Critical Reflection Essay:
- How do your products represent social groups or issues?
- How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
- How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
- How do your products engage with the audience?
While researching to find the key conventions of music videos in the indie genre, we looked at previous famous music videos to reflect and catch what the similarities are between videos and the main conventions included. We found many similarities between videos, all within the alternative indie genre. For example some of the main conventions the videos incorporated were editing to the beat of the music, distinctive props and unique makeup and clothing. One artist which is part of the indie genre is Billie Eilish. We looked at her music videos and captured some of the main conventions included in her videos which were required to catch the audience and their attention. For example her videos have a deeper meaning which is significant to the song lyrics. This stood out to us and gave us inspiration to follow a similar pattern with connecting the narrative to the lyrics. She also includes a lot of close up shots within her performance clips. We wanted to use some of the generic conventions that we recognised in the previous music videos to grab the attention of the target audience.
Within our music video, we acknowledged and recognised the formal and general conventions that needed to be included to make a good music video. Conventionally in music videos the narrative and lyrics echo the theme in the narrative through amplification, illustration and disjuncture. We used the narrative to tell a story of a broken girl who murders her cheating boyfriend. This storyline fits the expectations of the audience and what would grab their attention. We kept the formal and general conventions of indie alternative, particularly the costumes of our model in the performance clips and how the star is represented particularly through Mise En Scene. We used Mise En Scene to indicate her moods and the disposition of the setting. We particularly imply this with the lighting in our video. Subsequently after killing her boyfriend, the lighting in the scenery drops to a dull, eerie, lowkey light. This portrays the model’s mood and feeling which instantly changes to a side of darkness and sinfulness after killing her boyfriend. Within the alternative indie genre, there is always a main issue or theme, usually a problem or relationship and we incorporated this strongly within our video.
A successful package is required to have a good representation of the star in each and every product. Our star Orla, is represented as the rising star of alternative indie, acting as a radical feminist and an independent woman with strong beliefs. Her angelic, elegant and independent characteristics formed in her identity are strongly shown through our procuts. She is known for her seductive attitudes and behaviour as well as her unique fashion sense and extraordinary identity.
We wanted our star to be represented for her unique style and to show off her extraordinary identity within our digipak. We wanted to portray this by showing Orla to be a confident individual with her distinctive sense of fashion. Her elegance and angelic persona is shown through the front cover of our digipak, dressed all in white with a pair of graceful feathered angel wings. The angel wings imply importance, goodness and power. In this image, she is looking at herself in the mirror, reflecting on the possibilities of who she could be. We have shown this by colour. The reflection of herself in the mirror is colourful and bright, but in real life we used black and white to show she’s nothing compared to the image in her head. Her red lip on the front cover is a conventional feature to our star. It’s seductive and passionate and shows confidence within her persona. The red lip is a repetitive feature as well as being a symbolic code to her identity (Bathes). We show her elegance and gratefulness particularly through the typefaces on the front cover of our digipak. We have used subtle but powerful fonts for our album cover name and star. They are graceful although printed in black, implying strongness and power. Behind our CD is a rough cut of a bloody fingerprint that we produced for the third panel of our digipack. We aimed to evoke rage and distress through the employment of this device. Around this image, we included the lyrics “why not me”. This links back to our music video in which she continues to sing these words repetitively. Implying the vision of her wanting to be something she’s not. It suggests that she is trapped in a claustrophobic existence, in denial of the person she cannot be wanting to be someone she’s not and repeatedly questioning herself on it
Any marketing or advertising campaign’s primary goal is to engage the interactive audience as without this any product will have the least amount of success possible. For our social media page our main goal was to ensure that the viewers had lots of opportunities to interact with the star and their social media page. There are many different ways to sell your brand on a social media page and to find exciting, unique ways for followers to interact and connect with the star. We explored these different features and looked at the most effective ways for the audience to interact with the star. Stars have active audiences who are continuously looking for engagement, fulfilment and interaction particularly through a social media page (Blumler & Katz). Within a social media pge viewers were given the chance to connect with the star while also communicating with one another and exchanging interests. The audience now has a platform to communicate and show themselves not only with the star but with one another, allowing them to become prosumers (Shirky).
We ensured that across our social media page we had a good variety of ways that the audience can interact with the star and the brand. We made sure the social media page included what Blumler and Katz said are necessary components to interest any audience in a media text. Blumler and Katz made it clear that social interaction was an essential part of a social media page. Before incorporating opportunities for the audience to interact, it’s important to make sure your page is visually engaging so it will appeal to the audience, this way the audience will be drawn to the page and want to interact. By using this information, within our page we included a Q&A for followers to ask questions to communicate and learn more about the star and her life. There is also a behind the scenes highlight for the viewers to find out more of what goes on when the star isn’t performing or posting about her new album and upcoming tours. We have made a post dedicated to the star’s merchandise with a link inserted meaning followers can easily access and buy the stars merchandise. This is a good way to get followers to connect and engage with the star by buying their merchandise and wearing clothing dedicated to them. By wearing the merchandise the audience are making an important statement about their personal identity. The audience are consuming the stars’ synergised products by buying the brand. A comment section is an important way of interaction in social media pages as it brings fans together to engage with each other and communicate about their similar interests on the stars page.
It’s important that you have a range of methods to create a good brand that’s noticeable and appealing to attract your target audience and to engage them across social media platforms. The aim of creating a good brand is to attract your target audience and for them to spread the word and to get new people to check it out. It’s important to look at the demographics and psychographics of your target audience to see what will grab their attention and what similar interests do they have. When creating our mission statement we expressed our artist as extraordinary and mysterious and we portray this through our products.The audience will be motivated to support the brand with their money, time, and attention as a result of the information presented is exactly what they are wanting to see. By providing the right information and posts will encourage the audience to connect with the brand.
To represent our star we perceived her to be an independent feminist who’s known by her metro sexual fashion and subversively surreal pop culture. She comes across as someone who’s strong, but in reality she sees herself as something she’s not. We clearly show and encode this specifically through our digipak front cover with the use of black and white. We use this feature to compare the star from her vulnerable side to her strong independent side. The coloured side shows her feminine side, with the red lipstick implying power and self confidence, whether the black and white portrays weakness and vulnerability. We also relayed this message in our social media page to show her radical feminist views by posting feminist quotes and showing her contribution and work with charities that work with vulnerable women. Our branding shows the stars extraordinary identity and Blending avant-garde fashion.We particularly show this through our social media page by expressing her fashion specifically through bigger brands and fashion icons that connect and collaborate with the star. We also showed this in our performance part of the music video particularly though her fashion and makeup. We use subtle but also a mix of striking clothing which makes her identity unique as this catches the target audiences attention through the star herself.
