This is my Critical Self Reflection
here is the link to the Google Docs version of my Final Critical Self Reflection:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zdlULOCm2zCFgoOAxwFP6JfANuXVBr7jvcPHBLVrrOA/edit?usp=sharing
COMPONENT 3 CRITICAL SELF REFLECTION
For component 3 my team & I were tasked with creating a promotional package for an album, complete with a music video for the main song of the album, a digipak for the album, and the artist’s social media page to promote the new album. My team picked the Indie genre, following conventions of being in a group or a band, and being on a cheaper budget. Our song choice was Telephones by Vacations, we chose this song because it also falls under our chosen indie genre. To appeal to my target audience, teens aged 16-30, our star persona which is the main singer of our band Freaky Vros, is Ata, who is young, male, relatable, and down to earth by using regular scenery and regular clothing. Our music videos' purpose or dominant reading is that friendship doesn’t last forever. And that your experience with them are the most memorable ones.
Branding plays a crucial role in connecting elements like a Star’s persona, the dominant reading , visuals, and themes by using mise-en-scene to create a character or a star’s persona in their work and get their dominant reading across that may be different from their real personality, an example of theory of stardom where, a celebrity creates a persona for the public separate from their private personality. We did this by mainly showing all of the band members looking directly at the camera in our social media page, music video, & digipak, as well as using the same filter & typeface and the usage of the colour blue. This was done to tie our social media, video, and digipak together, reflecting the artist's identity (fig 1). This persona needs to be consistent in order to create a specific identity for the star and their products that the audience can expect. We used a monotone colour coupled with low light to show show the lack of emotion, the same personality that our artist has.
Our digipak conforms to conventions of Indie albums covers being somewhat abstract, and messy, commonly being blurry or noisy, as well as being duotone. Another convention is that most indie album covers use a sans serif font, even though my front cover uses a sans serif font, I’ve also used a more cursive typeface to have a small subversion from the conventions, we also used the cursive to create a sense of personalisation from the artist so that a feeling of connection between the artist and the audience can be felt. The back of digipaks include a tracklist, as well as a barcode that can be scanned. This barcode is commonly found in any corner of the back cover, I've used these conventions from a couple of back digipaks that I liked (fig 2). The insides of the digipak. I’ve also excluded the small anecdote in the insides of the digipak since it wasn’t really needed for this project. However, I have replaced it with an image of the band so that audiences still have content in that section of the digipak. We’ve done this to follow Steve Neale’s Genre Theory, where he states that media needs to be kept similar enough to be the same genre, but different enough to be new content. By using cursive writing, our digipak has a small difference to be considered new content. I've also made our artist use a replacement for a mic to make it seem like our star's performance isn't real and that it's all his imagination, using objects to project a persona of an artist.
Our music video follows the Indie genre’s conventions by having our music video explore themes of teenage loneliness, and teenage joy. We have had it created on a low budget, and have it be grounded and realistic to follow the realistic conventions of Indie music videos. Some technical elements used to follow these conventions can be by using more casual costumes or clothing with no intricate set pieces, only using real locations to make it more realistic since Indie music videos are more low-budget and feature less abstract visuals while keeping it professional. Some conventions were also subverted. Since Sad music videos feature exclusively sad scenes in the music video, our sad music video features some happy scenes. This is done to show the contrast between how happy our star is with his friends, and how sad he is without them. This is done by including bright lighting for some of the scenes to indicate a hint of happiness, as well as extreme long shots when he is alone to show isolation whenever our artist is alone, but whenever the artist is with friends, the long shot makes it seem like the area is crowded. Over the shoulder shots to put the audience in our star’s shoes to fully experience the happy moment during the scenes. Juxtaposition is used to highlight how lonely our artist is when he is al one, making the second shot appear more powerful than the first shot (fig 3). Cut to the beat was also used to make the visuals more appealing to the audience by making them sync with the audio.
Our music video represents a teenage social group, leaning slightly towards the male audience since all our band’s members are male teenagers as being fun and outgoing by using mise-en-scene of bright lights and vivid colours, as well as relaxed casual clothes. The contrast between the star’s happy and sad scenes were done using match cuts so that the audience can differentiate when he’s with his friends and when he’s alone. Mise-en-scene also helps by using blue cooler colours when he’s alone since the colour blue has connotations of sadness (fig 4), while having orange-yellow warmer colours when hes with his friends, since those colours connote happiness. Our music video does not have a specific traditional representation in order to make our music video be more inclusive to the general teenage audience, so that they will feel more relatable to the star and the video. A social issue that our music video addressed is how loneliness can be a problem for someone’s mental health and we’ve done this by using extreme long shots to show isolation to raise awareness of the problem.
Our social media page engages with the audience through the comments section, where audiences can interact with other fans of our star and share opinions with each other experiencing Blumler & Katz uses and gratifications theory, specifically Social Relationships. Fans can also have a chance to be replied to by the star. We also post memes to engage with our teenage audience as a form of cultural code, since teenagers find memes comedic and enjoy interacting with them (fig 5). Our star also teases upcoming projects through his social media page so that audiences can be informed on the next song. Our star also has personal life posts to appeal to more fans since they are interested when a celebrity is more grounded and realistic according to Richard Dyer’s theory of Stardom, specifically Ordinariness, where audiences feel more connected with an artist because of their ordinary activities. Because of this, fans can use our star’s posts as a sense of escapism from the real world according to another one of Blulmer & Katz Uses & Gratifications diversion.
In conclusion, the purpose of these products was to work together and have a connection between the digipak, music video, and social media page. And to remind people because friends are the most important thing during teen years and the transition to adulthood, as they become an integral memory that you'll always remember. This is to the point where if you lost your friends you would be extremely depressed and would always remember the great times which hurt you and give you sadness. Since I didn’t include a traditional representation, maybe next time I could try have a traditional representation for my next project.
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