Music Video: Creative Critical Reflection

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

My product uses convention in terms of setting and fashion that is typically seen in indie music videos. Settings in indie music videos tend to take place in naturalistic settings that caters to young teens like myself. Such settings would include skate parks, suburban neighborhoods, streets, the character's homes, bedrooms and locations with abundant vegetation. In my final product, it uses some of these conventional settings: in the sleeping  & crying scene, it contains my bedroom; in the long shot scene of the character walking out the front door of the house, it showed that it's located in a suburban area; in the mailbox scene, it contains a lot of vegetation within the shot. Another convention that is used is the outfit of the character. Indie music video tends to have fashion that's reminiscent of the 70s-2000s, one of which is the 90s. In my music video, the character is wearing a baggy jean jacket, white tennis shoes, and black leggings. These pieces of clothing do reflect the 90s, as it has the minimalist look and and the oversized clothing, as demonstrated in the baggy jean jacket. Overall, the conventions that are used in my final product that reflects indie music videos are the common settings and fashion seen. 

My Music Video

Ritt Momney- On Love

The way my product challenges conventions is its limited usage of vibrant colors, props used, the lack of text in the video and the camera or filter used.  The colors in the music video are very dull and not as saturated seen in indie music videos. At times, my final product tends to have dark colors dominating the shot, especially the scene where the character takes out her phone to see a notification. My final product, visually, has no distinct style in where colors are the spotlight, which is illustrated through its saturation and vibrancy in indie music videos. So, the colors in my final product challenged the conventions of indie music videos, as it's not saturated nor vibrant consistently throughout the video. The props used in my final product are ones that aren't typically seen in indie music videos. Indie music video props tend to include bikes and instruments, cars, and skateboards. In my final product, there's none of these following props seen, with the exception of the the red car on the long shot scene; however, I wouldn't count that, since it wasn't the main prop contributing to the context of the video. So, the props being used were love letters, a sketchbook, phones, bacon & eggs; all of which have significance to the character's feelings. In summation, the conventions challenged were evident were illustrated in the lack of color and no common props used.

The way my product represents social groups, particularly people within my age range, is how I conveyed an innocent heartbreak and my song choice itself. I think people my age, although not so common anymore, experiences some type of heartbreak with a first love or just encounters with love in general. I illustrate this through how each scene is contradicting: one calm or happy one, then follows up with anger and sadness. I think this represent young people in general, as it can reflect their first heartbreak, a new experience that can cause a lot of pain & sadness. The stages of heartbreak can put reflected in the song choice as well, one can experience pain and then anger following up a heartbreak. The chorus of the song says, "I'm crazy now", which Aerial East says after her heartbreak. Overall, my product represents people within my age range, as I showcase more of an innocent view of heartbreak in first loves. 

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

My final product engages with audiences are how the scenes in my music video are linked to the song. The scenes showcases aspects of contradiction, which can engage with audiences, it could lead them to be intrigued in the character contradictory erratic behavior, and lead them to wonder why they're acting or feeling such ways. For example, in the mascara scene, the character was putting on mascara calmly, then follows up with a scene where the character is crying with her smeared mascara. This scene could engage with the audience, as they can question about the context: 'why is the character crying?' These wonderings can be answered in the song choice: 'Crazy Now', the audience can understand why the character is acting in such an erratic way, as the context as it's answered through the song. This engages with audiences, as they now want to see the character's journey in coping with going crazy over her breakup, such journey is reflected in the song's intriguing lyrics. So, the use of the song and it's correlation with the scenes could engages with audiences, as they're intrigued about the character's contradictory feelings and they want to see the character's journey on how they cope, and its very telling in the lyrics of the song. 

This music video would be distributed in platforms for which music is involved. So, this could be distributed as a music video on YouTube. Additionally, it could distributed in one of those TV channels in which it only showcases music videos and emerging new music artists. In these platforms, it reaches many audiences of different background, and this music video can fit in these real media texts as it serves to showcases aspect of the primary objectives in music videos: to engage with audience and promote the music artist's song. It engages audiences with its intriguing scenes, and it promotes the artist's music as it's in the background of a supposedly entertaining video.

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

My production skills develop throughout this product as I learned how to incorporate dynamic camera angles & movements.  I wanted to incorporate more camera angles in my media as said in my last project, the Staedtler commercial, even though they do intimidate me. In the production of my music video, I was more mindful in implementing dynamic camera angles with the assistance of my brother. Throughout this process, I learned how to compose the composition of each shot, how to position the camera in order to achieve said camera angle in my storyboard, and how to communicate with my brother in how to achieve such camera angles. 

I also learned how to put more camera movements with my tripod. At first I didn't know how to work the tripod. But I figured out to how to tilt and pan smoothly with the pan-handle by loosening it. I've never used the pan-handle before, but once I did a bunch of demos using it. As I gotten the hang of it, I was able to communicate with my brother effectively on how to achieve tilts and pans with my new found knowledge. Because of this, my production skills did get a little level up, as I can control the mechanics of the tripod in order to executive my creative vision.

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

In terms of filming, the only camera that I used was my Canon EOS Rebel T2i, and I used my SD card to store all of my footage in my camera. To import my footage, I used my SD card inserted them it into my computer, and then I would import the footage onto Google Drive. For editing, once I imported the videos onto my iPad, I edited everything in iMovie. I then exported it as an .mp4 file. Once the video is completely saved,  uploaded it to Youtube, which is then embedded onto Blogger.