Final Product

 This post contains the final product for component 3. this post was constructed by me (Jason)

This is our video:

This is our digipak:

Front:

Inside, Left:

Inside, Right:

Back:

Mock up:

Social Media page:

Critical Self Reflection

 this is the critical self reflection for the project, produced by me. Word Count: 1210

For component 3, we were given several options but we chose to make a music video. We decided on this as we consume music videos very often as opposed to documentaries or trailers so we thought that would give us an upper hand. We chose the song “Out Of Time” by The Weeknd as we thought it would be easier to create representations of ourselves: highschool students. We interpreted the song as a love song. I thought it would be easier to create the media language for love songs as opposed to songs about other things so I agreed to the suggestion. In this essay, we will be talking about the music video, digipak and social media.

Our video heavily involves teenagers as a social group. We not only represented them through the actors but through our star as well. A problem we chose was teenage love. As highschool students we will eventually split apart when we enter adult life. To show the passion and intimacy of teenage love, we used purple lights throughout most scenes with the couple together (Fig 1.1). This creates a heightened reality in which the story occurs for the two characters. We chose the colour purple as it is highly associated with love and passion. It could also represent the unity of  man and woman in love as the stereotypical blue and pink to represent genders can be used to produce purple. We used the stereotypical representation of couples of being constantly together, having strong emotions from one another and being seemingly inseparable. We had to use it as we felt it was the best way to reach a wider audience as it may be more relatable than a more niche representation of a couple. In order to make this video more easily accessible, we included it in a linktr.ee which is attached to our social media. In order to make our product identifiable with the “Jun” brand, we decided to utilise the purple and dark colour scheme, heavily inspired by the movie “Drive”. The music video would fall under the postmodern umbrella as we use a fragmented narrative and take large inspiration from our research results, making it a copy of a copy. 

The music video shows the star hallucinating about his past relationships in an attempt to relive it. We built the narrative with the guidance of Todorov’s narrative theory. In the beginning part of the video, the equilibrium, We could see the lead male actor (Younger version of Jun, our star) in a sports car. This shows that he is rich and wealthy without a romantic partner. He drives away into the dark night away from the blue and purple lights. This connotes his desperation to leave past anguish and pain behind by jumping further into the dark. It cuts to Jun singing in a dark parking lot, travelling to a mall. This shows him travelling back through his mind to that period. It cuts to young Jun taking a girl on a date in the mall, shopping for clothes and eating out. This was used to suggest their romantic relationship. We decided to use natural lighting so that audiences could relate more closely. On the scene they are receiving the receipt from the waiter, It was suddenly revealed that the waiter was the older version of Jun. This shows that he is actively reliving his past. His dead emotionless stare into the camera further emphasises his regret over his regular regressions. It cuts to another scene in which they are in a different location. Again, Jun is following his past self travelling with his former lover. Continuing the chain of past delusions. It then cuts to the couple in the car together, spending time together. The sunset creates a yellowish colour which radiates happiness, showing the couples enjoyment of each other’s presence. The car is also noticeably more humble. This represents Jun’s willingness to sacrifice his material wealth for love. Eventually, the sunset gives way to the night and once again the blue and purple lights return. We used this to suggest that the relationship is starting to fall apart even though they still seem to love each other. Jun would return to the site of the scene to witness him drive off. This represents Jun revisiting the darker times of the relationship which eventually led to the breakup. The car suddenly brakes, this shows Jun’s world suddenly stopping as the girl leaves the car. The blue and purple lights once again die out to show Niki “move” to a new era in his life. For audiences to properly decode the last scene, they require prerequisite knowledge of East Asian culture in which the ocean is a place where life comes from as well as the final resting place for all. Jun would see the end of his hallucinations through the change in the filter colour from pink to a natural colour. The video ends with Jun walking away. This shows the eventual death of his past as well as the birth of a new mature future.

For our digipak (Fig 1.2), we decided to go for a more pop-esque feel. We found that several digipak covers from pop artists included their image. So we decided that we should follow such conventions in order to make our product’s genre more recognizable for the convenience of our audience. To further develop branding, we made the colour scheme of our digipak very similar to the dominant colours in the music video which was purple and blue. We also chose this as these colours have strong connotations to sadness as an emotion just like in the music video. The glitch effect on the cover of the digipak represents our star, travelling through the fourth dimension of time and losing grip on his present reality; this also ties back to our music video in which he hallucinates his own relationship. We gave our audiences a track list so that they would know the content of the album more closely. To advertise our digipak we created mock-ups and posted them on social media so that the audience could be more familiar with our product. We linked a website in which audiences could purchase the digipak online onto a linktr.ee and a QR code on the post advertising the Digipak

In our social media page. We looked at several posts of pop artists as well as some outside of the genre. In pop, it is normal for our star to post many things about their daily lives (Fig 1.3) or to create posts which inform their next releases(Fig 1.4). We also found this to be true in many artists in other genres. We also use social media to inform audiences of our artist’s music, digipak and touring. This aids surveillance for audiences, keeping them up to date. This could contribute greatly to making a more successful digipak release. 

Fig 1.1

Fig 1.2

Fig 1.3

Fig 1.4

Reflection: making a critical self reflection really helps when heading into the next project, the major mistakes on this one could easily be anticipated and thus avoided. In this project, I believe that producing a critical self reflection has really helped me realize the magnitude of this project as the amount of work was split over a long period of time. It also helps me recap whatever I learnt throughout this journey. Hopefully I could use my experience in this project when moving onto the next projects.

Media Language

This post contains the media language encoded in our music video constructed by me with ideas contributed by the rest of the group as well

In this scene we tried to create  younger version of our star. We tried to suggest this by giving him a a leather jacket and bright pants just to give of a younger and more immature version of himself.

For our star, we gave him a light blue button up, we tried to make him resemble an office worker, a life of boredom. We choose for our star to wear this throughout the entire video to show that he is revisiting these memories from a certain time point in the future.

Scenes

1st car scene 

We gave our star a fancy sports car to show that he is a wealthy individual with more material needs, but the passenger seat we left empty to show that he is missing a part of his life. 

Mall date scene

During the date scenes in the mall, we gave a natural lighting without the blue and purple lights. This was to show that this memory was remembered more vividly by Jun hence why the distortions are minimal. Jun then appears as a waiter in the date, this shows him staying in proximity of his old self, watching along.

Motorbike

Flashback - hallucinations, travelling with his own past self to revisit another story. Juna following behind = he misses it very much, natural lighting = core memory, remembered as it is.

The scene cuts to black to signify a flashback. Again we use the natural lighting to show that it is something he remembers well. Jun is seen revisiting a old memory and following his old self with his past lover.

Car Scene 2

In this scene we chose a cheaper car (its not a sports car) to show that Jun has sacrificed his material wealth for love instead and feels more fulfilled because of it. We chose to do this scene during a sunset as sunsets often connote happiness, love and comfort which represents the status of the relationship at that point

Eventually we bring back the purple lighting to show that this memory is distorted by some emotions of anguish and sadness. We do not feature the present-day Jun in this scene as we want to show that he is reluctant to visit this point in time. Something he cannot fully forget but doesn't want to remember.

In the end, as the car drives away, Jun returns to the scene. We do this to show his cowardice to visit that time period. The purple and blue lights are especially highlighted onto him to show his emotion after watching that event. He feels saddened and heavy at heart.

Break-up scene

In this scene we chose for the car to stop suddenly, as if for an emergency. We do this to show that Jun's world stops in a sudden when they break up.

In the end we show young Jun leaving as we reduce the lighting eventually, this shows him slowly forgetting the progression of the story past this point

This part of the story we could say comes full circle as a cycle of immaturity leads Jun to love then back into anguish.

Beach scene

In the ending scene, we chose the beach as in Asian culture, the beach is where we like to throw out all the old ashes. We do this to signify the death of the past. When Young Jun turns away, the pink filter is removed to show the reality then we cut back to present-day Jun to show that he is finally realized where he is in reality

Digipak development

 This post is about how we developed our digipak, this blog was arranged by me (jason).

Development started when Rania showed some pictures to me of what she wanted the digipak to look like.

I wasn't too big on the idea of the ocean background so I re-consulted our research to find something else.

Some album covers we looked at + an image of Andrew Tate

I was in particular intrigued by the design of Kanye's Life of Pablo cover (Row 4, Column 5). Especially by the unique graphic design choices which seemed off-putting. I decided to recreate something similar to it in canva.

As Mr Nick was a graphics design major, I decided to do everything that might make him cringe at the cover. This includes a pure white background, unaligned text, different fonts, comic sans and a random stretched image. I chose Guy Fieri for now as I would want our star to do something similar to him as a pose in the image. 

Somehow, Rania liked the placement of the "Out of Time" with a different font (6th row) and so she tried to salvage my dumpster fire.

This was what she came up with

I wasn't too much of a fan of it and I strongly preferred the first one she came up with. So instead we decided to switch the background to a color scheme to fit our music video. Rania had a photoshoot with our star and so we got this.

mock up of Rania's Idea

after our photoshoot it turned to this

Baron had the idea to add more of "Jun" to the digipak

In the end, we all thought this one was the most visually pleasing and the most eye-catching simultaneously. It also encodes similar media language as our video. The glitchy double effect shows Jun losing himself and the blurred flashes represent memories going through his head, taking him through different emotions and realities.