Critical Creative Reflection

 

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues? 

With this project, the music video uses conventions drawn from the genres instead of challenging them. When looking back at my research blog, the conventions that were most common were the angles, for example: low, high, and zoomed in angles were used. The sounds also had some similarity, for instance, they at least had one non-diegetic or ambient sound each. Then there was the lighting, in some of the music videos the lighting was either bright or dime. For our music video we added a combination of both. Leaning more towards the dime at night, then bright and sunny. Lastly there were the actors and acting. In all the music videos they had at least two characters being played. So, for our music video it was important to add a couple characters so that the plot would play along better. We thought it was best to stick with the most common conventions so that our music video applied to the same social group. This music video stands for those who are having a tough time and feel alone because of someone. It could be a partner, a family member, or even a best friend. For our music video especially, we decided to include this social issue instead of it being a happy silly song. It goes well with the song because sweater weather is about missing someone even if they are not good for you.  

  

2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text? 

The way that our music video brings people in to watch it over and over is because it portrays the emotion that the main character feels. The main character feels mad and angry at her best friend for something. It does not say why she feels this way, but it does allow the audience to make their own interpretation of why she feels like that. Then, there are the scenes at the beach with the mysterious figure and the unknown text message. It adds a mystery to it that the audience might want to find out. And by watching it over multiple times one can make their own interpretation of what is happening. Now, if the music video were a professional one the best place to upload it, in my opinion, is YouTube. The reason being is because it is a music video, and it is long enough to post without it becoming a YouTube short. Also, this is where most of the targeted audience would find it. Along with that, other music videos like this one are usually found on YouTube because that is a place where artists show their creation and creativity. Plus, if it is a professional video, then we would want to make money off it and YouTube has one of the most effective ways of paying based on views. So, YouTube is the way to go for a music video.  

  

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project? 

The way my production skill developed and increased through the process of creating this music video was by trying to find the right way to film each shot. But before the filming took place there was the actual concept of planning the plot that needed to take place. I knew that I wanted to include the beach as one of the main settings because the song sings about being at a beach. Then, I just started to imagine what could happen during the MV and why each thing would occur. Originally, I wanted the main character to argue with her boyfriend but because of the lack of actors I had to change it to arguing with a best friend instead. Now onto the filming process, I needed to find a better way to make each shot look cleaner and to make it convey the correct emotions that the character would be feeling. After that was where lighting was needed, what angle was best for each take. A lot of eye level angles and high angles were taken because they fit the circumstances more. So, one can say that I learned more as I continued filming. Posting the music video was easy because I had the final product and YouTube already on my phone. It was the embedding part that was a bit tricky for me. Embedding was something that I had to learn for the process of uploading the music video onto blogger. In conclusion, what I learned in the entire process was how to film decent shots with the correct angles and lighting. And how to embed a YouTube video onto Blogger.   

  

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project? 

For the whole filming process, we used three phones. Two of them to record and the other to include in the music video. The reason I chose a phone over a camera to record is that it felt more familiar plus it was easier than trying to figure out how to work a camera. It was also easier to use a phone because all our group members had one and no one had a camera, so accessibility was one of the major factors in it. Then there was the editing software. For this project the software that was used to edit the music video was CapCut. CapCut is extremely easy to use and navigate through. It is free for everyone so that was a plus. Then there was the fact that it could connect the user's camera roll. And lastly, it had access to TikTok and other methods to extract music from online. And finally, why I posted the final product on Blogger. For one thing, Blogger is where Cambridge looks and sees all our blogs and media. So, it was especially important that it all gets uploaded to where the people who will judge everything can see it. Blogger is also just a wonderful way to organize all the assignments needed for each project. 

Critical Creative Reflection - Google Docs