CCR Blog

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_IO54EhNo-7QvaLaSK4N9ZMf45vsLJtgCNJs27Z9ZLA/edit

 

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?
2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

 

Our product is very unique in many aspects of its personality. However, we had followed many of the basic conventions associated with our genre. We used both diegetic and nondiegetic sound, low angles, and wide angles, different costumes and props to communicate the different settings in each unique scene. My teammates and I chose to use these conventions because they are standard for a reason. They serve their purpose and it made the editing process much easier on me. Having a sort of blueprint to follow really allowed me to focus more on the quality and detail of each scene in the video. I still believe the video is unique, however, using these standard conventions simply pushed us to make our video memorable in its own way without relying on the format. Our music video represents the teens that truly push themselves and see exercise and fitness as more than a hobby. It represents the group of teens that see exercise and self improvement as a lifestyle and dedicate much of their time to achieve their physique and goals. Our video’s purpose is to show to this demographic of teens that their hard work and dedication is something to be admired. There truly is not a huge social issue our video is addressing. It is true that teens that take exercise and fitness seriously can be overlooked and made fun of because some would deem this a waste of time. However, our video is not specifically addressing this issue. It is more about representing these teens and their lifestyle. Our video also serves to inspire those who have not yet started their journey. My teammates and I are high schoolers. We had all started looking completely different from where we are now with our physique’s. We began training and dedicating our time to exercise and fitness to better our bodies and minds, and we did not have access to gym equipment or supplements. We started with what we had while working with our everyday lives. And my teammates and I aim to inspire others to begin their fitness journey by showing that even kids our age and with our regular busy schedule, can still train and grow and better themselves. As stated before, our music video is very unique in its personality, even with its use of standard conventions. What makes our music video so unique is not because it has a high production value, or that it has popular and well known locations, or people, but rather its lack thereof. Our music video was shot on iphones that have seen better days. Our video was shot in the midst of our busy schedules with no special dedicated hours just for its development. Our video features my teammates and I and us alone. No popular faces, and no name brand outfits. However this does not detract from its value. Our video holds a homemade and realistic atmosphere and tone. It captures the everyday life and routine of everyday high schoolers. The value and uniqueness in our video is that unlike so many others created by artists and fitness influencers it shows the perspective of the everyday kid. Creating a more relatable experience for our audience. It is hard to form a connection with a rich or rich looking influencer or artist who is living the life many can only aspire to live. Their videos are often riddled with brand name equipment, popular locations, and well known and recognizable people in order to seem more appealing to their audience. However this only serves to alienate themselves and their audience by establishing an idea of what a fitness journey and the person who enacts it should look like. Our video shows real and relatable experience, something many look for on social media inspiration. If our video was professionally made and published. My teammates and I would likely release it on youtube. Tiktok is not a very good option because yes it is popular and widespread. It is an app designed around the grounds of quick momentary entertainment, and catered to short attention spans. It is true that there are longer, up to 3 minute video lengths on tiktok. However, the typical user would not have the attention span to view it in its entirety. Therefore youtube would be the best platform to release our video on. The video lengths are seemingly unlimited and Youtube is a very well known and popular platform for content sharing and viewing. Many have apps such as spotify to listen to music. However, music videos can be just as memorable as the music and many if not all look to youtube for this. Videos posted on Youtube are also easily shareable, simply click share and suddenly your video can be shown to dozens of others without them even knowing its existence seconds beforehand. My teammates and I learned a lot about the production process during the filming of our video. Even the process of brainstorming our video has taught us much. Initially, we thought of many different scenes and location ideas, different shots and angles that we could incorporate into our video. However, we then realized that cinematography plays an important role not just in the visual look of the video but its tone and how it communicates ideas. We realized that certain angles produced certain feelings and evoked different vibes. We wanted our video to be more grounded and believable. So we realized that certain shots and camera angles that in truth would look very visually pleasing. They simply did not match the tone or message we wanted to convey. Since each member of our team was responsible for their own scenes to film and share. We as a team had to form our own framework to follow in order to make a visually cohesive production. This however, did not stop each of us from adding our own personal style and personality into our scenes. The editing process was a learning experience in itself. Although the initial scenes and videos we filmed seemed short to us. Working with a video length restriction of maximum 75 seconds. Meant that many of the scenes we filmed were much too long to include even half the required number. I was the main editor of our video and I had to cut and adjust the length of each individual clip to fit within the length parameters, while still upholding the video’s quality. As a team and as the main editor of our music video. We relied heavily on our phones. We did not have access to cameras or other higher quality means of gathering footage, however this aligned with our message. I also utilized CapCut as the sole platform for editing and composing our music video. It provides all the basic necessities of video editing while also being easily portable. This was a huge advantage as my schedule sometimes forces me to be away from my laptop and CapCut allowed me to work on our music video away from home.