Creative Critical Reflection

 This commercial challenged conventions by portraying it being used by young students. Most MacBook commercials will have adults using them, to show how they are usable by professionals, as well as people that use computers for leisure. However, the purpose of using minors in this commercial was to demonstrate how MacBooks are accessible to multiple age groups, not just adults. This brings up another selling point for the MacBooks, but more importantly I believe it brings a certain aesthetic to the commercial, one that is more school-centered. In addition to this, the commercial displays a set of students who are minorities. In this day and age, it is important for minorities to be represented in media, especially in commercials. The commercial shows how people with different hobbies and interests can use MacBooks because it presents two actors, each doing different activities, but still relying on their laptops. This advertisement would mainly engage audiences by showing them the portability of the product. Since the commercial shows an actor walking with the laptop in their backpack and using it in a different place. While accomplishing this, the audience will also know the diverse role MacBooks can play in getting work done. This commercial would work best as an advertisement, displayed in either television program commercials or internet streaming service ads. In another scenario, like a digital billboard, the commercial may not be translated to its best potential as the audience would not have 100% focus on its content. In this project, my production skills in editing skyrocketed. I had known absolutely nothing about editing before this process, and now that the commercial is finished, I have edited the entire thing, and my knowledge of editing is much greater. Things like matching audio and creating different effects for each clip were part of my learning experience. Although editing was the main topic of learning, I was also assisting for the filming portion, and my time there has shown me much about how to setup a scene, and convey the message to the actors, letting them know what they are doing. In terms of equipment- this project did not have any professional filming gear, however my team and I utilized the technology we had to get the work done. All scenes were taken at school, so it was all provided to us for free. The camera used was a cellphone, and we used this technology to our advantage by adding stabilization in the shots, an automatic feature in iPhones. Funnily enough, the editing was done on a MacBook, using iMovie, a free and extremely easy to use editing software. Since the commercial was shot with all that the team had on hand, it will likely not give the professional-grade production quality that other Apple commercials hold. However, given the team's expertise and equipment, the commercial was produced with exceptional care. In conclusion, this commercial has provided many learning lessons for not only me, but my group as well. The great exposure we had to production was priceless, and the product was well worth the time put in.