Critical Reflection

Critical reflection 

How do your products represent social groups or issues? 

As the song I chose comes from the “reggaeton” genre, I have decided to create a music video with some of the conventions which are typically seen in this genre. After researching in depth into the genre, the use of teenage/young adults characters are commonly seen throughout the platform representing young adults social groups. Therefore, I didn't doubt in using a friend of mine as my main and only character of the project, as it will perfectly suit and represent the social group I was aiming towards. 

Furthermore, another way in which my product represents the young adults social group is through the constant use of a mobile phone by my character. 45% of young adults say they are “almost constantly” connected to social media or the internet. Due to the high rates of mobile devices, I believe this is a great way in representing the social group intended.  Additionally, I have chosen to include a variety of “using the mobile” shots with the finality of portraying a normal young adult life. 

Lastly, the song finally chosen (“Si tu supieras”) clearly also represents the social group intended. This is due to the fact that the song's meaning is about a relationship break up between two young adults and the after effects suffered by the integrants. Young adults tend to experience this process throughout that age, and if accompanied by the music video, I consider the music video as a perfect example for teenagers/young adults to feel identified by my project. 

How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of “branding”

Branding is a way of identifying my project. Throughout the course, I have been creating other pieces of work with the aim of helping promote my final project. Moreover, branding can enable the consumers to know what to expect of my music video. I have created a sense of branding through the creation of digipaks, a social media page and finally by completing and posting my final music video. 

Firstly, the creation of the digipak which has been already posted in my blog page hopes to achieve differentiation among the rest of the projects. The digipak helps an artist promote their album. They usually tend to approach the use of the corporate identity of the artist as a recurring theme and to attract not only their usual audience, but also reach a wider audience. Therefore, the creation of this has helped me distinguish my product. 

Additionally, nowadays social media plays an important role when creating a sense of branding. On that account, I have created an instagram page (Paco.productions) in order to promote my product. I have been updating it frequently in order to maintain my audience up to date. I have been doing this through the posting of “Instagram stories” and “posts”. The use of hashtags have already been applied to the posts with the purpose of attracting a wider range of viewers. Lastly, music videos are used to increase the algorithm of views a song has. This is because music videos allow the audience to follow the song with a visual. 

How do your product engage with the audience 

My product was created in order to engage a certain social group. As mentioned above, the young adult/teenage audience was my aim. My final project engages the audience as it follows a narrative. My project is about a young adult suffering a heartbreak and therefore having to continue with his day to day while thinking about his girlfriend. At the end of the clip, there is a connection between my character and her. As my video follows a story, it keeps the audience hooked wanting to know more about the story. 

As we can appreciate in my video, the video is full of close ups. Close-ups draw the attention to my main character and communicate to the audience the importance of his face gesture and reactions. Medium shots were used to emphasize both my actor and the setting where I recorded the clip, giving them a similar presence on screen. 

In my music video, we can also appreciate the constant use of over the shoulder shots which also helps to engage the audience into the world the video is set. Over the shoulder shot, uses perspective to show where characters are in relation to one another and are perfect when offering the viewer a new point of view which consequently makes the scene more dynamic and visual providing a better perspective for the audience hooking them into the video. 

Lastly, the use of my blog page also helps engage the audience. This is due to the fact that it explains how and why each prop, shot or editing technique is used in order to mirror the “reggaeton” genre. By doing this, hype is created and therefore engaging the audience throughout the process. 

How did you research inform your product and the way they use or challenge conventions 

I chose to do my music video from the reggaeton genre, as it is what I most enjoy when listening to music. Furthermore, I also have a very wide knowledge of the industry as I have been doing research by my own will since years ago. All of these factors combined, have led to the release of an organic piece of work. 

Throughout the process, I have been researching many aspects of the visual industry in order to mirror and challenge some of the conventions imposed by the genre. I have not only carried out secondary research, but have seen interviews of directors such as “Fernando Lugo” which have inspired me to come out with the narrative idea. Aspects that I have researched were the editing techniques, camera shots and mise en scene. 

Yonaguni was my main source of inspiration. The music video of Bad Bunny challenges stereotypes and conventions, as it represents a variety of social groups but at the same time, making it very relatable and easy to feel identified by it. Although I couldn't represent more than one social group which would have led to challenging conventions, I tried to make it very easy to understand and to feel identified by it. All the research helped me to know what techniques to use in order to make it easy to understand.