Critical Creative Reflection

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ciK9i0j6LedVoowFnIV3GrbLc6bMWoWXKLHUfSDBaLQ/edit

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it 

represent social groups or issues?

Our video used the conventions shown in oher previous music videos of the same genre. The genre of R&B used the same camera angles, and type of storytelling conventions. The same kind of costumes, lighting, makeup and more were similarly used as well. 

Our video is used to show how many people, usually in the younger generation, don’t slow down to realize the relationships they have in front of them. In our generation, many kids grew up with the presence of technology and social media. This can make it hard to socialize among other children, even those of their own age. One of the shots in the beginning of the video even shows one of the kids on their phone. By the end of the video, the kids eventually come together and start to socialize, but the point of the video, along with the song name “Infrunami”, which is pronounced “In front of me”, is used to also show the storytelling in the video. The song talks about how the person singing didn’t see who was right in front of them, and how the significant other was overlooked in the relationship. We conveyed this song as a chance to point out the socialization between teens in the modern age.

2.  How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?

We wanted to make this music video have a story, but with a fun ending. Although the music video may be a bit slow in the beginning, we wanted to have the ending be fun and show the lightness and childlike nature that still exists in teens nowadays. We conveyed this by the cake, which is shown in the beginning of the video. By the end of the video, the cake was used to be smashed into Camila’s face and then as a way to connect the girls in the video even further, through a food fight.

If this video was to be posted on social media with a preference, I would post it to TikTok. This would change the way the video was filmed, as it would need to be filmed vertically to fit the format of TikTok, but other than that, I believe the content of the music video best fits with the ideals of TikTok, along with its audience. The song we used is sung by a famous singer, known by many young kids- Steve Lacy- and the song used is also well known. This would get our music video recognized by many first of all. Other than that, many other teenagers would appreciate the lightheartedness of the video, along with the set pieces and story behind it. I believe it would reach many and would make an entertaining watch for the audience of TikTok.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

I have always been interested in the creation of media, although not holding much talent for the actual production portion of it. Movies and media have a way of helping many become inspired or to distract many from their mundane lives. My group and I wanted to create something that was interesting and held a story, but also let the viewers know to appreciate the lives they have, in a way to show those that you shouldn't always distract yourselves from the people who are around you, with let's face it, usually useless media. The videos story is that of friends who find to appreciate each other at the end of the video, which my group found to represent what we wanted to convey.

After the development of our story idea, we had to get to the creation of the video itself. Although only one of us had previous editing skills, we found ways to all help out in the production process. After creating our storyboard, with ideas given by all of us, we found that we were going to need an extra hand, to film the shots that included our entire group. Camila, one of our group members, got her sister to film these shots for us. She also assisted in setting up our picnic. If the shot was only of two of us, the other two in the group were assisting the filming of those two, and vice versa. After filming had finished, the shots we had were too long to fit completely into the video, so many of them were cut down to fit in. After that, the shots were given to Lyne to edit, although we were together when this happened. We helped her to put the clips in order that the story was, and then she placed the song over it. The production was easier than many of us expected it to be, although we still learned some of the hardships that come with it. I learned how camera angles can develop the story telling in a video, along with useful advice on how to edit the video.

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

 

Beforehand, our group as a whole agreed to use an IPhone to film, and Capcu to edit. It was the most convenient for the group and made the most sense. We did not know the specifics of this before filming though. When we started filming, we decided to use my phone to record. My IPhone had the best quality and picked up the colors in the video the best. It also had the most battery and storage capacity to hold all the clips we needed for the video. Capcut was only decided beforehand, because our whole group knew how it worked and we knew it would get the job done when we needed to put together the clips. It did, however, turn out to be our best option, due to storage regarding our clips. Imovie would not work with most of our devices due to storage issues on our devices, so we already knew that Capcut would work, due to previous projects. Using both of these ended up being the easiest process. Blogger was used to blog our entire process, due to all of us owning Google accounts. The format of Blogger is also easy to use and understand regarding how we were blogging along our project.