COMP 3 - Critical Self Reflection

This is the section where I would write my Critical Self Reflection for the Component 3 media project.

Media Self Reflection

Cambridge gave a variety of briefs that I could do. I chose the music promotion brief because me and my group thought that it would be the best option and something that we will enjoy making. The brief given to me said “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 of pop because the song we chose falls under this category and it fits the overall image of the music video we made. The song we chose is Memories by Maroon 5.  In this project I worked as a group of 4, my partners were Andrew, Dyfan, and Narent. You can find links to their blogs in my blog. 

How do your products represent social groups or issues? 

The music video that me and my group has made focuses more on the difficulties and problems that young people such as teenagers face as they are growing older and getting introduced into early adulthood. The music video targets young people capturing their energy, interests, and issues that affect them. The main focus of the social issue that we have decided to implement into our music video is the issue of depression and loneliness. We represent this all across our music video, digipak, and social media in both a positive and negative way. We did this by having a dark theme which connotes the feeling of loneliness and having the main artist, which is me, dressed up in dark colored clothing. Depression and loneliness are social issues that have a significant impact on individuals and society as a whole. It affects people worldwide and is usually characterized by persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. An example of when we tried to convey this into our music video is to have me as the main actor act sad and lonely which was then coupled with the dark and moody setting. This was also partnered with a long shot camera angle in order to add into the feeling of being isolated and alone in the dark room. We also showcased an editing technique known as jump cuts in order to emphasize on how much time has gone by whilst the actor stays in the same spot doing simple gestures which add into the feeling of being isolated and hopeless. Another technique we used is by having the lighting only highlight the actor in a dark room. This enhances the viewer's experience as they would focus more on the highlighted object and it also increases the feeling of loneliness as the actor becomes the only highlighted object in the middle of the shot. By doing all of this we want the viewers to feel a sense of empathy and sympathy towards the main actor. Me and my group however have also tried to convey the feeling of nostalgia. We accomplished this by showcasing a montage in the music video which highlights memories of fun events and random compilations of clips with the actor’s friends. This helps the target audience relate even more to the feeling of empathy which is our preferred reading. In most of the shots taken for our montage section of the music video, we used a handheld camera movement in order to make it look more low budget and natural. By using this, we also immerse the audience and take more of their attention towards the video and create a sense of intimacy with the subject. We did not use stereotypes in our music video because stereotypes may lead to inaccurate assumptions of social ideologies and this may result in a misunderstanding of what we are trying to convey to the audience.

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

All our products, ranging from the music video to the digipak and to the social media, all have a it’s similarities and create a good sense of branding for both us and our target audience. This is done by putting a nostalgic and simple yet aesthetic element in all our products. In the music video, we did this by adding a slight film grain which gives off an old feel to the music video and enhances the feeling of nostalgia. It also adds to the fact that we are trying to make it seem like the video was recorded a really long time ago, hence using this would make a similar result of what recording with an old camera would give. This is then coupled with the black borders that evoke the feeling of nostalgia as it can remind them of old DVDs and VHS formats. It can also add on to the thrill that the audience is getting a glimpse of the past. For digipak, we created a sense of branding through the packaging, colors, and typography of the product. We did this by having the same typeface or font across all 3 products which makes it look more professional and it creates a brand image. Our audience may overtime associate these elements that they find in our products to our brand which makes it easier to identify. For the right inside part of our digipak, I had Narent (my teammate) write the lyrics for the song on a small piece of paper. I then took a picture of it and placed it as the background of the digipak. By doing this, we have created a sense of personalization. This will make the consumers feel like they are looking at or purchasing something special and unique as it has handwriting from the person who worked on the product. The digipak and social media also share some similarities with color and design. We want to keep it simple yet nostalgic and aesthetic to look at for the consumers. For the social media page, we used Instagram and my team did something unique which would appeal to the consumers and create a sense of branding. We have done this by combining several different posts to create one big picture. Elements such as ripped up paper, polaroid style pictures, and film grains were all used in the making of our social media posts. We have also used these elements in our digipak which connects them both together and creates a brand identity. My team and I have also used similar colors such as white, off white, and black across all our products in order to relate them all together. The social media page also showcases a shop which allows the audience to buy our products and merchandise which will result in them being walking advertisements for our brand. This can help attract new customers and get our brand name out there.

How do your products engage with the audience? 

The process of engaging with one's audience is all but important in this whole project. We have engaged with the audience with the help of our social media. Our digipak also has a tag to our social media page on the bottom back page. Our social media includes many different elements which help engage with the audience. We used pictures of our fans in our social media, I believe that this is a strong way of engaging with the audience as it creates a connection with the brand. By featuring real people who are passionate about our brand, this can create a sense of having a community which builds stronger relationships with our target audience. Featuring pictures of fans in our social media can also build an emotional connection with the brand. When these people see themselves or people they know get featured in our products, they would feel a sense of pride and joy which builds a deeper connection with the audience and may create a sense of loyalty in the long run. We also have a shop and merch link for our audience. This way, they can help support the brand which engages them into feeling like they are building the brand with us. We also have a behind the scenes which helps our audience keep excited and have a sense of exclusivity as this type of content won’t be available elsewhere. Lastly, we engage with our audience by commenting on fan posts. When doing this, we are essentially trying to build a stronger community by showing the audience that we appreciate their support. This can result in them being more enthusiastic in supporting our brand and even sharing it to their friends and family. 

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

The research I’ve done has informed me of my products and the way they use or have challenged the conventions. For the music video, I have researched 8 music videos in order to compare them to each other and see trends or conventions within the specific genre of the music video which would later on fit my desired idea for the final product. I have done this research by analyzing music videos from 8 artists found on YouTube. I did 2 big with 6 smaller music video analysis. For the 2 big ones, I chose the music videos for This is America by Childish Gambino and RIDING by Aries. I separated them into 4 sections including media language, representations, audience, and industry. By doing so I can identify popular genre conventions and trends of these music videos. My research on all 8 has informed me that most music videos showcase a main artist lip syncing with the song while dancing or doing simple gestures. I have decided to subvert this genre convention and would like for the final product to have no singing from the main featured actor. Instead, we have decided to create a montage of clips and cut between two separate story settings not featuring any lip syncing or singing along with the song. Our genre was Pop and it was heavily influenced off of the research we have made individually. For my research, I have taken sample ideas from artists such as Keshi, Aries, and d4vd all aiming on one thing. I wanted a bittersweet and melancholic atmosphere for the music video. The research for the digipak that I did mainly included searching for already existing digipaks that looked simple and aesthetic. From this research, we took inspiration from Taylor Swift’s “1989” album and Keshi’s thumbnail cover for his song called “Drunk”. For the digipak, we conformed to these conventions in order to portray elements such as nostalgia and melancholy. For the final product of the music video, we mainly conformed to the genre conventions of existing music videos such as A Glimpse Of Us by Joji and Here With Me by d4vd. This is because they use camera elements such as long shots and handheld movement in order to represent the story and montage in a nostalgic and melancholic way. We used many similar techniques in our music video to achieve the same effect for our target audience.

This is the link for the first draft:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/190vnBF9aEF3vDu6OX5F6Yc0QqWqNLU75Hd_4vPMAUI0/edit?usp=sharing