Critical Reflection - Music Video

 This is my critical reflection on our music video

(In order of the essay)

Introduction

We as a team chose the music promotion package brief, which our team decided to do with RnB and chose the music video from ‘MUTT’ by Leon Thomas. As for our artist, Thomas Wiradharma used to cover the song ‘MUTT’ by Leon Thomas to target our audience who are teens aged between 18 - 20. The theme of the music video to connect to our target audience would be about break-ups and it goes around emotions and relationships.

CR2

Branding is a message that is consistent across their public appearances, music videos, social media posts and album covers. These are important because it is to establish a unique identity within the music industry, stand out amongst other artists and to build a loyal fanbase. There are several visual similarities within our music video, social media and digipak which the first is, the moody-dim lighting which gives off that sentimental feeling towards the audience as it could feel nostalgic to them. Secondly, the mise-en-scene is ordinary and realistic and not liminal as those types of locations were mostly used in R&B artists songs, digipak and social media, this makes the audience able to relate to the artist as being a normal person which connects to the Stardom theory. According to Richard Dyer, stardom isn’t accidental, but it is constructed by media industries to attract audiences, create emotional attachment, and drive profit. Stars function as cultural products as much as performers as for a new artist such as ours (Thomas Wiradharma). Thirdly, the facial expressions or body language shown in serious expressions which mostly indicate sadness and frustration, as we want to show the audience that our artist is vulnerable which can connect to Stuart Hall’s theory where male stereotypes in music videos are usually emotionally strong, confident and resilient. Although, we subvert this stereotype to make the artist seem more authentic instead of relying on a fake persona that the audience may not want to see. In addition, the signatures would support our way of the audience trying to recognize our brand more easily.

CR4

We researched several existing artists and their digipaks through Spotify, YouTube and searched up their digipaks in Google. There were several genre conventions that were basically a pattern in our R&B genre that we were researching. Which are the unique props that are used by the artists or surrounding the artists that could give the audience a certain meaning based of it such as broken TVs around the artist could connote that the artist is heartbroken or angry and expensive jewelry which would connote that the artist is experiencing his peak wealth or success within their music careers. This would connect to Stuart Hall's reception theory as media producers encode their texts with meaning which the audience then decodes the text to understand the meaning as the use of expensive jewelry could represent as success which guides the audience toward a dominant reading of the artist being very wealthy, talented and professional. Another genre convention would be the close-up shot of the artist’s face which would possibly give off the theme of the album or the emotion that the artist is giving towards the audience such as Drake, Joji, and SZA digipaks showing their facial expressions clearly. Although as a whole, there are soft or low-key lighting, close-up shots, minimalist typography, and unique costumes that represent the artist. These genre conventions that we conformed to is the close-up shot to show the artist’s facial expression as the R&B is a genre centred on love, vulnerability, heartbreak and intimacy the close-up of the artist's face allows the audience to connote sadness, confidence, strength or desire. As clear facial expressions help the audience emotionally align with the artist. We conformed to using minimalist backgrounds such as inside the bedroom and outside a parking space, as we wanted to direct the audience’s attention on the artist instead of the surrounding environment. The biggest influence on our research would be the digipak research and development as it had details of what the conventions are and why they were used which helped us get a broad understanding of making the digipak.

CR3

For our product to engage with the audience is to have a target audience which would be teenagers, singles, and couples that are aged between 18 - 20. As our artist is portrayed as a heartbroken teenager that is trying to relieve his emotions by trying to move on and express his emotions through using his motorcycle. In which our target audience may seek relatable artists and value emotional expressions. Furthermore, our social media page would appeal to them as social media allows interactions with the star such as the teasers that were posted and comments that the artist replied to, thus making the artist seem accessible as this reduces the distance between the star/artist and audience. This can relate to Henry Jenkin's theory where audiences are active participants and not passive consumers. As fans of our artist would comment and discuss the lyrics, repost content and share the edits which creates a community amongst the artist and the audience. Using Roland Barthes's idea on hermeneutic codes, the posts that we made were mainly teasers of our upcoming music video which had lyric captions, countdown posts and partial reveals of the scenes in our music video which creates suspense and curiosity to the audience and this encourages engagement towards our artist. Furthermore, this can connect to Uses & Gratifications theory on social relationships as the fans interact in comments which the shared emotional experiences could create bonding and surveillance where the social media updates would keep the fans informed on when the music video would be released. There are visual similarities between In addition, how our products engage with the audience is also by Theory of Stardom as our star would have to be interesting for them to engage with the audience to have a certain connection between them in Social Media. Such as showing that our artist is ordinary enough that the audience could relate to them or as in the music video it is talking about the artist’s love life which would create mystery, fan curiosity and they would generate huge online discussions. To analyze further on how our product engages with our audience could be by Henry Jenkin's theory where our fans could intersect and interact by sharing edits and reposts in Instagram which is where our main social media page is for our artist. Possibly even commenting interpretations of the lyrics which could be summarized as enunciative productivity.

CR1

The social groups that were being represented in our social media and music video are young teenagers and young adults that are all aged between 18 - 20. As for what the social issues would be emotional vulnerability in men, moving on from past relationships and toxic masculinity within the R&B culture. Using Stuart Hall's reception theory, our dominant reading is that the male artist is heartbroken, stressed and depressed but he is wanting to try to move on while also being quite humorous in his social media posts which would connect to the issue of emotional vulnerability in men which the audience is positioned to see the artist (Thomas Wiradharma) as a complex character in the music video. Although an oppositional reading might view him as irresponsible or emotionally immature, our dominant reading would view him as thoughtful, quick to move on from past relationships, and knowing how to take accountability of his breakup with his partner by using his motorcycle to express his emotions clearly. How we represented these issues and social groups is firstly by the camera shots where we used close-ups shots during vulnerable lyrics where he was shown riding the motorcycle with memories flashing which is the editing on the scene which indicates internal conflicts between the main artist and his past relationship which represents the emotional vulnerability in men and could further mean the inability to move on as the relationship still affects him and he is mentally stuck in the past. The mise-en-scene such as the moody lighting, casual streetwear costume, and mostly dark locations. The costume avoids the masculinity stereotypes usually in R&B culture which chains, aggressive performance and instead presents a more understated style which connects to the toxic masculinity issue. On the other hand, how we represented our star's persona in social media was by showing posts that were humorous to the audience which creates this unique relationship between the artist and the audience as if they are close friends. While as in the music video, he is portrayed as a sad and frustrated man trying to move on from his past relationship, which shows his online persona to be entirely different than his real-life persona and this challenges the toxic masculinity within the R&B music video. For stereotypes, we used teens that are sad about their relationship situation to follow the genre conventions of R&B and had no other way of showing other demographics.