Music Video: CCR

 Music Video: CCR

1. My final product challenges the natural convention which is that you have to go out to have the best day of your life. The popular belief is that to have a great time you have to go out with friends or family but that isn't true. That is the exact natural convention that my music video's message challenges and goes against overall. A very current and present issue is Covid-19. Covid-19 is a global pandemic that is affecting people all over the nation and the world by changing the way people must live their lives from the way they wor, go to school, shop, interact with others, and even how they leave their houses. People are unable to go out and enjoy the things they usually would during the normal times of society. Many people have taken these sudden and drastic changes in a very hard way, some worse than others. My product addresses that same issue as many face. My music video shows that to contrary belief you can have a great time at home which is the safer alternative. This is something many people need to hear because all their life they have been told that good times are only had when you go out or hang out with all your friends. However, my music video challenges that natural conventional and includes the very present issue to go along that all of society faces. My music video's overall message is that when you can't go out you can have a great time on your own with a little bit of creativity and fun. My message isn't meant for any specific social group because it addresses an issue and convention that virtually affects everyone at this time in society. Society is at an all-time low because places are closed, family members are sick, family members are being kept from one another, and overall people are struggling to stay afloat in many other different ways. My music video is meant for everyone to send out a positive lesson or at least make a person smile during these gloomy times. The message is delivered through the music video to the people by watching the actor become sad due to the inability to out to then realizing that they can have a good time at their house too. I think my message is overall a very important message delivered in a fun way since it deals with a very serious convention and issue, and all social groups and people face, so everyone should see it. I am also overall proud of the way it came together and how the message was portrayed throughout the music video. 

2. My product engages the overall audience by being visually pleasing to them and by teaching a very important message that is relatable for almost all of society during these troubling times. My main form of engaging with the audience was making a message that many people need to hear at this time and a message that is relatable so the audience would want to watch and listen to the music video that contained the message. The message that is being presented is the idea that you can have just as good of a time at your house as going out since many things are closed and since it is unsafe to go out unnecessarily at this time. I also engaged my audience by making my video appear visually appealing so that the audience actually pays attention to it because if you don't have an interesting visual aspect to your video no one will pay attention to it and the important message won't ever be delivered to everyone. The visual aspect is also what draws in the audience to watch and get my important message at the end. My music video would be distributed in many different ways and on many different platforms because I feel that it has an important message that everyone needs to hear. If you can't engage the audience you can't make any meaningful stance in what you have done, so I believe that creating good engagement with a video is very important which can range from relatability to asking popular questions, but either way, engagement needs to be there, if not its just a wasted product.  My music video will be promoted and shown on youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, it will also be shown sometimes on TV because I feel like more people will see it on TV and really get the message that everyone should see and hear. Although Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube are all great but people usually have to go out of their way to find it on those platforms. If it is advertised and shown on television it will be shown to a broad amount of people who may not usually see it on the other platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Technology has really started to become a huge part of everyone's lives, especially in dealing with social media. So I feel that the more social platforms I can get my music video on the more people my message is getting to and hopefully affecting more and more people for the better. 

3. My production skills grew greatly during this project. One of the huge things I learned throughout filming had to deal with finding the best way to plan for my video products. When I originally would plan I wouldn't think about how what I'm doing now would completely change the way the project could or would turn out in the end. I learned that when planning I can't only think about the initial part after the planning. When I plan scenes I need to think of them as if they will be the final product, I need to think about the message I am sending across, the appealing visual aspect of the shots, if they match the part of the song they will be in, and if they will smoothly go together. When I plan I need to mainly think of the product as a whole and not just the initial part after planning. Obviously certain aspects won't be seen until the final product comes together but I believe that I really need to think about the more critical aspects besides me just planning and not really thinking about what it is that I'm doing. However, I do think because of this project it has come more into focus for me and I am excited to continue to my next project with this new and improved skill. That was my main skill but I also got better at realizing the small details of my music video. One thing I did throughout my music video was to make sure my scenes line up with the audio sound and sometimes lyrics. I thought this was something very important to do so the visuals and sound really connected to each other while watching the video. I did this by spacing out how long certain shots would be, and also by speeding up and slowing down parts of certain scenes to get them to fit into the time frame and line up with lyrics. I also played attention to the costumes too. I made sure the costumes matched the upbeat and creative fun tone gotten from the song. Also since I filmed on multiple days, I made it a point to ensure that when I put the film together the outfits matched, and it seemed like one consecutive day. The main skill I need to improve on is my camera work and keeping the camera still and smooth while recording scenes. However, I do believe that this is a skill I am getting better and better on. Overall I think this was a huge project for me especially for the skills I learned and for the new ones I learned throughout the whole process. This project gave me a chance to grow the skills that I need to be better in media and without this project, I wouldn't have gotten a chance to be introduced or get better with other skills I needed.

4. I used technology throughout this whole music video and some aspects were fundamental in ensuring that the final product was good. The first time I used technologies throughout this film was to research songs and conventions society faces that related to the topics of the songs. I also used technology to record my information on these blogs and upload a picture of my planning and progress. In the actual production part, I first used my phone to record all the footage and all the takes I had for each scene I wanted to film. When filming with my phone I also used another lighting source to ensure that my scenes were lit up the way I wanted them to be. Then after filming was done I took all the shots and moved them to my tablet. My tablet was where my editing software is. Once I moved all the film into my editing software which is Imovie, I then started to cut the film and see which shots I wanted to delete or keep and see in what order I wanted to have them all in for the music video. After I got the basic things done the main thing I wanted to focus on was transitions and like I said earlier the small details. I specifically looked at what was happening at the end of one scene and the beginning of another to decide what transition I was going to be using such as a slide, fade, or just a cut. Then I used my editing app to change the way colors appeared in certain shots. I did this by saturating other parts of shots and lighten others to make sure the attention was brought to the right parts in a shot and was generally appealing to the viewer. Then I turned my final product into an mp4 file using a converter online. From there I then downloaded it to my files and desktop. Then I uploaded it to my youtube channel. I then embedded my youtube video into my blog and was ready to go with the reflection. The technology used was a huge part of making my final product of the music video, because without it I wouldn't have been able to put together all the shots and scenes and the whole music video wouldn't have come together the way it did. Overall the use of technology in the product came out very well and was really needed.