Creative Critical Reflection

Now that we've wrapped up our advanced portfolio its time to reflect on our project through the focus of certain questions.

Q.1 How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do the represent social groups or issues?

The genre me and my team picked for our final products was indie pop. Indie as a genre in general breaks tonnes of conventions and creates new ones mostly due to the freedom allotted to the artists. Rather than having set conventions the indie scene works in trends which emerge with time, which is what we've based certain aspects of our products off and what we've gone against to showcase some of our own artistic ability. In a country like Pakistan, which is mostly over run with remastered coke studio versions of old songs, releasing an indie pop album and music video is unconventional as it is. Similarly, due to the creative freedom the genre allows us, we were able to represent social issues which we may not have been able to if we were to be policed by commercialism.

How My Products Used And Challenged Conventions

Music Video

Most music videos have a clear cut narrative that is being followed, particularly in pop, where the music videos follow a linear narrative. We went against these conventions by having a somewhat disjointed chain of events. However, we also utilised Todorov's narrative theory in which the turning point (choosing a new game) changes to form a new equilibrium (her moving on and accepting herself). More so, our music video is conceptual and performance based with only slight narrative elements which is something you don't see that often in the pop genre, the closest echos of convention in indie pop itself. Our music video mostly utilises symbols (unconventional) and literal imagery (Andrew Goodwin- therefore very conventional) to build the overall meaning in the video. Examples of this symbolism range from the unique uses of props such as the lip shaped telephone and conventional techniques such as intertextuality to the 'Red String of Fate'. A large portion of our meaning was built from the colour symbolism we used. While pop music videos are generally colourful, I see very few using singular coloured backgrounds. Its even more unheard of in the indie sphere. However, I did come across Joseph Cook's 'Girls Like Me' which used coloured backgrounds. I decided to give this my own twist by assigning the colours meaning: red for anger, blue for sadness and yellow for joy (universal associations the audience could easily understand).

Following the recent trends we've made the artist the performer to let the audience have maximum exposure to the artist especially since we want the artist to be more well established since it's their debut. This was furthered by the camera work we did, using an array of close ups for maximum exposure (Andrew Goodwin). In fact, not being able to capture as many long shots as we had originally planned worked to our advantage since having a continuous but well balanced mixture of close ups, extreme close ups, mid close ups, mid shots and mid long shots created a sort of intimacy which made it seem as if the music video was an insight to the artist's own experiences. The protagonist would also repeatedly make eye contact with the camera as she lip-synced creating a notion of looking at the audience, also creating intimacy (Andrew Goodwin). 

Most indie music videos are low budget and do not use any overtly fancy shots or camera due to the natural low budget they have, since they aren't backed by an affluent record label. So we didn't need a fancy camera and in accordance to the conventions captured most of the footage on a singular camera set on a tripod. An anomaly in music videos but a definite upward trend in indie pop music videos is the use of hand held shots which we took quite a few off, the roughness adding to the rustic charm of the music video. Pop music videos are colourful and bright so aside from using bright colours as backdrops we also used high key lighting to capture said brightness. 

We made aesthetic choices based off of some indie conventions as well. There is a distinct upward trend in playing around with the aspect ratios of music videos to aid meaning (Janelle Monae's PYNK) or for aesthetic purposes (Fazerdaze's Lucky Girl). We used a 4:3 aspect ration for the majority of the video except the parts leading to or during her breakup to subconsciously hone the audience's attention on to those scenes. We also added used the scratchy/foggy visual effect to capitalise on the theme of nostalgia that we set into motion with other elements such as the retro games layout. This can be observed in other indie music videos including but not limited to King Princess' 1950 which I've linked above. Animation is rarely used in indie music videos as they don't have the budget but there are trends of throwbacks to the 80s and the 90s which we've used in the layout as well as the heart animations. A popular pop example of this is Charlie XCX and Troye Sivan's 1999 music video. The speed of editing was dependent on the music but also was generally much faster with excessive jump cuts, something common in indie music videos along with a bit of continuity editing mainly through action matches to create atleast some flow within the music video. This too is well highlighted in the likes of Fazerdaze's Lucky Girl.

The narrative itself breaks the conventional mould of the girl getting a hot rebound guy to get over her ex or displaying overtly obsessive behaviors (Marina's Radioactive) and instead works towards moving on in a healthy way by accepting herself.

Digipak

The name of our artist and the album name are pretty unconventional. While we drew inspiration from indie artist names such as Marina and the Diamonds and Florence + The Machine who are essentially soloists, having a plural name for a soloist remains a rarity. The album name 'SARAH TONIN' which is a wordplay on serotonin is also unique, but does hint at the contents of the album like most albums. Conventionally the album name is the largest typographical element on the cover so it attracts the most attention and the name of the artist after that. The digipak cover is minimalist with some art of a heart on the cover, both popular trends at the moment.

Unlike most digipaks which utilise one colour to predominantly colour all the panels, our uses two distinct coours, black and blue on adjacent panels so it opens up like a book. The inlay has some characteristic elements such as the artist's picture on the first panel of the inlay, copyrights, signatures and quotes. Our CD breaks conventions by not having the artist or album name on it. 

The entirety of our digipak continues to generally use the color scheme we set. Our back cover is as minimalist as the rest of our digipak, the red of the title 'Track list' framing it. It has conventional elements on it such as the track list, copyrights and of course a bar code.

Website

We followed perhaps the most conventions in the construction of our website, having the name of the artist on top along with her logo, followed by a navigation tab just underneath which leads to different pages of the website such as music, news etc. Like most artist we had promotion of the latest album or in our case debut album on the home page along with our music video underneath. We gave it our own slight twist by adding animation in the form of a beating heart that says buy urging the audience to click on it. Like most indie artists we've made the tracks playable. While having a merchandise shop is a norm, its usually through an external link. We incorporated our merchandise shop directly into our website. Like many other websites we added a news tab which had live feeds to the artist's twitter and instagram. In accordance to convention, we also added a page describing the artist and a slideshow of her pictures for maximum exposure and social media links on the top left of the website for easy access.

How My Products Represent Social Groups and Issues

Social Groups

The target market played a huge role in the selection of who we chose to represent in our products, since it needed to be someone who holds up a mirror to our target market or at least be relatable to them. This is why we chose a Pakistani young adult as the protagonist since that is what our primary target audience consists of. By using a female protagonist, especially one who healthily moves on from her ex, offers healthy representation of said social group. There is also a strong representation of a female lead singer, uncommon in the mostly male-dominated music industry.

Social Issues

Our music video is set around the events of a break up, a largely relatable topic for the demographic we've selected to be our target audience. The music video flits through the different emotions and states she goes through before and after the break up, including but not limited to denial and slight hysteria. The video is a reflection of today's society where relationships are obsessed over or treated callously, a way to just pass the time. The protagonist constantly waiting by the phone, anticipating her lover's call and adjusting her world around someone is shown as detrimental especially by the way she reacts imminently after the break up. The dead indifference of the lover's voice who did not even bother showing up in person to end the relationship is a stark juxtaposition to the protagonist's behaviour.  However, rather than burning his clothes, slashing his tires or getting a rebound guy as most music videos suggest, the protagonists comes to terms with it by accepting herself, using her art as a mouthpiece to her emotions and moving on from the person in a healthy way.

Q.2 How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of branding?

There are certain elements that help create cohesion in our musical promotion package and build up star image. One of these is the logo that we created for the artist, consisting of a rat with an eagle, inspired by the artist's name 'The RedTide Rats'. This logo can be seen in all promotional products: on the home page of the website, on the spine of the album and in the music video by being incorporated into the painting and even on a shirt as part of the merchandise. The painting, which was specifically made for the music video by Mahnoor also played it's role in building a brand, being sold as a poster. Prominent branding was done through the colour scheme we set: red, blue, yellow, white, and black. We never once deviated from this, creating the website in the house style as well. The associated meanings established through the music video furthered the building of meaning. We ran the retro pixelated theme throughout all 3 promotional products. In the music video there was the retro games like layout along with pixelated hearts which were echoed once more on the digipak cover. The same pixelated font and variations of it was used for the digipak and in the website. The CD itself had a pixelated looking inner circle rather than the conventional circle. The beating heart at the end of the music video is also present on the home page of the website urging consumers to buy the album. All these elements come together to create a sense of identity and branding.

Q.3 How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?

Who our target audience is plays a huge role in when keeping audience engagement and distribution in mind since the only way to be successful in these elements is by catering to the wants and needs of said target audience. 

Audience Engagement

We effectively enagaged the audience by first establishing who our target audience is and then in the research phase of our project conducting a survey, created through Survey Monkey, with that demographic specifically to determine their preferences. Once the results were in, we decided to make some decisions based on the results e.g people said they most preferred a music video with conceptual elements and most preferred dancing out of the different types of performance elements (both which we incorporated into our music video) and some which we ignored in favour of our artistic expression e.g more people preferred a cinematic aesthetic but we wanted to opt for a a more conventional path with the 8mm aesthetics.

As mentioned above, there's an upward trend in using retro themes which is why we incorporated 80s and 90s retro game like layouts and graphical elements such as the hearts, because it is something that would instill nostalgia within our target audience as they grew up playing those games and therefore leave a lasting impression.

The subject matter we chose, that regarding relationships, dating and break ups is also something very common among young adults, making it relevant to some of the experiences they may be having. By resolving the conflict in the narrative in a healthy way and by empowering women in our narrative may actually attract more people. The entire music promotional package is in English, a language widely spoken by our primary target market, the aspirer and explorer young adults in Pakistan and even in our secondary markets, countries such as the US and UK. There are also social media links, through which they can keep up with the artist and any updates there might be, also building up artist-audience communication and relationship.

How My Products Would Be Distributed

The survey we conducted also questioned our target market on how they discover new music and consume music. The results showed YouTube and Online as the most preferred answers, respectively, leading us to believe that we should primarily focus on online distribution. The music video would be put up on YouTube and Vimeo along with official audios of each track, The album would also be put up on online streaming services like Deezer and Patari, the latter a particularly popular choice in Pakistan. For digital purchase, the album would be available on the artist's website along with Bandcamp, a platform for indie artists in particular. The latter also allows artists to ship physical copies of the album, also available on the shop on the artist's website. Physical copies of the album will also be provided to music stores in Pakistan such as 'Radio City'.

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

We used Photoshop for multiple purposes throughout the project. It was used to design the logo for the artist, the record label and the production house. We used it once more to create the hearts that would later be featured in the music video and on the cover of the digipak and finally for designing the entirety of our digipak. Another software that was excessively used was Adobe Premiere Pro used to edit our music video from start to end. The Snipping Tool was also used to capture our progress through snips and Microsoft Word was used for writing out our synopses. I also used Windows Movie Maker to edit and make the behind the scenes of our shoot.

For the shoot itself we used a Sony HX300 Camera and an assortment of accessories such as SD cards, chargers and data cables to handle and transfer data. I used my own personal laptop and the computers provided by our School's Media and IT Lab. The lights already installed in rooms were often used as rim lights.

An assortment of online tools were used throughout the project, the most prominent being the WiFi provided by our school. I used Emaze and Google Presentations to create presentations of music video theories, music video analyses and star image. I used Google sheets to draft the shooting schedule and the shot list for our project. I chose Blogger as the platform to create my blog, where I recorded all my progress. Besides this I also used Google Docs to upload our synopses and final synopsis and Survey Monkey to create a survey to gauge the preferences of our target audience. Google was used to research and applications like Whatsapp were used to communicate between the team mates. Social Media networks such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook were used to make profiles for the artist. Wix was used to construct our promotional website.