Closing Post

Dear moderator,

Thank you for looking at my blog! I hope you like my work. Please click onto the AL Research and Planning label in order to view my research and planning evidence.
Thank you :)

Cathy Ly (candidate 3122)

This blog is now closed.

Post 10: My Production Review

After I had finished my products, I received audience feedback from my teachers and peers of what they thought was done well and what they believed I could have done better for next time. I also questioned a group of 6 people that were 16-24 to get audience feedback as well. This was the overall feedback.

Website and Social Media:
WWW: Overall, there was a clear sense of branding and aesthetic with a strong colour palette. It was also quite easy to navigate.
EBI: Some sections were not very conventional such as the names in the menu bar. There were also issues with how clear certain aspects were such as the arrows on slideshows and how fast the slides transitioned (which was too fast). There was also a slight issue of not making my artist, Sketch, the clear main focal on the second page.

Music Video:
WWW: There was a good use of colour and the stop-motion was interesting to watch, this alongside the facepaint, made it very memorable. There was a coherent storyline which was easy to follow and the editing flowed well without any sudden or unexpected cuts.
EBI: There was a lack of conviction and slight awkwardness felt in the acting that made the music video feel less professional. There was also a clear quality difference between the studio shots and location shots creating an inconsistency in quality.

Overall, the feedback has given me an idea of whether or not my final product would be successful if it was actually released under Sony. I feel as though it would have been moderately successful. More importantly, the criticism allows me to see where I went wrong and where I can improve if I was to do this brief again, mainly, I need to focus on maintaining a consistent standard.

Music Video shown to my target group.

Music Video with improvements made in response to feedback.

Post 9: My Website and Social Media Pages

Many artists are proliferate users of social media in order to maintain interest and their brand image. What they post on their social media usually reflects the image that is promoted on their website. I decided to look at Madonna and her longevity in maintaining her popularity and image.

When I decided to look at her website, it was very clear that she had a strong aesthetic which matched with her style of music and the aesthetic in her music videos. For example, the gothic style of her website matches the aesthetic of her music video 'Vogue' (2009). Her website also cross-promotes her other platforms such as her social media links on the top bar of her website. The entire website itself consists of promotions of events and extra videos. Overall, her website is easy to navigate, due to her menu bar, and is full of clickablility and animation which means that there is a lot for the viewers to explore and pay their attention to.

Madonna's social links

Madonna's menu bar

Madonna has a massive following on Instagram with 14.5m followers. This means that it is essential for her to maintain her star persona otherwise she would break the illusion. This explains why her Instagram feed matches the same colour scheme of black and blacks as the website. Furthermore, she regularly uses her Instagram to update her fans on events such as her tour and general life events. This not only helps to promote herself as an artist, but also creates a sense of familiarity between her and her fans.

Post 8: My music video

To help create a realistic music video, I decided to look at a handful of music videos to see how they create and presented their performance bed and narrative. In particular, I decided to look at 'Digitalism - Pogo' and 'TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME - The 1975'.

In 'Digitalism', the entire music video was shot through stop motion, which was a unique USP that I'd not seen in other music videos. Due to it being stop motion, the entire music video is done in 'one' continuous shot however is made interesting due to the use of props (such as instruments used in the track) or the deficiency of normal physics.

Despite there not being a clear distinction between narrative and performance, there is still an abstract understanding that the artists feel suffocated in the music industry and are forced to keep up an appearance sue to the use of a single plain room and excessive props such as models and chandeliers. This helps to reflect the artists own values, attitudes and beliefs of having artistic freedom.

In 'TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME', there is a general theme of unity due to the sheer amount of diversity in the video. The video consists on different fans lip syncing to the song in front of bright backgrounds, interlaced with the performance bed of the main singer, Matty Healey. The diversity in the fan matched the diversity of the 1975's fanbase and helped to make sure that all those watching would feel represented and not isolated or secluded, feeding into gratification theory.

Despite the simple concept, it is still interesting to watch due the variation of shots and the bright backgrounds. The backgrounds match perfectly with the fans having fun and the upbeat tempo and vibe of the song.

In both music videos, there is a clear variation in shot types and both music videos were cut at a fast pace, in time to the song itself. All actors in both music videos where also made sure to look 'neat' and clean' and the entire music video had a unique colour grade on them (eg. Digitalism had a darker vintage grade whilst TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME had a brighter, saturated grade). Furthermore, both songs had unique USPs that made sure that they stood out against other music videos. These were things that I had to keep in mind whilst coming up with a narrative for 'Confident'.


I decided to take the use of stop motion and the bright coloured backgrounds and use them in my music video in order to make my video stand out.

Post 7: My pop artist

For my artist's look, I referenced the current style of several different pop artists. I knew that I wanted to create a unique image that would stand out and so I decided to incorporate several different styles together.

I liked the idea of eccentric make up with bold colors in an avante-guard fashion and one of the only artists in the music industry that I knew who did this was Bjork. I was especially inspired by her bold make up looked which took up the whole of the upper half of her face, acting almost as a mask (such as the one on the left).






Continuing with the avante-guard style, I wanted to match the hair with the makeup. Something clean looking that you wouldn't usually see someone sporting. An example of this was slicked back hair like the one worn on the right by Zendaya (on a red carpet event). I wanted to replicate hair that you could find on the fashion runway.

Finally for the outfit, I wanted to use fashion that is currently popular. One of these styles is street wear, in particular Harujuku which was popularized in the West by the Hallyu Wave and pop artists such as Gwen Stefani.

I wanted to pay homage to my oriental ethnicity and use traditional clothing whilst keeping it modern and 'pop', similar to Stefani's backin dancers on the left who have combine traditional Japanese hairstyles with more modern sailor outfits.

Post 6: My chosen track

When choosing my track, I wanted to ensure that it was a popular song that did well on the charts. This was because I wanted to ensure that it's sound had mass appeal. I eventually finalized my choices down to 2 songs:

Whenever, Wherever - Shakira
Laundry Service (2001)
Epic Records

Confident - Demi Lovato
Confident (2015)
Hollywood, Island, Republic and Safehouse Records




Both songs fall under the genre of pop (in accord with the brief) and both had great success. 'Whenever, Wherever' won three awards (including the NRJ Music Award for International Song of the Year in 2003) whilst 'Confident' was nominated for 3 awards and has featured in many film trailers (notably Happy Death Day and Into the Spiderverse). Therefore it was clear that both songs has mass appeal.

Ultimately, I decided to choose 'Confident' as it had influences of pop-rock and heavy use of brass instruments which I felt would match well with the popularity of pop-rock and soul in Britain (mentioned prior). Furthermore, 'Whenever, Wherever' had heavy influence of Latin music which was also overpowering and took away from the overall sound of pop which I felt decreased my attraction to the song.

After choosing to do 'Confident', I decided to have a look at the lyrics to analyse and interperete the meaning of them and themes that I could find. I did this so that I could better understand my track, and later, create a narrative that would match the track well.

I ended up finding themes of being underestimated by others, self-belief and confidence, and being in control of your own life.

These were very strong themes which matched with the bold narrative and settings in the music video which features fighting, prison life and teamwork.


The following stills show strong themes throughout the overall music video.

Still from MV of prison setting

Still from MV of fighting

Still from MV of teamwork

Post 5: My target audience

The brief states that my target audience is 'fun-loving 16-24-year-olds' and that I should appeal to a mass audience. I needed to look at the audience I was meant to be targeting in order to find out their interests and lifestyle so I could adapt my music video ideas to their style and preference.

 I found out that my target audience of 16-24-year-olds made up for the bulk of people who streamed music and that within this age group, there were 5 established groups, known as the UK tribes. The group that consumed the most

pop was the 'mainstreams' and therefore who I would try and market towards the most, however, I could still attract the other groups if my chosen pop song had genre hybridity (eg. indie-pop would help attract the 'alternatives').

I also found that 16-24-year-olds were prolific consumers and users of social media, consistently being between the top two age groups using social media and dominating platforms such as Twitter. This meant that the use of social media would have the most impact and influence on this age group, making it an essential marketing platform for artists to promote themselves and maintain their star identity and brand. I knew that this meant that my artist would have to have a large online presence. Having an online presence can help my artist to create a more intimate and personable relationship between themself and their fans as the fans get to see the star's personal life daily and are able to comment and interact directly with the posts.



I found out that 57% of 16-24-year-olds listen to pop and the majority of them belong to the in the 'mainstream' category which are fans of popular culture. Furthermore, many of them listen to music through streaming channels such as Youtube but in particular Spotify however, only a niche are willing to pay for music, primarily due to a tight budget as many are on a student loan or have just started working.

Overall, by looking at my target audience, I am able to understand my audience's interests and behaviour which means that I can make my music video more appealing to them in advance. For example, I know that the youth enjoy music videos with bright colour over videos with more mundane muted colours and therefore I will try will to colour grade my video in a way where the colours are bright and saturated.