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CCR

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

Upon choosing our genre we began to look for various ways in which we could be able to challenge multiple codes and conventions in a traditional Pakistani film industry. The main concept of our product challenges the beliefs and mindset of a traditional Pakistani person, which in most cases is considered unacceptable to display any relations towards the LGBTQ community. We saw this being heavily regulated in the past and therefore chose to explore in this particular direction by representing two female singers who were part of the LGBTQ community despite us knowing it is likely to be a subject that would raise moral panic in the average Pakistani community. Oftentimes individuals would hide due to the refusal of acceptance therefore our product would only represent half of its population especially if we were to talk about the Islamic background of the country. In a way we could say we attempted to raise awareness of those who identify themselves with the LGBT community showcasing their potential everyday struggles allowed the product to be more relatable.

In order to properly connect with our targeted audience, we use a narrative style film opening, allowing it to be straightforward for younger consumers to easily comprehend alongside attempting to make it look more like a documentary where the narrator takes us into the world of the past, we have included interviews in black and white which act as found footage from the 90s. Moreover to display the present day in the 90s a retro filter was used to easily establish the idea of the two eras, this was done using low-key lighting and played around with colour grading to efficiently use colour codes we see in the film, this relatively gave our project a subtle tragic atmosphere for the consumer to empathise with, challenging conventions such as these were not properly explored in traditional Pakistani media.

English subtitles were provided for international consumers, considering few words were talked about in the Urdu language, they are likely to appear in the future duration of the film making it more convenient for consumers to engage with the product. In order to distinguish between old and new we have not only used filters but also displayed the use of vintage items such as cassettes and VCR tapes alongside showing the idea of being "influenced by westernisation" relied on mise-en-scene, which we displayed using cultural surroundings while wearing western clothing.

The concept of drama was always there in Pakistani films but we rarely saw the concept of Western influences or the product being centred around females yet alone in a band as it was heavily against previous traditional beliefs. This allowed a potential vast female audience to be attracted to our product. This was inspired by the TV series Feud as they displayed different variations of time by changing aspects ratios and colour grading, that being a ratio of 5:3 in black and white which represented old cinema compared to present day in a ratio of 9:16 with saturated colours, all centred around the two female main characters Bette and Joan

As we played around with aspect ratio to distinguish time, we also took the opportunity to include certain sound effects associated with fame that was shown in feud, this included a camera flash. even though there is a slight similarity between the two products we were focused on challenging conventions displayed by the Pakistani film industry. We then included digitally designed newspapers in a montage hearing the sounds of camera flashing to showcase the rising controversy that was attracted to the band's publicity. Effects such as these were not shown in serious situations but rather a the comedic genre which may also be influenced by Bollywood editing styles

• How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

This concept initially led us in creating a survey using Survey Monkey to further understand the perspective of our targeted audience, in order to have maximum engagement with the audience. The result helped us understand if an individual can easily connect with the social issue we put forth as the LGBTQ community seemingly improved an acceptance rate over the period of time but in Pakistan that might relatively not always be the case. Having said that, the results indicated a vast population of females who are under 20, this gave us the notation that they would likely engage with the product as the product we created was from a female's point of view.

To easily be accessible to everyone we distributed our product on YouTube as it is known for its richness in media-related content, alongside posting Teasers on social media platforms to attract various journalists and other old-school fellows, newspaper articles can be released to encourage the word of mouth and improve their engagement with the film. We also intended to distribute in film festivals as our film proceedings would be more qualified than mainstream techniques of distribution due to its low budget in production. The Pakistani film "Joyland" has faced immense problems, being regulated due to its representation of LGBTQ individuals in Pakistan although they have managed to make it to "a window on Asian Cinema" of the 27th business international film festival. This meant that if we did not choose an appropriate film festival to partake in, our product would be less likely to be chosen due to its specific targeted audience therefore looking for an appropriate festival such as LUMS International Film Festival is essential to attain maximum success

• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

HERE IS A PODCAST TALKING ABOUT OUR DEVELOPING PRODUCTION SKILLS

HERE IS A LITTLE SUMED UP VERSION OF MY BABBLING:

The production of this project has enabled us to learn things we have never even experienced before, one of which is making a blog, something I struggled with due to the never-ending errors I had to fix. I had the basic knowledge of how a film was actually produced, never did I know I had to go through such details like blueprints/ pitches which would then be storyboarded, and the fact in the making of the film we are required to closely communicate with our peers to ensure everything goes according to plan, making the film in the best of their capabilities. Working in a team of four has made me aware of using our sets of unique abilities for the betterment of the product. Multiple times we have faced delays in production from both parties: us and the cast due to our availability, this led to all of us acting for the opening, putting some outside their comfort zone, but for me, it was behind the cameras, learning about numerous styles of editing to make a scene feel balanced and attractive. Another thing I tend to confuse is acting on stage and on screen, stage acting required exaggerated movements which were not needed on screen as the camera is relatively closer to you than the audience in the crowd is, this helped me distinguish and control both types of acting we may see in the product. This eventually allowed us to utilise our resources wisely hence the decision to film at Maroosh's House was more convenient for us. Moreover, the other thing that really caught my eye was the importance of sound mixing, displaying a well-placed balance between sound effects, music and dialogue which helped establish the atmosphere of our product alongside its portrayed symbolic code were some of the thing new things I have learned

• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?