While Producing and Directing is focused on hands-on production work, our creative work is always completed with critical awareness. The final paper and on-going critical-creative blog are opportunities to reflect on our production work through critical lenses provided by media theory.
In this critical-creative writing, student-producers explore the meaning generated through production choices. We will reflect upon the messages within our work through lenses such as representation of gender, race/ethnicity and other facets of identity; explore consumerism and product placement; analyze the social significance of our work; and explore the affordances and constraints of various distribution methods (web delivery versus broadcast television, for example). Where and how do our creative projects fit into today’s media landscape? What messages are sent by our production decisions, intentionally or unintentionally? Being able to critically analyze media is a skill, and that skill is developed throughout our semester and highlighted in the final paper and on-going critical-creative blog.