COMPONENT 3 - Critical Self Reflection

 This is the critical self reflection of my component 3 project:

Link to docs in case text is unable to be viewed: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vyLXAZlZYXj41SivE5nFF3VlS1ux9jnCU8JmDI0stww/edit?usp=sharing

MEDIA SELF REFLECTION

Component 3

Cambridge gave a variety of briefs that I could do. I chose the Option 1: music promotion package because my group believed it was the one where we felt comfortable creating due to our already existing skills. The brief given to me said that I needed to A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music video (major task), together with an official social media page for the band or artiste(s) and a digipak for the album’s release (minor tasks).. I decided to choose the genre pop and the song Memories by Maroon 5 because the music fits into the music video idea that our group had in mind. In this project I worked as a group of 4, my partners were Andrew, Dyfan and Sammy, you can find links to their blogs in my blog.

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

In our music video, we portrayed the social groups of those who miss their old friendships and brotherhood ties, and as for social issues, we portrayed loneliness and sadness as well as the struggles young people face as they transition into adulthood. In my opinion, our group has done a good job in representing the aforementioned issues in both a negative and positive light, creating a bittersweet feeling throughout the video. To achieve this effect, we used a handful of media language techniques such as camera angles, lighting, location settings, expressions, filters and montages. During the earlier sequence of the music video, we used techniques to connote isolation and loneliness, for this, we took advantage of camera angles such as long shots and slow arcs, accompanied by a dimly lit room with a spotlight above the actor creating a low key lighting and darkness throughout, along with a depressing expression and positions such as when the actor lays down on the table. We did not use lip syncing in this music video as we believed that it would ruin the effect that we were trying to portray, which was a story of someone’s loneliness and memories. As for the subsequent scenes, the montages, we used techniques such as using a handheld camera style, applying grain and yellow filters, using montages and also including diegetic sounds, these techniques would produce the effect of nostalgia, and because of the videos that were taken, would portray happiness and good memories. As for our social media and digipak, we tried to achieve the same effect by using handwritings and polaroids giving a sense of history along with the use of warmer colors, polaroids and handwritings make it more personal and accessible for the audience . We deliberately kept out stereotypes during the production of our music video in hopes to make it more realistic and natural, this is aso due to the limitations of our clothing during school hours, which was when we had most of our shots done. The purpose of giving these bittersweet and nostalgic feelings is to make the audience relate to the music video by remembering past events and memories.

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

The aspect of our production that works together and links our products together to create a sense of branding would be the emotion that our products depict through its style, which is sadness, loneliness, nostalgia, pensiveness, wistfulness etc. The style that our products share that describe these emotions would be the grainy, yellow filters on the pictures and photos, this makes the pictures look old which gives the desired feeling of the audience evoking a sense of homesickness for the past. For the music video we included the grainy and yellow filters, where I then decided to recreate in the social media, as well as Sam in the creation of the digipak. We also used the same font throughout which was the handwritten style of text, giving all of our products the same message. We also decided to have a similar theme with warmer colors being the main color such as brown and off whites which can be seen in the title of the music video, the digipak background color and the first few social media posts.

How do your products engage with the audience?

The ways in which our product has tried to connect with the audience would be through social media posts. Since our target audience are teenagers who are lonely and missing the past, we wanted to create posts that would interact with these audiences. In our social media posts we added a post for audience interaction where we asked our fans to post their own pictures of memories where we would then post on our next social media post, through this it allows other forms of audience interaction such as communicating with the audience like commenting on fan posts. Another way that our products engage with the audience are links to shop/merch. The audience can find our social media page on the description of the music video. The audience will benefit from our music video, merch and social media posts can be explained through the uses and gratification theory of diversion, personal identity and personal relationships.

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

My research has informed me of my products and the way they use or challenge conventions in a positive way. The areas of media that I’ve researched were mainly social media, some examples include Youtube, Instagram and Spotify. I’ve done 6 research on music videos from popular artists, which I’ve taken from Youtube, discussing Media Language, Representations, Target Audience and Industry, I’ve also taken inspiration from several artists’ Instagram page for our social media, as well as inspiration for our digipak through album covers from Spotify, other research were done on google through images and other analyses. A large part of my research has been on music videos and artists, and researched on both the same and different genres to mine, though the one that has been more helpful to me was through researching similar genres. The production and inspiration of our music video heavily relies on genres similar to our genre, in this case it was Pop along with certain genres that evoke melancholy emotions, some examples taken from my own research was Here With Me by d4vd. As for the production and inspiration of our digipak and social media, we mostly relied on genres that were the same with our product, here, we’ve gotten inspiration from artists like Keshi and his album “always” and taylor swifts’ “1989” album which became the inspiration for both our digipak and social media. Genre conventions of other media texts similar to mine, example taken from music videos such as Here With Me by d4vd, Young Blood by The Vaccines and Sick Feeling by Boy Pablo, which portray nostalgia, has all included some form of montages as well as the use of filters to show this effect. In our music video, we conformed this convention through the use of similar techniques to achieve the same effect.