Sofia's Blog: Prep for CCR 2 (Oscars)

Hey blog!!!

CCR 2: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

Interviewer: And what in your film do you think resonates with audiences so much?

Well, our target audience was teen girls since... well, that's what the film is about... and I feel that many of our watchers have or had a strong friendship like Jackie and Lily's that they are able to feel some sort of connection to. And I think this film also brings comfort to teens regarding hardships they may encounter and proves to them that they will be able to overcome them. Even with older audiences, that fun youthful innocence and excitement combined with the 2000s style also adds to that nostalgic feeling that we wanted to include that some are able to reminisce on.

Interviewer: Respond/react to that. The attention that "When the White Seeds Fall" received was overwhelmingly positive. So, how did you get to sharing this film to the world as a small, independent creator?

Well, I started out by just submitting the opening to local film festivals for fun, when I received a lot of good feedback I realized, "wow this could actually become something." So I decided to post it on Youtube and eventually researched how to release it on Tubi, which is a great starting point for beginner films. And yeah, since it was put on Tubi, it gained wide traction, was watched by thousands of people and well, got me to the Oscars!

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Our target audience consisted primarily of creative teenage girls, the same as our main characters. Jackie was seen as more artistic and introverted than Lily, which allowed for the artists and teenagers who might feel out of place to see themselves in her character and not be embarrassed of themselves. Lily, on the other hand, fits into more of the trendy and quirky side of being a teenage girl. And even then, we chose to add that bit of a nostalgic feeling by making the film take place in the mid-2000s so that, even those who are older are able to find comfort in a film that reminds them of when they were younger and learning to find who they are and to navigate the world. Which leads me to the 2nd question, it is difficult to distribute a small beginners film like this one to become what it has become. But it all started out with my school's film festival where I submitted the opening because why not. Once I received a lot of good feedback from it I was like, '"wow... maybe this could actually be something big." So, after some research I decided to release it first on Youtube and then on Tubi. Youtube users consist mainly of people from ages 25 to 34, and while this wasn't necessarily our principal target audience, we thought that age group still fit into Gen Z, which most of our target audience was in, and they would relate and understand the nostalgic point we chose to add in. Tubi, on the other hand, gets views from a wider range of ages, with 34 percent of users being in between the ages of 18 and 34. This definitely helped us reach the younger parts of our target audiences and helped us reach much more viewers. And well, we made it here. It is actually still a small film in that sense, so Netflix, HBO, someone, if you're interested.... we got nominated for an Oscar.. just saying...