Media Studies - COMP 3 Self Reflection

This blog post features my (Maxi) critical self reflection for my teams Component 3 project. 
Cambridge's brief for this project was to produce a music promotional package for an artist that includes a music video, social media page, and digipak. I decided to do this project in a group of 4, and together decided to create a promotional package for our fictional pop artist, "KIARA". In this essay, I will be reflecting upon and evaluating the creation of this promotional package comprehensively,

The major aspect of our project was to create a Music Video for our artist KIARA, a 17 year old female musician of Asian descent. The song we chose for her was Sabrina Carpenter's "Feather", a song which is centered around a positive reaction to breakups, subverting the common conventions of songs of the genre. The social issue of modern relationship culture played a large part in us choosing Feather as our song, specifically due to the rising obsession individuals (mainly youths) have with being in a relationship, which may possibly due to rising social pressures from social media platforms, which lead them to not being able to see the negative effects/pullbacks of their own relationships. Thus, the aim for our music video was to spread the message to our audience that; the joys of life go far beyond romantic relationships, how important letting go can be, and the substantial role a strong bond of friendship plays in girlhood. The representations in our music video center around Asian teenage girls, as that is our target audience's demographic. We decided this due to under representation of Asian solo female artists in the western music industry, as from the research we've done, we can see that Asian representation commonly revolves around bands (specifically K-pop groups). This may be because of the fetishization of Asian culture that places them in a submissive societal role, which stems from post colonial roots (Gilroy's Post Colonial Theory). We hope that by having KIARA be a solo female asian artist, she will be able to break the common misrepresentation of Asian artists as "others" not being able to gain success individually, and have her story inspire her audience to break these boundaries of the western music industry. Furthermore, since teenage girls tend to suffer the most from issues concerning heartbreak, we hope that KIARA's strong and independent nature is able to serve as motivation for her audience who may be facing similar issues. Our research shows that “Feather” goes against the conventions of most breakup songs, as it's generally quite happy and upbeat, and not sad. We followed this message, and portrayed the process of letting go in a joyful and vibrant form, using various different aspects of media language. To convey the message of fun and enjoyment we intended to have KIARA and her friends partake in exciting activities at high-end locations which have connotations of thrills, leisure, and luxury. We prepared extensively before the shooting of the music video through various ways, including scouting out possible locations [Fig. 1], conducting screen tests to find the actor who would best fit our artist, and acquiring props [Fig 2] that would be used in our music video. I played a role in this by creating a screenplay [Fig 3] for the music video which I'd done by researching other similar screenplays, like those of musicals. The screenplay helped massively in the filming of our music video, as it was the main source of reference which the team used for finding what shots we’d need, what lines were being said in each scene, and overall gave a detailed idea of what the music video would be like to the team and cast of actors. In the final music video, we used a myriad of filming techniques to convey the exciting nature of the music video, as well as showcase our artist. We filmed scenes of activities like pillow fights using slow-mo shots and close ups [Fig 4] to portray the amount of fun the cast are having, as well as scenes where the cast drive down roads together all while performing, talking, and having a great time. We filmed these with tracking shots [Fig 5] of the girls’ vehicle from the outside, as well as handheld shots from inside the car [Fig 6], which provide a more personal experience for the audience, making them feel as if they are there in the car themselves. The shakiness of handheld shots also increasing the thrills and excitement in the scene. Furthermore, aside from filming techniques, heavy planning went into the mise-en-scéne showcased in the music video, such as the costumes we had chosen for the cast [Fig 7], which aimed to match the outfits our target audience would likely also want to wear when hanging out with friends. We made sure to give these outfits a classy, elegant, yet also casual look - as to make sure it wasn't out of touch with our target demographic. These outfits serve as a tool that builds admiration towards our characters, as audiences will see their outfits and take inspiration, as they'd most likely want to dress just like them (Gauntlet's Identity Theory). Additionally, the chosen locations not only add onto the excitement of the video, but also the idea of a lifestyle that is luxurious and coveted. Locations such as villas, the beach, lush green parks, and car interiors all provide connotations of wealth, which allows our audience to build up their own aspirations from watching KIARA partake in such a lifestyle, prompting them to believe they can have that too. We also included various scenes in which KIARA lip-syncs to the lyrics of the song while looking into the camera, which is a direct mode of address [Fig 8], conveying how she's talking to the audience, leading to a connection being built between the star, and the fans, in turn leading them to like KIARA even more. This is done throughout the video using close up shots which make clear the emotions KIARA expresses as she sings these lyrics, culminating at the very end with KIARA blowing a kiss goodbye to the camera, and thus the audience as well. To further build KIARA’s brand and showcase the type of artist she is to audiences, we created a social media page, as well as digipak for her. Our vision of KIARA from the start was to be a sweet, kind, and charming girl, who rose to fame at an early age. According to Dyer’s theory of stardom, fans become interested in stars due to their real persona’s, which incorporate aspects such as their ordinariness, which is what we decided to represent the most in our social media page. Through research on the social media pages of other solo female artists in the pop genre, we decided on specific posts that we'd create, and the ways in which we could convey KIARA's personality to make her seem like a normal girl who’s no different to her fans that look up to her. We decided to publish posts such as interviews, dance challenges, and personal pictures of KIARA, which focussed on expressing her personality, as well as posts like concert tour posters and music video/release date teasers, which focussed on promoting her upcoming album and music video. Posts like her dance challenge announcement allow for her fans to take place in fandom culture, as described in Jenkins' theory of fandom, specifically textual poaching. Fans can create their own covers of the "Feather Dance", post them online, and in turn build a larger fandom/community with other fans who enjoy KIARA's music. I also played a large role in developing KIARA’s personality through her interview post, where I curated questions and answers that would appeal towards our target audience [Fig 9]. Furthermore, we represent KIARA as being kind and humble by having her engage with her audience by replying to fans that decide to comment on her posts, showing her fans that she really is just like them. In addition, the digipak we created builds upon this further to create a solidified brand and aesthetic for KIARA. We do this by including a tracklist with songs that represent KIARA’s personality, all titled as to sound dreamy and aesthetically matching KIARA's identity. The pictures we chose of KIARA in the front cover, back cover, and tracklist [Fig 10], utilize close up shots and low angles, which generally connote power and respect, therefore empowering her and painting her as a strong, independent artist. This is important as we aim to follow modern feminist narratives, such as those outlined by Van Zoonen's feminist discourses, and ensure that KIARA is not merely an "object" used to attract attention, but is also able to empower and inspire her audience to better themselves. We believe KIARA's fans will find her aura/image in this digipak very enchanting, and give them more reasons to look up to KIARA as a person and artist due to her strong empowering image as a female artist. Her music video, social media, and digipak all portray a sort of “girl next door” that not only captures attention wherever she goes, but also encourages people and inspires them to become the best version of themselves they can be; which we believe encapsulates who we imagined KIARA to be excellently.

References/Figures:

Fig 1: Pictures taken during the location scouting process

Fig 2: Props we had acquired to use in the filming of our music video

Fig 3: Screenshot from the first page of the screenplay I wrote for the music video

Fig 4: Scenes from our music video in which slow-motion capture was utilized

Fig 4 Cont'd: Scenes from our music video in which close up shots were utilized

Fig 5: Process of filming exterior car tracking shots, as well as the results in the final music video

Fig 6: Process of filming interior car shots, as well as the results seen in the final music video

Fig 7: Costumes worn by our actors in the music video

Fig 8: Shots in which KIARA is seen looking at the camera and lip syncing to the audience, including the final shot of her blowing a kiss goodbye to the audience.

Fig 9: List of questions and answers for the "10 Questions With KIARA" post which I helped create

Fig 10: Pictures chosen for the covers, and tracklist, of KIARA's digipak

Media Studies - Power and the Media Exam Practice

To what extent do you believe that the media has influence over the opinions of audiences? [15]

The ability to represent events, places, and people is a power that is heavily incorporated within the media industry. Since audiences look towards the media to gain information regarding these topics, it would be more than reasonable to assume that since the media has the ability to control what information to spread, they are the ones who influence the opinions that audiences will build regarding these topics as well. This essay will explain and concentrate on various instances wherein the media has had an effect and been the driving factor influencing the public opinion on certain people, specifically celebrities, and events such as global issues and conflicts. 

The media provides a portrayal of many different people, which includes celebrities and stars. Depending on how the media presents them, the opinion of audiences on these celebrities is bound to change with it. According to Richard Dyer's theory of Stardom, audiences will be interested in celebrities due to their "real personas", which include aspects such as their love life, their ordinariness, their success story, as well as their downfall. All these aspects are separated from their reel persona, which is where they exist in their career, while their real personas are who they are outside of their careers. A prominent example of a star who has been in the limelight of recent media attention would be the American Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Swift rose to stardom in the mid 2000's, and gained a loyal following due to her songs that focussed on her personal experiences with love, breakups, relationships, and more. Today, she is one of, if not the biggest artist of this generation, and one of the most influential women in the world. However, the media portrayal of Swift hasn't always been as bright and positive as it is now. Previous controversies, especially those with American rapper Kanye West, saw Swift fall from the public eye after media outlets, mainly tabloids like MTV and TMZ, published heavily exaggerated stories of the controversy, in which Swift was labeled a hypocrite and a liar, after commenting on West's usage comment regarding how he made her "famous" in one of his songs. The public had lashed out heavily on Swift, which saw Kanye West's fans, as well as her own fans spread hate against her, with hashtags of snake emojis and "She's a snake!" trending on social media sites such as Twitter (Now X). The controversy blew over quickly however after her album "Reputation" released in 2017, wherein she had addressed the controversy directly, and had her audience back on her side. Back in the present however, Swift's glare is once again at an all time high, with the Pop industry almost revolving entirely around her, even being given the title of Time Magazines "2023 Person of the Year." This current spotlight heavily revolves around her personal life, specifically her widely public relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce, which became public in October of 2023. Media coverage of her has been incredibly positive almost ever since, with magazines, news sites, and news channels all gushing over Swift finding the "Perfect" one for her after a string of failed, and also heavily publicized, relationships. The attention that she receives for this from audiences can be once again explained by Dyer's Stardom theory, specifically the fact of how audiences become obsessed with a star due to their love life and relationships, as they may also want to have relationships like that in their own lives. Media corporations also benefit highly from this as the more articles they can produce about the couple, the more revenue they generate from audiences clicking on their sites and reading their articles. Overall, Swifts rise, fall, and rise again provides a great insight into how the media can help change audience opinions on celebrities, and how they stand to gain from the subsequent attention as well.

Global events are also heavily portrayed and focussed on by media corporations and news organizations. When a global issue occurs, audiences and society look towards media corporations for information regarding the event. This gives corporations the power to portray the events in a way which benefits them, which is usually by creating a Moral Panic around these events. A moral panic can be described as a widespread and irrational fear about a certain event, social group, place, etc. Moral panics happen frequently in the media, of which a recent example would be the Israel-Palestine conflict that began in October of 2023. The Palestinian militant group "Hamas" had initiated the conflict by firing missiles into Israel, where shortly thereafter Israel had launched a full scale counter attack into Gaza. This was covered by news organizations across the globe, with many different viewpoints of the conflict based on the beliefs and values of the news organizations themselves. Islamic and middle eastern news corporations heavily backed the Palestinian cause, criticizing Israel for its oppressive and immoral occupation of Palestine, whereas Western media organizations, especially those in the United States, glaringly try to paint Israel as the victim of the conflict. American right wing media organizations like Fox News quickly published articles calling Hamas a "Brutal terrorist organization", and spreading the message that the entire Palestinian population were cruel and barbaric, cherrypicking specific videos, photos, and stories where Hamas soldiers had been seen murdering Israeli civilians, while not looking at the far more common instance of the same thing occurring with Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians instead. A hostility complex was then created against the entire Palestinian people, leading the majority of American audiences to now see not just Hamas, but Palestine as a whole as "folk devils". The next and most important stage of moral panic then occurred, and still occurs today, where news organizations share heavily exaggerated, and even made up stories of the suffrage of Israeli people, their hostages, and the jewish community across the globe, focussing on their suffering and how Israel needs to "wipe out" Palestine. This is majorly due to the United State's strong alliance with Israel, and the US's warmongering nature, as everyday the conflict continues, the more weapons the US gets to sell to Israel, and the more money they generate. Both right-wing and left-wing media have shared this view of villainizng Palestine, and further generating hatred and hostility towards Palestinians and Middle easterns as a whole, which in part stems from the fact that the United States have the largest Jewsih population in the world outside of Israel, and how a large portion of incredibly powerful people (politicians, businessmen, etc.) who run the United States, are Jewish. This moral panic that creates fear in the general population against Palestinian people stands to benefit these American media organizations, as the more fear there is, the more often it is that people click on news articles and watch the news, which subsequently generates more revenue for said corporations. This goes to show how media corporations benefit from and why they can and will use their power to alter public opinion to their own advantage. On the other hand though, activism on social media sites like X and Instagram has led to many individuals seeing through the fear mongering nature of these news organizations, with millions of American citizens voicing their opinions through country wide protests that aimed to stop the war in Palestine, and called for the immediate stoppage of all US support of Israel and their war crimes. 

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Theory of Stardom)

"The media Condition the way we think." To what extent do you agree with this statement?

The media provides a portrayal of many different events, people, and issues. Depending on how the media portrays these events, people, and issues, the manner in which audiences perceive these is also bound to change with it. Specifically, a scenario in which the media alters our perception is with our judgements of celebrities. A prime example of this in recent times would be the recent portrayal of American Singer-Songwriter Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift started her career off in the mid 2000's singing primarily country music, which saw her gain massive success with her debut album being certified Platinum in 2007 having sold over a million copies. Her next album “Fearless” found even greater success, and led to her first original “controversy”, which saw her in an altercation with rapper Kanye West, at the 2009 VMA Awards, where West stormed the stage and declared that singer Beyoncé deserved the award more than she did. This initially led to her being slammed by the cult-like fans of West, but didn’t lead to much backlash against her, as most of it was directed towards West. This event came back to the spotlight 7 years later however with West having released his new song “Famous” which included lines about Swift. Swift was later bashed by the media and tabloid magazines for protesting against West’s usage of her in the song, even though she had apparently cleared the usage of the line in the song. This saw her image being slandered in the eye of the media, and led to Swift having to reclude, which saw her even black out her social media accounts. This can be seen as an example of one aspect of Richard Dyer’s theory of Stardom, which would be the “Downfall” of a celebrity. The media portraying Swift’s personality as being hypocritical and sensitive saw millions of people clicking on articles to find out what’s going on with her, which overwhelmingly altered the public's perception of her. In most cases though, this would be the end of most star’s career; a massive controversy that sees the artist fall out of the public eye is a more common event than one may think. However, after coming back with her next album “Reputation”, the public came back to supporting her, especially after her hit song “Look what you made me do” which specifically called out West, hit number 1 on the billboard hot 100. In recent times, Taylor Swift is more popular than ever. Her love life has been the centre of attention of the media for as long as she’s been in the spotlight, however now has reached a new high with her newly found relationship with American NFL Star Travis Kelce. Her previous breakups and relationships were covered by the media heavily, with many describing her music and discography as a gallery of her past love’s, however with her latest flare, the media has covered her relationship more than ever, and has seen her expand her audience even further. This would be another aspect of Dyer’s Stardom theory, where he states how people are interested with celebrities due to their love lives, which rings quite true for the case of Taylor Swift. All in all, without the extensive media portrayal of all of Swift's relationship and love affairs, the way the public view her would most likely be incredibly different that how it is now, due to how important it’s become to her stardom.

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Fandom Theory)

What power do audiences have in the modern media landscape? [15]

Originally, consumers and audiences could only partake in a select phase in the lifespan of media products, which would be in exhibition. Audiences could only consume products, and not much else. However, with the advancements of technology and the creation of new media, according to Curran's and Seaton's beliefs on the consolidation of power in the media industry, audiences now have more power than ever to alter more stages of a products lifespan, now including the production as well as distribution stages, which gives audiences a far greater say in the final outcome of a media product. One example of this change taking effect would be in the ongoing production of the live action version of Snow White, by Disney. Snow white is obviously recognized for being one of the most iconic early animated films of all time, with the original being released in 1937, and is rated as one of the most revolutionary films of all time. Its iconic characters are known by hundreds of millions worldwide and the animated version alone has made Disney over $400 Million, purely from box office sales alone, without considering the overextending impact of Snow White's likeness in Disney's other works, as well as merchandise, and more. In 2023, Disney announced that they would be releasing the live action remake of Snow White, which follows Disney's current business model over the last 5-10 years of releasing/remaking its old classics. Snow White being one of the most popular of Disney's original works, it was an obvious choice to remake. Controversy however had initially emerged after the announcement of the movies cast, which most prominently saw Snow White (who originally had pale, white, skin), being portrayed by the ethnically Mexican/Hispanic actor, Rachel Zegler. This prompted backlash from audiences and consumers on various social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube. However, an even larger wave of backlash was released after it was seen that the Dwarves were portrayed by a racially diverse cast who varied in height and size, meaning they were not dwarves. This backlash may have been caused by several factors, one of which includes the new wave of “wokeness” that has dominated media texts in recent years, where racial checkboxes and gender identity and other issues have been used as puppets in the grand scheme of the media industry to “cater” towards audiences. This led to fans rushing to social media to voice their opinions on the matter, including viral TikToks and YouTube videos by the YouTuber "The Critical Drinker", in which he published a video essay on how Snow White is a mockery of the original and a failure as a movie in general. This critical backlash was brought about by millions of fans who had come together in solidarity and voiced their opinions. This is an example of how consumer fandoms partake in enunciative productivity, which according to Henry Jenkin's theory of fandom, sees consumers taking part in spreading a message, which in this case had a large effect in the production of the movie. This audience collaboration has proven to be effective, and has shown how audiences now have more power in the production of media products, as this has all led to new leaks from the movie, which has shown Disney has altered and recast the actors in the movie, in an attempt to please the outraged audience.

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Moral Panic)

Moral Panic can be described as a phenomenon where widespread fear is spread throughout a society, which is heavily substantiated and pushed by media corporations. 

Media Studies - Power and the Media (Van Zoonen and Feminism)

 How would Van Zoonen's ideas on gender be treated by today's standards?
- How are genders portrayed in modern media?
- What debates are there surrounding gender in the media?
- How have media companies adapted to this shift in social values?

Van Zoonen believed that gender is an identity that is built up through portrayals in the media. In todays ever-changing media landscape, gender ideology has become a heavily controversial topic that has gained prominence due to the change in social values that modern feminism has brought about. Specifically, many people are now inclined to believe that people are free to "choose" their gender, and deny the existence of a "biological" gender. This is often described as a characteristic of woke culture. The media has thus conformed to these ideas and shown and promoted people who identify as transgender, to improve their prominence and liking amongst this new community. An example of this happening in recent times would be how the alcoholic beverage company Bud Light aimed to be more inclusive and broaden their audience by including a transgender influencer in their marketing campaign. Specifically, Bud Light worked with the transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote their "Easy Carry Contest", where Mulvaney posted promotional videos urging people to post themselves trying to carry as many Bud Light beer cans as possible. This then escalated heavily and led to an outrage from conservative audiences. This is mainly because, people who would describe themselves as conservatives have values that go against the modern progressive view of how gender should be represented equally, and how transgenderism is completely normal. In this case, conservatives were appalled at one of their favorite beer companies conforming/giving in to this woke culture by working with transgender celebrities to appear more inclusive. This further led to a massive boycott of Bud Light beers which saw the companies overall sales drop by over 11% in the first month of the boycott, from April until May of 2023. However, this is by far the contrary belief to the general consensus of LGBTQ ideologies, as most people in society would look to support this representation of transgender issues. This is a perfect example which showcases the public's opinions on Van Zoonen's theories about gender have changed heavily. Van Zoonen was considered incredibly progressive by stating that gender is an identity and sex is biological, but now stating that one is forced into a biological sex is considered incredibly transphobic. In this modern societal landscape, people believe that they can choose their sex, and are not only defined by the terms "male" and "female".

Media Studies - COMP 3 Social Media Research & Development

This blogpost, written by me (Maxi) includes further research into the social media accounts of artists that we believe we could use and apply into our own artist's (KIARA) social media accounts, as well as the development of KIARA's social media page, including the layout we outlined, the pictures we took, posts we made, etc.  The research in this post differs from the research conducted on artist branding, that can be seen in my research blogpost. 

Research: 

Below are some screenshots from the Instagram accounts of artists from the pop genre who we believe share the same aura that we want to portray with our artist KIARA. These include artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, NIKI, and Olivia Rodrigo.

NIKI's Instagram includes personal pictures of her and photos she takes in her everyday life, which keep her fans posted on what she's doing (1st and 5th most recent posts), appreciation posts targeted towards her fans (4th most recent post), posts that promote the release of her new album (6th most recent post), and fan interaction contests (2nd most recent post).

Sabrina Carpenter's Instagram also includes personal pictures, as well as teasers for her music video, and posts that promote her upcoming album (1st and 2nd most recent posts). She also includes professional pictures that showcase her in awards shows (5th most recent picture), where she writes about how much she appreciates her fans in the captions of said posts.

Olivia Rodrigo's Instagram includes posts that promote her tour, album, and merchandise (1st, 2nd, and 5th most recent posts), as well as personal pictures of herself that showcase her personality and keep fans updated with what's going on with her life, as well as photo dumps of her with her friends.

From what we can see looking at these Artist's social media pages is that they highlight their "real personas", a term coined by Richard Dyer in his theory of stardom; which suggest that audiences become interested/obsessed with celebrities not because of their careers and things they do in their career, but instead due to their personality and things they do outside of their career. This includes aspects such as their love life, ordinariness, and more. As seen in NIKI's and Sabrina Carpenters Instagram pages, they both include a large amount of posts that showcase their "ordinariness". This includes posts where they take mirror selfies, show pictures of them with their friends, pictures of them having fun at concerts, and more, which are conjoint with all their captions seem deeply personal and feel like they were written by the artist themselves, and not a team of social media managers. This is important as it creates a personal relationship between the artist and their audience. Audiences, due to this feeling that the artist has a sense of "ordinariness", feel as if they can relate to the artist, and feel like in reality they're not so far apart. That they're just like any other normal person with their own social life, hobbies, and more. 

We believe that by following this technique we can create a personality and brand for KIARA that will push the belief to audiences that KIARA isn't some out of touch celebrity who's let success take over her, but is really just your everyday highs school student, who somehow has found herself becoming a rising star in the music industry. This will lead audiences to feeling closer to her, and may also lead them to enjoying her music more and be more willing to support her. However, it is also important to remember that it is common for artists (like the ones that we had previously researched; NIKI, Sabrina Carpenter, etc) to include promotional material for upcoming albums, songs, or music videos, which includes teasers, release posters, and more, as this is how KIARA will be able to communicate, promote, and spread the message to her audience that she will be releasing new music, which will play a large factor in gaining traction and hype for her new release.

Development: 

As a team, we decided that this "ordinariness" approach is the path we want to take with building KIARA's social media page. Thus, we started brainstorming ideas about the different line-up of posts that we would be featuring and publishing on KIARA's instagram account. In the end, we had planned out 12 different social media posts, that have been outlined below by Nayana in an Instagram page layout format.

As per the results of the research conducted, we decided to implement both posts that showcase her real persona, like personal pictures, while also having posts that build hype and promote her music video, like video challenges, release date announcements, and music video teasers.


10 Questions with KIARA:

One post that we thought of that would showcase KIARA's real persona heavily would be the "10 Q's With KIARA" post (2nd row from the bottom, in the middle of the layout), an interview style post where KIARA is asked 10 questions rapidly that aim to showcase her interests, hobbies, and personality. This was heavily inspired from VOGUE's 73 Questions series that it does with various different celebrities. An example of the style we want to do specifically would be their 73 Questions with pop artist Olivia Rodrigo, as seen below: 

With this idea in mind, we began planning out and developing a list of questions that we believe would similarly showcase KIARA's personality. My role here was to formulate a list of questions and answers for the interview that would best represent KIARA. I did this along with Nayana, who originally came up with the following questions:

    1. From 1-10, how excited are you for your newest album?

    2. What is your favorite drink to get?

    3. What is your New Year's resolution and have you stuck to it?

    4. What is your favorite trend from social media?

    5. What is the one thing you must have when you go traveling?

    6. What is your comfort food?
    7. Show us your favorite spot in the set

    8. What is the most precious gift you have received?

    9. What is your favorite activity to do in your free time?

    10. Lastly, deliver a short message for those who are watching right now

After creating this list, she had sent it to me and asked for anything to change. I then altered the list slightly, fixing the structure and content of the questions slightly. After which I provided the Answer List that our actor Jasmine will be able read from, as these answers are what I believe would encapsulate and showcase KIARA's personality in the best way as to relate and engage with audiences (As they are able to look up to her since she is seen as ordinary to her fans). I developed these answers based on stereotypes of standard high school girls that go to International Schools in Indonesia, and other Gen Z stereotypes as well. 

Edited questions list: 

    1. From 1-10, rate how excited you are for your upcoming album release!

    2. What is one drink you can’t find yourself living without?

    3. What is your New Year's resolution and have you stuck to it so far?

    4. What is your current favorite social media trend?

    5. What is one must-have item for you when you go traveling?

    6. What is your comfort food?

    7. Out of all the spots in this set, which one’s your favorite?

    8. What is the most precious gift you have ever received?

    9. What is an activity you love to do during your free time?⁠

    10. Lastly, give us a short message for all the fans who are watching right now!

Answer List: 

    1. gotta be a 10! i’ve put in so much work into this and i hope y’all are all as excited as i am!!

    2. ⁠matchaaa!! (she can hold the drink while filming)

    3. ⁠well, i’ve been trying to get to school on time more often and uhm, thats going about as good as u’d           think it is

    4. ⁠uhmm, (whispers) dont tell anyone but… the dont go insane trend by dpr ian…

    5. ⁠can’t leave this island without my film camera!!

    6. ⁠hmm… tough question! i think nothing could beat bakmie after a long day of school though!

    7. ⁠i think filming at the beach was definitely the most fun i had on set!

    8. ⁠actually, i’m wearing it right noww, this necklace was given to me by my dad, back when he was                still with us, and i’ve never taken it off ever since

    9. ⁠hmm, good question, i think either dancing, or watching musicals have to be one of my favorite                   things ever though!

    10. ⁠thank you guys sosososo much for watchingg, and dont forget to save March 3rd onto your                          calenders! see you guys soon! love youu! (blows kiss)

In the final interview, KIARA's actor Jasmine decided that she wanted to change up some of the answers instead into those which felt more natural for her to say, as she didn't think memorizing all the answers would lead to the interview looking natural. We though this was a good idea as it would hence represent KIARA better. Here is a link to the final interview along with subtitles, that was edited by Nayana, with Sharon's voice asking her the questions in the background.

Feather Dance Challenge: 

As a form of promoting her song and building hype around her music video, while also engaging with and interacting with her fans, we decided that a TikTok Dance Challenge would be an effective form of promotion. This is because TikTok as a social media app has proven to be a very useful tool for artists to promote their songs, and by incorporating it into a dance challenge, which is a very popular trend on the platform, we thus create a large possibility for the song to gain massive popularity on the app, and hence more traction and success for our artist, KIARA. We looked at TikTok to find a dance for the song that our actor Jasmine could do, and found this TikTok dance that uses our song, Feather, and decided to use the dance for our dance challenge. 

Behind the scenes of the filming of our TikTok dance challenge, with KIARA in the middle along with 2 of her friends who also appear in the music video. Filmed by Timo at Lapangan Renon Park.

Here is the link to the final posted dance challenge: Dance Challenge

Teaser: 

To further build hype for the release of the song and music video, artists often create teasers for their music videos that work similarly to movie trailers, as they show the expected date of release of the music video, which allows fans to mark the date on their calendars and engage with other fans to talk about the music video, which generates publicity via word of mouth. The release date we chose to promote for the music video was 03/03/2024, (March 3rd), since it was a repeated date, which tends to look more aesthetically pleasing, and looks nicer to audiences. This teaser was made by Timo using the shots we took during the filming of our music video, where most had not been used on the video itself. The link to the trailer can be seen here: Teaser

Personal Pictures: 

As mentioned in our research, personal pictures of artists play a large part in painting the aura of their ordinariness to audiences, as having them post pictures like selfies, portraits, candids, etc, that audiences themselves post regularly as well, will make KIARA's fans feel like they are just like her. In this sense, it makes KIARA feel just like every other high school student who goes out and posts cute pictures of herself and her friends on social media, and not a rising celebrity pop singer. Importantly, we make a clear difference between professionally taken pictures (such as promotions/adverts for magazines), and personal pictures taken by KIARA herself through the quality of said pictures, as so audiences clearly know this was taken on a personal phone, not a professional camera. Some of these pictures were taken on the 27th of January, and the 8th and 13th of February, when we had shot our scenes for our music video. The other pictures we got were attained by asking KIARA's actor Jasmine to send us selfies and pictures of herself that would fit KIARA's style and social media page. The pictures we uploaded can be seen below, along with some behind the scenes pictures of the taking of the photographs:  

Personal picture of KIARA, taken at Pandawa beach by Timo, on January 27th

Another picture also taken at Pandawa Beach

Picture given to us by KIARA's actor, Jasmine

Selife taken and given to us by Jasmine (blurry, low quality, made to seem personal)

Another selfie taken by Jasmine

Group picture of KIARA and her friends, taken by Timo at Pandawa Beach, as they pretend to take a selfie

Picture of KIARA taken by Timo at Lapangan Renon, on the 13th of February

Audience Engagement (Comments): 

To create a better connection between KIARA and her fans, and to make them feel as if KIARA was a humble and kind person, instead of seeing her as a egotistical artist who didn't care about her fans, we ensured that fans who commented on KIARA's posts were replied to by KIARA, which further allows us to showcase her personality. Below is a screenshot of a few replies that I sent while logged into KIARA's account, to fans who commented on her post. I wrote these comments in a manner that fit the way KIARA communicates through the captions of her post, and in a way that makes her seem relatable to her fans. This was done by copying common texting styles of our Gen Z audience, like texting in all lowercase letters, as well as the use of emojis and exclamation marks to make her seem more friendly.

Reflection: 

Through conducting research on different artists of a similar genre to KIARA, we were able to gain insight onto the kind of posts that we should include in our social media page, and allowed us to create a page that was reflective of KIARA's personality, and was appealing for audiences to look at. We believe we did a good job in creating a brand and personality for KIARA using posts that we created which showcase her personality heavily, like the 10 Q's With KIARA post, dance challenge post, and her personal pictures, along with the captions each post has. Each member of the team played their part, where I specifically gave ideas in the captioning of posts, as well as created answers for KIARA in her 10 Questions post that portray the personality of the sweet, humble beginnings, and charming, and talented girl we intended her to be. Nayana did a great job in creating a layout and professional posts that promoted KIARA, Sharon picked out KIARA's pictures that suited her feed best, while Timo took great photographs of KIARA for us to post.

All in all, there were minimal problems we encountered, however one thing we may have wanted to change would be in the 10 Q's with KIARA post, where we should've been more organized and shot the video while we were at the villa, instead of doing it in the parking lot of Peninsula Island, since it would've matched the feed better, and appear more elegant. However, filming it in the parking lot may make her seem as more of an ordinary person, since she's out and about in a natural environment, and not in some luxurious high-end villa. All things considered though, I'm very happy with my team and I's performance in the creation of this social media page, especially for it being the first time we've ever had to curate a social media page for an artist.

Media Studies - COMP 3 Digipak Research & Development

This blog post, written by me (Maxi) details the research and development of the creation of our artist's digipak, including research of digipaks of other artists, and what we as a team want to use and apply in our artists digipak. 



Research: 

Digipak Cover

For our digipak, since we had a female pop artist, it would be best to research other female pop singers and see what of elements they would include in parts of their digipaks. Below are the album covers (Which would translate to digipak covers as well) of various female Pop artists such as Taylor Swift, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, and more, which we believe could fit our artist KIARA as well.

From this we can see how a common convention of female pop artist's digipaks would be to have a portrait picture of the artist, which is effective in portraying the idea of how the artist isn't an out of reach or out of touch celebrity, but is relatable to audiences as they can visually see the artist, what they look like, and the aura they have. Since we aim for our artist KIARA's personality to be one of a "Girl next door" trope, we believe this type of digipak cover would be best to depict her personality. We can then cater the type of picture we want to take of her and focus on either how we want to make her look towards the camera or look away, to smile or to frown, etc, depending on what kind of picture of her would suit the digipak best. Below are some pictures that Nayana found off the social media app Pinterest, that would be similar to the kinds of pictures we want to take of KIARA for our digipak cover:

CD Covers

Attached above are a few images of CD covers from the digipaks of Pop and K-pop artists (Including Taylor Swift, TXT, and BTS) that we feel have elements we could apply for KIARA's digipak as well. These were chosen, collected, and compiled by Nayana.

Specifically, what we can see is that all these CD covers are quite simple, and follow a basic color palette that doesn't try to stand out use too many intense tones. We would like to apply this KIARA's CD cover as well, since we want to go for a simple color palette that focusses on pastel blue. Additionally, since the name of the album will be "Feather", we want to include imagery of Feathers on the cover as well, possibly in the air with the sky as a backdrop, similar to Taylor Swift's 1989 CD Cover, but instead of seagulls we could have feathers. We also don't intend on using a picture of KIARA as the CD cover, as since CD's have holes in the middle of them, using a portrait of her face or body would lead to the image being cut out by the CD hole, and would not look aesthetically pleasing. Thus, this format of simple backgrounds mixed with symbolic images would fit our CD cover much better.


Back Covers

Above are the back covers of albums from artists such as The Beatles, and Elvis Presley. Although KIARA does not fall under the same genre as these artists or have the same target audience (since these covers are now over 50 years old), what we liked from these types of back covers were the excerpts that were included which talked about the artist. In modern times, these types of back covers are rarely found. However, they still appear when looking at the profile of artists on music streaming platforms such as Spotify, in their "About" section (example seen below). We intend to have this as a part of KIARA's back cover as we believe KIARA is not one who would shy away from defying the norms of the music industry, as it supports her idea as an independent Asian artist, who is able to encourage her fans to try new things. It may also give a sort of retro effect, reminding people of covers from a time long gone, and show that KIARA is not just a modern teen, but also a person who can appreciate and pay homage to classic albums by legendary artists.

Example: Pop singer Olivia Rodrigo's about section on Spotify, containing similar information to what we want to add in KIARA's back cover.

Development:

Cover

For our digipak cover, we had taken pictures of our artist KIARA on the 8th of February, when we went to Peninsula Island Park, before we got kicked out of the park. Below are some images of the behind the scenes process of us taking the pictures that we wanted to use in our digipak. 

Here we can see Timo directing KIARA's actor Jasmine on what pose he wants her to do for the cover

Jasmine posing as she gets her picture taken

We originally decided to experiment with different possible fonts, which we had done on the graphic design app/site Canva. Here is a compilation, made by Sharon, of the different fonts we tried from the designs that she made, where the one we decided fit the aesthetic of the digipak/album best, is circled in green. 

After choosing an amicable font, we further experimented with different backgrounds and images that would also look good as a cover. Below are a few designs that we brainstormed together as a team, and thought would also fit well. The design themselves were made by Nayana and Sharon.

 

Version 1: where KIARA looks at camera, which may be more attractive to audiences due to perceived audience interaction.

Version 2: where she looks away into the sky, which was inspired by the images seen in the research portion of this blogpost. Here her hand gestures combined with a low angle shot connote a sense of freedom as well as power, which we intended to build KIARA's branding as a strong independent artist.

Version 3: where KIARA is with her friends instead of being alone, which could make the album seem more fun and appealing to audiences

Version 4: where we removed the text saying, "The 1st Mini Album" at the top of the cover, instead replacing it with text that simply said "KIARA", after our teacher Mr. Nick gave us feedback in which he told us that it filled up the cover with too much information.

Conclusion: 

After creating all these possible cover images, we as a team decided that version 2 of the cover was our best option. We went against the feedback of our teacher Mr. Nick as we believed that the text that reads "1st Mini Album" provided a story to audiences, saying that this is her first ever release. This may build more hype regarding the album, and furthermore from the research we conducted, we found that it was a normal addition to have text at the top of the cover similar to what we did, as per the album covers of various different Asian artists in the K-POP industry. In general, we as a team thought it looked better to include the text than to not, and thus chose to use that version of the cover instead.

Tracklist

For our tracklist, we took pictures on both the 8th of February at Peninsula Island, and the 13th, at Lapangan Renon. We got very pleasing shots of KIARA, as well as shots of scenery, primarily the sky, that we thought would look good as our tracklist. The list of songs itself was thought up by Nayana by looking at other songs from Sabrina Carpenter's catalogue, (the artist behind Feather), as well as creating original songs that fit the general theme of the songs already chosen. Below are a few designs that were created by mainly Nayana, with help from Sharon and Timo as well.

Concept design: which was made with an image Nayana had found during research. We then used this image for inspiration in another one of our designs

Tracklist 1: which uses an image we took on the 8th of February at Peninsula Island, with the tracklist being displayed on a sky blue colored background to the left of the main image

Tracklist 2: which uses an image we took on the 13th of February at Lapangan Renon, with the tracklist being displayed on a leafy green color block to the left of the main image, where we used our concept design as shown previously as inspiration for KIARA's hair and pose, which followed the concept design as we tried to replicate the "flowing in the wind" hair that was seen in the concept design

Tracklist 3: which uses a different picture we took on the 8th of February, but remains similar to tracklist 2

Tracklist 4: which uses the same picture as the one above, however without the blue color block where the songs were listed that we originally intended to have, as our teacher Mr. Nick had given us feedback in which he told us it felt out of place and unnatural.

Tracklist 5: which uses the same image as the one taken on the 13th of February at Lapangan Renon, however this time more zoomed in and without the green color block to the left of the image, for the same reasons that our teacher Mr. Nick had given us previously. 

Conclusion: 

Overall, we had a variety of different tracklist designs to choose from that looked very satisfactory. However in the end, we believe that tracklist 5 was the best tracklist image that we designed. It was elegant, the lighting of the picture looked beautiful (as we tried our best to take the picture as the sun was setting), and KIARA's hair flows perfectly, similar to the concept design that we originally created. We believe the colors all come together to create a very aesthetically pleasing tracklist that would look great in our digipak, and that audiences and fans of KIARA would also be pleased to see. We also followed the advice of our teacher Mr. Nick, as we agreed that the color block to the left of the image would make the tracklist image look a bit unprofessional and tacky, and liked the tracklist better without it. All things considered, tracklist 5 looked far more appealing to the eye than the other tracklist images, mainly due to the vibrant colors, and the strong contrast with the scenic and picturesque green background, which further provides connotations of summer, and fun, which was the theme that we intended to have throughout the album, as well as the music video.

CD Cover: 

For our CD Cover, we intended to have a simple design that did not include KIARA, and instead supported the color palette of the digipak, and thus we thought a scenic landscape picture would look best. Below are a designs that were made by Nayana, for our CD Cover.

CD Cover 1: Which uses an image taken at Pandawa Beach, on the 27th of January

CD Cover 2: Which features clouds with golden rays of sunlight bouncing off them as the sun sets, taken at Lapangan Renon, on the 13th of February

CD Cover 3: Which features bubbles on a green nature backdrop, taken at Lapangan Renon, on the 13th of February.

Conclusion: 

In the end, we decided that CD Cover 3 was the design that fit our digipak best. This was because it matched up with the tracklist we chose above (tracklist 5), both having a green/mature backdrop. This is important as in the digipak itself, the tracklist and CD Cover would be in the middle of the digipak, and would thus be next to each other. Having the CD Cover and tracklist be matching would thus look more appealing to audiences and fit in nicer than if we had contrasting colors/themes for the tracklist and CD Cover.

Back Cover: 

For the back cover of our digipak, we wanted to include a short message about KIARA, describing her career so far (as was seen in the research regarding the back cover), as well as another picture of KIARA herself, similar to the one in the front cover. For this, Nayana had asked me draft a short description of KIARA, which I did by looking at the "about" section for multiple artists on Spotify. I then drafted the following short paragraph description:

"After rising into the limelight of public attention at the age of just 13, 17 year old Indonesian singer-songwriter KIARA continues to push the boundaries of what the music industry considers feasible. Feather - her newest single - debuted at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 32 different countries. Hailed by both the public and the industry alike as one of the most creative and inspirational talents of her generation, the end of KIARA's rise to stardom is seemingly nowhere in sight."

I then gave this to Nayana, after which she then created this back cover, using an image of KIARA's back side, which we did to match the cover of the digipak - the front cover showing KIARA from the front, and the back cover showing her from the back: 

Initially, we thought this would be a good idea as it gives audiences a short description of what kind of artist and person KIARA is. However, after conducting further research, we had found that such descriptions/excerpts are generally not included on the back covers, or just in digipaks in general. Thus, we decided that it would be better to remove the description entirely, and just settle with having an image of KIARA from the back.

Thus, the final back cover of our digipak became the following image: 

Reflection:

The creation of KIARA's digipak was a process that originally did not know anything about, as we barely had any idea what a digipak even was. However, after conducting research into digipaks and finding various examples, we were able to narrow down what elements we would need to include in our digipak to make it as good as possible. We then planned out ideas and found inspiration for what we wanted our artist KIARA's digipak to feel like, and began making it. The team worked together as a whole to provide ideas as to what to include in each portion of the digipak, and what changes to make if they were needed. We provided feedback to each other constructively and made changes according to said feedback. Our skills complemented each other well, with Timo taking beautiful pictures, Nayana and Sharon using their design skills remarkably, while I, although could not provide help in the practical aspect, provided creative ideas using the resaerch I conducted mentioning what conventions to follow or stray away from, while also building the overall narrative for what kind of artist KIARA is, and the optimal way to represent her in our digipak, This ranges from helping pick the best photos, deciding what aspects to include in our covers, what fonts look best and match KIARA, and more.

Overall, the creation of our digipak was a smooth process, as well as a great team effort, which faced minimal problems and was a joy to work on with the team.