Creative Critical Reflection: Music Video

 

Creative Critical Reflection

1. 1. .How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?

m  My video challenges conventions by showing two boys falling in love, instead of the typical guy/girl dynamic. It shows two guys slowly getting to know each other and growing closer, just like how real world relationships work. It also shows it in a romantic, innocent way versus how gay relationships are often portrayed in the media. The way gay relationships are portrayed in the media tend to be typically negative, secretive, and/or "dirty", and involve sex versus shy, innocence and hand holding. 

     It represents social groups because it represents gay youths and uses trans and non-binary people in the filming. Representation is important. Seeing romantic relationships between LGBTQ people should be normalized. We need to see more relationships like this portrayed like this in the media. If it happened more often and in casual ways, I think society will slowly become more accepting and start to view these relationships and actors as no big deal. It shouldn't be breaking news that a movie, video or TV series has LGBTQ characters or uses LGBTQ actors. It should be completely normal. 

.   2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text? 

     My video engages with the audience by giving different point of views depending on who we are following or who we identify with. Some may identify with the Mad Hatter, pursuing the boy and drawing him into his magical world and flirting with him. Others may identify with the boy being pursued by this mysterious and whimsical being. The music could apply to or engage with anyone who has romantic feelings for another person, whether they be the object of interest or the person pursing their love interest. Honestly, it's just a sweet love story that anyone should be able to identify with.

      I feel as if it would be distributed on a platform that's more like YouTube or TikTok, rather than TV. Although the idea could definitely be expanded into a short film about these two falling in love and skipping through a magical wonderland. Like something you would see at the end or the beginning of a Pixar film. I believe it would make a great short film and appeal to a young audience of both LGBTQ or cisgender/hetero youth. Everything is so hypersexualized these days and this is more innocent and sweet and romantic. Something people really should get back to. 

3.  3.  How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

    My production skills developed a bit when it came to both filming and editing. While I struggled quite a bit with my last two videos, I feel like this video was much smoother and I was better able to capture the vision I had when creating my storyboard. While filming I saw that some scenes didn't look great, so I decided to change them and go a bit off script. I tweaked, changed and filmed from multiples angles until I was happy with the shots I got. That is something I didn't do as much of in my last two videos. In the end I believe that it worked out in my favor and made for a much stronger and successful video. Nine times out of ten, you just can't do it in one take. Sometimes you get lucky and get it in one take, but that is pretty rare. Filming a scene in multiple ways and multiple times is definitely the way to go if you want a successful video and it is definitely something I will be doing going forward with future projects.

WWhile editing, I learned how to make scenes have a much smother transition. This something I really struggled with in my last projects, so I really tried to focus on that this time around, being conscious of where I started and ended each individual clip so the transitions wouldn't be so stunted and abrupt. Some of it is still a bit jagged but I still like the way it turned out. I will continue working on this in the future, so that my transitions won't be so jerky. All in all though, I feel a lot more confidant about the transitions in this video versus my last video. 

4.   4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

     To film the individual scenes I used my cell phone mounted on a tripod, with a light ring. I then edited the videos down on my phone, snipping them down to make transitions smoother and be sure that the video didn't run over time. I then uploaded the individual videos to Tiktok and added a few filters to add atmosphere and music to my video. I integrated technologies like smoke effects while the characters were outside to give it a more mysterious and whimsical vibe. When the smoke wasn't there, it felt as if something was missing. It didn't really feel like a fantasy world to me, so I feel like the smoke was just what I was looking for to give it that vibe.