CCR Blog

 

Creative Critical Reflection 

           

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions AND how does it represent social groups or issues? 

. The way my product uses/challenges conventions is by not having the same resources/accessibility as the original music video. For instance, the location that my group and I used for our music video was the mall while the original video was made in a professional studio with paid actors and directors. Our financial situation as a group challenges conventions as we do not have the same quantity of money to spend on our music video due to that we are middle class high school students who do not have overflowing piles of money. On the contrary, the original material girl music video is a studio-produced music video with paid staff, set, and cast members. In addition, my product also challenges conventions by having less set of props. We only had black gloves, fake money, design store shopping bags, white boa, a red carpet (we also had a very small number of male actors). My team and I were not able of using two of our props which was the white boa (due to that it did not go well with our setting), and the red carpet was because we would have obstructed the traffic of individuals (these challenges conventions as the original music video was capable of renting out a set/location to film while we had to find a public space in order to film). Moreover, my product represents two social groups with different social and financial statuses. First, we have the followers of our material girl that are wealthy young male individuals trying to buy the material girl’s love then we have our impecunious young male who’s love for the material girl is pure/true. My product challenges the issue/idea that an individual’s financial status is that defines your value, this is shown throughout the music video as the material girl pays attention to the rich individuals who offers money and expensive items that she desires but at the end of the video we see that she decides to accept the love of the poor boy, thus demonstrating that she had all the rich males at her feet who might want her only for her beauty and as an accessory (money can’t get you everything) but picks the one that she knows that his intentions are true. Therefore, challenging the idea that your financial status defines your worth as the music video proved the contrary. 

 

 

 
2. How does your product engage with audiences AND how would it be distributed as a  
real media text?  


. The way my product engages with audiences is that it is aimed towards adolescents due to that they could be able to relate to the characters in the story as they are also teenagers (they are in the same age group). The storyline within the music video teaches adolescents that your financial status does not define your value (the suitors of material girl were trying to buy her heart with by proving her with expensive items and fancied her for her looks but at the end she chooses the poor boy who only had his heart to offer but who’s love was pure) and that your wealth cannot buy you everything (even though the suitors of material girl were rich in wealth and were able to purchase anything she desired, it was not enough to buy the material girl’s heart). In addition, the way my product would be distributed as a real media text is by first being posted on the app YouTube. The video would become popular at a rapid manner due to that it would grab the attention of adolescents and they would start sharing it to their friends and reposting it in other social media platforms, as well as edits of the music video being created. The likes, comments, and shares would rise to the roof due to the power that teenagers hold in the world of social media (fans are the pillars of the star’s success). Then, after the video is getting so popular it contributes to it making it to award choose. 



 


 

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

  

           . My production skills have improved since my commercial (which was a L'Oréal Paris lipstick commercial) project at the start of the year to the present with the music video project (Material Girl music video). Regarding me, I feel that my editing skills are decent to a certain degree but for our commercial and music video I feel that I have not given myself enough room to improve as much as I want and want to attempt to fix this by exploring new editing techniques that I have not being familiarized with for the projects that await me in the future. I do believe that there have been significant/noticeable improvements shown when it comes to my production skills regarding how they were in the commercial project to how they were in my most recent project which is the music video. Moreover, my filming skills have certainly improved throughout the course of this project. For the music video, my team members and I had decided to use an actual camera that we borrowed from our teacher along with the tripod as we did for our commercial project, but we sadly faced an inconvenience when we went to film at the mall and realized that the camera was not charged. As this had happened, my group and I settled on using one of our phones (ended up using Kyra’s and Hailey’s iPhone), my point is that as having experienced filming with a real camera and a phone camera has helped improved my filming skills due to that it has allowed me to expose to see what each camera has to offer and taught me how to handle the situation as a team as well as individually, when something like what happen with our cameras occurs and how we had to work together to find a solution to our problem (this project has also led me to have more confidence when it comes to holding a camera, communicating with my teammates and actors when it comes to storyboarding/exchanging our ideas, and knowing and being able to communicate to my team and discuss the different angles that we wish to apply to our projects). This brings me to another major issue that my group and I encountered throughout the course of this project which helped us grow. The problem was that we had to change the many of the scenes that we had originally storyboarded due to that we were not able to do them anymore because of our location, therefore we as a group had to put our creativity together in order to be able to come up with new scenes on the spot (my group and I were able to achieved this in a successful manner) and challenged our knowledge of the terms that revolved around filming such as the angles (tilt, low and high angle, pan, etc...). Overall, all the events/challenges that I faced along with my team throughout the course of the music video project have helped improve multiple aspects of my production skills and showed me that hard work pays off. Thus, I am extremely thankful to be on this educational voyage and can’t wait to start the next project that awaits me. 

 

 

 
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this  
project? 


. Technology played a great part in the making of my music video, if we were left without accessibility to technology my music video would not have been possible. The way my team members and I integrated technologies in this case software into the music video was by using an app named CapCut on one of my member’s computers, which allowed me and my group to put the video together (aided my group with controlling the speed of each clip in order for it to flow in a smooth manner, with the transitions, background music, etc...) and make it what it is today. Regarding hardware, my team and I had borrowed a professional camera from our teacher along with the tripod that comes with it in order to film our video. However, due to that one of my team members was not able to charge the camera we ended up switching to Kyra’s iPhone and while were filming the scene where the material girl is looking around the store in the search for an expensive item that she likes, Kyra's iPhone ran out of battery as well thus leading us to end up the filming day at the mall in a successful manner by switching to Hailey’s iPhone and wrapping up the filming day. Moreover, the online platform of YouTube allowed us to be able to embed the music video in a triumphant manner. To conclude, technology was the heart of my music video and without it , this project would not have been possible like a puzzle without its final piece.  

 

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