Critical Reflection

In Annie LeMaster’s music video for the song ‘“i’ll call you when i’ve made it”, the theme of heartbreak and trying to find oneself  is explored. I chose the music promotion package for this project and we promoted her album Cough Syrup. Throughout this project, we wanted to create a sense that everyone can find themselves even after a hard period of time in life. 

    Annie’s music is pop music so our research focused on products similar to what we would produce. We decided to make a storytelling video because we couldn’t film with the artist. Therefore, research was concentrated on videos with a mix of storytelling and promotional or just storytelling so that a better picture of what we could produce could be gathered. I viewed Taylor Swift’s “Everything Has Changed” music video, her “All Too Well” short film, Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license”, Lizzy McAlpine’s “ceilings”, One Direction’s  “Night Changes”, and Gracie Abrams’s “i know it won’t work”.

    While watching these videos, I was inspired by a lot and there was a lot that really stuck with me, especially a part of the “All Too Well” video in which the title is shown with the sky and trees as the background. That idea really influenced the ending of the production I created as it ends with a frame of the sky. Additionally, in Abrams’s “i know it won’t work” music video, there’s a part that was filmed at the beach and it strengthened my wanting to film at the beach because the way that they filmed that made it look really good. However, given that I don’t have  professional equipment, it was hard for mine to look similar, so we decided to film during sunset. In the “drivers license” video, the constant use of different colored lighting to convey the mood inspired my video’s recording booth scene as I wanted to make the room dark with only the orangey light shining towards our actress. 

    Pop music is generally tied with themes of heartbreak, love, loss, or friendship, given that the target audience is mainly teenage girls who are experiencing this. Our project really followed the heartbreak theme that is commonly seen, but with a twist of self-discovery. We noticed that these types of videos often have the artist singing at the camera, and also have lots of close up shots to capture intimate or sentimental scenes. We tried to follow all these conventions except for the artist singing the song since we were doing a purely storytelling video.

Since the song we used is tied to a relatable theme, we wanted to make sure that not only the music video, but also the artist overall was able to engage our audience. Since our target audience tends to be very active on social media pages like Instagram, we knew we had to make our Instagram as relatable and approachable as possible to maximize engagement. To be able to accomplish this, I looked at some artist social media to see what is normally done. I viewed Taylor Swift’s, Niall Horan’s, and Gracie Abrams’s, and out of all those, Swift’s felt too professional and distant for what I wanted, while Horan’s and Abrams’s felt more personal and engaging. These two artists inspired me to keep most captions short and easy to read, and to also do my best to sound like the artist is just a normal person posting about her life. I noticed that Horan tends to post a lot of snippets of him singing parts of his songs as teasers, and Abrams tends to post a lot of behind the scenes pictures of everything, so I incorporated both of these aspects.

Another way that I intended to engage the audience was by adding the inserts to the digipak of what inspired Annie to write her songs because it makes it feel much more personal which is something that this age group is really looking for in artists. For the actual music video, it was engaging because it was an easy to follow and relatable storyline that a large part of the target audience would enjoy.

Fan engagement was really important for this project and by creating a consistent brand, it boosts the retention rate of how the audience remembers or identifies a certain artist. We wanted to create a brand that felt welcoming and relatable, but also looked cohesive. To create this consistent brand, I wanted to have a color palette and use the same font, same theme, and same voice in all the writing components when creating all products for this project. The colors that we used consistently throughout our products were orangey sunsety colors and some shades of grayish blueish, which can be seen in the vinyl, the social media, and in some parts of the video. It was harder to show the brand in the music video and I think we could have planned that a little better, but we did our best. 

    

    Something that we wanted this brand to achieve is to help Annie’s audience reach the part of themselves in which they don’t have to rely on someone to be happy, as you can create your own happiness, which is also presented in the ending of the music video as she finally feels free and like herself again.

This was important for us because we wanted these teenagers to feel represented and like they were not alone, crazy, or dramatic as they tend to get told. We wanted them to feel like they were understood since some struggle with relationships, whether romantic or platonic, loss of someone, something, or even of confidence. The stereotype that is put onto them can be damaging so we wanted to create a brand in which they would feel free to find themselves, and be themselves. 

Overall, I feel like our products were able to create a brand that allowed engagement from the audience. This project took lots of time, effort, tears, and passion for what it represents and I’m beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to create this.

HERE IT IS!

I can't believe I can finally say this but here are the links to all parts of the project!!! I'm so so excited for this. 

SOCIAL MEDIA: HERE

DIGIPAK: HERE

MUSIC VIDEO: HERE

the time has come

I don't even want to make this blog, but it's time. Our whole project is finished. This is such a bittersweet moment because I'm really happy that we were able to accomplish this big project and I'm so happy and proud of how it turned out, but at the same time I'm really sad that it's over because it was my last high school project and it truly was so fun to make.

This project taught me so much. It taught me communication because it was really important to have an open talk with our actress about what we needed from her and I also was constantly communicating with Annie to update her on how it was going but also to ask her for things that we needed. It taught me the importance of managing my time correctly and I do feel a difference with how I was rushed last year compared to this year because I feel like I was one, more confident with my skills, and two, more organized in terms of what I wanted to accomplish by which day. I'm also super grateful that it gave me the opportunity to practice my editing skills because I'm trying to get better with everything I do.

I'm so excited for you to see this project because it's the one I've been the most proud of. I'm always going to remember this project. And I want to say, thank you Cambridge for giving me the opportunity to deepen my passion for this. 

finishing with social media

Finished social media page!! Since I had already made the whole format and all that was needed to finish it was add the pictures we asked Annie for, write some of the captions, and change the amount of likes on each post, this process was honestly very quick. Here's the finished result: 

So for this there were 5 pictures that we asked Annie for that I haven't discussed yet. I provided her with sample pictures for each so that she could see kind of what I wanted but I gave her freedom with her clothes and the location, and honestly her pose/smile because I wanted her to feel comfortable with the pictures that she was providing for us. 

Ok so for these I provided her with this sample picture for the selfie, and for the video I just told her to place the phone on a stand in front of her so that we could get a mid shot of her singing the song. 

And then for the remaining three, I showed here this reference picture that I took to show her kind of the framing I want for this picture and I told her to look very happy and excited and she did really good! I also told her to try to take these on different days so that the outfits would be different so I gave her enough time to get all of this taken for the social media. I noticed that she lovesss taking all her picture in her car and honestly, I love that because they all look really good!

Additionally, since we were doing the 9 grid post for the release of the album, we needed either 3 or 6 posts after that so that it would align, and when we were planning we only had 5 more. So I thought it would be a good idea to fill that in with merch! I honestly made the merch very simple because that's the way that I like it and most of the target audience likes it too. I put the design for the tracklist on the back, and the name of the album at the front. I made both a hoodie and a t-shirt with the same design. Here it is:

I'm overall really proud of how the social media page turned out and I think it looks very similar to a real account!

finalizing digipak!

I finally finished with the digipak! I'm really happy with the result. Let's get into the process of creating everything:

In a previous blog, I had talked about making the album cover and the back of it, but I still haven't discussed everything else. So lets start with the inside of the vinyl when you open it up.

So for this, I wanted to use the other side of the color pallatte of the album cover, so this grayish blueish because it didn't really look as good with orange. For the left inside, I wanted to keep it simple with some pictures to kind of just fill up the space and I decided to do one picture of her on the top and our iconic beach picture on the bottom. 

Since our artist lives in Nashville we had to get creative with communicating how we wanted to picture so I decided to kind of draw my vision and I sent it to her! She truly did amazing in bringing it to life because it was exactly what I had envisioned. Here's the drawing I sent her. I followed it with further written explanations and she understood the assignment.

Now for the right side, I wanted to write a thank you not that felt very raw and grateful from Annie's side so I crafted this! I made sure to ask Annie for the name of her producer so it would be more accurate and I actually found it that he's a 2x Grammy winner which is insane! I also decided to include the QR code to digitally download the album here because I thought it helped fill in some of that extra space that was on the bottom there. 

Moving on with the rest of the elements of this vinyl, I decided to make a sticker page! I thought it would be a good idea to create one sticker that represented a song from the album, so I created 8 stickers. There were some songs that were really hard to capture in a sticker and there were some others that were much easier. I hand drew them on my iPad using the app Notability and it actually took me soooooo much longer than I thought it would. I'm overall really happy tho with the results and super proud of myself for going out of my comfort zone (because I'm not really the best at drawing, but I tried my best!). 

This picture here is the process of drawing the sticker for the song "No Leclerc which actually took me the longest out of all them but I think it's one of my favorites. The reason I chose to draw an F1 car I think is pretty self-explanatory because of Charles Leclerc. The second sticker is for the song "Pyramid Scheme" and I decided to draw a pyramid with the color palette of the album. For the next one, I drew a broken mirror for the song "i looked pretty" because it talks about a past relationship that never made her feel the best about herself. For the song "Lucky", again self-explanatory because I knew I wanted to draw a clover for it. For the next song, "ode to the industry (cough syrup)" I really wanted to draw like a broken star but I felt like it didn't capture what I wanted in the best way, so I decided to shape the crack as a music note to emphasize that it is a rant about the music industry. The next sticker is for the song "i'll take that one, please" and I did a healing heart because it represents the song in how her relationship left her broken but she wants someone that can heal that part of her. The next song, "gone, gone, gone" goes with the cloud sticker because theres a lot of references to flying and clouds in the whole song and I thought it would capture it very well. And for the last song, I wanted to make it a globe because its a song on how Annie hopes that one day shes gonna make it and the world will know her name and I thought it fit it really well. 

And finally, I wanted to create inserts with like explanations of why she wrote a specific song or what it means to her. My plan would be to include two random song inserts in each vinyl so that it would be a surprise for people on which one they would get. Here's an example of what two songs would say:

critical reflection planning

    Now that I got most of the major and minor tasks done, I want to actually sit down and properly plan this so that I can write it with more ease in a few days. For this part, we must answer four different questions that related to our project, so I'm going to kind of provide an outline for each question. 

How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

• researched Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Lizzy McAlpine, One Direction, Gracie Abrams, Niall Horan
• genre is pop, wanted to do a storytelling music video
• romantic narrative centered on youth culture
• challenged artist singing at camera
• theme of heartbreak
• close up shots for intimate or sentimental scenes

How do your products engage with the audience?

• target audience are teenagers and young adults (mostly female)
• very active on social media
• instagram is used commonly when following artists, easy engagement
• digipak: engaging inserts, signed lyrics/pictures is liked by many
• music video: relatable story, engaging video because story is easy to follow and it's not complicated
• criticism: target audience is divided by liking CD or vinyl more, there is no preference

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

• wanted to develop a brand that felt welcoming and relatable
• color scheme cohesive through social media presence, as well as in the digipak
• beach/sunset theme represented in music video as well as the symbol for freedom and finding yourself
• theme of being yourself and not depending on anyone for your happiness can be seen
• "welcome to my little world" reflects that album is her own thoughts and struggles that she's been through

How do your products represent social groups or issues?

• represents young teenage girl going through a breakup and trying to find themselves again
• I think we were successful in conveying that

These are the notes I took to be able to complete this part of the project in the best way I can. 

finally finished editing!

    I FINALLY FINISHED EDITING THE VIDEO!!!! The happiness that I feel knowing that this big part of the project is done is overwhelming. I'm genuinely so happy with how it came out. 

    I haven't blogged this week about editing but after our second filming day, which is when we got the majority of our clips, I put it all together and managed to get it mostly done in one day. 

    My favorite part so far is this part in the picture because I love the lighting and the part of the lyrics that it's on because its like at the end of the chorus when it slows down a little. For this part, I wanted to do a slow zoom out but I had forgotten howwww to do that post production. Sooooo once again, I went on YouTube to search for a tutorial and it was really easy and I managed to make the speed match the song and it turned out pretty good!

    The hardest part to edit was 100% the second part of the bridge where the pacing kinda speeds up because my first idea was to make it kind of an overlay with her driving to the beach and kinda flashbacks to before, but it looked off and idk there was something that didn't look right. So I talked to my partner and she gave me the idea of doing like a back and forth between them instead of overlaying them or just showing the driving scenes.

I'm really really happy with how it came out!

Adobe Made Simple. (2023, August 21). How To Add A SLOW ZOOM In Premiere Pro [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhbMKovtIbk