Critical Reflection

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.

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