CCR Questions

 Question 1:

How do your products represent social groups or issues? 

Our music video represents mainly two social groups; age and gender. The music video follows a teenage girl struggling to cope with her best friend drifting apart, and feeling a sense of discomfort at growing up. This is showcased in the music video in ample ways through a non-chronological timeline grappling with flashbacks and present loneliness. 

Teenagers are commonly stereotyped as edgy and dependent, in a constant quest to feel fulfillment. They also tend to be excessively emotional. This is encapsulated in in how during the flashbacks, Haya (main character) was constantly joyous, receiving that fulfillment by spending time with her friend. But during the present, she appears forlorn, longing for her friend, even frustrated on her birthday at the idea of aging alone, and pushing the cupcake away. This also perfectly captures the stereotypical importance of friendship to teenagers, as teens are assumed to be too “all in” when they’re close to their friends. Teenagers are also often shown as over-thinkers in media, which led us to adding a shot of Haya tossing and turning in bed until morning, struggling to sleep due to overthinking. Teenage rage was also incorporated in some of the performance shots.

However, we have broken some stereotypes regarding teenagers by showing our characters as soft, loving, considerate and healthy instead of toxic teenagers who are into recreational drugs or alcohol. And the artist’s restlessness over being apart from her friend also indicated that teenagers can be selfless and compassionate rather than stereotypically selfish and irrational.

Gender: In media, women are mostly shown as the emotional, empathetic, and loving ones. We proceeded with this convention by highlighting the love between female friends. This may also be interpreted as girls being more emotionally dependent on other people. Moreover, we portrayed an essence of youthfulness and innocence, that is applicable to both gender and age. The girls were running together, bowing each other’s hair, making bucket lists in their combined journal. The outdoor shots reflected a positive side of girlhood, slightly Anne With an E inspired, rather than smoking or doing drugs (like Euphoria and Ginny and Georgia characters).

A social issue reflected in my product is mental health problems, such as depression and anxiety. This is seen in scenes like standing by the window for a long time, inability to sleep or stay still, playing nervously with grass blades, tugging at her hair, and losing interest in things that once brought Haya joy.

 

The social media page also reflected moody teenager themes, with some pastels sprinkled in.

 

Question 2:

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

In our promotion package, a sense of branding was reflected in every aspect, ranging from the juxtaposition and consistency of color palettes, to props and themes. Our use of moody, lowkey lighting for gloomy scenes and warmer lighting with pastel, pinkish color-grading for jollier scenes created a sense of branding, which helped us establish the negative and positive sides of ageing and nostalgia. While making the digipak, I ensured that both sides were represented. Moreover, we maintained the same theme for the social media page to ensure there was a sense of branding. To further the sense of branding, I used the same font for titles and credits in the MV, on digipak, and the social media page. This font gave a distinctive individualization to our promotion package. I even used this for the Instagram highlight covers.

Our mise-en-scene added to the youthful innocence that thematically surrounded the promotion package, hence contributing to the branding.

Our production house (AZ Studios) logo was also posted on Instagram, and the music video was linked in the Instagram bio for the audience engagement via social media.  

Question 3:

How do your products engage with the audience?

Firstly, our music video itself engages effortlessly with the target audience due to it’s narrative and performance. This is because teenagers are likely to relate to this song. They might be drawn to the music video as they see this fear of growing up, drifting apart from friends, and falling back together. This sense of familiarity they might feel can not only draw them to the MV, but also give them some comfort and a reassurance that they are not alone and that their feelings, fears and emotions are not entirely irrational. We were also able to showcase the artist’s emotions by using a variety of shots, including closeups to show exact expressions and wide shots to identify isolation.

The broad range of lighting and color grading of our music video will also help with audience engagement. The gloomy mise-en-scene would engage with teenagers who are more edgy and irritable and the lighter scenes would appeal those teenagers who are reawakening their inner child. Interestingly, it might also create a fusion between these two polar opposite groups by squeezing both elements into one music video. Teenagers can then either use this song and music video for happy trends or sad trends, or even bittersweet trends on social media, furthering engagement. 

Our products engaged with the audiences actively, particularly with the help of the social media page. Since reels tend to have a higher engagement, we used Instagram reels for the video teasers. Moreover, to make the social media page look thematic and appealing, we used the grids app for creating layouts. We also teased the music video with “coming soon” posts, and used one-liner type lyrics from the song, in both the posts and the captions. Moreover, I added a one-liner “it drives you crazy, getting old” to the Instagram bio as it would attract the target audience (teenagers and young adults). We left the comment section and DMs open and used Instagram stories and polls for further engagement and communication between the artist and audience. 

Question 4: 

How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

Our research helped us understand in detail our song’s genre and its conventions. Our song’s genre is Alternative/Indie Pop. Conventionally, it is supposed to have a strong narrative with the lyrics’ meaning somehow being acted/played out in the video, abundant with imagery. We corresponded well with this aspect by basing our narrative on the lyrics to quite an extent.

Moreover, strong performance is necessary to convey and translate the artist’s emotions. We also included that and to fuel the emotional aspect, we played with lighting, such as using a spotlight during lip-syncing/performance shots.

Locations and cinematography play an important role in indie pop MVs, and while planning the cinematography, we took note to include a variety of shot types to keep the music video captivating and interesting. We attained this by including wide shots, closeups and mid-closeups for artist and significant props.

This convention also extends to editing, and this is why we attempted montages and during the bridge of the song, kept fast-paced editing. In indie pop, the color-grading is also conventionally dull and depressing. We used and challenged this convention by establishing a juxtaposition in color-grading, by using dull color-grading for depressing scenes and bright for happy scenes. Layering is also common in editing of indie pop MVs, and we used it in one of the scenes (running scene).

 

Mise-en-scene is highly important in indie-pop MVs, and we used this to establish the characters’ age group and interests, for example, their outfits reflected that they we teenagers, their minimal makeup also affirmed this. The props, such as books, stuffed toy, flowers, candle, bow and a journal also helped reflect the characters’ ages and interest. The mise-en-scene and props were quite inspired by Rory and Lane from Gilmore Girls. This challenged the conventions as in modern times, female friendships, particularly teenage ones are shown as quite toxic, for example Maddy and Cassie from Euphoria. We opted for a softer, more tender view on female friendships. We did, however maintain the convention of women being emotional, loving and easily attached. Moreover, we challenged another common convention of teenagers that they are over fixated on romantic relationships or emotions. This stereotype is very reductionist of teenager’s mental health struggles and in our music video, we debunked it. We also challenged the convention of teenagers, specially ones who are struggling, turning to recreational drugs.  

 

The digipak also showcases the contradictory teenage dark colors and pinks in outdoor settings, which uses and challenges conventions regarding angsty edgy teenagers. We also used exclusive pictures for the digipak to further the sense of intrigue. This was inspired by Lorde’s Melodrama digipak.

 

Moreover, the social media page also reflects the preferences of teenagers, as it was inspired by popular musicians’ Instagram with the use of grids and story highlights for album announcements. We took note to use such colors and fonts that would appeal to teenagers and young adults.