they are usually not held to or even given the chance to talk for themselves, but this is unlikely for women as it is perceived that women are naive and not fit for harm, a common stereotype shown through film. (Now times are changing and so is the content shown to us consumers.) The next convention I used was colour grading to differentiate time, that is, differentiating past, present, and future. For my flashback scene, I used the colours black and white to represent the past, a common convention used by many directors and cinamatographers to depict something that has already happened. I didn't, however, go ahead and completely follow this, but I made it a little confusing for the audience to draw a conclusion from. That is, I only made the male character black and white, but the rest of the screen was red and unsaturated, making the audience wonder what is real and what is not. The next convention I follow is systematic emothions, that is, the usage of logic while representing dialogue. In my film, the lead explains the flow of events first; she is very fast and almost hesitant, as well as saying it in a monotonous manner like a robot. This is because she talks to the inspector. However, this is not the case with the second time she explains the flow of events; the second time she sounds more playful and free, even a little excited. This is because she is talking to her father and she would look forward to talking to her parents as well. Being in a confided place, she's feeling more free to speak rather than being pressurised. 

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The examples given above are a couple of ways I use convention. I want to conclude by saying that conventions are used to create a sense of depth in cinema, and I use them to create familiarity and, most of all, relatability. Conventions give context greatly to all cinema and create ideas on what is already a perception, which is a clever way to put out media, and after my thorough research, I knew I'd use conventions to build up on my plot and storyline.