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Process Journal #8 Process Reflection

I think that the beginning stage Acceptance should be broken into two stages. The first being acceptance of the project, are you going to do it or not? The second stage should be to figure out what the subject of the project would be. Then maybe adding a confirming acceptance stage. This would help because usually people are doing projects that are for work or school and they have to do them if they do not then they have another way of figuring out if they are able to change the course of the subject or if they would like to not accept that project for work. I greatly appreciate the evaluation part of the process because we are really able to look at the project and see where we can improve if we actually wanted to get better at something we have to look back and pick apart the places or times we could have done better and assess what the better option was and could be. I don’t think that we should remove any stages because they are all an important part of the process, each bringing new perspectives and information to help push the project forward. I think again Peer Review is something that should happen in each stage because the more you know about what can go wrong the easier it is to fix it and or prepare for cases as such in the future. I think that the Business Canvas Model was helpful in seeing the overall picture. It was easy to view and had a lot of important information. This was easy for our group since we had a lot of research that we went through. It might be good to add another research phase because it makes moving forward easier when you know more about the subject. We usually looked up information when we needed it in each phase so as to bring more to each step of the creative problem-solving process.

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Conceptualize It

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Conceptualize It

YouTube Video Link:  https://youtu.be/VukhqqOi2Pw During class, we discussed how we were going to continue to conceptualize our project. We wanted to create a visual presentation to showcase or promote the studio. After some ideation, our team came to the consensus to create a short movie where we interviewed people asking each of them the same two questions; 1. How do you feel when you see characters and stories that reflect you or your life in film?  2. Are you more inclined to go see a movie that you feel you're represented in, in some way? Each person who was interviewed had interesting ideas and we wanted to get that in the video but make sure to keep it succinct as we thought we could show this video to the primary stakeholders. This video would show there is interest in watching the films with representation and our creative content that would be done at our studio. We each selected  2 to 3 people to interview and film their answers for this assignment. The video was then cut together and our goal was to bring awareness for the lack of representation in film and show that there is an audience and that is why our creative studio will not only thrive but be an example for other studios to follow. Our primary stakeholders are the audience and we want to make sure that they are heard and seen.

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Process Journal #7: Evaluation

Our group worked on the goal of bringing awareness to the issue of lack of representation in the film industry. We would start with the marketing and education campaigns and then make our own creative studio. We would evaluate to see what makes these successful and what we should change. One technique we could use for all three parts of the project is the introspective review. We need to look at what we are doing in each step and see where we can improve and what was done well. Each time we do this introspective we can then tell it to our Jury of Peers to get their feedback. This is important because we might not be able to see what our own faults are since we are so close to the project. We can also come away with some great new ideas that come from discussion and a different view. Using the evaluation process is important so our project can continue to get better. It would also be useful to use A Plan for Improvement when we take our expectations and subtract what our accomplishments are we can find our areas for improvement. These areas can be financial which can really help motivate people to get more done. It can also be qualitative, ultimately to change things in our process so that the equation will come out with new improvements. We would asses the outcomes of the various phases of the creative problem-solving process by checking to see if it has impacted our goal of bringing awareness to underrepresentation in the film industry. Constantly checking back in with our goal will be beneficial in steering us in the right direction. It would also help us move forward in decisions where we are unsure of what way to proceed, or a question with two good answers whichever leads to the ultimate goal of awareness around our issue would be a good way to move forward in the creative problem-solving process. Our team spoke about the financials and how we would usually not be paid much so it would be good to keep that in mind when we are starting off but to also see that everyone gets paid regularly so the momentum of the project keeps going.

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Process Journal 6: Implementation

In the implementation phase, we use the link from the syllabus and put the Business Model Canvas on a google doc where we could all work on it together. We used the time in class efficiently to start the work on the business model canvas and then met again another time to go over more. We wrote in all of the sections and made subsections for clarification or more items that would fall under that category. When we were discussing at the second meeting we wanted to use the public speaking action method where we would have influencers let the public know about our cause of better representation in feature films. We would also be implementing translating and digesting we would use the marketing and education campaigns to break down large ideas and make them easy for the public to become more aware and learn about the lack of diversity in film. Since our plan is so large with three parts but the main part starting a creative studio it is important to break down the solution so we are able to conceptualize it for our group and to pitch the idea to various stakeholders. The creative studio would best be communicated by using data visualization or modeling. We could show what we would like the studio to look like from an idea or concept to a small physical model of the studio. This would help with getting more funding from stakeholders and also good feedback on what would work and not work.

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Business Canvas Model

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Process Journal 5: Selection

In this section, we selected a solution for our problem with underrepresentation in films in the US. We did two really good brainstorming sessions with our group and came up with many ideas. We then went through and organized each brainstorming session so they were less of a list and had actual categories. As we went through the list everyone decided on where to put each idea in a category by taking a poll or voting. Then we used the potpourri idea and looked at both and decided one and brought some of the ideas over from the other that we thought was really good and started to organize and converge the ideas again. We did an initial elimination of some of the ideas that were there just to get things flowing, ideas that were not feasible or illegal and as a group started to narrow the ideas down. We discussed how we could put some of the ideas together like using influencers, social media campaigns, making a website; all of the online marketing ideas would be grouped. We came up with three main categories Education, Marketing and Creating a Studio. We knew would be the first to start the solution and the studio would follow since it has such a high budget. Coming to a consensus was pretty easy because we had narrowed it down and discussed the categories a lot, we used a little why not try them all method. In this case, it worked because the problem is so big it would need multiple ways of convincing the public and the producers to change their ways. We chose three ways to solve this problem the marketing campaign and the education campaign would be first and then our overall goal is to start a studio where we can produce movies with a fully representational cast.

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Our Solution

Problem: How might we bring more awareness of underrepresentation in films to today? Our solution to bring more awareness of underrepresentation in films today is to create an ongoing awareness campaign. This campaign will include an educational program and a marketing campaign with the ultimate goal of raising enough support and funding to start our own production studio. We feel these elements of our awareness campaign will be the most effective in reaching both the consumers and those within the entertainment industry. As a whole, the various parts of our campaign will be a more effective and complete solution to the problem of underrepresentation within feature film projects both on screen and behind the camera. The educational programs would include material such as short films and PSAs for the public as well as universities and film schools for classroom and campus events. Our marketing campaign would find effectiveness in print material, online content such as websites, and community events to bring awareness to both consumers and creators. These two areas, online and print, would be easy and cost effective to start off our campaign. In addition to bringing awareness, our overall goal would be to gain the support of industry influencers and leaders that will help fund the campaign and push out our material to a wider audience. The use of influencers will also lead us to the ultimate goal of starting our own studio that would allow us to make the changes we are hoping to see by creating content to promote many diverse profiles in films throughout the industry. In doing this for our solution, we are able to approach the problem of lack of awareness of underrepresentation in film from different angles. This creates a very effective strategy for an overall solution. Our Process We did a process similar to both the polling and the ranking process as we worked to eliminate the solutions we didn’t feel strongly about. Our main criteria for the solution is based on the effectiveness of the ideas we had come up with during our brainstorming session. We chose to eliminate ideas that we didn’t feel would be effective towards our solution. As we eliminated an idea, we would explain why we chose to remove it and ensure that it was done with a group consensus. Another criterion was rearranging and eliminating ideas that weren’t closely aligned to our 3 pillars to our solution: education, marketing, and creative studio. We rearranged a couple of ideas to better fit in a pillar. If an idea didn’t really go well with one, then we would also eliminate it. Our pragmatic concerns are in the financial feasibility of the solutions. Some of our solutions are more feasible financially and some of them cost a lot of money. Our logical concerns were revolving around the idea that the best way to solve our issue is in different parts, in which we chose; education, marketing, and creative studio. Our logic is this creates a complete and more powerful solution to the problem of underrepresentation in film. Our team does a really good job at keeping everyone engaged and including everyone’s ideas and opinions about our solutions. We usually all agreed on what solutions did and didn’t work best. As a team we let each individual explain their thoughts without interruption. After all of us have the chance to speak we then make an effort to bring forth a solution together.

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Process Journal 4: Ideation

This was the “how might we” stage. We started the conversation with our group in the class where we came up with many how might we statements for our problem statement “how might we bring more awareness of underrepresentation in films today?” This group work was engaging and we each came up with different ideas that were both feasible and not but we didn’t hold back with any comment knowing something good might come from one of those more outlandish ideas. The ideas we came up with we then organized them into 4 themes; education, marketing, creative studio and political activism/criminal activity. We then discussed which would be the most feasible and which are ideas to let go. We then met another time to do a second ideation with another question “how might we encourage producers to take more risk in diverse projects?” We started off slower with this one because we didn’t think we could use any ideas from the first ideation. When Aaron came in he said we could but only from memory and then at the end compare the two to see if there were any that would overlap or work for both. This helped us get some ideas down and gave us a boost of confidence to continue making more suggestions. We then separated the ideas into 6 themes; incentives, crowdfunding, education, political, social media, and creative. We again discussed the feasibility of all of these. Both of these sessions brought great ideas from the “how might we” questions. We had some overlap and were able to come up with unique ideas for both. Our group worked together well showing that we could brainstorm and diverge through the ideation process.

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Brainstorming Session: Group 1

Idea Generating Question: How might we bring more awareness of underrepresentation in films to today?

The first step we had to take was to come up with our idea-generating question. As a group, we were able to come to a consensus quickly on our question we wanted to generate our ideas from. The question we came up with is: How might we bring more awareness of underrepresentation in films to today? After we had our question chosen, we went to work right away on generating our ideas.

Our Ideas:

·       Make a movie about underrepresentation

·       Press blitz about underrepresentation

·       Picketing studios

·       Flash mob outside major studios

·       Billboards ad

·       Ads

·       Guerilla marketing

·       Positive Social media blitz

·       Satirical spoof on the industry

·       Fake marketing campaign

·       Influencers

·       Animated short

·       Major actors behind it

·       Let's make a dope animated short! Those are always pretty good and then have it be distributed through influencers

·       Switch all major movies with represented

·       Make diversity trailers for the movies coming out

·       Animated shorts

·       Publish comic books

·       Free flyers

·       Bring awareness into the film schools!

·       Take it to the classrooms and teach it to the next leaders in the industries

·       Host an event at USC

·       Direct mailings to the academy

·       Threats

·       Blackmail

·       Documentary on the subject

·       Get a union contract with studios for more representation

·       Get studios to sign inclusion contract/clause

·       Showing all the films that had a diverse cast and lead that made money in some website

·       Create a site of successful diverse films

·       Theatres to make a diversity committee

·       Make a diversity month

·       Diversity films festival

·       Get current movements and associations to educate about diversity – co-marketing

·       “green peace” of diversity for films – RIOT the theatres

·       Secretly replace the films in theatres to a diversity movie

·       Make a musical

·       Documentaries would be really cool if done well and put on Netflix

·       Make a song about it

·       Make a jingle for it

·       Make a PSA

·       Schoolhouse rock for diversity in education

·       Muppet education for diversity

·       Create our own studio to produce and create films

Organized Ideas into Logical Categories:

After we finished generating ideas, we had to organize them into logical categories. After discussion, we organized ideas into 4 categories; 1. Education, 2. Marketing, 3. Creative/studio, and 4. Political activism.

1. Education:

·       Make a movie about underrepresentation

·       Influencers

·       Bring awareness into the film schools!

·       Take it to the classrooms and teach it to the next leaders in the industries

·       Host an event at USC

·       Get studios to agree to an inclusion contract

·       Schoolhouse rock for diversity in education

·       Muppet education for diversity

2. Marketing:

·       Press blitz about underrepresentation

·       Flashmob outside major studios

·       Billboards ad

·       Ads

·       Guerilla marketing

·       Positive Social media blitz

·       Influencers - Major actors behind it

·       Publish comic books

·       Free flyers

·       Create a website showcasing diverse films and their monetary success

·       Theatres to make a diversity commitment

·       Make a diversity month

·       Diversity films festival

·       Get current movements and associations to educate about diversity – co-marketing

3. Creative/Studio – Create a Studio:

·       Make studio and produce the movies

·       Make a movie about underrepresentation

·       Satirical spoof on the industry

·       Fake marketing campaign – for a fake movie

·       Dope Animated short

·       Switch all major movies with representation

·       Make diversity trailers for the movies coming out

·       Documentary on the subject

·       Diversity films festival

·       Make a musical

·       Make a song about it

·       Make a jingle for it

·       Make a PSA

4. Political Activism/Criminal Activity:

·       Picketing studios

·       Direct mailings to the academy

·       Threats

·       Blackmail

·       Get studios to agree to an inclusion contract

·       “green peace” of diversity for films – RIOT the theatres

·       Secretly replace the films in theatres to a diversity movie

Feasibility:

(If we actually could do something realistic and practical with our current resources, this is what would we do)

·       We would start with our own marketing campaign by making a website

·       Education wouldn’t be much money.

·       Gain Influencers. Joint or co-marketing.

·       Take donations.

·       Sky's the limit!

Our Favorite Ideas:

·       Use marketing, education and political activism to make money to build our own studio.

·       The best blue sky idea we have is to create our own studio to make all of the diverse movies. Then be so successful that all the other studios will follow. That would allow us to directly help make people more aware of the diversity issue in film and make films with more representation of diversity.

Our Combined Ideas:

·       It would be great to combine our education idea with bringing awareness to classrooms at film schools and bring in influencers to help bring awareness to the students\

·       We can do diversity film festival and combine with that with advertising for it on college campuses and bringing in student-made films to unite and compete to promote their film

Questions:

Observe and visualize your brainstorming process:

Do you do it remotely? We did our brainstorming process over zoom online. In our Zoom session, we were able to discuss our ideas and be engaged with the discussion. Even though it wasn’t in person, I feel as though we were able to engage well and still have a great sense of how everybody was feeling and how everyone reacted to all of the ideas that were being brought up.

What collaboration software do you use? We used the Zoom software to connect over the computer as a team. For the notes, we used google docs to able to have the ideas in one place that everyone can access. The google docs also help all of us update and see the updates live as we were adding in ideas and categorizing them.

Are you writing, drawing, or something else? We were typing down our ideas as people were saying them.

How does everyone feel? Everyone felt great after the ideation phase. It seemed as though we were all happy and excited about the turnout of the ideas. Everyone was able to add in thoughts and ideas.

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Conjunction Junction

1.     My hair is dark brown and has hints of red in the sun. If I put product in my hair it can straighten and smooth out and add volume. It is medium long and a little wavy and frizzy.

My hair is dark brown but has hints of red in the sun. If I put a product in my hair it can straighten but smooth out but add volume also. It is medium long but a little wavy and frizzy.

2.     Cyclebar is a cycling studio with class options like unlimited memberships and class packages and one-time class purchases. Its colors are red and black and white. It is mostly cycling and a little weight lifting.

Cyclebar is a cycling studio with class options like unlimited memberships but you can get class packages but if you want a one time class you can purchase that as well. Its colors are red but black is another but white is also one of their main colors. It is mostly cycling but a little weight lifting is done.

3.     Starbucks coffee is best hot and with sugar and almond milk. In the summer cold drinks are popular like a cold brew and Frappuccino. My favorite thing to do is order something complicated and dairy free and use my Starbucks points.

Starbucks coffee is best hot but with sugar but add almond milk. In the summer cold drinks are popular like a cold brew but also frappuccinos. My favorite thing to do is order something complicated but dairy free but use my Starbucks points.

4.     My ring is pretty and shiny and platinum. It has three diamonds one in the middle and two on the side. It is partially an heirloom and partially new. It is a symbol of love and respect and trust and caring.

My ring is pretty but shiny but platinum. It has three diamonds one in the middle but two on the side. It is partially an heirloom but partially new. It is a symbol of love but respect also but trust as well but caring too.

5.     Los Angeles is big and diverse and full of things to do. It has many modes of transportation like cars and buses and the metro and electric scooters. Its population is 4 million and covers a lot of area.

Los Angeles is big but diverse but full of things to do. It has many modes of transportation like cars but buses also but the metro too but electric scooters as well. Its population is 4 million but covers a lot of area.

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Problem Definition: Group 2

There is a lack of diversity in on-screen representation in feature films in the U.S.

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Process Journal 3: Definition

This week we took our research and converged it to make a problem definition. We chose the representation in the entertainment industry as our overall topic and discussed what we thought would be easy to research. The whole entertainment industry would be difficult so we needed to narrow our scope. We made a google spreadsheet and each wrote three problem definitions on the broad topic. We then went back a couple days later and voted on which was going to be the definition. We out our initials next to the sentence that we liked the best for each person. The next step was to figure out if we wanted to go super specific and only focus on animation or keep it broad and focus on the top 100 films. Our group discussed how it would be difficult to research animation because we would have to look up each person who voiced the characters and that would ultimately take a lot longer and the scope of the project would be very specific. We decided to go with a broad definition which didn’t include the minorities spelled out like; gender, race, sexuality because there are many minorities that are not represented. We also chose to look at the United States only. This was discussed because the Bollywood movies usually have some sort of love story and we wanted the project to be relevant to our class, we thought it might be interesting since we all know Hollywood with some aspects or another. This was picking a sentence which I thought was going to be easier but it was something we wanted to work out to be balanced between broad and specific and something we could find a lot of research on to back our project. We came to conclusions through discussion, voting, writing things down and finding keywords. Our problem definition is: There is a lack of diversity in on-screen representation in feature films in the U.S.

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Process Journal #2 - Analysis

This week for analysis we looked at the research part of creative problem-solving. Our task was to create a Morphological Analysis of Representation in the Motion Picture Industry. We needed 10 subjects to go across the top and then down the side. We chose to do the row on top with a more broad term and then break it up into defined terms on the column going down. That way we would be able to see how everything fits in together but they would also not need to be so many boxes as this would simplify what it would look like and how we would find information faster. We used another word document to put a lot of our research external links on a separate google document.

I used the internet to look for different articles about the representation or lack thereof in feature films. My part of the Morphological Analysis was for the end users. This was looking at the theatres, revenue from theatres, merchandising. These things were important in how the film was made. If people don’t watch a certain type of movie or watch a movie based on who is acting in it the producers will take that into consideration when they are casting or picking a script.

I think that it is interesting to find out how much China has a role in our film industry. They made a movie called the Great Wall. It was with Matt Damon a famous (white, male) actor in the United States. The movie did not do well here but then it went to China and did fabulously. This movie was backed by Chinese money and they could have put a Chinese actor in as the main role but they didn’t. Another thing that I think is interesting is that 40% of the merchandising for a movie is sold prior to the movie coming out. This makes sense especially considering there are so many hero movies coming from Marvel and DC Comics.

It is clear that people are interested in seeing more representation in the movies but the amount and how we are doing now is debated. For some, the movies like Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians are great successes in the representation category but for others, this is not enough and they are upset about the way some characters are portrayed. You are not going to please everyone but it is good to know that we are going in the right directions. Especially seeing how many diverse people there are in the United States it is good we are interested in representing them.

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Morphological Analysis of Representation in the Motion Picture Industry

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hpdYdZgJjShZm9chEnoc8rs-S45ye7L5igh6BTzNDRM/edit?usp=sharing

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Process Journal #1 - Acceptance

I am accepting this project and want to put myself at the end of the project showing the success from the work that the team and I have put in. I am a positive person, to begin with, but I would also like to take a positive look at the completion of this project. The best case scenario I will celebrate with my team, we discussed already discussed pizza and wine as a possibility. I would also celebrate with my family, friends, and fiancé.

The people that would benefit from my success would be my fiancé because he has been so patient and understanding while I have been studying. He has brought me food so that I could stay in and work. He constantly says he wants to be supportive and then follows up by enjoying the time we have together and then lets me study when I need to. I also think that my friends would benefit from my success because they would have learned what I am learning. Since we share what we think is interesting and how we can help each other it is good to have those sounding boards away from your group that can be helpful or finds the info helpful. I believe my family will benefit from my success because my siblings will see that I got through my class and they can too.

I think that the local impact I will make is to inform family, friends, co-workers, and fellow students about the theme representation in entertainment. I think the global impact will be if we get more actors that are representing more of the world then it will be good for all people to see one another in the movies and entertainment.

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Morphological Analysis of Representation in the Motion Picture Industry

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hpdYdZgJjShZm9chEnoc8rs-S45ye7L5igh6BTzNDRM/edit?usp=sharing