Final Reflection on my CCR

 Creating Cadence has allowed me to explore on how ambition and mental health contrast with athletes. Since sports narratives; especially running, focus on triumph, my opening challenges that by introducing ambition as mentally draining.

QUESTION 1 - REPRESENTATION AND CONVENTIONS

Throughout my researching process, I identified some genre conventions:
- Low key lighting
- Slow pacing
- Diegetic sound
- close ups that convey emotional intensity

While sports narratives often conclude and prioritize winning, I changed this expecatation. Instead of celebrating an achievement, I shown Leo's ambition as destructive to that. 

The most important factor in this was representation. Leo is the main character and he is percieved as a young male athlete who experiences the struggle of emotional vulnerability. This concept has challenged stereotypes of masculinity that silences the toil of mental health. By demonstrating the garage breakdown, I prioritized mental health as the essential issue rather than the physical endurance in the running scenes.

QUESTION 2 - AUDIENCE AND DISTRIBUTION

I concluded that my target audience ranges from ages 15-21, who is interested in psychological, character driven themes. Throughout my research process, I found that this type of audience values realism and emotional depth.

Techniques that were used to immerse my audience were:
- enigma codes
- cross cutting to increate suspense and tension
- intimate close ups
- diegetic sound thats rough and emotional

As an beginner filmmaker, distribution methods that seem realsitic to me are:
- Youtube
- Vimeo
- Film festivals hosted by students

These platforms align with my status and are super accessible with independent film distributors.

QUESTION 3 - DEVELOPMENT JOURNEY

At the beginning of my journey, my knowledge about cinematography was limited and basic. Through many hours researching, planning, and storyboarding; I refined my shot composition and lighting.

My sound project I did previously has significantly advanced my understanding and ability to layer diegetic sound which was my weakness. By comparing early drafts to my final draft this will demonstrate clear improvement in my framing, pacing, and emotional construction. 

QUESTION 4 - INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGY 

I used :
- Phone camera
- Tripod for stable framing
- Clipchamp for my editing
- Blogger for documentation
- Canva for graphics

Technology was a huge help and shaped the meaning. Cross cutting, brightness levels, and layering of the audio layering were essential in constructing tension mentally.

Overall, this whole project strengthened my technical, creativity, and analytical skills. I began this idea of simply being about running and developed it into a immersive psychological narrative.