CCR Questions - Music Video

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

We decided to go with the park as our location because our storyline doesn’t really need a specific location. It relates to people who live their everyday lives and the park is a common location many people tend to go to, therefore we chose this location. Also, we believed that choosing the park would give us different locations within the area to shoot at such as the bathroom, path, bench, etc. All locations for our product was taken during the daytime. We created our storyboard to match the song’s meaning which was about suicide prevention. We wanted to highlight the issues many people face in their lives and then send a message letting these people know they aren’t the only one and it will get better soon. We want our audience to not just watch the video to watch it, but to understand the fact that there are people out there like this. The message is very clear, and this example of a suicide prevention media is heartening to the eyes of those affected. This music video provides an accurate representation of a storyline, in attempt to relate to the audience.

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

As with this music video, the overall aim was to get audiences intrigued and aware of how this can affect our everyday lifestyle. Our goal was to bring attention to how the negative influences around us can drive people to do harmful and fatal things to themselves. This reaches towards the audience, young or old, and it allows viewers to have a personal connection and relate to the given circumstances they might've felt in their own life. In order to engage audiences socially, we decided that we would use social networking websites such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube. As people scroll through Twitter and Instagram they can get see a post about suicide prevention and how important it is for everyone to be conscious, and provide some sort of guidance within the music video, displaying a message. Furthermore, On Youtube, this music video can be listened to while watching what is going on in the background, basically like if it was music over an actual movie. Facebook had multiple ways to share posts, and allows you to sponsor posts and build audiences, and overall this can help reach this music video out to more people in an effective way. Promoting is rather easier on Instagram, simply because many teenagers (older too) use Instagram the most, seeing as they are always posts and updates about their life. People then start a chain reaction of shares and the music video gets more exposure from these promotions. When discussing about real media text, however, I would chose popular news stations such as CNN, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC, etc. I would choose to display ads on these channels because this is a worldwide matter; everyone around the world should be aware of what they are doing to others, and even how to help someone out when they are going through a tough time. Also, people are always watching the news for updates, so people of all ages can see this being broadcasted. We believe that large amounts of people will be intrigued by this music video, most importantly to make a change.

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

IMovie was an extremely useful editing software I learned to use. Some of the tools such as the split clip option allowed me to create the best version of the music video. Secondly, other tools i've used, such as the filter and music audio file allowed me to put together the music video overall. We recorded all of the clips using a high quality camera, and we made it out so it could be the best quality it could be. Usually music videos are made with high tech cameras, but I can say we've definitely made it work. Using IMovie, though, was easy for me to get used to and it was not a hard process to say the least. I was sufficient in editing the music video, and I liked how the end result was. I was quite satisfied with the outcome seeing as though it was my first time editing a music video of some sort. My production skills showcased my developments as I realized what would work better for my music video and tested myself to ensure I could create something that targets towards my audience rather than just being something we liked.

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

We utilized many different mediums to produce this music video. I made sure to integrate software, hardware and online websites. Throughout me editing this music video, I understood the true potential of working with these resources and how they turned out for me. In Hardware, we used Ciaya's camera to film, and my Macbook to edit the music video when it was done. For the software, I only used IMovie, since it was the easiest to access because it came on my Macbook. After we filmed all of the clips on the photo camera, I got the SD card so I can extract it onto my Macbook and export the clips from there onto IMovie. For online websites, primarily, I used YouTube to aid in helping to do my music video. I got a clip from YouTube and cut a clip of the song we chose which is played throughout our music video.