Greetings and Salutations!
Welcome to Media TL;DR the series where I break down my greatest projects so you can easily dive in and understand my original ideas. I'm your host Jaydon Smith! And Today's topic is the Critical Creative Reflection, which means I'm reflecting and answering a few questions on my project: My Music Video.
How does my product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues?
My music video was definitely an untraditional one as it was filmed in one small location; more similar to an indie music video than an Alternative Folk music video. But the opposite could be argued as well, as there was a lot of emotion in my music video, as an Alternative Folk one would be. There were many scenes of me adventuring in my white dungeon and gathering people to help me adventure, fighting for the same goal. Ergo, this could apply to the social groups of your traditional "nerds" and "gamers" as they could relate to the fun fantastical setting, and I'm sure they would enjoy the references sprinkled out throughout the video.
How does my product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a real media text?
My music video engages with the audience by being flashy and peppy. Additionally, my song isn't very well known to the general audience, but to a select few that would enjoy it. So the small group of people that would watch my video would enjoy a video based on a song that they wouldn't get too much attention. Additionally, indie-type videos are getting more popular on a variety of platforms, such as YouTube and TikTok. Therefore, if I were to post this professionally, It would have to be on a platform that specializes in short skits, like YouTube or Instagram. TikTok may be a reasonable choice as well, although, I have a strong opposition towards that addictive app, so I would not do anything to support it. However, that is a personal preference and irrelevant to the topic at hand.
How did my production skills develop throughout this project?
I learned real quick how to work under short time and high pressure. I learned some new skills creating this music video, such as the speed function. I thought speeding up a video was as simple as increasing the rate of the frames in the video, but that action is increasing the speed linearly. I quickly found out that wasn't going to cut it, so I experimented with the unfamiliar "Curve Speeding". This process is when you speed up and slow down specific parts of a scene. For example, if you have someone running up to a basketball hoop and then landing a slam dunk. With Linear speeding, you could just make the whole process proceed a lot faster. But with curve speeding, you can make the running part really fast, but then make the slamming of the basketball slow motion. Curve Speeding is a lot more versatile than just doing it linearly.
I also learned that I can use more than one recording program. I used my camera app for the most part, but I used Instagram for easy zooming, and I used Snapchat for its plentitude of filters. This and my general increased familiarity with CapCut made my overall production skills greater.
How did I integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – into this project?
I used quite a bit of applications and companies to assist me in this project. My main recording device was my phone's camera app, which I edited the settings to enhance the quality of this video. I did not want to use a bulky camera, because the ones provided would have a lower recording quality than my more updated phone. Sure, the camera may make me look more professional, but practically, my phone is significantly better.
My main editing software is CapCut, where there are many features I could use, such as overlaying, filters, transitions, animations, and a whole lot more. I am also familiar with the app because of my previous experience making edits of my friend, and it's similar to the Video Maker software I used for my 8th-grade media studies class. Those are the main reasons I prefer to use CapCut for these videos. And of course, Blogger is the main universal website for tracking down these notes. But the final point is I prefer to use software I'm familiar with and have given me great results before.
That's All!
That's it for this Reflection Blog everyone! I hope you guys understand my thought processes and enjoyed my growth! Thank you for reading! And until the next saga, stay cool and attractive.
