Creative Critical Reflection

 

There were many options for me to chose from while deciding what to shoot this year and have chosen music videos. The song that I have chosen this year is Diamond Heart by Alan Walker. Mostly all music videos consist of the artist singing to the camera and them being in a narrative as the main roles but I have decided not to do that and show a narrative which help represent a lot of social issues, by doing this I have broke the convention to the way music videos are made. The artist’s music videos are also based on narratives which is why I wanted the music video to be a narrative. In my own interpreted music video, I have incorporated 3 social issues which are LGBT, Suicide and therapy. In India not many films or music videos have depicted that it is ok to love the same gender in a sexual way and in some societies being gay is frowned upon and discouraged. Due to the current world crisis many people have committed suicide as they can’t cope up with the stress so I wanted to say that suicide is not an option and a person who is going through some mental or health or any kind of issues should talk to a professional doctor, psychologist rather than keeping everything to themselves. Also, my aim was to normalize people going to therapy as in our society going to a therapy means there is something really wrong with your brain and people just think that the person is weak in fact, they much stronger to seek to help. Instead of challenging the convention, I have used it to show a particular setting and mood which the audience can immediately relate to.  For instance, the lighting for a romantic scene is always warm with low-key lighting which is exactly what I have shown. The only scene where I have challenged the convention is the same gender in date scene and also therapy session doesn’t look like a usuals setting of a boring sofa and a huge panting behind it on plain white walls.

 

There are three main elements in my music which combine to be my brand image. The target audience for my music video is mainly teenagers and young adults, irrespective of gender and sexuality as they can relate to it at some point in their lives. The song would be promoted on the official account and also the official YouTube channel of the artist which has like a 39M subscribers which is due to his first song, Faded which became very popular and recognised song with his signature appearance.  Comparing my music video to the original there are some similarities like both of the video are narrative styled based without the actors singing in the camera. The difference would be that the concepts are both different as both the music video are trying to portray different storylines and issues.  For the research I have done an in-dept analyses and also sort analyse which just over look the music videos. In the in-dept analyses, I have chosen all three songs by Alan Walker which are Sing me to sleep, Ignite and Darkside and in the short analyses I have taken different songs but they are of the same music genre, EDM which is Electronic dance music. As a minor product I had it design a digipak and make a social media account to help showcase and promote my concepts and definitely the Artist. Social media, Instagram will promote the artist as it is the most used app. Both the minor products will help promote the artist.

 

My music video is being uploaded on YouTube and which help to reach out a mass audience and not on google drive which will limit the number people how can view the video. The way the audience would engage to the product is by viewing it and understanding the social issues that I have tried to show. As mentioned above my music video represents 3 social issues, it can also connect with the audience. For instance, the main character is a female who is portrayed to be gay, this can help connect to the LGBT community. In the scene where she is having a breakdown could collect empathy from the viewers as they could relate it an experience they have had in their life. The main goal is to make the audience understand these important social issues which taken very lightly in society as there is not proper representation and even if they ae included in any media they are portrayed to be cliché. I would distribute my music album through various shopping sites like Amazon or even the official website of Alan Walker where the fans can buy the merch or merchandise of the artist. To digitally promote my product will include constant post of the music and the music video along with a few snapshots of other songs on the album.

Technology has become a huge part in the project as to editing the video and shooting requires devices like camera and editing requires software. In this project I have only used one wide lens of the Nikon D750 along with a stabilizer to shoot steady shots. The software that I have incorporated while shooting is majorly Adobe applications like Premier pro which has helped me in compiling all the raw footage and put them in an order. It has also helped in adding more dept of colour in the scenes which require it and later also put transitions and effects between clips to show a continuity and flow in the video. The other application that I have used is photoshop CC to help make the digipak and edit pictures that have been posted on the blog. I have been using blogger to post process of this music video as blog post which is and online platform to showcase my work along with the music video which has been posted on YouTube so wider range of audience can view it.

 

I have integrated technology to get to my finished product which my target audience can see and understand and relate to the social issues that I have shown in the music video.