Music Video: Reflection

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups and issues?

My product is a storytelling music video that represents bullying through the lenses of three people. The bully, the bystander, and the protagonist. This represents social groups because everyone can relate to being ridiculed or bullied by someone even if it was a one time thing. By showing how one person can help another and put a stop to bullying is an important topic that should be spread. Not only would this reduce bullying, but it would inspire those to help others who have been bullied. Most importantly, it would teach those who have been bullied to look past the past and build from their trauma. 

How does your project engage with audiences and how can it be distributed as a real media text?

My product is not dramatic film, rather it is a story that is developed to connect the author to the main character who faces a conflict. Here we see see through the lenses of all three characters, the protagonist, the antagonist, and a bystander. Although there is only a short introduction to the protagonist, the situation can appeal to those in the audience that have also went through something similar as well, like bullying, failing something you've worked hard at, or not reaching high expectations. By doing so, this connects the audience and makes them more likely to watch the whole project because, in a way, they are the main character.  This can be distributed on video sharing platforms like Youtube and Instagram as a way to promote Lil Tjay's song.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

For this project, I had to film and edit, however with the help of a friend who was also on the project. This made the process considerably faster since there were two sets of eyes and ears to decide on the outcome of the film. I feel like there was a general amount of improvement to my editing skills because of how quickly I finished editing the product and that could also be a correlation to my filming ability. Likewise, since I minimized the amount of filming errors such as vertical filming instead of horizontal filming, poorly lit takes, holding the camera shakily, and directing the actor. This overall lessens my time to film and as a result, I had less mistakes to edit out and shortened by editing time. Lastly, one key improvement were the details in the storyboard. Since I knew exactly what I wanted b adding little notes and more details filming went smooth.

How did you integrate technologies-software, hardware, and online- in this project?

For this project, I shot using an iPhone XR recording at 4k 60 frames per second in addition to iMovie, an editing software on Apple devices. To no surprise, I used one of Lil Tjay's more catchiest and motivational songs, losses. With its vibrant beat, catchy flow, and lyricism, I was able to create a story along with a message for the audience: No matter how bad things may seem, it's best to learn from your losses and grow from them. Other technologies would be one of our props, an additional iPhone XR used in the scene where the bystander is introduced and shown occupied.