CCR Reflection Essay

Throughout our music campaign we acknowledged two main social groups, gender, and status/hierarchy. We subverted the stereotypes of female gender and did not conform to the theory of the male gaze as we used a female lead guitarist who was not sexualised in any way in a male dominated pop rock band. Laura Mulvey, presented the idea of women in the media being viewed from the eyes of the heterosexual male. We created a countertype as we portrayed a positive stereotype and have emphasised the positive features about this individual by showing her talent, attitudes, and confidence which she emphasises throughout our music video by the use of facial expressions and gestures. Furthermore this is a positive aspect of our music campaign as we are kick-backing at the standard norms of society, as it is a very unlikely scenario that a pop rock band consists of three boys and one girl. Throughout the music video we have portrayed our female lead guitarist the same way we have portrayed the male members. She is dressed in trousers, t-shirt, and a jumper in the basement set and, in the performance set she is dressed in the same as the other band members, neither of these costumes sexualise or objectify her making it clear we are subverting stereotypes of gender norms.

She portrays that she feels more comfortable dressing in a more masculine style, this can be seen as controversial to some individuals. Throughout our social media campaign and music video we have provided her with the same amount of screen time as the rest of the band members, creating a visible sense of equality across all our band members. There are elements in our music video which consist of close ups and mid shots focusing on her. We chose to subvert to gender stereotypes as this will inevitably attract a wider audience and target a more modern audience.

Throughout our social media campaign we uploaded a large amount of content of the whole band, but we also focused on the individual band members to portray their individualistic characteristics. On our digipak we presented all our band members with the same status as they all had the same image placed on the back cover focusing on themselves. Creating the idea that all our band members have the same status. Contrasting our music video. Displayed in our music video there is a clear division of status/hierarchy, our lead singer has a higher status than the rest of the band. This is emphasised by the large amount of screen time which is dominated by him. His positioning throughout our music video is either centre of the frame or placed in a further ahead position making him the main focal point. This illustrates his status and him being our main star image and selling point. 

Our purpose throughout the creation of our music campaign was to attract and appeal to our target audience and create a star image. Our target audience was girls aged 16-17. The Dyer Star theory is a theory constructed by Richard Dyer. Presenting the idea that celebrities are constructed by institutions in order to come across as 'real people' as a way of selling themselves to their audiences and sell their products. We did this by adhering to the values and attitudes portrayed by our target audience such as using bright colours which appeal to the viewers, dressing our band members in trendy/fashionable clothes as we have portrayed throughout our social media campaign and music video, and making our band male dominated. 

On the front cover of our digipak we do not show the band members, instead we display artwork which correlates to the title of our song 'Where Is My Head?', as our artwork is a drawing of a head with the brain placed outside. The details on this artwork show our band members placed around the head, further emphasising the idea 'Where Is My Head?'. This emphasises the idea that the band are more focused on the music aspect of this campaign and see this as the main attraction, instead of the band members themselves. This is also shown throughout the music video as the video is more of a performance-based video focusing on the band making their music and giving it to their audience. 

Elements illustrated in our music video make our lead singer the main selling point and focal point, creating a star image. We have displayed this by placing our lead singer in the centre of the frame and having all the actions take place around him in both the basement set and the performance set. The ideology which flows through our digipak and music video focuses on the art and creation of the music, highlighting this as our key aspect of this music campaign. This targets a specific audience as we are not focusing on the band members appearances.

Our social media campaign further plays a part in creating a sense of branding. The use of social media allows audiences to feel a sense of gratification as they feel as if they are in constant contact with the artists. By uploading multiple behind the scenes images and videos throughout our social media campaign we are helping sell the band and attracting our target audience. An example of this was when we were uploading our countdown to the music video release, we filmed each band member announcing the countdown and saying a few words to their audience, allowing them to feel as if the artists are speaking directly to them. This is a very successful way to generate a wider audience, a star image, and a brand. 

Throughout our social media campaign we engaged and interacted with our target audience. This can further be examined by the uses and gratifications theory. Blumler states personal relationships is a way people engage with media texts. Social media can be seen as a main source of immediacy, intimacy and interaction between audiences and artists. Our social media campaigns for twitter and instagram include content which interacts and engages with our audience. Once our 'album' was released we uploaded a Q&A on our story showing the track list and artwork and we asked our audience what their favourite track was, showing how their audiences' opinions are valid to them. We also created the idea that our audience were in constant contact with our band and could speak to them directly.

Music videos also have the ability to provide a sense of personal connections

between the performers and the audiences. We created this effect through our main music video set, the basement set. This set provides our audience with an insight into their personal lives, while portraying their basement where they rehearse, produce music, and hang out. Giving an insight into their personal lives which now our audience feel part of. Intriguing our audience and providing a sense of solidarity, individuals are able to make personal connections between themselves and the artists as they can capture their similarities and differences through their set.  

Digipaks can further emphasise personal relationships by portraying the band members on the cover, we completed this by placing our band members on the back cover in polaroid images directly looking towards the viewer creating a sense of intimacy and making our audience feel personally connected to the artists. By using polaroid images we are breaking a barrier with our audience, almost creating the feel as if our audience have these images in real form. Their facial expressions being very informal, the drawings surrounding the digipak, and the style of writing which creates a handwritten effect emphasise their characteristics and the type of band which they are further attracting and appealing to our target audience. 

Other ways we interacted and engaged with our audience was by our modes of address. Throughout our music campaign we used direct address in an informal manner, as our target audience are young this comes across as more appealing to read and interact with. Most of our social media posts are directed towards our audience as shown in the previous tweets and instagram posts, as we captioned a post 'YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY' followed by emojis, this creates a personal connection and makes the viewer see this caption as directed to them individually and personally

As a new band it was important that we followed and adhered to conventions in order to establish our audience. When starting this project we completed research for pop rock genre and looked at symbolic conventions and key genre conventions which are present for this genre. We examined a range of products. We looked at the bands Blink-182, Green Day, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Fall Out Boy and from this research we established key conventions. These being clothing, locations / set ups, colour schemes / lighting, and editing, sound, and camera. Throughout all of these bands we established clear similarities and differences and we also looked at what made these music campaigns successful, and we took this into consideration. 

As this was a new band, we had to follow these conventions and portray our band in a certain way in order to receive recognition and attention. As we subverted conventions by using a lead female guitarist, we are providing something different in an over saturated market and making ourselves stand out. We portrayed her in a more masculine manner as we feel this was appropriate and a more modern and socially accepted image in this generation. As we are subverting to this key convention we therefore had to stick to other key conventions as if we were to subvert and challenge too many conventions this would create back-lash as it would not be what the audience wanted. 

Throughout our music video we adhered to multiple conventions for the pop rock genre. When researching the band Green Day, we looked into the music video 'Longview', the main set up in this music video was a basement, linking to our initial idea which portrayed we were following the correct conventions. The music video for Blink-182, M+Ms main idea was to portray an insight into the bands life and behind the scenes, we followed this convention in our music video by incorporating VCR elements and 'non-lip' sync elements. Throughout all the bands we researched we saw similarities in terms of lighting and colour schemes throughout their music campaign. The lighting and colour schemes portrayed were very dark and moody which were able to set the tone and atmosphere. We followed this convention and created the same effect throughout our music campaign. 

Throughout our social media campaign we followed a dark but vibrant colour scheme allowing us to adhere to key conventions, our main colour scheme was dark blues and blacks with elements of colour which attracts our audience and makes our posts exciting. We further adhered to conventions through our social media campaigns by the informal language we used, use of emojis, and hashtags. We made it clear that the band targets a younger audience and the artists themselves are a younger generation.

We made our digipak and album artwork inviting for the viewer. By not showing the band members on the front cover portray the idea of an exciting, enthusiastic, and talent-based band. We followed the dark but vibrant colour scheme which shows a visible correlation to our social media campaign. Enabling us to attract our target audience and adhere to genre conventions by the colours and actions which take place on the album cover. From previous research I was provided with evidence of how important it is to follow a colour scheme which adheres to key conventions, this is a key concept when establishing the genre in which aiming to show. Overall our music campaign makes it clear to our audience that this is a pop rock band, by following to key conventions of this genre. This allows us to generate a wider target audience and receive more acknowledgement and attention to our music campaign. 

My final music campaign

Music video:

Digipak: 

Social Media: 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BuzKilofficial

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buzzkill.official/

Post production/Making of social media: 11

These are our final and completed social media campaigns for our whole music campaign. Once our music video was released Millie and I then further uploaded posts to advertise and market our music video to our audience and followers. 

Overall the process of running these social media campaigns was a very enjoyable task even though there were challenges and difficulties throughout the post production, we were able to create a very successful campaign which was successful in the way it portrayed our band and sold our band as a group. We were also able to create these campaigns in a very realistic and believable way which made our audience and followers think that this was a real band who actually produced this album/song. This was the main aim for this campaign so we are all extremely pleased with the results. 

Post Production/Making of social media: 10

This is a more recent screenshot of our social media campaign for twitter and instagram. Portraying our album release, tour and tickets release, more behind the scene elements, and merchandise release. We are keeping our audience engaged and interacting with our audience in order to keep them interested in the band and to further create a wider audience. 

Our more recent twitter posts:

Our more recent instagram posts: 

Post production/Making of social media: 9

Wendy created digital merchandise for our band which is signed with the bands logo. She created bags, jumpers, t-shirts, and CD disks and the cover. Millie and I then uploaded these to both our social media campaigns on twitter and instagram. We came up with captions which we could add under these posts to make them seem more professional and to help market the merchandise. We are going to evenly distribute these images on our social media pages. 

We decided to announce a tour release and then tickets release. Wendy created these images in order for us to promote the tour locations and dates. We wanted to upload these images after the release of our album so that our audience are more eager to go see them live and attend the locations. We also wanted to stager the timings when we upload the ticket release after the tour release, which will help build excitement and attention. By doing this it also provides our audience with an insight as to what they will expect. 

These are screenshots of the posts which I have drafted on our instagram social media campaign which are advertising our merchandise, tour release and ticket release. We have drafted these instead of posting them for the time being as we are following our timeline and we have an order in which we are uploading content.

Post production/Making of social media: 8

From our feedback which we received from our group we then incorporated our new ideas into our posts. We uploaded posts which further portray more behind the scene footage, footage of band members not rehearsing or filming, and enjoyable content for our audience.  We decided to delete the previous countdown posts from '48 hours' and then 'tomorrow', and upload more content of the band members before the countdown began. We wanted to create more countdowns for the release of the music video on our twitter and instagram page in order to further increase the build up and excitement for our audience. 

I made another timeline for our instagram page which allows us to know exactly what order we are uploading in and what content we are uploading, in order for our social media campaign to flow and make sense to our viewers and audience. 

For our twitter page we decided to follow a similar order and similar timeline so it coincides with our instagram page. As twitter is very different to instagram in relation to their posts and how you see posts it meant that some content which we are posting on instagram will not be posted on twitter. This is why we have informed our twitter followers to make sure they are following our instagram page. 

Group campaign feedback: 2

As a group we all met and gave each other feedback for our progressing music campaign. Amanda showed us the music video so far which she has edited, Wendy showed us our final digipak and album artwork/cover, and Millie and I showed our group our progressing social media campaigns for twitter and instagram. We discussed what needs to be added, what needs changing, what works, and do the campaign elements work together. 

The feedback which Millie and I received for the Twitter social media page was that it works really well and the way we have retweeted other bands posts shows out support to other bands, and shows us as a band interacting with the music world and to our audience. They further mentioned how the captions and the colours work really well together within our main music campaign and follow our genre and colour scheme. They stated that we just need to keep posting more and keep our audience engaged and interested.

The feedback which we received for our Instagram social media page was that our page definitely portrays our ideologies within our band and tells our audience more about them as a group. They further said that we need to keep posting more and posting key images which allow us to interact with our audience, either Q&A's, live videos, or videos directed at our audience. They also mentioned that we need to include a few more posts which build up the music video and countdown, which will allow our audience to get excited and engage them with the process of the release. 

Wendy, Millie and I all gave Amanda feedback on the so far almost completed music video. We mentioned how since last time we watched it as a group a lot has changed for the best and it is coming together even stronger. There was one element in the video which we discussed which we thought could be adapted, this was an element in the non lip sync section when George A was sleeping and this shot went from a wide shot, close up, to another wide shot, and then action and we thought the action went on for too long and seemed almost staged. We stated that it would work better if it went close up, wide shot, then action. 

Overall all of our products are working really well together as a whole music campaign and they all have a clear and visible link to one another and it is easy to identify the main conceptual source of this campaign and idea behind it, and this is the key factor and main aim.