Classwork

Pre-production Genre Research

Pre-production: Preliminary Research

 This blogpost shows my Preliminary research

Weekly Progress

 This blogpost shows my weekly progress during the whole music video project process

My Team

 These are my teammates & their blogs for this project

Brief

 Here's my brief for my music video project

Final Submission

Here is my final submission for this documentary project.

FINAL VIDEO

FINAL THUMBNAIL

CR: Critical Reflection

 Here is my self-critical reflection essay for my documentary project.

CR 1 - How do your products represent social groups or issues?

CR 2 - How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

CR 3 - How do your products engage with the audience?

CR 4 - How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

Critical Reflection

For our media project, my group created a crime documentary called The Cult of the Living World and a thumbnail. The documentary follows a journalist who secretly investigates a mysterious cult that claims to support environmental causes but is involved in kidnapping and violence. The thumbnail and documentary were designed to work together to give mystery and suspense. Branding in media studies is about creating a clear identity so audiences can recognise and connect products.its about things like colours, fonts, visual style, sounds, and repeated themes that link them together. Strong branding is important because it makes a product stand out and helps audiences know what to expect. In our project, we used branding to connect the thumbnail and documentary. Both focused on mystery and secrecy, which fit the cult theme. The thumbnail shows a blurred figure in the woods, which acts as a hermeneutic code because it makes audiences question who the figure is and what they’re hiding. fig. 1 This links to the documentary’s handheld, low lit footage, where the shaky shots create the same unsettling tone. fig. 2 I was partly inspired by Wild Wild Country (Netflix), which used cult imagery and archive footage to build its brand identity. Stuart Hall’s reception theory also applies here, since audiences can decode the hidden leader differently, some may see her as dangerous and unpredictable, while others may read it as cult secrecy. Keeping her hidden across both products kept that mysterious tone consistent. Before making the documentary, I researched conventions of crime documentaries to see what makes them effective. They were interviews, archive footage, handheld shots, diegetic sound, and low lighting to create tension. We used many of these, but also challenged some to make our project stand out. Most crime documentaries and cult stories show male leaders, which links to Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory where men are seen as powerful while women are sidelined. By making our cult leader a woman, we subverted this expectation and gave her the position of power, which makes her more unsettling. I was influenced by The Blair Witch Project for its handheld style, especially for the secret footage of our journalist character. Wild Wild Country also inspired the use of interviews and cult imagery, which helped us mix realism with mystery. My research into real cults showed how chants and rituals are important, so we added a Latin chant scene where the journalist slips up and gets caught. fig. 3 Overall, my research helped me balance conventions of the crime genre while adding twists to feel different. We aimed our documentary at late teens to young adults who enjoy true crime, horror, or spiritual stories. We designed it with them in mind, using Netflix-style conventions but adding darker touches to attract paranormal fans. The thumbnail’s blurred figure and rough police sketches work as hermeneutic codes, sparking curiosity about the cult. In the documentary, we blurred the face and distorted the voice of the journalist’s partner in an interview. This made audiences feel like they were being trusted with hidden information, while also building suspense. According to Uses and Gratifications theory, our product links to surveillance by informing audiences of the cult’s crimes, while the eerie style keeps it entertaining and shareable. Mixing horror visuals like shadows with crime conventions like interviews and archive footage kept our audience engaged and made the cult seem more disturbing. Our documentary represents three main groups: the journalist, the cult members, and ordinary people. The journalist is represented as brave and determined, willing to risk himself to uncover the truth. Handheld shots and secret camera angles put the audience in his shoes, making the investigation feel tense. The cult members are shown as threatening and mysterious through shadows, chanting, and distorted sound, which makes them feel unpredictable. Everyday people are represented as scared or cautious, reflecting how communities react to disappearances or dangerous groups. The main issues we explored were cults and environmental extremism. The cult was “green” and pro-environment, but we showed how their message was twisted into violence and control. fig. 4 This links to real world debates about how serious issues like climate change can be exploited by dangerous groups. We also used stereotypes of cult imagery, like candlelight rituals and forest gatherings, because these visuals are familiar and signal “cult” to audiences.

Editing process

This is our editing process and improvement

 (1)

To edit this documentary, Im using capcut and I bought the pro version. To help me editing in more advanced way and access all effect and tools.

 first version of editing

The feedback I got from the teacher is to add more effect like the glitch, and resolution on the body cam to make it a little bit blur and low resolution to add the realism. Also adding few sound effect that could help to add suspense into the scene, also by removing things that are not important, like too long question from the interviewer, and also the time when the interviewee think and waste a few second. And by adding more footage while the interviewee are still talking, so its not boring for the audience to watch.

I got inspired by seeing some documentaries which about crime, thriller, they're showing lot of sound effect to add suspense and other stuff that conform to a crime, thriller documentary, and one of them is 

Far War Cry opening scene, which also about a cult.

(2)

This video shows where the subtitles are not consistent ,where it all have different size, our feedback to is to change the size and make it all the same, additionally change how the text popped out, where first one we use the typing effect, but Mr. Nick suggest to just put all the sentence without giving the effect of typing, to make audience easier to read and not making the audience in hurry to watch it.

I was inspired by looking at the Netflix documentary where the subtitles are clear and don't use any excessive effect, and just keep it simple for the audience to easily read it.

This how it looks, all of the text are already in same size, I also use a simple type face similar to Netflix, and eras the typing effect which now its much easier to ready and doesn't need to be hurry when reading it. This will help the audience to understand the meaning of the documentary better and doesn't miss information because its hard to read the subtitles.

3)

So this is the scene where the drone scene suddenly be shown out of nowhere after Zalfas Interview which is not match to Zalfas Interview or the plot of the documentary, Mr. Nick also said that it doesn't make sense and the context about the drone.In the drone shot, it shows that the drone suddenly crash because it hit the tree,but audience wouldn't know why did the drone hit the tree what is the problem actually until the drone was hit by a tree ans then fell down and stay still on the ground.

I was inspired by the other interviewee from Ambamovic and Fred,where every time they speak there is their own footage that is the eveidence of what they are saying and talking about,for example Ambamovic talking about the cult and the insider,then we showed the insider camera footage.

This is after we add 1 more interviewee which is the Hacker/Drone operator that worked together to investigate the cult with Ambamovic.In this interview the hacker explain in detailed about why do they flew a drone into the cult head quarters,and why do they crash into a tree is clearly explain in the interview,which now audience could understand about the drone scene.We also add hermeneutic code,which is from how we show the hacker with effected sound and we doesnt show the face, and only dark.In this new interview too,we add several camera angles which is from the side and infront of the interviewee,to make more variation and show to show important information when we shoot it straight infront of the drone operator.

Classwork

This blogpost shows all the things we have learned in media as classwork in a mind map form created by my teammate Gusde.

Thumbnail (Research & Development)

 This is our  research & development for our thumbnail crime documentary. This post is primarily written by Kenzo, although I (Lamiya) made a last minute change towards the whole thumbnail. 

 RESEARCH

This is how the overall crime documentary cult genre thumbnail looks:

Even though the thumbnails below are not from a crime documentary, these designs most likely fit with our documentary theme:

The purpose of a thumbnail is to capture the audience's attention at first glance and convey what the media text is about. It's some kind of a guide that helps the audience decide whether they want to click/watch, especially in big, crowded platforms like Netflix or YouTube. Matching the genre convention of the thumbnail makes the content look more legitimate and professional. Having a colourful, playful thumbnail for a crime documentary would defeat the purpose of having a crime documentary, as it misleads the audience from the intended content. In conclusion, a thumbnail is a visual hook that contains information regarding the media text, and the design must match the genre to avoid audience confusion.

Here are the two documentary thumbnails that caught our eyes at first glance. The Blair Witch documentary follows a horror convention of dark colour scheme, which emphasises fear through the use of colour red (symbolising blood and danger) and black, representing death or mystery, creating a powerful combination that evokes dread and anticipation in the audience who views the thumbnail. The font used in the Blair Witch is slightly worn out and has an uneven serif typeface, which gives a sense of seriousness. The genre convention this thumbnail gives unsettles the audience, suggesting something hidden happens behind the picture. I think the colour scheme and the font could be applied to our final thumbnail perfectly.  

                                                        

For the "In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal" documentary, the thumbnail uses a typewriter-style font, which makes it journalistic and instantly gives an impression of a real-life investigation. The title highlighted the word "God" in red, which shows the danger and corruption. The colour red might also connotate blood, which may imply there might be murder or a bloodbath in the documentary. The pinned photograph connected by a red string on a detective investigation board is a common way for most crime documentaries to make the audience feel that they are piecing the evidence together as they view the thumbnail. Unlike Blair's Witch silhouette, in this thumbnail, we see the real faces of the cult leaders, which suggests that this event actually occurred in reality. We are probably going to add this to give our thumbnail a sense of realism.

                                            

For the final chosen one, we decided to take from a documentary called "Escaping Evil: My Life In A Cult" because this perfectly fits with our documentary theme. The font choice for "ESCAPING EVIL" uses a handwritten, brush-styled serif font that creates an emotional, first-person connection, unlike the other cold investigative documentaries. The font choice of "MY LIFE IN A CULT" uses a factual, clear and serious font beneath the "ESCAPING EVIL" storytelling type font. The genre convention of a group of women dressed in long robes walking to an isolated landscape connotes a secrecy with the fact that we couldn't see their faces, also showing the anonymity within the cult life. The thumbnail was taken in a wide-open, desolate environment tells the audience that it is difficult to break free from the cult. 

From these three chosen thumbnails, "Blair Witch" gives a greater sense of horror and less documentary from the use of the cult symbols and the disturbing colour scheme. "In the Name of God" gives off a more investigative crime evidence and documents. Highlighting the word "God" in red draws attention to the audience that there might be religion being twisted, which could probably be a good feature for our documentary thumbnail. "Escaping Evil" gives off a documentary of the survivor's story of personal trauma.

Below is the research of our typefaces:

Typeface Research

Here is Kenzo's attempt at creating the thumbnail: (through Kenzo's pov)

This will be the starting baseline of the thumbnail. Further improvements will be added. For now, I will use idea#4 as my reference for the thumbnail.

Here is the second attempt at creating the thumbnail:

I added more writing in red to give clearer information about what the board is about to the audience. However, some of the writings were off-placed and the colour grading was not enough, so I think I might fix that in the next attempt.

Here is the third attempt at creating the thumbnail:

I removed the off-placed writing and added some new elements into the thumbnail, such as sticky notes, black highlighter, red circled marker and a few dead plants covered in blood to give a more realistic vibe to the audience. I will plan to add darker lighting on my next attempt and do the final touches on my final attempt.

Here is the final attempt at creating the thumbnail:

This is Lamiya's attempt at the thumbnail: 

The final choice:
We decided to go with Lamiya's thumbnail as the majority of the group agrees. 

Below is the reason why we changed the thumbnail idea

The first thumbnail, which was designed by my teammate Kenzo, used a detective board style with notes, photographs, red string and sketches. This is a clear reference to how investigations are often shown in crime media, and it does link to the crime genre. However, when I looked at it in the context of our documentary, I felt that the colours and busy layout made it come across in a lighter and almost playful way. The handwritten notes and doodle like sketches gave it a slightly casual look, which didn’t fully match the dark and disturbing subject matter of our documentary about a cult that does shady things and also kidnaps people. It also looked quite packed with different details, which can sometimes be harder for audiences to read quickly, especially when thumbnails need to be clear even at a smaller size.

first draft

Because of that, I decided to redesign the thumbnail myself. For the final version, I kept the design much darker and simpler, drawing inspiration from Netflix crime documentaries, which often use bold and minimal images that immediately grab attention. I placed the cult leader as the main figure in the centre of the thumbnail, with shadows covering her face. This makes her identity mysterious and creates suspense, as the audience is encouraged to ask “who is she?” and “what is she hiding?” I also added eerie hand drawn sketches that my teammate Kenzo drew layered faintly over the background. This detail connects to the idea of madness and obsession, but in a way that feels unsettling rather than playful. The darker tones and high contrast give the whole image a more professional and cinematic feel.

Final draft

When the two thumbnails are compared side by side, their differences show how the project developed. The first one communicates the theme of crime through investigation imagery, but it gives off a lighter tone. The new one focuses on mystery and fear, using simplicity and darkness to create suspense. Both designs have clear links to crime conventions, but the second matches more closely with the style and atmosphere of our documentary. This shows how our thumbnail design developed from being genre linked where it's just being creative with it to becoming genre accurate and emotionally effective towards the audience. 

Behind the Scenes

 This blogpost shows a presentation of the behind-the-scenes that Kenzo created but the pictures used were taken by the other group members.

Media Studies BTS

Filming schedule

 This blogpost shows the filming schedule that I (Lamiya) primarily worked on with the help of my teammate Gusde. we all agreed on this filming schedule.

Filming Schedule
Scene	Time and Date	Location	Cast and crew	Props	Equiptment	Other
1 Cult Infiltration	Friday 29 August 2025, 7:00 PM	Naga Eight and surrouding areas	All Member + 10 actors	Cult outfits (robes + masks) + candles	Body Cam + microphone	Cancelled: Members unavalible
2 Interviews	Wednesday 27 August, 3:00 PM	Gusde's house	All member	business casual attire, tables chairs, decorations	MicroPhone SM57 + camera	Went well but footage is a bit grainy
3 Drone Shot	Friday 29 August 3:00 PM	Lamiya's House	Gusde		Drone	Cancelled: Members unavalible
1 Cult infiltration	Friday 5 September 2025	Zalfas House (field)	10 actors + Gusde and maha	Cult outfits (robes + masks) + candles	Body Cam + microphone	Cancelled: Props unavalible + group member sick
1 Cult infiltration	Thursday 11 September 2025	Zalfas House	10 actors + Gusde and maha	Cult Outfits ( normal everyday outfits/ missionary outfits with cloth over eyes or other such face coverings)	Body Cam + microphone
3 Drone Shot	Thursday 11 September	Zalfas House	Gusde + cult leader		drone

Location Scout & Risk assessment

 This is the Location scout & Risk assessment that my teammate Maha worked on with my help.

(Location 1)
Location Link:	Naga Eight Restaurant
Events in scene:	Cult meeting scene
Pros of location:	Quiet and few people there
Cons of location:	A good restaurant nearby could distract our group members, especially Gusde.
Alternatives:	Mertasari Beach
Risk Assessment
Potential hazards:	Raining,dogs,Dark
Evaluate risks:	It could be raining making it hard to film and alot of dogs in the area could intervene with our filming. As we film it when its start to dark.
Control measures:	See the weather app and stay cautious of dogs
Responsibility:	I Made Prabhu Arya Maheswara
Time frame:	Next week
Other notes:	-

(Location 2)
Location Link:	Lili Mama Warung
Events in scene:	Interview scene
Pros of location:	It's Gusde’s house so we can use it anytime, and it’s close to our other filming locations.
Cons of location:	There is a home stay inside, so we cannot be too loud and make commotion.
Alternatives:	Regents Secondary School
Risk Assessment
Potential hazards:	Raining, Snakes, Rats, Cockroach
Evaluate risks:	When it's raining the floor becomes slippery,which could hurt one of us.
Control measures:	We need to step carefully and also see the weather prediction app.
Responsibility:	Ida Bagus Gede Gusde Syakti Nayaka
Time frame:	Any time
Other notes:	-