Final Promotional Package

This blog is the final product of our music video, digipak and social media

MUSIC VIDEO

This is our digipak

Front Cover:

Back Cover:

Inside Left:

Inside Right:

Social Media:

https://www.instagram.com/thefreaky_vros?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Critical Self Reflection

This post contains my reflection for the component 3 project
(link to the pdf version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n-5FRukIezCiTy6QEOZf3mrMHO9jgXbH/view?usp=sharing )

The Component 3 brief details that we are tasked to create a digipak, social media and promotional material for an album along with one music video of one of the songs included in the album which will also be used as the title of the album. For My team, first decided on a song within the R&B genre as we found that there are good storytelling conventions in that genre & we wanted to work with that as inspiration, however we soon found that Indie was a much easier genre to work with due to budget constraints and the genre’s less complex post production. The song we ended up choosing for the album & music video is Telephones by an Australian band The Vacations, the reason for this is because the song has a melancholy tone which matches our aim of having both happiness and sadness, furthermore after we have done more research on the Vacations band, we found out that their style of audience engagement was similar to what we were trying to achieve as they are relatable, humorous and often interact with fans through their social media. Lastly, by choosing this song its lyrics match our theme of having that feeling of fleeting friendship and how it is something that needs to be cherished as it may disappear unexpectedly.

For the aspect of branding, in our music video we mainly used Ata, the lead singer as the primary persona as our genre convention research shows that most Indie bands have a Frontman who takes most of the attention. How we branded towards our audience with Ata is through showing how he is relatable and realistic as we portray his problems with problems which are can occur to anybody, furthermore using acting mise-en-scene we have made him react in a sad way to his situation, this helps the audience sympathise and further increase Ata’s relatability. Other than that we used the theory of Stardom which states that celebrities create a persona different from their private personality just for the public to see, as Ata in reality is not somebody who is facing hardships with friends. Finally, branding is also used with our social media where we portray ata consistent with how he is portrayed in the music video to show that, that is how his public persona is.

Music video was the primary thing I focused on as it was the easiest way to get the dominant reading out, which was the message of fleeting friendships and how important it is. We have done this all while following the Indie genre conventions where it is clearly seen that it was a low budget, realistic and story focused music video along with it being more on the experimental style with the coloring and the unusual aspect ratio. The mise-en-scene was especially conforming with our genre as we used common clothing, public locations and also amateur lighting however we did subvert some indie conventions such as having contrasting and non linear storytelling where parallel shots are used and how the color grading changes between the emotion being conveyed, this is a subversion of indie genre conventions where the video is consistent throughout the music video. Other ways we have achieved this contrasting emotions is also through the actor’s expressions, mannerisms and the general lighting of the scene. In the happy scenes the actor still remains somewhat quiet to maintain his persona however when he is alone the expressions and the posture he takes really show how even with his friends he was quiet but he was happy but now he’s still quiet but unhappy. Lastly in our music video, we have made the Ata more relatable through camera as the scenes where we follow him and his friends are often shaky, handheld cam which immerses the watcher to feel more included in the scene, further making the lonely scenes more contrasted compared to the lively scenes with friends.

The digipak was created to also follow the conventions of regular indie albums where they’re abstract, noisy, blurry and doesn’t tell a story but sets up the mood and theme of how the song would feel without having to listen, giving the audience a peek at what the content inside would be like. However there were some subversions which we have chosen to make for example the exclusion of the paper which details either extra details about the album or contains short summaries or stories about the production, instead we have followed other digipak conventions and filled it with exclusive photos inside the digipak.

How we primarily interacted and engaged with the audience was through our social media. We have done this with Blumler & Katz’s Uses and Gratification theory which states that media is used for 4 things, surveillance, Social interaction, personal identity and lastly for diversion. Our social media primarily uses personal identity, diversion and also social interaction. For the aspect of personal identity, there is our star showing their daily life along with humorous content which can be used by our audience as a topic of conversation. Personal identity was also targeted through funny posts as through our research we have found that our target demographic often uses this kind of humor in their day to day personalities. Lastly, any aspect of our social media can be considered a diversion as it's all content made to be enjoyed by our audience or at the very least to help them fritter their time away for a little bit as a form of escapism.

The representations which were shown in our media texts are young, male, teenage kids, we have represented these teenagers as casual, easy going and normal as they aren't seen doing high class activities or very specific activities which require a specialty such as sports activities, instead are just shown hanging out in a way which most teens often do, simply walking around a mall and playing in the arcade. We have portrayed this social group as they are the ones who may most relate to our music video’s dominant reading as this age group is the age group which would have the most graduations and farewell parties, the situations that most often end up with friendships ending. With this representation we have also tackled the social issue of loneliness and fleeting relationships, shown by our actor going through the effects of these issues, portrayed with darker, bluer scenes and with long shots to show how little he is without his friends as with his friends they take up a larger presence on camera.

To conclude, we have portrayed a message to remind our audience how they should always cherish time spent with people they’re close with as there may be a day where they may regret not spending that extra bit of time with them, or it can also be interpreted as a warning not to ruin friendships and other relationships alike as we portray the hurt and somberness which comes as a result of the ending of this relationship.

Audience feedback

This post details our process of screening and also gaining feedback for our digipack & social media branding along with our video. This blogpost was made by my groupmate Haresha primarily and has some input by other members, me & Louis

The purpose of a screen test is to gain audience feedback about our work and see if their are any improvements that can be made. We decided to use google forms to create a survey to share with our audience because we are trying to find out whether we're reaching the right target audience and try to improve on our music video. Here are our questions: 

1. Age

2. Gender

3. How often do you watch music videos?

4. How can you relate with the protagonist?

5. What words would you use to describe the emotions felt in the sample video?

6. How good was the overall quality, writing & message of the music video?

7. How well do you think the visuals matched the mood and message of the song? Please explain your thoughts.

8. What do you think the story or message the sample video is trying to convey?

9. What were your favorite parts of the sample video?

10. How would you improve on the scenes in the sample video?

Here are the results from the audience feedback:

From the feedback we learned that our video is somewhat relatable with teenage 17 year old audiences and that they seem to grasp the story of the music video quite well. We also noticed that some aspects of the video are a little blurry

We are going to change some closeups to be less blurry by reshooting some scenes so that it can be clearer in the final outcome. We're also going to reshoot some performance scenes, as I feel they look a little bland and too stationary.

This screen test was a useful part of our process because it helps us grow towards are target audience and make us to create a proper artist with realistic aims and views. This also allows us to better connect with the target audience and make our product tick the right boxes to appeal to the target audience

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Here are the results from the audience feedback:

From the feedback we learned that our social media page should be a little bit more refined or make it a little more formal. Although we want to be known for the humble imagery and casual atmosphere, but we also not forgetting our status as an idol; an influencer who influenced a lot of people in the future. 

We are going to change some pictures here, as this is our first draft maybe we can take out some pictures so that we have some "music or a band" vibes in this social page. And also, maybe we could make a tour poster which we hope will reinforce our group to be an actual band in our social media page; in other words, we don't want our social media page to heavily appear like some average personal-Instagram users posts.

This screen test was a useful part of our process because we can get testimonies from real life music enjoyer. From those testimonies, opinions, critics, and tips, we can improve and add something to our music video, social media, and digipak/album.

Reflection: We had some trouble gaining feedback from audiences our age as most of them were somewhat tired of constantly answering google forms from other classes and from other groups in my media class, however we did get some other people from outside our school to give us their feedback. This feedback has also helped Haresha with branding the social media page and has also helped me alter some parts of the video to more correctly portray what emotions & readings I was trying to convey with the technical elements.

 

Behind The Scenes

This post shows what we were doing during the shooting. This blog post was done by 2 of my teammates, Haresha & Ata

Members and Our Roles

Nathan - Cameraman and Actor

Louis - Actor

Ata - Actor

Haresha - Actor

Non-Members and Their Roles

Saka - Lighting & Gofer

Behind the Scenes

BTS #1: THIS IS WHEN WE SHOOT FOR THE FIRST TIME, WE TRIED TO IMITATE A SCENE WHERE A GROUP OF TEENAGER IS STROLLING AROUND A MALL CREATING MEMORIES, WALKING AIMLESSLY. THIS IS OUR INITIAL IDEA FOR OUR SCENES AND IT IS OPEN FOR AN IMPROVEMENT. 

BTS #2: THIS IS WHEN WE RESHOOT SOME SCENES AS WHAT OUR TEACHER ADVICED TO. THIS RESHOOT CAN ALSO ENRICH OUR STOCKSHOOT CLIPS AND SCENES INCASE SOME CHANGES ARE NECESSARY TO BE MADE IN THE MIDDLE OF EDITING. THE CONCEPT OF BESTFRIENDS STROLLING THE MALL STAYS THE SAME, BUT THERE ARE SOME ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES IN THE PROCESS, SUCH AS ARCADE.

Problems and The Solutions

• Rain at the beach
• Solution: Rather than waiting for the rain and run out of time, instead, we shoot indoors in the basement parking lot of Living World Mall
• No permission to shoot in Living World Mall Basement
• Solution: we switch to another alternatives and we decide to shoot in our friend's neighborhood.
• Dark Video Clip
• Solution: We find position with better lighting.
• Solution 2: We borrowed our friend's motorcycle for its headlights
• Late for sunrise shooting
• Solution: We decide to reschedule the day.
• Limited cameraman to shoot the whole group (only one cameraman, Nathan)
• Solution: We use tripod to shoot the whole band.

Self Reflections: Seeing the behind the scenes helped me a lot as the videographer, this was because it helped me remember the solutions to problems we have so that I can reuse those solutions, for example on our first take of shooting the band, I didn't think of bringing a tripod but after noticing and noting that down through the behind the scenes, I remembered to bring one the next time we went shooting.

Editing

This post was made by me and outlines the editing process for the final music video

Final Timeline:

using tricks I learnt from the teacher such as syncing the performance clips to the song, then setting their opacity to 0 for scenes where they're unused, it has saved me some time during editing

Color grading

Scene with friends (warm):

Scene without friends (cool)

For the scenes where the main character is alone, I've decided to edit it to be bluer than the scenes where he has somebody along with him, the blue tone was chosen as it is often associated with loneliness, solitude and coldness. That coldness I wanted to convey as I wanted to portray being alone as that uncomfortable coldness

The process of color grading was quite rushed as I was used to editing single photos at this point and often times it takes me 5 minutes more or less to edit one photo, furthermore, the color grading settings on the editing software I used was quite different to the app I often use so it was a little bit of a learning curve. 

Aspect ratio

I didn't use a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio common to many screens and chose to use 2.35:1, also known as the cinemascope aspect ratio or resolution, the reason for this is due to my genre conventions often having black bars displayed in their music videos, furthermore I wanted to mimic an anamorphic lens' stretch in order to try and capture the music video in a way that mimics the gear of usual indie music videos which often also use anamorphic lenses

Lastly, by having a wider aspect ratio, it allows for the focus of the viewer to be less on the top and bottom where in our music video nothing happens and instead focuses on the center third of the screen, giving an easier viewing.

reflection: editing was the most exhausting part of this whole project as I often edited straight after coming home from filming, however I did find it very enjoyable. But since I often edited late into the night whilst very tired, sometimes my editing was very sloppy and had to be fixed in the next drafts.

Filming Schedule

 This is our filming schedule

DATES	ACTIVITY	PEOPLE INVOLVED	LOCATION	EQUIPMENT	STATUS
09/11/24	Recording the convenience store bits of ata enjoying his beverage and his drink	Ata Nathan	Big M Batanghari CK Puputan/Renon (alt.)	Tripod Camera 30mm Sony OSS F 1.8 Mode of transport	Completed
09/11/24	Recording shots of ata on the road, (not rolling shots, still shots)	Ata Nathan	Kuta Underpass (Dewa Ruci) Ngurah Rai Underpass (alt.)	Tripod Camera 30mm Sony OSS F 1.8 Mode of transport	Completed
09/11/24	Shoot the introduction scenes that are going to be used in the beginning of the music video. Record the performance scene where ata sings the entire song from start to finish, as backup footage whenever we don’t know what to put	Ata Nathan	Sanur Beach Mertasari Beach (alt.)	Tripod Camera 30mm Sony OSS F 1.8 Mode of transport	Completed
18/01/25	Recording stock shoots video (on Ngurah Rai Airport underpass)	Ata Nathan	Ngurah Rai underpass	Tripod Camera 30mm Sony OSS F 1.8 Mode of transport	Completed
23/01/25	Recording music video scenes in Living World	Nathan Ata Louis Haresha	Living World Teras Ayung (neighborhood)	Tripod Camera 30mm Sony OSS F 1.8 Mode of transport Musical Instruments (guitar, bass)	Completed
07/03/25	Recording stock shoots for music video scenes while also reshooting some scenes in the MV to improve the result (as what our teacher advised to)	Nathan Ata Louis Haresha	Living World Teras Ayung (neighborhood)	Tripod Camera 30mm Sony OSS F 1.8 Mode of transport Musical Instruments (guitars, bass) Lighting	Canceled
10/03/25	Recording stock shoots for music video scenes while also reshooting some scenes in the MV, such as the performance scene, to improve the result (as what our teacher advised to)	Nathan Ata Louis Haresha	Living World Teras Ayung (neighborhood)	Tripod Camera 30mm Sony OSS F 1.8 Mode of transport Musical Instruments (guitars, bass) Lighting	Complete

Reflection: Using the filming schedule, we were able to manage our time relatively well and got to record for our music video before it was due and even with spare time to rerecord a few scenes however we did find it hard to get the motivation to stick to the scheduling as school occasionally gives us homework on these days, meaning that as soon as we get home we have work to get to no matter how tired we are, especially for me who was editing footage by the end of every recording session I was heavily demotivated.

Location scout & Risk Assessment

Location scout and risk assessment of problems we might encounter as well as possible precautions, this post was done by my teammate Haresha.

Location 1
Address:	Sanur Beach
Image:
Scene:	Introduction & Singing
Advantages of location:	Ease of access Good scenery for wanted scenes Gives the feel of youth wanted in scenes Bright, so no additional lighting is needed
Disadvantages of Location:	Basah Kotor Traffic
Alternatives:	Mertasari Beach
Risk Assessment
Risk:	Who/What is at risk:	How to avoid risk:	High, Medium, Low risk:
1.	Cameraman	Watch where he steps, and maybe wear eye protection like glasses, to prevent sand from getting in the eyes	Medium
2.	Equipments	Keep equipment away from water/waves to lessen change of it being water damaged	Medium
3.	Performers	Watch where they step, and maybe wear eye protection to hinder the sand from entering the eyes.	Low

Location 2
Address:	Taman Underpass Dewa Ruci
Image:
Scene:	Ata riding his motorbike going through the underpass (Camera: Tilt)
Advantages of location:	Big Road They have an open spot for us to record without annoying the drivers. Aesthetic Shot.
Disadvantages of Location:	Very hot in the afternoon (however, we’re using that location at 3 - 4 AM which won’t be a problem for us) Often very crowded in the evening. Fuel Consuming
Alternatives:	Underpass Taman Bundaran Ngurah Rai
Risk Assessment
Risk:	Who/What is at risk:	How to avoid risk:	High, Medium, Low risk:
1.	Cameraman: might drop camera	Cameraman must be cautious recording at a somewhat high place	low
2.	Biker: Drunk and illegal racers might pass by during the night	We have to ensure that it is on a night where not many people would be out. Like on a weekday night	Medium
3.	Random extras	Do it at a time where less people are active on the road to reduce the chance of them getting involved in an accident that may be caused by us.	low

Location 3
Address:	Circle K, Jl Raya Puputan
Image:
Scene:	Ata pulling up to have a drink and opening his phone
Advantages of location:	Open 24/7 Ease of access Good lighting even during night Potential Locations are very nearby
Disadvantages of Location:	There might be customers even at during the night Parking may be filled
Alternatives:	Circle K Hang Tuah
Risk Assessment
Risk:	Who/What is at risk:	How to avoid risk:	High, Medium, Low risk:
1.	Cameraman: might drop camera	Cameraman must be cautious recording at a somewhat high place	low
2.	Biker: Drunk and illegal racers might pass by during the night	We have to ensure that it is on a night where not many people would be out. Like on a weekday night	low
3.	Random extras	Do it at a time where less people are active on the road to reduce the chance of them getting involved in an accident that may be caused by us.	low

Location 4
Address:	Living World
Image:
Scene:	Scenes of Ata’s used to create memories with his friends; where he is pondering and reminiscing the past memories he had made.
Advantages of location:	Multiple ideas for what scene we’re going to shoot as they’re many stalls/places to “create memories” with.
Disadvantages of Location:	Some place may have poor lighting Crowded place, people might get inframe
Alternatives:
Risk Assessment
Risk:	Who/What is at risk:	How to avoid risk:	High, Medium, Low risk:
1.	Cameraman/actors might bumped to someone	Be more mindful of our steps and surroundings	Low

Reflection: looking back on the location scout, it has helped us with determining how long recording will take because we know what problems might encounter and adjust our scheduling with that in mind.