Creative Critical Reflection
- Aisan
- 2 abr 2020
- 8 Min. de lectura
Actualizado: 5 abr 2020
How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?
Codes and conventions are the way in which some things are generally done. Basically, accepted ways of doing something. In music, each genre has different codes and conventions for the way their music videos are supposed to be. Billie Eilish is a pop artist with some evidence of alternative rock influences in her music. The main genre for her music however, is pop. The codes and conventions for pop music are bright and eye catching colours, high key lighting, with focus on the singer as well as some dancing. They are also mostly abstract or performance music videos and can occasionally be based on a concept. However, Billie Eilish’s music videos don’t follow the typical genre conventions of pop music videos. Though some of her old videos such as “watch” and “bellyache” do follow some of these conventions such as focus on the artist, it’s abstract and contains bright colours. Her newer videos, ever since the release of her album, “when we all fall asleep where do we go?” have all been following a concept and filmed in low key lighting. Though she remains the main focus of the videos, they all have an underlying message included in them, relating to the lyrics of the song. Examples of these are “all the good girls go to hell”, which focuses on Billie, as she has taken the form of a fallen angel, and falls into a pool of spilled oil, and then starts walking towards the camera while everything around her burns. This is a reference to climate change and how humanity is ignoring it. Her other music video “everything i wanted” also follows a similar idea, as Billie is driving at night with her brother, and she drives straight into the water, causing them both to drown. Throughout this she also does not react.
This is a similar approach I took with the creation of my music video. It is based around the concept of the substance abuse that takes place in parties. It shows Billie away from the party and having a deadpan expression, as if she has had enough with these types of parties, which links to the lyrics. There is also a certain amount of focus on the artist, as in certain sections of the song, there is a cut to a medium shot of the singer lip syncing. This is also a common convention for pop music videos, and is done by Billie Eilish herself in her music videos.
My music video mainly represents teenagers. In the video, it is obvious that most of the actors are teenagers, and my video represents issues that are very common with teenagers. The hedonistic lifestyle presented in my music video, with drinking, smoking and doing drugs is a very common behaviour among teenagers. My music video is meant to shed light on teenage issues and also show how their behaviour may affect others. Hence why my main actress leaves the party at the beginning and is later shown away from the party. This is meant to show the isolation that she feels being the only “sober” one at the party since all her friends are at that party, abusing substances.
How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
I create a sense of branding using cross-media branding, where I promote the singer across platforms, (my website & instagram) and products, (my digipack).
The website is based around Billie Eilish. I use colours mainly associated with her as the colour scheme, and made my website quite simple, with only necessary information such as tour dates, discography and merchandise. This is similar to what Billie’s actual website looks like. The merchandise also follows the same colour scheme which is associated with Billie, (those being green white and black) and they also include her well-known brand logo, called Blohsh, (which is this little man here).
The digipack is inspired by the digipack released with Khalid’s album, “American Teen”. I liked the idea of the cover being in an open area, showing both freedom and isolation. Emphasising the freedom Billie feels when she is away from drugs and alcohol, and isolation from her friends who abuse substances at parties. I also wanted to appeal to Billie’s general audience, by making my character wear baggy clothes in the photos, which is a link to the real artist as wearing baggy clothes has become something she is known for and is somewhat her brand. All the clothing that the singer sells, whether it’s from her own merch page or a collaboration with a clothing company such as “H&M” or “Bershka”, are all mean to be oversized, even getting them in “small” they will still be big for the person wearing it. (here’s a photo of me in one of her “small” hoodies).
Moreover, the digipack represents an idea of not fitting in or not belonging. My performer is rebelling against the social pressure that is put on teenagers to go out and live a hedonistic lifestyle, which makes her not fit in with the rest of the teenagers. However, she is also seen as not fitting in on the album cover. Her hair is messy and she is wearing black clothing, which is a contrast between the setting the photos were taken at. There is nothing happening at the setting making it seem like a very calm environment, making the movement of her hair stand out from the background. The photo is bright in general, creating a significant contrast between the singer and the background of the digipack showing how she doesn’t seem to fit in. The text on the album cover is also white to emphasise the sense of contrast and isolation created.
How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?
Pop is one of the most popular music genres, especially among young people. My music video does target these groups of people, mainly teenagers, which is my target audience for the music video.
It engages my audience as it creates a familiar environment for most teenagers. They can relate to the party setting shown. It is very common for teenagers to have big parties, and continuously drink, smoke and do drugs. The events that happen in my video such as playing beer pong, smoking outside in groups, throwing up, and the making out, are all things that occur in most parties which many teenagers can relate to. Some extra scenes were added to add to the humour of my music video, such as the girl going to the shower fully clothed while drunk and turning on the water. This doesn’t mean that it happens at parties, however, many ridiculous things do and I’m sure that most teenagers have a silly story of themselves or one of their friends doing something absurd while under the influence.
Even teenagers who don’t drink or go to parties may relate to the video. I also engage with that side of my audience as I show the performer as someone who feels isolated and alone when she can’t see the fun in what the rest of the people at the party are doing. Teenagers who go to parties and don’t drink may relate to this too since the main character is depicted as the only one sober at the party. Another way in which I engage with the viewers is through the fact that during some of the scenes, we see the performer lip syncing while directly looking at the camera, creates a connection with the viewers, perhaps appealing to them more as they can imagine themselves in the same situation, and the loneliness felt by the performer.
My music video would be released by the singer herself, as her songs are written by her and her brother. Billie would tease the release of the new music video through her instagram page, and possibly her other pages such as twitter and facebook. (But instagram is obviously the priority seen as it’s one of the biggest social media platforms used right now) This would bring attention towards the video, so her fans know that she is planning a new release, and will be ready for it when it comes out. She doesn’t use her website for updates, unless it has got anything to do with her tour dates. I took a similar approach to this. I teased the release of her music video a few days in advance and also posted a story on the day it was released, along with a link to watch it. The video is also posted on the front page of my artist’s website and her YouTube channel.
How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project
The internet played an immense part in this project. I used it to do research for both my major and minor tasks. I researched things such as conventions and other student’s work to help my production be the best it can be. I also used the internet to create a blog. I used “Wix” to do my blog and artist’s webpage on. I tried out other websites such as blogger and wordpress however they all required me to pay for some important features. I also created an instagram account, in hopes to make people more aware of my project. The internet was also used in my distribution process as I used the instagram account I created to promote the release of my music video, so I could reach a wider range of people, considering most people use instagram nowadays. I used YouTube to upload my video and I also put it on my artist’s website.
In terms of software, I used Adobe Photoshop for things such as creating merchandise and creating my digipack. This was a new experience for me as it was the first time I used Photoshop for anything. I also had to use YouTube to search up ways I could do certain things in Photoshop and watched some extensive tutorials to help me get a hang of the programme. In terms of editing, I used Adobe Premiere Pro. I used this to edit my music video, and some montages of me using photoshop (and of course to edit this). I’ve had experience with using this programme before, from doing my Foundation Portfolio. However, there were a few new things I wanted to try which is why I also had to resort to YouTube and Google for help. Another software that I used to help me with the project was OBS Studio. It is a free screen recording software which I used to record the making of some of my merch.
In terms of hardware, I used a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, which is a camera that belongs to a friend of mine. I used that to film all the scenes for my final music video. In my previous attempts to film the music video, I had used my phone, the iPhone X, to record. I realised after using it that, when the videos get transferred to the computer, their resolution changes which results in them being in a lower quality. Furthermore, the Canon could record much better in the dark than my phone could which is why I ended up using it. My phone was used in the filming process, but it was used to play the song so that the performer could lip sync to it which is an important factor in most music videos.
I used my phone to take photos of the performer for the digipack. This is due to the fact that the iPhone X has a great camera quality and is easy to take everywhere. I also knew that unlike the videos, The photos wouldn’t go down in quality as much as the videos, which is why I decided to use it.
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