Theory of Stardom: Richard Dyer

Here is what I learnt during class and was assigned to complete this classwork - Completed by Kaka & Jaden

Names:	Jaden, Kaka
Celebrity:	Jimmy Donaldson (Mr Beast)
REEL persona:	MrBeast presents himself as a philanthropic, high energy YouTuber whose wealth he spends his money on giving it away to people, using it for challenges and charity
REAL persona:	Despite his image, recent news has come up of him allegedly faking his videos, having terrible work conditions, and using foul language behind-the-scenes. He is also, surprisingly, anti-social
Love:	How is their love life reported on? Thea Booysen is a South African twitch streamer and YouTube and author. they met by chance during a cancelled video shoot in which he was left in south africa, and the both were introduced as mutual friends. they quickly connected due to their common interest in self-improvement, and started a long-distance relatonship. YouTuber Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson has been having a rocky 2024 — but, in spite of all the scandals that have been plaguing his brand, one thing has remained consistent: his relationship with Twitch streamer and YouTuber Thea Booysen,
Ordinariness:	Do the media try to show them as everyday individuals like you? Mr. Donald’s Son is very ordinary https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/15/mrbeast-brings-in-700-million-a-yearheres-why-he-says-hes-not-rich.html
Success:	What is their success story? How is it told? MrBeast became successful by creating huge, eye-catching challenges and giveaways, reinvesting his earnings to make even bigger videos. His unique ideas and understanding of YouTube's algorithm helped him go viral and grow quickly.
Consumption:	Can you find any articles that celebrate their luxurious lifestyles? Or their extreme diets? His whole persona involves money, and how he spends it. He has spent thousands of dollars in crazy challenges and giveaways.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PMYZlBGNvU
Dream turned sour:	Has this celebrity had a downfall? How is it reported? Did they recover? Yes, Mr Beast had recently been exposed and revealed to staged content and giveaways that made his name and appearance a major downfall in his career.

Reflection: In this assignment I was paired with my friend, Kaka. I came up with the genius idea of picking Mr Beast after having a difficult time with my partner to choose a star to analyze, since MrBeast has a lot of things you can analyze in these kinds of questions, he literally has very notable & interesting things for all these sections from romance to dream-turned-sour. However my loud mouth mixed with my lack of awareness made it so I spoke my ideas out loud that my table partners on front of me stole my ideas, but it was fine as I still feel pride in being the original idea maker.

Audience Feedback

This post explains how we showed a rough draft of our music video, album cover, and social media page to some members of our target audience in order to receive helpful feedback. We were told to receive 4 responses to our feedback form - completed by Giorgio, Carrick, and Jaden

The purpose of a screen test is to gain audience feedback about our work and see if their are any improvements that can be made. We decided to use Microsoft Forms to create a survey to share with our audience because we want to be able to improve our media product for the intended audience Here are our questions: 

SECTION 1: GENERAL FEEDBACK

1. How do you think J MUSE appeals to you? What characteristics does he exhibit which makes him likable or relatable?

2. What can J MUSE do more of to interact and engage with you (the audience) on a personal level?

3. What other genres would you like to see J MUSE to explore?

SECTION 2: SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDBACK

4. What would you like to see frequently on J MUSE's social media page?

5. What content would you like to see occasionally on J MUSE's social media page?

6. How frequently would you like J MUSE to post on his social media page?

7. Who would you like to see J MUSE engage in a collaboration with?

SECTION 3: DIGIPAK AND ALBUM FEEDBACK

8. What are your impressions on the Digipak of J MUSE's latest album?

9. What do you think can be added or removed to ensure a high quality product for you (the audience)?

10. Would you buy the Digipak?

11. Tell us what you think of the other song names in this album?

SECTION 4: MUSIC VIDEO FEEDBACK

12. What aspects of the original music video did you like or dislike?

13. What did you understand regarding the plot or storyline?

14. What kind of feeling/vibe did you feel throughout our music video? In the beginning, at the end, or generally. Did you enjoy it?

15. What kind of ‘feeling’/’vibe’ do you want to feel or be captured by the end of the video? (i.e. Melancholy, funky, upbeat, edgy, etc…)

We chose these questions because we believe they were necessary in order to provide a higher quality media product. We included members of our target demographic in the screen test to ensure that the feedback we receive is appropriate. Finding people for the screen test was easy because we go to school with the same people who match our demographics and psychographics. Here are the drafts that we showed audiences for the screen test: 

VIDEO SCREENSHOTS

DIGIPAK DRAFT

SOCIAL MEDIA SCREENSHOT

Here are the responses:

SECTION 1: GENERAL FEEDBACK

1. How do you think J MUSE appeals to you? What characteristics does he exhibit which makes him likable or relatable?

Respondent 1: He haven't see him personally or in an image. But I do think that he will be extremely good looking as a music artist.

Respondent 2: He’s confidence and charizzma, he is confident in how he feels and looks.

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

2. What can J MUSE do more of to interact and engage with you (the audience) on a personal level?

Respondent 1: Do a livestream on Instagram daily for his fans to engage personally with him.

Respondent 2: Not much tbh 

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

3. What other genres would you like to see J MUSE to explore?

Respondent 1: Jazz

Respondent 2: K-POP jawa metal and koplo

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

SECTION 2: SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDBACK

4. What would you like to see frequently on J MUSE's social media page?

Respondent 1: J Muse flexing his muscles.

Respondent 2: Comedy

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

5. What content would you like to see occasionally on J MUSE's social media page?

Respondent 1: A day in my life as J MUSE.

Respondent 2: Comedy

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

6. How frequently would you like J MUSE to post on his social media page?

Respondent 1: Everyday if possible

Respondent 2: Comedy

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

7. Who would you like to see J MUSE engage in a collaboration with?

Respondent 1: Bruno Mars

Respondent 2: Uncle Roger

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

SECTION 3: DIGIPAK AND ALBUM FEEDBACK

8. What are your impressions on the Digipak of J MUSE's latest album?

Respondent 1:It's very interesting and appealing for young teens especially for those who are into R&B music.

Respondent 2: Very sigma alpha male

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

9. What do you think can be added or removed to ensure a high quality product for you (the audience)?

Respondent 1: Nothing. It's perfect already

Respondent 2: Maybe the outfits could be better

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

10. Would you buy the Digipak?

Respondent 1: No, because I don't know who is J Muse?

Respondent 2: Sure

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

11. Tell us what you think of the other song names in this album?

Respondent 1: I don't know what to say about this.

Respondent 2: Kind of to basic, I mean THERES nothing wrong with it, it’s just not appealing ykwim?

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

SECTION 4: MUSIC VIDEO FEEDBACK

12. What aspects of the original music video did you like or dislike?

Respondent 1: It's gives off an relaxing and chill vibe to the audience. Although, it may seem boring for some audience since the MV is only located in one setting.

Respondent 2: I didn’t watch the music video because Jaden didn’t give any music video link or sum…. But he sent screenshots and in my opinion I guess it’s pretty good for starters like you guys or students like yall. I would give it a 6.7/10

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

13. What did you understand regarding the plot or storyline?

Respondent 1: Nothing. They're just singing in a studio.

Respondent 2: i can’t really say anything on this

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

14. What kind of feeling/vibe did you feel throughout our music video? In the beginning, at the end, or generally. Did you enjoy it?

Respondent 1: Relaxing and chill sensation

Respondent 2: Funny

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

15. What kind of ‘feeling’/’vibe’ do you want to feel or be captured by the end of the video? (i.e. Melancholy, funky, upbeat, edgy, etc…)

Respondent 1: J Muse relaxing on a beach with a stunning sunset.

Respondent 2: Funny and happy

Respondent 3:

Respondent 4:

From the feedback (or lack thereof), we learnt that it is important to promote J MUSE by having him engage with his audience and start to build a base of support. Regarding the digipak, we found that it was well received by the audience, but that nobody would want to purchase it. The audience really want to see more of J MUSE on his social media, posting daily content and even some very interesting and personal images and stories about J MUSE. We also found that the music video feedback is in sync with what we want to portray to the audience, however the storyline is pretty vague and unclear to the audience. This is something we need to work on together and change to ensure that the audience is given the highest possible quality media products. We want to make sure that people will not just like J MUSE's digipak, but also splash out to actually go out and purchase it. 

One other major thing we learnt through seeking feedback is that people are not too keen on providing us with feedback. Our form was sent out to multiple people but only two responded. This tells us that we have not done a very good job at promoting J MUSE to our targeted and intended audience. This is something we must work on and seek advice regarding. One thing we thought of together was to learn from the errors of previous artists and adopt their way of thinking, rather than walking into this blindly. Something we considered was hiring a social media manager to help promote our artist. However, this idea was short lived after we found out how much it would actually cost to hire a social media manager through LinkedIn. So we decided to learn from open source websites that had this information such as the following which had a really simple nine step plan: https://soundcharts.com/blog/how-to-promote-music-social-media.With regard to the digipak, not much information was shared with us so we had to again turn to research to help us get a better idea. One such place we turned to for analysis that would give us the right feedback is this link here, which showcases a R&B digipak and analysis which we learnt that handwritten style of writing is preferable and used. We hope that this would help us get a better understanding in the direction we should be going given the lack of responses to our survey. https://04whitalic.wixsite.com/alicewhitemusicvideo/digipak-analysis

What we intend to do is to take into consideration the feedback we received from our two respondents and apply it to the nine steps. Of course as we mentioned previously, we intend to change details regarding the storyline of the music video, the posts and frequency of posts on our social media page for J MUSE, and create a strategy that would introduce, promote, and energise a base of support for J MUSE and his music. Once we are able to do that, we will be able to come back with even more feedback to ensure that we can produce a high quality media product that will be popular among our target audience. 

Since we didn't have a music video draft, we had to make do with screenshots. This was a useful part of our process because it allowed our audience to have a sneak peek at what is ahead and ensure that we get the feedback we need most to help us with the editing process. So far we are not satisfied with the result of our attempt at getting feedback. However, we have already discussed and implemented some very vital and key steps to get J MUSE's name out there for the world to see. The research we did helped a lot because we weren't able to get many responses from the survey so we had to look elsewhere for information that would steer us on the right track. 

Reflection: Although this would be somewhat useful, the experience of trying to get these feedback was a pain, as despite me sending to plenty friends and family members, most of them forgot to do it or just didn't do it all despite my constant cries of attention to make them do the form, dealing with people and consistency was a much more difficult experience than I had anticipated. However it was also partially due to my irresonponsibility we couldn't get enough respones, as my friend had reminded me 3 days 3 times to send the form but I was admittedly ignorant and lazy to do so, so we ended up getting last minute low-effort responses. I feel like if I had been more aware and didn't create excuses to back myself up, this would be a less stressful experience. I will simply take this as a lesson in time management & responsiblity, however.

Behind The Scenes

Here are the behind the scenes of creating our music video project - completed by Jaden

PRE-FILMING

Prior to shooting, we made a schedule and planned out where we'd be going and who'd need to be bringing what. Carrick made it clear that he wanted minimal involvement in the actual filming of the project because he lived very far away in Gianyar. However, he did agree to come if an extra hand was needed. We all agreed on what I should be wearing and what sort of persona I should be giving off. It was also agreed that Kaka would take shots of behind the scenes. 

DAY 1 - HOUSE, COUCH, AND RESTAURANT SCENES (10th DECEMBER 2024)

We started at around 10:00 AM in the morning to get prepare and shoot. On this day we went to my house to shoot the house and couch scenes. Giorgio, Carrick, and Kaka were present. This is where I debuted in my JMUSE outfit, the iconic brown shirt and shorts. We then proceeded to the Soteria Restaurant (Giorgio's restaurant) to film the scenes of me waiting for a girl and drinking at the bar. Unfortunately there are no behind the scenes photos of that so I provided screenshots of the film we took there.

Giorgio brought his phone as a camera, Carrick brought a tripod, and Kaka brought lights. 

We did some shots of me on the couch, looking through my wardrobe, and leaving the house.

Scene of me going through my wardrobe.

Scene of me waiting for a girl at the restaurant

Scene of me drinking at the bar

DAY 2 - BUS SCENE (13th DECEMBER 2024)

We started sometime in the evening at the Central Kuta Bus Terminal. Only Kaka and I went and we didn't have much equipment. Kaka brought his go-pro and Carrick's tripod and I had my clothes. We filmed on the Trans Metro Dewata buses that run regular scheduled services all throughout the day. Carrick had gone to Australia for three weeks by now and Giorgio had family matters to attend to. Unfortunately no pictures were taken on this day. 

When semester two started, we found out that all the footage we took on the bus was all corrupted and we were unable to reshoot the scenes on the buses because they had already ceased all operations as of the First of January 2025. 

DAY 3 - BICYCLE BEACH SCENE (25th JANUARY 2025)

We started sometime in the afternoon at Mertasari beach in Sanur. Giorgio, Kaka, and I were all present there. We rented two bicycles and rode form Mertasari beach to Segara Ayu beach and back, ensuring we had enough footage to work with going both ways. Kaka was riding one bike with Gio on the back filming me. We also strapped a go-pro camera to my bike to film me as I was riding. We also filmed me walking around in a market on the beach. Unfortunately no behind the scenes photos were taken. Here are a few screenshots of that day's shooting.

Go-Pro view

Giorgio cameraman view

Me walking around the market at the beach.

DAY 4 - RESTAURANT AND BAND SCENE (30th JANUARY 2025)

We started in the evening after school at Giorgio's church. Giorgio was present as the cameraman, Kaka was present as an assistant as well as a background band player, and Yuka (a friend we recruited to take Carrick's place as he was not able to be present at the time) to be a background band player as well. Kaka played the keyboard, Yuka played the guitar, I sang into a microphone and Giorgio directed and filmed everything. All this was to film the band scenes of us playing and singing together. Unfortunately no behind the scenes photos were taken. Here are a few screenshots of that day's shooting.

DAY 5 - RELAXING BEACH SCENE (10th MARCH 2025)

We started filming in the evening after school at Double Six beach. Giorgio was present as the director and cameraman, Kaka was present as an assistant to Giorgio and was supposed to take behind the scenes pictures, and I was present as the star. Giorgio made me do some poses on the beach and walk around to really get that beach atmosphere captured in the video. Unfortunately no behind the scenes photos were taken. Here are a few screenshots of that day's shooting.

Me sitting at the beach.

Me walking around the beach.

Reflection: It was fun making the behind-the-scenes as seeing and comparing the final product with what actually goes on with the creation process is quite enticing and very very interesting. We had a lot of interesting creative ways on how to record certain scenes and I think that's what made recording, for as difficult and tedious as it can get, a little more worthwhile as a stress-inducing experience. Trying to organize all these files though and searching them through older messages and unused filed in a long time was kind of difficult though, so I may have to learn from that.

Shooting Practice: Music Video

This post contains a mini project that helped us learn how to shoot a music video. We shot our verse as a group and then created this post together.

Lesson description: my teacher gave each group in the class a verse from "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles. We had to plan a scene which included various camera work and edits. The goal was to learn how to properly film different scenes and edit them all together.

Here is the product of our work:

Here is a presentation of our pre-plan and a bit of analysis on how we got the final product:

Reflection: This is real good practice to see how being both an actor and a behind-the-scenes perspective, because I can get used to observing how the scene is supposed to go and act as how I should. But we had some difficulties, mainly due to the rain. We had to go againts our original plans, having to record inside. The thunder scared our director, Gio, as he did not want to risk getting struck by lightning especially because of the phone/device he was wielding out in the rain. Also one of our main actors, Kaka, went missing which messed things up for a bit, but it turns out he was just in the bathroom, so we simply waited for him.

Mini-Project: Lip Sync and Editing

In this blog you can find the work I did on how to edit with multiple cameras. My group filmed the footage, but I edited it alone. My teacher provided a template for the blog post. 

What is Multicam Editing?

Multicam editing is the process of editing footage of a single scene or subject recorded from different cameras and angles. Showing the same scene or subject from different angles helps make the video more dynamic and visually captivating for your audience

Shooting

Our subject , a classmate, stood in the centre of the room and did a short performance. My group stood around the subject to record the performance from different angles. You can also see members from other groups because we did this lesson as a class. To make it easier to synchronise our cameras, the teacher clapped at the start of the scene. This allowed us to line up the video in the editing process and ensure that the transitions would be smooth. Without this simple action it would have taken a lot longer to sync the videos. 

(BEHIND THE SCENES IMAGES)

Here are the raw videos from my group members:

1. Kaka's angle https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wT2QJdlSGjbNEMTrONaIN-7TTbbhKBGH/view?usp=sharing

2. Carrick's angle https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yiB2wsqNT-jkHzgDT5IHhDIZIwnqeulS/view?usp=sharing

Our friend, Gio, was absent at the time, so only 2 of my other friends were able to record, aside from myself.

My editing process

• Upload the videos to the editing software, 'Capcut'.

• Detach the audio of the clip you wish to use in the final video. 

• Find the ‘clap’ marker on the audio.

• Line up the video files together. 

• Cut where I want the edit to happen

• Don’t delete the clip, just lower the opacity. This way it can be used again later. 

• Mute all clips except for the one you want to use. 

 ( INCLUDE SCREENSHOTS OF YOUR EDITING)

Here is my final edited video:

Reflection: This practice helps me... practice and exercise my editing skills, because I used to make edits & small trailers on my YouTube channel, however it's been a while since I've done that. It'd be fun to use my editing skills for our bigger, long-term project. What I found challenging was controlling small things like getting the opacity confused and relying on contrast and saturation to adjust the low brightness that was actually just mistakened for low opacity. Problem was also not being able to use the volume at its biggest due to being in a big, mostly quiet classroom. The process could be simplified if I did this work in my own time, in my own place with my own volume, and also not getting the video's visual adjustments confused, being more organized in general.

Filming Schedule

Here is the filming schedule for our project - completed by Gio Wong and Carrick Thring

No.	Scene	Date	Location	People	Props	Equipment	Other
1	1 Jaden's House	16th December 2024 (Subject to Change)	Jaden's House	Giorgio - Director and Cameraman	Old Telephone	Camera BT Speaker Light	Location is far from our houses
				Carrick - Ast. Director
				Kaka - Ast. Cameraman	Grape Juice and Wine Glass		Traffic is a big issue
				Jaden - Actor
2	2 Bus Stop	17th December 2024	Sentral Parkir Kuta	Giorgio - Director and Cameraman	Headphones Bus		Having to go off peak times to ensure an empty bus
				Kaka - Ast. Cameraman
				Jaden - Actor
3	3 Beach	18th December 2024	Pantai Saba	Giorgio - Director and Cameraman	Ice Cream Umbrella		Have to work around private arrangements
				Kaka - Ast. Cameraman
				Jaden - Actor
4	4 Bar	19th December 2024	Soteria Restaurant	Giorgio - Director and Cameraman	Beer Bottle and Glass Car Rain		Have to work around private arrangements
				Kaka - Ast. Cameraman
				Jaden - Actor

Self-Reflection: This is really useful in organizing our time and helping us know when to do what we need to do. It helps us get things done in a timely & efficient manner. Once we get the small, nitty-gritty stuff and details done, we can pour our energy & long-term time into more important things like filming & editing. This also honestly both teaches & inspire me to be more organized as a person, maybe help myself by organizing the many things in my own life and school to-do-list (in which I have to get done).

As of January 14th, we have encountered various problems with our filming schedule that causes us to completely regardless. First, due to our respective differing schedules involving holiday flights, we couldn't all be togehter to record enough scenes, like Gio and Carrick flying somewhere. Also, the weather was also a pretty good problem that added to it, despite being more or less of a background thing. Also as of the beggining of 2025, the bus organizaon that we used for our bus scene was closed down, and the bus scenes we did record, to add insult to injury, got corrupted in the camera.

Location Scout & Risk Assesment

Here are a few locations we've looked at as well as the potential risks of these locations - completed by Carrick and Kaka

Self-Reflection: I am not much of a Travelling and going-out type (I want to though) but luckily my friend Kaka was more capable of Travelling to place we needed to scout for good locations for our music video's setting and set design! Also saves time and money on petrol (even though I am yet to drive my own vehicle). However I did get involved a little bit, with having to take a picture of my own house, since it's one of the locations we're considering... however a small problem I had was the fact that I kept procrastinating holding it back, and Kaka got a little ticked off by it, funnily enough! But I eventually got the pictures right when he needed it. Taking pictures of my own house, inside and out, made me appreciate it a little more, I realize.