04 Statement of Intent
Feels like - ASYA
How do you intend to use the four areas of the media theoretical framework to communicate meaning and meet the requirements of your chosen brief? (approx. 400 words)
Product 1 Music Video
My brief is to produce a music video for a ballad aimed at a 16–25-year-old, style-conscious audience. I will target my product towards teenagers and aim to create a deep emotional connection and relatability through direct mode of address. The video will be intimate, following a teenage girl alone, experiencing flashbacks to when she had a crush on a girl who didn’t like her back. I chose this as ballad music videos often focus on isolation and flashbacks.
I will separate flashbacks with lip-syncing scenes to develop the narrative and promote direct mode of address. I have chosen specific framing in these scenes to symbolise isolation by having blank space all around the artist. Lighting will create shadows behind the performer, suggesting another presence due to and reflecting insecurity, helping to connect with the audience. I will also include a performance shot of the artist singing and playing guitar to encourage audience interaction and interest in live performances, linking to a tour section on my website. The intention is to create a relatable experience, allowing the audience to find comfort in the artist and increase engagement. During the chorus, transitions will align with the beat to appeal to a style-conscious audience. My video will reinforce the ballad convention of female loneliness through a breakdown scene showing emotional vulnerability. I will include diverse social groups, including LGBTQ+ representation, by showing the artist subtly in love with a female friend, and challenge gender stereotypes by presenting a male best friend as purely supportive. This breaks the stereotype that boys and girls cannot be friends without romance, increasing relatability. My song, Feels Like by Gracie Abrams, fits the ballad genre. Costume will reflect the target audience, with scenes of the artist choosing outfits and adjusting her appearance. Another scene will show her alone in a bedroom, still displaying insecurity.
I will also challenge conventions through video effects and transitions, enhancing the breakdown and appealing to my audience. A retro effect will distinguish flashbacks from the present, ensuring clarity. In flashbacks, dialogue will be heard over the music to deepen narrative and increase relatability.
Product 2 Website
I have conducted thorough research of artists who have produced ballad songs and noted down codes and conventions to act as a guide for my website to make it as accurate as possible. I will use multiple images of my artist in the website posing, and will use around 1-10 pictures of the artist on the front page. This will include on merch, album covers and on the header and footer of the website. This will help the audience to connect with the artist through direct mode of address. I will include promotion for the music video by creating an audio visual element which will be a bloopers reel and a video explaining the music video and the ideology and thought process behind it. I am also creating a tour and a 'current album' section as that was a convention on the artists websites. The role of the website is to promote my artist, so I will create an 'about me' section talking about my artist to help the audience connect and relate to her. I have used pinks, golds, purples and some black to represent a girly vibe because I think that the style conscious audience will appreciate the chosen colour scheme, and I have used the same colour in my music video so that they match and promote engagement together. I have also tried to keep the layout chic and minimalistic, because of my style concious audience. I have done this by not including many elements of decoration, and kept it quite simple, but still making sure I stuck to the colour scheme without it becoming too repetitive. I also used chic fonts throughout my website to ensure the layout is still stylish without being too boring. In my hyperlinked page, I will include more images of the artist and a photoshoot. I will be using the same colour scheme. The audio visual element will be displayed on the hyperlinked page. The layout of the website will be: Main header which will display and image and the artists name, as well as their latest single (the song used in the music video), and an 'about me.' The next section will be a merch section including images of merch with the ability to hover over the images to see a different angle or picture of the merch. I have done this because I have noticed this convention in other artist's websites. The section after that will be the music video section, with the artists current album and track-list. The last section will be a 'subscribe' section giving audiences the ability to sign up to a newsletter about the artist and be updated and connected to them as they may feel as if they are in communication with the artist. I will also include an engagement section giving fans the opportunity to upload their own media to the website giving further connection to the artist. I will do this through the use of a blog on the 'media' section of the blog, which will allow audiences to put their own thoughts and comments about the music video, promoting engagement between the two.
Getting my audience to interact with my artist after watching my music video, or seeing my website is important because I want to create a more immersive experience for the fans and want the maximum amount of interaction possible. In my music video, I will use an end card to send fans watching the video to the website. I will have social media links clearly posted on my website and will include blooper reels and a music video explanation on the website. I am making the music video explanation a GRWM (get ready with me) while I explain the music video, because it will appeal to my audiences. The use of explanation allows them to see the choices made to create a video specifically for them, meaning they value it more and possibly even watch it again after finding out easter eggs that they didn’t notice, boosting engagement between my video and website. I will also mention my website in the video to encourage fans to see that, and encourage them to watch the video again. In the end card of my music video, I will include a blooper and text telling audiences that they can see more similar content on my website and social medias, and tell them how to find that to promote engagement. The engagement section also pushes fans to go onto my artists social medias to view their posts, and also means they may create their own posts about my artist. The music video and the website will be used to construct that the artist has a relatable experience of her fans, and also has deep connections with their fans. I will include a picture of my artist holding a phone in the 'subscribe' section, as I saw this in another artists website and thought that it was a smart idea to promote the audiences to subscribe, and the use of direct mode of address may make them feel like they will be connecting to the artist.
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