Chocolate Covered Raisins

     I won't lie when I looked up what a CCR was before my teacher explained it to my class, the first thing that popped up was chocolate-covered raisins. Now that I'm well aware that CCR isn't some sweet snack but instead a Creative Critical Reflection, I'm going to be transitioning from my Portfolio Project to this analysis stage. Today, I'll be writing the script for Q1 of my CCR.

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

    To answer questions 1 and 2 of my CCR I wanted to do a podcast-style answer. My friends and I joke all the time that my living room seating looks like it was set up for a podcast so I'm going to take advantage of that. To tie in the creative aspect, I'll be having my dog be the interviewer because everybody else is busy and I'm working alone!

The idea:

The podcast setup inspiration:

My living room:

2 options: curtain down or curtain up

Ori (my dog): On today's episode of the Puppies Talk podcast, we're going to be interviewing the upcoming film director Keyla Seoane Vega! 

Keyla: Hey! It's my pleasure to sit here tonight.

Ori: Let's get into it. Tell us a little bit about your film why don't you?

Keyla: Of course, my film is the story of a girl who witnessed her own twin sister's suicide but because her PTSD was getting really bad, her family didn't want anyone to see her like that and got her lobotomized so she wouldn't remember. The entire movie is the progression of Lily, the main character, slowly finding out about her twin's death and going insane again.

Ori: Wow! How unexpectedly dark. So what's your genre then, horror?

Keyla: Nope it's a psychological drama and a period piece.

Ori: A period piece what is that? And a psychological drama? What are these? I thought there was only horror and comedy. Just how there are only two colors: blue and yellow.

Keyla: No silly there are tons of different genres each with their own conventions.

Ori: Okay, okay. Tell me about 'em.

Keyla: Well some major ones are dramas, thrillers, horrors, comedies, and coming-of-age films. They each have their own conventions or characteristics. For example, tone and mood. The tone and mood in each genre are how the connotations of the actions on screen make you feel. In horror, the tone would be suspenseful like in Terrifier while, on the other hand, the tone in comedy would be light-hearted like in Pitch-Perfect. Other conventions in each genre include topics, style, characters, plot structures, setting, conflict, speed in cuts, and endless more details.

Ori: Huh... Makes sense, I guess. Well, what genre convention did you choose, if any?

Keyla: My chosen convention was an unreliable narrator in a psychological drama genre. Unreliable narrators can be interpreted in many different ways, but Lily is one because she has a mental illness and memory loss. Her narration of the story can't be fully trusted because she doesn't have full knowledge of what's happening in her own narrative, so she isn't aware that she's an unreliable narrator.

Ori: So, you mentioned earlier how character can also make up conventions. How does the whole 'unreliable narrator' represent your main character, Lily?

Keyla: Great question, I see you're learning. Lily's story is a fictional representation of people with mental illness, more specifically, dissociative disorders like DID (dissociative identity disorder) and DA (dissociative amnesia). Mental illness is often represented incorrectly in movies and TV. While multiple symptoms are displayed in Lily, memory loss is a major theme in the movie, which I used construction to represent. Construction consists of visual and auditory choices to support aspects of a character. I used choices like vibrant lighting and curious music to build the idea that Lily's lack of knowledge and memory give her a child-like obliviousness. For example, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind deals with memory loss and has lots of flashbacks in which the construction helps display the main character's feeling in that moment.

Ori: Huh, it's cool how every element just sort of comes together in the end. You know what? All this technical talk is making me hungry.

Keyla: (throws treat) We'll be right back after a short break on the Puppies Talk podcast.

Here is where I would insert the ad, and after the ad, I would answer the 2nd question.