My products will reach a mass audience, as it will be regarded as popular culture. Popular culture is the set of practices, beliefs and objects that embody the most broadly shared meanings of a social system, including media objects, entertainment and leisure, fashion and trends, and linguistic convention. My products will appeal to a younger audience ages ranging from 10 to 18. In the music industry 92% of teens choose rap or pop over any other music genre, listening repeatedly to the top ten songs on the music charts. My product will appeal and represent this social groups by having really simple and relatable themes like love and breakup, and mental health. My products have the theme of love and breakup, thanks to the lyrics of the song that I chose to the the music video for and the narrative of the music video. As mentioned in my research the song Silence is about how the artist's frustration with knowing that a man (her ex) is talking but not really saying anything of importance , or anything that is the truth, and the emotional trauma she went through. The narrative of the music video has the theme of breakup, this theme is conveyed to the audience thanks to the use of macro and micro elements, one of the most important elements that my music video uses to convey the message is cinematography. The cinematography in my music video incorporates stereotypical conventions of pop music videos, like close-ups and mid-shots with the artist being positioned in the center of the frame, and long shots to set the setting and location. I decided to deliberately recreate these codes and conventions in my music video to create a piece that is likable to other music videos of the genre. For example, I put Helena (my actress) central to many shots as an attempt to promote her as a new upcoming artist and create a direct link with her and the song, I also followed the rule of thirds and the golden rule for the layout of my framing in many shots throughout the music video, I discovered the importance of this way of framing in pop music videos thanks to my research, and how typically are used to draw the audience's attention to the viewer and create a sense of importance. In many shots Helena is seen sitting down lip-syncing the song in direct mode of address, creating a personal more intimate connection with the viewer and appealing to the fans that are watching the video for personal identification (Blumer and Katz). Another element of the cinematography that also follows conventions of the genre is the camera movement. Smooth tracking shots following Helena's actions maintains the attention on her reinforcing the sense of importance and allowing the audience to see her dancing while lip-syncing the lyrics of the song. This feature will appeal to the fans that are watching the music video for entertainment (Blumer and Katz). Additionally the hand held tracking shots following Helena's ex widers the variety of types camera movements making my music video more interesting to watch and less likely to make the audience bored. The contrast between smooth and shaky suggests and underlines the differences in their personalities and emotions. For most shots, the angle the camera is positioned is eye level and mid shot distance, this makes the audience feel like they are inside and part of the music video with Helena as it allows them to experience a real world perspective of the scene. This technique is obvious in the bench scene as it makes the audience feel like they are sitting right in front of Helena, and she is talking to them about her relationship problems like you would to talk to a best friend, reinforcing the connection she has with her audience. Other micro element that also plays a really important role in my music video is the lighting. Through the different lighting I managed to encode to the audience the different emotions that the main actress was going through and connote a wide range of feelings like sadness (blue), anger (red), frustration (purple) and joy (yellow). I also managed to connote enlightenment thanks to the fairy lights in the bathroom scene suggesting that the actress is finally letting go from the goods and the bads and is finally seeing the bigger picture. The music video follows a nonlinear narrative, making the story more entertaining and encouraging the audience to pay attention, without a predictable return to equilibrium (Todorov) and creating uncertainty. The unexpected ending of the love interest not only will reference popular themes like mental health and suicide, but it will also shock the audience which will end up in a form of free publicity as the viewers will talk about it with their friends or in their social media platforms, causing my music video to have a different audience that's only watching the video for social interaction (Blumer and Katz). The macro elements of my music video representcurrent social issues like mental health and suicide. 1 in 10 teens attempt suicide ages between 14 to 19. The most suicidal individuals are white males,at 54% suicide rate. On average, someone attempts suicide every 40 seconds in the U.S. and 88 die by suicide each day. One suicide occurs every 16 minutes. This facts are so shocking I felt the needed to mentioned in my music video somehow, I felt the need to raise awareness of this really important issues that is affecting and killing so many people, but that it's not getting the attention that it should have, specially in the mainstream world. It is always a taboo, a touchy subject to talk about, but this is real, this is a real problem, and there are so many people, even people close to me, that have gone through this and felt like their lives weren't worth it because off just being simply who they are. So I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk about them and let people know that they're not alone. "hold on, it gets easier, Things will change. You are important, you are worthwhile, you are perfect. But most importantly you are not alone. Don't stay silent. "
My digipack is very conventional of the genre, a prominent house style that I recognise in Pop and mainstream album cover is the use of real artworks and really simple color palettes. My digipack follows this conventions as it features a real artwork made my me and a very minimalist color palette consisting in white and blacks and blue and sandy pink to create a visual pop. I decided not to obviously link my digipack and my music video as I believe this will be very unrealistic and not like real life. Normally digipacks offer cover arts that summarizes the entire narrative of the album not just a song, and that's what I did for mine. I features some small details of the music video in the digipack like the rose in the back cover art, the picture in the folders and screenshot of the animation in the booklet. This helped me create a house style between the different products working in synergy to promote the music video but still have a realistic approach.
My website uses the stereotypical codes and conventions that are present in all of the examples that I looked at in my research. The home page of my website gives key and relevant information , with the newest news, events and merchandise that I fabricated to make my website look real and have near professional standards. Then it has different tabs for events, music and merchandise that fans of my artsst will really appreciate.
Being a popular culture and mass mediated product, my products don't challenge many or arguably any conventions, I voluntarily decided to do this so it will increase the chance of its mass audience having a positive reading after watching it, as I believe breaking conventions will appeal to a more independent audience and will make my pop culture audience have a negotiated or even oppositional reading. My products are targeted to a mainstream audience, to millennials and maxsisist that are affected by popular culture which is exploiting the proletariat and brainshawing them through products they are consuming. My products are deliberately so relatable that will make the working-classes and its audience think that their status quo is correct. Following Marx's and Gramp ki's set of ideas.