This is my Final Critical Reflection where I critically self reflect on my experience on doing this whole music video project.
Our group's RNB music video is Leave The Door Open by Bruno Mars, starring Jaden Mutty, under the persona 'Jay Muse', a chill yet emotional loverboy. The story follows a date bringing excitement & preparation for a man, only to be ditched last minute, emphasizing the theme of romantic dissapointments.
Our Music video is made of various factors to tie them all together. The main star, Jaden, plays a persona of a chill, down-to-earth, yet very emotional loverboy. Dominant reading is a story of someone who seems to have a planned date for the later night, and seems to be quite excited for it and prepares all day for it, going out to places, only to get ditched later night and feel melancholy about it which follows a theme of romantic dissapointments. The visuals often have a bright, warm sunset light, with a very tropical the ming for our Star's persona, the use of many tracking/trecking camera movements in many outdoor areas give a sense of dynamism and outgoing that adds to his personality, contrasting with the more static, darker more intimate scenes that focus on his emotions and feelings. The MV's themes follow the ripple effects of heartbreak and trying to reflect on one's experiences after said heartbreak, and the escapism that follows when trying to avoid the emotional turmoil, such as drinking alcoholic drinks and finding peace in a casual and beautiful beach area.
The conventions of RnBs are that it's usually slow-paced, a jazzy or funky yet pretty stylish and down-to-earth vibe. When making the music video, we conformed to this by using slow pacing and an emotional personal vibe, allowing shots of the main star to linger for longer. We also replicated the outfit style, mainly making me use tropical-themed outfits, which fit well with the beach setting and themed set pieces. We felt these were staples of RnB. However, we also subverted a decent amount of elements from RnB, such as having more more outgoing scenes than usual, whereas RnB music videos usually have more indoor settings with a focus on lighting. This was done to create more variety in locations and provide distinct vibes, which'll enhance the Mise-en-Scene. The contrast in emotions emphasized through technical elements made the emotional weight of certain scenes hit harder, making sure the audience could feel the highs & lows of the story more deeply.
A digipak is supposed to be the actual album cover and another way for the artist to express their identity in a visual sense and show off their their style & themes within their bubble of music. RnB has a distinct yet iconic aesthetic, so in order to be faithful to the genre, we searched up and analyzed other popular RnB artists such as Bruno Mars (our own star), Steve Cooke, etc.. There were many various ways we tried to follow RnB's style; Thier face was clear and directly gazing at the audience most of the time in the cover, so a close-up angle shot with slight high or low angles (but not too much) was efficient to use, as the audience could connect with him with said technical elements. Typography wise, we tried to use a font that felt very refinedly elegant and fancy, cursive too as it's common in the genre. Also the colors and even the shirt patterns (like having fruit patterns) had to be kept consistent to reinforce a certain vibe or theme, in this case casualness and tropicalness. As mentioned just now, trying to be faithful to the genre helps reinforce our Star's status as a RnB artist, which'll help fans recognize his music and connect wit him from the screen. A clear iconic design across all media such as the music video itself, album covers, hypothetical merchandise, social media posts will lift up his ability to have an image that stands out. In terms of how we subverted the RnB conventions though, our RnB representation had more outside, organic settings such as the aforementioned beach places. In general we didn't try to be all that serious or brooding with the music video, at least not most of the time, as J Muse presents himself as much more casual and relaxed, almost as though he could be approached by others, with a genuine smile to be expected. We chose to subverted and go agaitns the grain of certain conventions so that J Muse can be helped to stand out and distinguish himself as an RnB persona in the music industry, by reinforcing his easygoing personality that comes with a down-to-earth vibe while still trying to fit within the genres minimum requirements to count as that genre. The use of more natural settings for most of the video and more casual informal posing and expressions and body language helps him, once again, feel like some the audience can be in the shoes of.
The social issue we was representing in our music video was romance and relationships, and the hardships that come with it when expectations are high and not moderated. The traditional representation of mance and relationships usually has idealistic and dramatic versions of real life relationships, that make it seem like the whole world or setting of the story revolves around said relationship. However our representation tried to give the dominant reading that romantic relationships can be quite dissapointing and that the realistic truth is that relationships don't always magically turn out to be as good as either partner's ideals. The technical elements that support this is mainly J Muse's performance and acting, something that was really important despite being subtle. His acting was more so natural through it's subtlety, being all chill and down-to-earth. The setting choice is also quite important, as places such as beaches and restaurants/homes with a casual vibe give off a realistic sense, which makes the audience feel as though the life he follows is as grounded as everyone's every day experience, which adds to the relatabily. The lighting was also quite crucial, as the use of cozy, mellow lighting which could signify romance and emotional euphoria highly contrasts with the darker, melonchloic lighting that is used in J Muse's more introspective, and sad moments that are also combined with Close-up angle shots to focus on his emotions on a more personal level for the audience. The goal, in my eyes at least, was to present the harsh reality of romantic relationships in comparison to idealized romance, as real life romantic relationships may not work as well as how people imagine them to be. According to Stuart Hall's Representation theory, media doesn't actually reflect meaning but instead it CREATES meaning, and many romantic forms of media tend to idealize romance as if it were perfect, but we wanted to subverted against that and show the different meaning we Created instead, that being romance not being as good as one may think.
Our social media page connects with the audience by giving specific and exclusive content of our star, Jay Muse along with his everyday life, and the intent such footage behind the scenes and other types of photos. This adds to the theme of relatability and makes the fans connect with the star more. The fans, speaking of, can also connect with J Muse on a more personal level by checking out his casual photos and personal updates about his life that he posts. Behind-the-scenes content also adds upon this. These types of posts encourage connection by interacting with him, which will make him feel more approachable and human. J Muse's posted content fills what the audience needs in context of the Uses & Gratifications theory by Blulmer & Katz, by appealing to the two reasonings of diversion as the music video and star can be pretty engaging, comedic, and in general appeals to audiences with high visuals, and also personal identity as audiences, as mentioned before can relate to J Muse's persona as a emotional yet romantically struggling person with a strong desire for connection. The technology that helped make this possible were applications such the slide creator 'PowerPoint' but more importantly the video editing application 'CapCut', both of which can help create and modify social media posts to make them look professional yet ever so visually engaging at the same time, and is also what was used to make the video and have the branding be consistent most of the time.
Working on becoming a star of my own made me realize and appreciate the process of star-creation, it shows me the process of how stars have to show off a version or image of themselves that is meant to spread a specific message or reading. However whether or not they were successful is a different question, as the social media page could've admittedly gained more attention. Next time, I will have to both bring more attention to the social media page, and also pick a star that I personally would have more confidence in playing.
No comments:
Post a Comment