Creative Critical Reflection

 Q1: How do your products represent social groups or issues?

Our music promotion package consists of a music video, social media page and a digipak. Our music video is about a teenage boy and his strong emotions. We showed, at the beginning, that the young boy is rejected by a girl on message while he is waiting for her with a rose. This is where the boy realises he is left alone. The lyrics that he sings, “I don’t want a friend; I want my life in two,” suggest that he feels he has nothing to gain anymore. The moody lighting and slow dance, later shown in the video, display the protagonist’s emotions: gloomy and depressive. All throughout the video, we show how passionately the boy feels after losing a girl by the help of low-key lighting. In contrast, we also showed some scenes from the past when the boy is careless and happy with the girl. The sunlight in these scenes portray the liveliness of the moments. Suddenly, the aura changes again when we show a scene in which the girl treats the teenager very ruthlessly. We then show another scene in which the same girl is treating another guy empathetically and having a good time with him in the presence of yellow and happy lighting. As the protagonist walks past them, he does so with a dark aura surrounding him. The lyrics match the narrative as they are about the miserable feeling and emptiness after a losing someone who means everything to the singer. The feeling of emptiness gets so extreme that the teenager gets involved with alcohol and drug abuse. The music video represents age and gender. We see many teenagers going through similar feelings nowadays as many girls reject guys for someone else. This has become a social issue as teenagers feel passionately and switch to extreme measures that are usually harmful for them in order to escape the reality.

Q2: How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of 'branding'?

We have made a great use of colours in our music promotion package. The theme follows shades of blue and dark tints such as black and grey. Throughout the music video, the main idea (seeking escapism) is represented using blues. There are shades of yellow, orange and pink but they are used for an entirely opposite representation. These brighter colours show joy and exuberance. Apart from colours, we used low-key lighting for most of the video to not only represent the misery but to also achieve a cinematic outlook. There is also the display of the moon for scenes when the shadow of the protagonist dances in the moonlight and when he sits on top of it when drinking from a flask. Both these situations include the moon to depict that the actions bring forth a sense of escapism. Moreover, this colour theme is followed on our social media page where we added multiple posts for the same pictures which were taken in the moonlight and blue lighting. These pictures played the role of ‘the big picture’ so that whoever comes to the page immediately understands the theme of our product. We also added normal posts with pictures from the scenes that have a different mood i.e. scenes with happiness. These posts were also added to hint that our package includes contrast between the two emotions, but the main idea is still to show the depressive emotion. Additionally, we added Instagram stories with similar colour themes. For our digipak, we made album covers with pictures from the moonlight photoshoot (which we also added on our Instagram posts) to continue with our theme. Furthermore, we used a bold font to write the titles. This gave a strong look to the album cover that bound well with the pictures. The CD was also made blue to carry on the theme. Moreover, my own blog follows the same blue and grey tones and so does our production house logo.

Q3: How do your products engage with the audience?

We made it our priority to engage with the adolescents: our target audience. We did so by choosing a narrative that most teenagers relate to i.e. heartbreak. Whether the heartbreak comes from a breakup or from academics, our story is engaging for teenagers facing any hardship. This is because whenever teenagers feel down, they feel the need to escape the reality and our product is one way of escapism and also is relatable to such viewers. We used modern lighting to make sure teenagers felt hooked to the video. We also had the protagonist wear casual clothes when he was going through the heartbreak and had him wear a dress shirt with a tie for scenes where he tried to escape reality. This can help engage with the audience since to escape this world means to act and wear different. The escapism scenes included slow dancing, shadows and expressionless face to further prove our point. Moreover, we used narrative beside lip syncing by the singer to make sure we reached both sides of the audience: ones interested in stories and ones interested in lyrics. We focused on making a cinematic video to give the viewers the pleasure they seek. On the social media page, we uploaded Instagram reels that are short videos and help get more attention. We also posted stories asking questions and added polls to keep the audience entertained. Additionally, we posted story highlights on ‘About Artist’ to bring more curiosity and a highlight on ‘Album Covers’ to build suspense before the album was even released. Choosing Instagram instead of any other platform was also important since most adolescents seeking escapism are found there. For the digipak, we added ‘Album Description’ on the inner cover that included interesting lines to grow excitement. Furthermore, the whole digipak was designed to be somewhat minimalistic because youth nowadays prefer things that do not contain too much stuff. The focus is instead brought on the single photos on both the front and the back cover with bold texts and monotone background. We also added texts of lyrics from the song at two places on the covers to bring further excitement. All this would make sure the audience feels that the digipak is worth having.

Q4: How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

Research for our music video was crucial since it would decide how our video would turn out. We wanted to go for a mix of narrative and concept music video. We incorporated the protagonist’s past and his recent tragedy (breakup) with lip syncing and different scenes that did not make sense if put in the storyline e.g. when the girl whispers in the boy’s ear. Such scenes were included to challenge the narrative with a concept that the girl has reached the protagonist’s escaped world where he is seeking refuge. We used inspiration from ‘My Love Mine All Mine’ by Mitski to gain an understanding of concept music videos. We realised such videos can be understood differently by different people and so we had room for creativity. For the genre, we wanted an R&B and Indie vibe which we included with the moody lighting, close ups of the singer and cinematic shots. In one scene, when the boy is holding the girl’s hand in his past, we went against the natural light to build up to the idea that something wrong is about to happen. This was a way of challenging the conventions. We also represented gender in a somewhat unconventional way because most teenage boys are known for unleashing their rage upon getting rejected as they are full of egos. However, we showed that our protagonist just wanted an escape and no revenge. We also incorporated Andrew Goodwin’s theory that to create a good music video, there should be a strong link between the lyrics and the visuals. Additionally, we had an actor that was relatable to the audience as this is crucial for good music videos, as Goodwin has stated. However, we went against Michael Shore’s belief that music videos are recycled images and styles that aim at young boys seeking power, wealth and girls. We instead showed that some boys just want a break from all the things happening in the world. What’s more is that we used our research on music promotion trends to follow the marketing strategies on our social media page and gain more popularity. On top of that, we used inspirations of minimalistic album covers like Bruno Mars’s ‘Doo-Wops & Hooligans’ to create our own digipak.  Overall, our research helped us a lot to create the product we desired.