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.
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Fig 1.1.png) Fig 1.2  Fig 1.3  Fig 1.4 |
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