Persuade Us! A Tiny Film Festival

Persuasion, CMU Design | Midterm Project

Some form of persuasion is a common feature of any designed outcome, intentionally or not. In the first half of the Spring semester (2022), our class dived into exploring and discussing multiple ways in which design and designers shape or influence the world, and some of the strategies to do it.

The midterm project consisted of developing short persuasive films on multiple topics related to the student’s interest. “Persuade Us! Tiny Film Festival” resulted from the outcomes of this process where 11 groups (from a cohort of Senior undergraduate students from the School of Design) attempted to develop persuasive arguments in an audiovisual format. A very broad range of tactics and visual languages were explored to and regulated in compelling, motivating, and educational arguments, ranging from tear-jerking narratives on animal adoption, to satirical commentary on the prevalence of propaganda and misinformation, and even raising awareness on multiple important social issues such as homelessness while giving voice to those often disempowered or excluded.

Students pulled from their collective design expertise to produce works that leverage distinct graphical, visual, auditory, and tonal styles to impart multi-dimensional, impactful narratives that inspire or provoque action. The strategies that students adopted were diverse but mostly focused on exploring how to shape powerful arguments as invitations for debate, playing with how to frame a topic, exploring metaphors and leveraging rhetorical appeals such as logos (reason) and pathos (emotion) to improve comprehension, engagement and understanding.

Below we present the different films and the directors behind them. We hope you can enjoy these projects as much as we did!

A program of persuasive short films

For the first time in a generation — a short film on Old-growth forest conservation

Directed and produced by Jenny, Proud, Sarah, and Jackie

What is a true friend?

Directed and produced by Elena, Rachel, Dorothy, and Grace

Unrelatable, invincible female leads are anything but empowering

Directed and produced by Se A, Chelsea, Catherine, and Nicole

Hotel Lucerne

Directed and produced by Franklin and Quinten

It’s okay to procrastinate

Directed and produced by Maggie, Zimmy, Elysha, and Hayoon

Painting the Roses Red — A Salmon Cannon Mini-Film

Directed and produced by Ming, Tate, Ian, and Jubbies

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day (click here)

Directed and produced by Max, Shruti, Eric, and Holly

Advocating Student Safety at Carnegie Mellon

Directed and produced by Bon, Caitlyn, Chris, and Neely

Mushroom Propaganda

Directed and produced by Daniel, Richard, Gary, and Michael

Don’t abandon, adopt

Directed and produced by Charmaine, Youie, Sammie, and Wenqing

Eat Local

Directed and produced by Iris, Francis, Joseph, and Alison