HARRY SYKES (0000)

Critical Reflection on Component 3

COMPONENT 3 BRIEF COMPLETED:

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include:

• a music video (major task)

• a social media page (minor task)

• a digipak (minor task)

• How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
• How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
• How do your products represent social groups or issues?
• How do your products engage with the audience?

We researched our genre which is pop music videos and understood quite quickly that they were largely performance videos with live, and edited footage and also used conventional MES of vibrant costumes, bright eye makeup and modern, popular hairstyles in the sense of it being very trendy, a skin fade or curtains.  In particular we watched one by Ella Eyre (Together) and decided to use some of the generic conventions of MES like the high key lighting to connote a summer effect and a flashback feel along with swimsuits, shorts and all the generic summer clothing.  All of these elements are what Lacey would call the repertoire of elements – those expected ingredients that our target audience would expect to see. And Altman would argue, is the blueprint for a successful and conventionally recognisable pop music video.

Therefore, our Music video was mainly performance, however, there are some elements of a narrative that the audience could pick out but it isn’t very noticeable as we mainly focused on the performance, there was no narrative structure, it was just episodic, an entire analepsis. Whilst this was not part of the blueprint as Altman would propose, which the audience would expect, we felt that a suitably filmed and styled narrative could fit the expectations of the audience and the contract, as Altman suggests, would be fulfilled. We used a narrative showing two friends looking back on summer memories and how much they actually missed those good days, with the sea, late night, sunsets, sunrises and parties.  It was filmed hand held to represent that the clips were just in the moment of the fun times that the two had together and shaky so that his life was represented as unstaged.  Barthes would argue this is a semic code being used to convey the intended vibe of unrehearsed and naturalistic footage.  We made sure we challenged our conventions by pushing the colours, effects and editing to the best we could before it changed to another genre.

Representing the star in a sympathetic way, in all of the products was essential to creating a successful package, this is why we created the Digipack with a silhouette of the star.  Our star is known for being happy and chirpy but with this silhouette it creates an aspect where the fans might not know everything about the extraordinary artist which links in well with Dyer’s paradox of the star as the star represents humbleness, yet enigmatic.  Seen with his fans one day, then the next nowhere to be seen.   The metanarrative is all about the memories of the great sunsets with friends and how much they miss the summer nights. 

I wanted to represent him on the Digipack (DP) as a mysterious character, so developed the conventions of his representation. I photographed him and then turned him into a black silhouette so that the audience would want to know and find out more about him. This represented him as different to all the other pop artists as it’s never been done before.  It was also a symbolic code, as Barthes would say, of his more thoughtful nature.  Barthes would argue that this representation is a semic code being used to convey the intended vibe of mysterious.  The sunset symbolises the thoughtful, organic nature of him and yet the silhouette, the more enigmatic, extraordinary aspects of him

Engaging with the audience is easily done through a social media page and the main aim of any campaign, marketing or advertising is to sell.  The SMP is full of opportunities to engage the fans of Byron. As Hall describes, encoding any media text with the expected signs and symbols is imperative in order that the target audience can decode (understand) it and then gain a preferred reading of the text, how they imagine it.  If the elements aren’t right then the readers could get the complete wrong idea and decode it incorrectly. 

As a result, I ensured that the Social Media Page (SMP) was full of what Blumler and Katz would argue are essential elements to engage any audience in a media text.   There was also a link to a merchandise page that enables the fans to feel part of the fanbase and in particular wear the fashion associated with the star and their personal identity, which also links to social interaction, merch signings.  On the merch there is a picture of a sunset from Byron’s home island which helps the fans link to the star even more.  It was also important that the page had all the relevant information and entertainment for the fans to feel fulfilled so I included tour dates, teasers for the video release, this keeps the fans wanting more, so they then keep up to date with the stars life; for example, there is a tour poster up on the SMP. All of these examples of the SMP were directly created and produced to gain as many likes, reviews and comments by the target audience.  The SMP was also full of photographs, captions, tags, comments and links.  The hashtags work because everytime someone uses that tag it’ll link back to the star for more knownabilty.

A brand needs to be easily recognisable by an audience so a producer must work hard to create a cohesive and blended campaign the products need to belong to the same family.  

The mission statement of our artist included key descriptions including humble, kind, caring.  All of the products in the package work together to create a cohesive representation of the artist and at various stages and in various ways represent him as such across the different texts; de Saussure would describe this as using clear denotations that have relevant connotations.  To encourage a preferred reading.  Across our products there is a common theme of sunsets and the idea of summer to express how kind and caring Byron is.  However, the use of the silhouettes also implies the side of Byron that nobody knows.

For example, some of the star image that my target audience would expect to see was that overarching idea of his humble and kind going pop star.  This was evident in the music video with a soft paced edit which represented a pop vibe, a semic code that the audience will decode as a sense of calm and sincerity.  However, on the DP the star was seen by his fans as more of a mysterious character as it was a silhouette and this could have been decoded to a deeper meaning by the audience.    These two products were heavily promoted on the SMP where the fan base would expect to be teased and tempted to follow his exploits and also feel involved in the promotion of his album and music video.  Having an overall mission statement that stated he was caring and mysterious  really helped me design the overall brand which was represented with a conventionally pop colour palette (blue, pink, red, yellow, green) and vibe, signifying the kind, caring and humble star.