Critical Thinking

1How do your products represent social groups or issues?

My product represents a unique individual out of the social group, abnormality and uniqueness of the individual becomes an issue or problem, therefore have been named as “black sheep”. Which demonstrated the meaning of a worthless and useless person in a family or group of people. People are scared to show themselves and to show different opinions in a group of people, there are some studies supporting this psychology theory with social influence and conformity.

　　 I have represented a character which is completely against conforming people, and focuses on being herself. The music video has represented a world of a character that does not care about how people view her and how they say about her, she is confident to be herself and represents independence through the braveness of showing herself. My actor has represented herself with black, a colour that illustrates power, fear, hopelessness, mystery and it is a mixture of all colours. Therefore a metaphor appeared as the “black sheep” is not going to change herself to fit in the group.

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

Elements such as colours, costumes, make ups, movement, digipak, and the set designs have worked together to create a sense of “branding” for my music video. I used low saturation colours in the music video to represent a vintage style and to represent indie, folk and rock genres of the music video. There are three locations represented and demonstrated that have different meanings, one with nature, with thr blac, costume, the meaning of black sheep is created. One location has the ruins, which represent the uniqueness, the rebelliousness and the feeling of the lyric “everyone is doing it so why the hell should I?”

Another location has a set with a black space, with lots of drawings I drew to match up and represent the meaning of the lyrics. This location has revealed the inside mental world of the “black sheep”, therefore representing an abstract, comfort, unique, and is represented by black to reveal the identity of the “black sheep”.

　　All of the costumes are represented with black, and accessories with black, silver, or gold. The colours have revealed the identity of the actor and black sheep, and the style of the costumes are represented as unique and fashionable.

Digipak of “Black Sheep” has been designed with an extremely low saturated colour palette. The colour palette represents the heaviness of the dark clearly, which means it has revealed the actor clearly as she is represented with black. The inside pages of the digipak are represented mostly with black and yellow, surreal drawings with a female figure and a background with a black sheep is drawn to match up with the feeling of the meaning of the “black sheep” and represent the energy given by the music.

3How do your products engage with the audience?

Advertisement is a useful product to engage with the audience. I have done two trailers to grab the audience’s interest and to represent the genre of rock and indie therefore introduce the music video. Both trailers are shot, both of the trailers give a little information to the audience such as when is the release date, singer, actor and the director. Four posters were made with different locations and costumes of the scenes in the music video.

I made a social media account, an instagram account to post pictures and parts of the videos of the music video “Black Sheep” to engage with the audience as looking through the whole vibe of the music. Social media is an easy way to engage with the audience as it could spread out messages and information rapidly.

　　There are also few videos made for “behind the scenes”, this represents the fun part of making the video and the process of making the music video, were audiences are more likely to see and know about the director, photographer and the actor. There is a video of interviewing the actor, this demonstrates the view from the actor while filming the music video and also engages with the audience by representing different sides of a person.

Adding on, merch products are also made to engage with the audience. There are bags, t-shirts, hoodies, and caps for selling. All merch products are represented in a similar low saturation colour palette, which clearly represents the black wire on the actor and this represents the vibe of the “black sheep”.

4How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

I researched different genres such as pop, rock, and indie, and different categories of music videos. I decided to use a conceptual music video after all and this has been represented as the convention with the indie genre. I have also researched magazine photos, social media pages, and design of digipaks. I used modern fashion magazine pictures to search up for ideas of costumes and makeup, this has challenged the rock genre of music with the colourful palette and with the modern fashion, however this has supported the indie genre as the makeup and costume represented different and uniqueness.

The makeups represented in my music video were used with bright colour eyeshadows and white, blue and black eye liners, therefore creating a completely different convention of rock genre however supports the indie genre as it is artistic, unique, and colourful.

I researched Rihanna’s digipak “Loud”, only a few combinations of bright colours were represented. This has challenged the rock genre convention, however I decided to learn of using a similar colour palette for the whole digipak, with a low saturation colour palette revealed almost as black and white for the digipak, and this has represented the folk and rock genres as an old fashion vintage style.

There are several types of editing effects in my music video. Especially at the end, I used one called “errors of colours”, this has challenged the rock and folk genres as these genres usually represent an old fashion style, this effect is represented with a modern style. However I have also used editing effects with old fashion style, for example blurred white light and twisting effects.