Advanced Portfolio
Critical Reflection
Name: Annabelle Webb
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?
Creating a branding is very important in the media industry because it allows the star to become recognisable in a unique fashion as well as helping to build a relationship with our target audience, eventually turning them into loyal customers. All of the products in a package work together to create a sense of significance and represent the artist. De Saussure would agree with this and say that having a clear signifier allows the products to be signified, therefore encouraging a preferred reading.
Evidence of our own products working together to create a sense of branding is highlighted when the star image of a quirky, rebellious and grunge character is represented across all products. These were key descriptors we formulated when creating our mission statement at the beginning, which helped us a lot to design the overall branding as it allowed us to deeply express eccentric themes.
Our mission statement reads “Our mission is to give the youth the confidence to stand out through our bold star. We want them to feel a freedom of expression in how they dress as well as also being able to flow freely while listening to our pioneering, alternate and infectious synth tracks”
This is emphasised in the music video through the star’s punk outfit and heavy makeup. Our star’s alternative style is reinforced through the social media page, where she can be seen playing music at the famous Trinity Lutheran Church, which is a place that is very popular amongst our psychographics of the youth punks. While the social media page connotes our star’s uniqueness it is also a juxtaposition because to our star’s social media on there she can be seen as both ordinary and extraordinary. For example, there are posts which show the star relaxing or having fun with friends. This is relevant to Dyer’s paradox of a star which states that the star needs to be relatable to the audience yet offer something that they do not have, in order to be deemed as ‘special’ or ‘interesting’.
We researc
hed inspiration for our music video by watching indie synth pop videos. This helped us to gain ideas and grasp the very specific concept. I found that in order to meet the conventions we had to look at the repertoire of elements proposed by Lacey for our genre. Lacey’s theory considers the repertoire of elements that work together to suggest media belongs to a particular genre. He doesn’t see genres as fixed but as a dynamic, which is changing over time. We noticed that the style of the music videos were often filled with bright colours, had very drastic high-key lighting, and included
lots of different special effects. These features all help to sell the star’s image. Selling the star is one of the most important aspects of a rising artist and in order to do so we made sure that our star was represented well through the mise-en-scene.
When it came to producing our own video we incorporated the high-key lighting and played with the colours in the video by adding a pink and other various different coloured tints. Including special effects was something completely new to us but we knew that adding them would be worth it. These conventions will have an impact on the audience because the bright colour scheme and effects convey feelings of happiness, joy and contemptment. We represented our star through her costume as we opted for two main outfits. One was a more dull, office style outfit which contrasts the outfit change. The second outfit our star wore was a black lace dress, with a big fur leopard print coat and platform doc martens. The reason we included multiple different outfits is because we wanted to reinforce to the audience the star’s unique and eccentric personal style.
We used these conventions when we edited to the beat of the song as it engages the audience and creates excitement in a memorable way. Most videos from our genre are performance based, however we decided to challenge these conventions by creating a video that includes both performance and narrative. Despite this not being something that conforms to Altman’s blueprint, which says that different genre’s offer audiences different pleasures. We felt that including both would attain Altman’s theory because having the opportunity to express conventions through both allows us to clearly represent the expectations of our genre to the audience. We c
hose to challenge conventions because we found that in the music industry, producers make the same old material without being adventurous and in order to stand out it is important to break the norms.
Representing our star in a significant way is essential when it comes to creating a successful promotion package. Our star is extraordinary and recognised for her quirky and eccentric style, therefore it is very important that this is highlighted through our digipak.
Our star clearly conveys Dyer’s ideas about the paradox of a star when she is seen on the digipak acting both ordinary and extraordinary. For example, she is exemplified as extraordinary on the social media page when she is invited to play the keyboard at a famous church, the same image is then used on the digipak. Additionally, her ordinary side is highlighted through the behind the scene shots from the digipak photoshoot on the social media page. These photos are significant because they allow the star to be represented as more authentic, therefore creating a stronger relationship with her audience because they trust her. Through our digipak we wanted to express our star’s character as light hearted and buoyant. To evidence this we included what Barthes would call narrative codes. This is evident when our star is photographed behind a black background with high-key lighting allowing the audience to focus on the mise-en-scene. She is wearing multiple layers of jewellery along with a bold, pink skirt. This semic code is significant as it signifies that our star’s style is unique to a distinct group of people who have an eccentric style of fashion. The way we photographed our star is important because she is holding her hand up to the camera which appears mysterious and draws the audience in, this is known as the enigma code. However, it can also be interpreted as a cultural code because she may seem as though she is hiding from the paparazzi. The idea that she is masking herself highlights her fame.
Engaging with the audience is especially important when it comes to creating a successful social media page. This is due to the fact that it provides us with insights into how well our content is resonating with the audience. This information helps us in the future to
optimise posts or improve our products and services.
Designing a social media page for our star gives us plenty of opportunities to engage with the audience. Hall’s theory of the active audience tells us the importance of encoding media so that the audience can easily decode it and understand the preferred reading message. If the demographics and psychographics do not receive the preferred reading of the text and instead get the oppositional reading then this could become controversial and result in the star receiving backlash.
Therefore when it comes to our social media page we prioritised spreading clear messages that resonate with our star’s character. Our social media page reinforces Blumer and Katz uses and gratification theory. For example, opportunities of social interaction between the star and the audience can be seen through the caption on our post about uk tour dates where our star is asking fans whereabouts they want her to go next. Another form of social interaction on our page is when we announce a giveaway that fans can enter by liking, commenting and reposting. It is also important to keep our target audience entertained, which is why we released a sneak peek of the music video, this also helped to keep fans thrilled. We always ensured that our audience were informed by releasing information about tour dates, the date of our new album, new merch and any other significant news. The audience learns about the star’s own personal identity through a post where she can be seen having fun with her friends. This shows the star’s genuine side and allows the audience to see how authentic she is.
