The time has finally arrived, I have completed my music video which means one thing. It's time to reflect on the process of my work and my final product. I will be starting off by asking myself and explaining to you how my product represents social groups and issues.
From the beginning of my project, I had a clear idea and understanding of what I wanted my music video to be like and to represent. This was expressed throughout my blog and many moodboards I had created in the course of my portfolio. The idea being i wished to represent and target a very specific group of people; young french women/older teenagers (17/22 years old). By using a french song, sung by a french speaking woman it would be hard and would not correlate to link it to any different target audience, as they would simply not have related to it or find it hard to recognise themselves in it. Living in Madrid and not being surrounded by any French people in my day to day life, (apart from my family which I would not have used due to their age making it impossible to relate to for my audience) I had to take a risky decision quite early on. I decided to set my whole video in Paris, France. Throughout this whole project I would like to add that without determination, it would have been impossible to produce this bearing in mind all the obstacles I had to overcome, which is something I am overly happy I have done. Why Paris? Well I wanted this music video to obviously, reflect a specific group of people but also for other people to enjoy and have a small understanding and knowledge from by incorporating cliché and recognisable locations such as the Eiffel Tour. I believe that having done so has helped me immersively to represent my target audience as automatically these locations and the culture are no stranger to them. Furthermore, in the course of this project I wanted to keep a very clear theme and “aesthetic” the use of my blog has truly helped me shape that sort of “character” which I believe was achieved to be represented in the music video as well. I wanted to obtain the elegant, neutral french look without it looking too cliché and especially not americanised. The idea that the music video and whole project was understood and related by the director themselves. I can confidently say that this aspect was achieved in my music video as when showing it to a few of my classmates and teachers they all had very similar reactions which were : “ this looks so elegant” or “this looks very french, very you” which is exactly the reaction i was hoping to achieve from them! Going deeper in the representation of French women in a non cliché way, I also did not want this video to be a music video of a woman being sexualised without necessarily wanting to, which in most cases of pop music videos nowadays is the idea. Instead more of a Femme Fatal look. To obtain this, I wanted the lookbook to not only reflect the idea of French couture, but also stay the more modest and “business woman” “boss lady” look. I did so by choosing a very specific choice of clothing and having an advantage, as being French myself and being around my whole life and summers around French people, I was able to have an insight of what sort of clothes are worn as trendy and relatable in that age group.
Secondly, how do the elements of my production work together to create a sense of “branding”? In the process of creating this project I really wanted it to be the most interactive and professional as possible. Building on the blog, making it look the most professional and the neatest as possible was also a very important asset to the making of this. I then created an instagram page to build on another platform where I could present the behind the scenes of my production making as well as additional things such as merchandise and regular updates. My instagram page was also followed by my target group, making it very engaging and very useful when it came to asking questions when I was in doubt about what fit best, which is what I did a few times using the “poll” settings in the stories. To really accentuate the branding idea of the project, I created a logo which is present not only on my blog but also my instagram page, a logo which is simple, neutral and catchy to really get the audience’s attention and get them to recognise this small sketch. This logo was also present in my merch.
Thirdly, another important aspect is , How did my products engage with the audience?
Similarly to the previous question, I believe that social media and communication within that towards and targeting your audience was a key aspect to this. I had to be as “extra” as I could, I did so by acting first off like I was a genuine brand and by speaking to my audience as if there was one person, to make it more personal and intimate. I got into deeper research and conversations with the specific audience group I was targeting by getting to know what they like to wear, where they like to go, what they find “aesthetic” etc… I wanted my product to be exciting and engaging, to make the audience I had built keen and impatient in seeing the final product produced. Furthermore, I created a “behind the scene” section on my blog where I explain the hidden images of the process, which once again helps the audience become more personal with my branding.
Finally, How did I research and inform my products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
Before starting my music video, I knew I wanted to do a performance music video, as in my opinion what i enjoy watching the best and personally are the types of music videos i feel the most interacted with. Furthermore, having the set idea, I had watched many music videos prior such as Jorja Smith and Angèle. I knew this is exactly what I wanted to achieve. Like previously expressed, finding a fitting and consonant theme for my music video was not complicated, knowing I wanted this to look French and have a bit of “me” in it, this made it relatively easy as I just needed to add a bit of my persona in this. As I was planning on creating a performative music video, I did not have to challenge any of the conventions of that specific genre. I was able to achieve a very basic looking and standard looking performance music video which consisted of, in my case, a single character, a few minor outfit changes and different locations which repeat themselves within the music video. This was something I had seen in the few videos I had looked into, making it something simple, catchy and easy to understand which is what I decided to “recreate”. Although in my music video the changes in costume hair are very subtle, they are still very noticeable if you keep a close eye to the subject which is what makes it the way it looks; simple but catchy. To alter from this, the original music video of Angèle’s music “Perdus” had nothing to do with this genre of music video as it was a “colours show” music video which consisted of her simply singing live in a colourful music studio. In my opinion this was a good for a bad as my brain and initial idea was not influenced by the artist’s work at all. In fact, in her other music videos, Angèle would focus more on producing concept music videos which made it a complete blank canvas to work from for me.
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