Sharon Tan [AS/A Level Media Studies]: COMP 3: Critical Self Reflection

A Level Media Studies

Here is my critical self reflection on the music promotion package. This blog is written by me (Sharon).

According to the brief set by Cambridge, students had to create a music promotion package. My group decided to create a fictional pop star called Kiara and covered the song "Feather" by Sabrina Carpenter. You can find the links to my groups' blogs in my team introduction post. In this essay, I will be looking closer into our pre-production, production, and post-production.

To ensure that we'll be passionate about working on the genre and the song, we diversified our research into different genres of music videos which eased our decision on whether the product would be narrative-based or performance-based, and to which we could apply most of our creativity. Our mission was to deliver the message of how she feels much lighter and free after breaking off her relationship with her ex-lover. Our extended research on pop music videos assisted us with the typical genre conventions in pop music and whether to conform or subvert. One of them is having an element of 'love' in the narrative that draws the attention of our target audience, teenage girls, that we will conform to. According to Steve Neale's genre theory, a text must conform to the conventions enough to be recognisable, yet subvert them enough to be different and interesting. So, to subvert typical 'heartbreak' pop music - some of the conventions are sadness, heartbreak and grief - we kept the overall mood fun and amusing, instead of a despairing and miserable atmosphere throughout. To accurately represent social groups of teenage girls and Asians, we surround the issue of heartbreak and her post-breakup life accompanied by her girlfriends - a common and relatable issue in every teenage girl's life. In this case, the issue is represented positively as it exhibits the star living a better life with her girlfriends by her side. To further target the audience precisely, we cast all-Asian performers. Demographically, Asian audiences can empathize more with the performers and relate to the meaning as they feel represented. Asian women and/or artists are normally under-represented in the Western music industry, and when they are featured, they are often fetishised and hypersexualised. According to Post-colonial theory, this othering can have a negative effect on people from these groups, and positive representations will help avoid double-conscious thinking that may be present. Moreover, we had many elements to our planning, including a moodboard, which helped us get an overall style and move in the same direction. The screenplay supports the organization in the later production and the storyboard gives us a gist on the music video's flow. We planned on a template for the social media posts that will follow our overall theme of bright, summery, and lively. This will help us take pictures that align with this theme and edit them accordingly for social media and digipak.

The production stage includes a vast number of media languages to take into account for our theme of 'freedom'. Throughout our 4-day filming, we took pictures of the star in different poses, angles, and in all locations for the social media page and digipak. These pictures and locations reflect 'freedom' since most of our locations were nature-based, such as the park and the beach. Incorporating a low angle of the star's figure over-looking the blue sky represents her power and strength (female empowerment) after cutting ties and starting a new chapter in life as seen from her white flowy dress which connotes innocence and independence (Fig 1). We recorded a video for a social media post: '10 Questions with Kiara' that can boost audiences' interest in learning about what the star is like on a day-to-day basis - supported by Richard Dyer's theory of stardom of ordinariness. Fans would be fascinated by what the star does during her free time, or what she likes to eat/drink daily, living a normal life. Similarly, the music video has stereotypes surrounding the star's girlfriends and her ex-lover, who is represented as the 'player' trope. We can see that the bedroom has an unveiling of beauty products and tools: makeup brushes, lipsticks, palettes, and hair straighteners. This supports the ideology of 'girlhood' as they get ready together, get their makeup done, and play pillow fights (Fig 2) - what girls do at sleepovers. Portraying the star's girlfriends and 'girlhood' would be through mise-en-scene; bright and pure colour outfits, such as white, are seen throughout, representing cleanliness and beginnings; a new beginning for the star after cutting ties, where her girlfriends wearing white imply that the star is surrounded by purity. The use of camera angles to show the star's relationship with her girlfriends is presented through medium close-ups of them laughing and having fun (Fig 3), and wide-angled shots that expose their freedom (Fig 4). On top of that, we included a stereotypical 'player' as the star's ex-lover, recognized from the mise-en-scene of his monochromatic outfit - a black leather jacket with a white t-shirt paired with black pants, gelled hair, and chunky rings. A medium close-up shot shows him carrying the bouquet of roses to plainly apologize according to the "I'm sorry" note on the bouquet (Fig 5). According to Barthes' cultural code, (red) roses symbolize devotion, passion, and romance in media, suggesting that he's not over her; a cliche that roses come as one with romantic gestures, thus easing the audience to grasp the intention of the scene. Her rejection afterwards with a cocky attitude depicts that she moved on, and wants nothing to do with him anymore as she's living her best life with her girlfriends. The over-the-shoulder shot with the star's ex-lover in-frame illustrates and exaggerates his absurd act of apology (Fig 5). All through and through, it was his loss. To extend the emphasis on the message, she lipsyncs to the chorus in a sassy and bold manner based on how she feels towards her ex-lover and/or post-break-up whilst looking at the camera directly, indicating that she's the one 'advising/talking' the audience (Fig 6). Eye contact, or using a direct mode of address, is a genre convention of music videos, which according to Blumler and Katz's uses and gratifications theory of social relationship, could be a way for the star to create a connection with her fans/audience. Lastly, since our crew consisted of mostly males, despite that we had two girls in the writing room, we attempted to seek more female empowerment. Yet in the end, we had to conform to certain representations of women, such as how women are expected to be graceful, elegant, and that they concentrate on emotions. This can be supported by Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory, stating that women are figures/objects for male characters to look upon, which can be shown through the numerous close-ups that reveal feminine body parts such as legs, and where the star looks into the camera directly.

During our post-production period, we predominantly worked on editing the pictures for the social media page, assembling the digipak, and editing the music video. Regarding the pictures that we took from our 4-day shoot for the social media page, we had to colour grade to match the overall theme and aesthetic of the feed - lightweight and soft - displaying the star's personality of being soft-spoken with a cheery manner. Cursive fonts also connote elegance and femininity, where the white colour represents innocence and purity by implying the same typeface throughout our branding (Fig 7). This allows the audience to associate this typeface and meaning with our product and the star. We had to specifically select lightweight fonts - cursive and thin to emphasize the feeling of 'freedom' for our digipak. We incorporated social media posts in a way that appeals to them, such as holding a Q&A session with the star herself. Thanks to new media, the advancement of smartphones enables audiences and fans to upload comments and interact with the post and the star, even joining live streams. Blumler and Katz's uses and gratifications theory point out that audiences consume media to build social relationships with people they see on-screen. The comments section lets fans reply to each other's comments, and develop social relationships by sharing the same interest. Furthermore, the dance challenge enables fans to participate (create their own content perhaps) and therefore interact under their posts which Henry Jenkins' fandom theory facilitates fans to connect with one another (somewhat of a fanbase). This dance challenge was expected to go viral which can benefit the star's music career from zero-cost promotion and marketing strategy - word of mouth. The music video's post-production certainly involves editing and compiling the clips together, adding filters, adjusting the brightness, and inserting effects such as slow motions (Fig 8). Since some of the clips differ in brightness, we had to modify the brightness and have them all balanced within the clips to show an undistorted flow. The addition of slow motions in post-production assisted in enhancing the chorus of "I feel so much lighter like a feather" used in scenes where the feathers fall on the performers, giving the scene a dream-like effect, as correlating to how the star feels after breaking ties with her ex.