Critical
Creative
Reflection

 

My product is my music video. It represents the social group of teens and young adults. It represents the issue often seen in this age group; lack of self-confidence, self-love and embracing opportunities. The rise of social media has also seen the rise of quieter and more introverted personalities in younger people, and my music video reminds people of the magic of meeting in person and expressing yourself in real life, as well as the subtle help of social media and devices such as phones. My music video story follows a girl who is introverted, shown through the black color she wears throughout the first half of the video, and then gains confidence through a stranger she connects with, who is wearing white, which she wears in the end to show the flip of her approach to the world. The idea is that we find pieces of us in people, pieces that help to build us into better versions of ourselves. The music video represents other issues such as femininity. This video is a celebration of femininity and embracing the beauty within to shine even brighter on the outside. The clothes are once again of importance in this too, and the center of the story is a female, an empowered female who uses her voice, in this case sings, to express herself. The singing is symbolic as she frees herself of the timid and hidden personality and sparkles (sparkles on clothes), pointing to a wider message of freedom and women using their voice to make the best of opportunities. This is also a celebration of the issue of lack of self-love, as she finally learns to be confident and comfortable as herself. 

Branding, by dictionary definition, is ‘the process of creating a distinct identity in the mind of your target audience and consumers’. The branding in my music video is established and created through costume design, and lighting. The costumes are what really bring the story to life; they enhance the meanings and messages I am trying to convey in a plot that seems otherwise very simple. The one constant element that remains is the sparkle, literally and figuratively. The white top, black top, pillows, streamers decorations, twitter bio, all have sparkles in them. This is the shining light that twinkles throughout, creating a bright and optimistic vibe of my product that remains in the audience's brain and they can start to associate a sparkle with this music video. The lighting changing colors, primary colors, in the club scenes and the karaoke scenes, also create a sense of branding. These lights are mostly the only lighting used throughout the video, and this makes it iconic for the music video. All other elements, such as the magic of meeting and finding a connection within a stranger, add to the sparkle, often associated with fairytales and magic. My blog has many colors too, echoing the flashing colors idea. The digipak makes use of the pictures we took with sparkle in the background or on the singer, reinforcing the idea. The album tracklist has a song called “Twinkle” too. Therefore, Mallory Andrews has an image of sparkle and magic surrounding her music and her personality, and this is what the audience is consuming. 

My music video engages with the audience by creating real life settings. A karaoke club is an existing phenomenon, and this already establishes a connection between the artist and the audience as they too can visit such a place. The romance shown is ordinary too. In fact, it encourages the little things in life, a few seconds of eye contact, a small message that shows humans care for each other. This down-to-earth message engages with audiences and makes it not a fantasy for them rather something that they can experience in many ways in daily life. Through the idea of magic and not real magic, the music video engages with the audience and creates a sense of confidence that can be learnt from this music video, encouraging them with messages such “find the magic within yourself” and how personality can make you sparkle inside and out; out with clothes and how you carry them, like Mallory carries the white outfit with power in the second half. The twitter for the artist is a mix between mysterious and cryptic and being straightforward. The cryptic messages, such as the tweeting of a lyric, helps to keep the audience on their toes and create excitement for the release of the song and music video. The post with the black and white squares and a sparkle keeps a conversation between fans going too. All of this adds to the audience engagement of my music video. 

My research was very helpful in making my product, my music video. I had made a list of codes and conventions I wanted to follow and break before creating the music video. Firstly, style remained mostly mid-shot, like I wanted it to be. The camera angles I used were majorly eye-level, but for the transition of the bed in the middle act, I used a bird-eye view. The rule I broke was that generally in music videos no shot is longer than 3 to 5 seconds, but I made sure to include as many tracking shots as I could, and then eventually break them off at the right time to avoid monotony. Therefore, I challenged the convention of 3-5 second shots. Performance-wise, I wanted a mixed treatment of the song playing; it is both diegetic and non-diegetic. It is diegetic when Mallory sings along in a karaoke to it, but it is non-diegetic when the bartender and attendants are setting up the club, before she and her friend arrive. It is diegetic once again when she performs it in her bedroom in the middle act, and diegetic when she enters in the white outfit and sings it. I also researched the original video for the song, and the characters did not lip sync the whole song the whole time. I used this idea in my music video too, and this is one of the styles a music video can have. I made use of color theory and costume design, as music videos create stories and performative worlds, and built a story around the black to white costume change she goes through in the music video. There wasn’t much editing required on the lighting, as it was very deliberately used and coloured correctly. Since this is a narrative music video, I chose to not match the lyrics with the story completely, only when it made exact sense, such as the chorus, and performing it in 2 different outfits to feel the change and shift in character.