Critical Self Reflection Comp 3

This is my critical self reflection blog on the take on component 3.

What was your brief? Simply mention what you created, your artist / song, and your genre. And your group.

We were given a variety of briefs that we could do. I chose the music promotion package brief because me and my group agreed on choosing the first set brief since we thought it is something that we have never done before and we could do it while enjoying the process. The brief that was chosen said that it is required to create a promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music video as a major task, together with an official social media page for the band or artiste and a digipak for the album’s release as minor tasks The genre that I decided to do was pop and reggae fusion (Memories by Maroon 5). I worked as a group of 4, my partners were Louis Andrew, Narent Awatara, and Sammy Prajna. You can find links to their blogs in my blog.

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

One of the biggest social groups that are represented in our music video is teenagers. In our music video, we featured and represented teenagers or young adults having fun and remembering nostalgic memories. This would relate to teenagers and young adults since they are missing their childhood friends and memories. This relates to the uses and gratification theory as it suggests that audiences consume media due to personal identity. This means that audiences are consuming a product or a role model due to having similar characteristics as them. Since we are representing a set of teenagers who are missing their childhood mates and experiences, personal identity would suggest that audiences represented in the music video would feel like they enjoy the music video.

Our music video represented this social group in both positive and negative ways in order to make the music video seem natural since the concept of the music video is similar to a montage. The way we represented teenagers in our music video is by having a video of their daily natural life in different places, therefore audiences that are in the same social group represented would feel a sense of personal identity and would also feel entertained by the music video. And throughout the montage, we color graded the video and added noise to make it look more nostalgic and old for the audience to get the message that what is shown in the music video is what happened in the past and create a touch of nostalgia through the editing. The camera movement that was used was also handheld and using POV for most shots to show the audiences that this montage was not staged and the music video is natural. Stereotypes happened naturally but it was not highlighted throughout the montage. This is due to some of the actors naturally looking and dressing like those stereotypes. Overall, we wanted the audience to feel nostalgic and related to the actors and music video.

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

Our music video creates a sense of nostalgia, friendship, and youth. Our products create a branding that would represent these in a positive way. The music video, social media, and digipak would have similar elements in them to represent those topics.

The music video creates a sense of nostalgia by using an old film overlay. The old film overlay that we used was added in the music video to create a visualization of moments that happened in the long past. The border from the film overlay shows the audience a clearer message that the montage scenes were different or in a different timeline compared to the scene in the dark room. The camera angles that we used were handheld which conforms to the nostalgic branding. The color grading that we used is a more yellow color along with a grainy and noisy effect which conforms to the genre of nostalgia as it shows something that is old. At the end of the video, the font we used is the exact same handwritten font as the front digipak cover which conforms to a friendship and youth genre. The inside part of the digipak is also filled with a handwritten form with an off-white background, a bit of yellow-ish and brown color to the background which creates the nostalgic branding which shows that the paper is old and was used, showing the audience that it has memories in it.

Our social media used a lot of very childish drawings like sketches to show the audience a sense of youth. This is also supported by the handwritten font that is used in the social media posts. This conforms to the uses in gratification theory where it is suggested that audiences consume media with the purpose of divergence and personal relationships. Since our products are from the perspective of a teenager, which is our target audience, the audience would feel a personal relationship, divergence, and connection with our products. Most of the posts in our social media also show a branding of old memories by having the elements of grainy and noisy effect, polaroids, and ripped pictures in collage.

How do your products engage with the audience?

We have many approaches when engaging with audiences, especially our targeted audience. In our social media we posted a picture of a polaroid with a description to challenge audiences to post pictures of their memories. We also have a fan base account which could be seen in our tags as one of the approaches to engage with audiences. This is supported by the theory of fandom where it suggests that fans wanted to be involved in the production of a celebrity or an artist that they like more. This relates to our products since we invite audiences to join in the challenge. Another approach to engage with the audience is that in YouTube, we uploaded the behind the scenes which we told in a post in our Instagram account. The purpose of this was to show the audience and make the audience feel like they are part of the team by showing what happened behind the camera and the process of taking them.

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

Since the genre convention is more to nostalgia, friendship, loneliness, and youth, we plan to have our products conforming to these genres. In our research, we tried many different elements which conformed and challenged convention to see how well the meaning went together. We decided that most of the elements in our products would conform to the genre because the meaning very much goes well together. 

When we planned our music video, we started to research a sad, and lonely music video to show how it could subvert the genre conventions. We analyzed many different types and genres of music videos starting from having a small analysis to a big analysis which fully scans the details of the music video. The purpose of this was to get an inspiration whether to conform or subvert the genre. For our social media, we looked at Instagram accounts of bands and tried to make similar posts and social media, while at the same time combining our elements of nostalgic and old memories vibe to the social media posts. We ended up creating a brand which uses the genre convention instead of challenging them.