CCR

CCR

Click the blue text (link) above to open the Google document.

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

Part 1: Look at your research blog. After looking at the conventions - did you do what is in your genre or did you do something else? Why or why not. Hip-hop is the genre we choose to use for our music video. The song that was selected is in our genre and is called "Homecoming" by Kanye West. We immediately began looking up other songs in the same category to include in our research blog. Many excellent options were available, most of which were from the 1990s and early 2000s, which Shadae and I are both familiar with. In the end, we decided on two more older songs and one little more modernized song. We chose the music in our genre primarily because it was more known to us and because we listen to and love these kinds of songs more than others. We felt it would provide us with more motivation because it was something we were more interested in, rather than switching genres and working with a song we weren't a huge fan of. The artists we chose to incorporate in our research blog were “50 Cent”, “OutKast”, and “Kid Cudi”. Kanye West's song and music video to “Homecoming” has many similarities to the example choices we picked using many of the same camera angles, editing, color palettes, and set designs for instance, making it much easier to compare.

Part 2: Social groups - what or who, if any, does your video represent? Think of the representation groups from the extract and then expand from there. Does your video deal with any social issues or groups or is it just a fun-loving song? The music video alone is more of a tribute to Kanye West's hometown of Chicago, Illinois. The lyrics in his song personified Chicago in a sense as a “childhood sweetheart” to show his relationship with the city he grew up in. There weren’t really any social issues or groups necessarily. The song was more loving and fun-spirited, conveying a story that Kanye was trying to express in a way. The story behind our video has a more lighthearted and pleasant meaning, representing friendship and being there for one another. Because the song's title is "Homecoming," and our school's homecoming was around the same time, we based the overall story on the idea of a girl who had been broken up just days before the homecoming celebration and had now lost a date. Her close friend had noticed her visibly distraught and came to comfort her and find out what was wrong, which is when she said that she had just been left by her boyfriend, who was meant to be her date, and she didn't feel like attending anymore, especially alone and while she was hurt. Her close friend had asked her to go with them instead, and they had a lovely time despite the fact that she did not go with the person she had planned to go with.

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

Part 1: What makes your video special and fun and would want to make people watch it over other videos? Shadae and I’s music video is creative and has a silly backstory to it. We had some friends of ours help create this video. We used colorful and bright/vibrant clips from our homecoming dance. Not only homecoming videos but we had our friends act out a story that could honestly be relatable to other teenagers and the video involved more of our age group which leans to our audience. The music video shows a young girl who was so excited to go to her homecoming with her boyfriend, getting broken up with and scolded at for absolutely nothing but when her close friend was walking by, she had seen how the girl was visibly upset and made an effort to comfort her and talk about the situation to find a way to resolve it. The close friend ended up inviting the girl to just go to homecoming with her instead so that she wouldn't miss a great night over a guy who left her so quickly, thinking that she’d stay home and cry over him. Instead, she went and had a wonderful time making it clear that her now “ex-boyfriend” made a mistake, and it didn't stop her. The video was more satirical in a sense and might give people some good laughs.

Part 2: If this was a professional video - where would you release it - MTV, TikTok, YouTube... You decide. I would've most likely released it on TikTok, and I think Shadae would agree. The teens and young adults on TikTok would be the perfect target audience for a music video like ours. Our video was more on a funny and joking side that still had a more wholesome meaning behind it on friendships but would appeal to the audience. We had gone around to many people we knew in that certain age group, and they loved it. They told us that it was funny and creative but also seemed like a skit almost which made them laugh. Personally, I find videos like that funny and a bit entertaining because I’m well aware that it is not a serious video and I’ve watched little videos like that before on social media. Mainly TikTok. There a thousand of TikTokers scrolling almost all day, every day, meaning, the video has the potential of getting a lot of views and being shared with other friends on TikTok or other platforms. Using such a known and popular song would also be a great factor since TikTok is mainly people creating videos to some big songs that many others know. With the right algorithm, It’ll spread.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project? What did you learn about the process of coming up with the idea through posting the video - the whole process, what did you learn. Do NOT just list the steps you took, talk about the steps in depth. When making our music video, we knew we had to get creative but didn't have much to work with due to our busy schedules and inconveniences. We knew we had to plan and wanted to stay as organized as we could through the filming process. After taking things into consideration, knowing places we could film, the theme or stories we could present, the people we could add in to help, and outfits or costumes for example, we found our perfect yet simple idea. At first, we wanted to record around the city that we grew up in to give off the same feel and idea as the original music video but we shortly realized that wasn’t happening. After running through some more ideas, we realized that our actual homecoming was right around the corner which would be perfect timing. We both couldn't see people out of school so we decided to film at the only place we were allowed to which was the garden and gathered our friends who wanted to play a part in our video. Once we were ready to film, we knew exactly what angles and camera movements would benefit the video and make it funnier or more enjoyable to watch. We wanted something more relatable to people our age and when going through the clips with everyone, we figured out our next moves as we went on.

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project? What did you use to film, edit, and blog? my phone and blogger are not the correct answers. You have to expand on this one. WHY your phone over a camera, WHY blogger, WHY Cap cut or I-Movie. During the filming process, I used my standard camera app on my iPhone 14 Pro Max, which allowed me to access several features such as the cinematic option. What I figured worked best was just my standard video option. I didn't use a camera because I had misplaced mine some time ago and my phone was my only alternative. We realized we needed someone to lip-sync parts of the words while recording, but we weren't sure how that would work. We tried playing the music on Spotify while recording, but each time it cut the video short, so I decided to use the app "TikTok." I chose the soundtrack and cut the words to exactly where I wanted someone to begin singing, and it worked effectively. We used Cap Cut to edit our video and put all the footage together because I'm familiar with it, but I discovered two incredible new features that sped up our process. The clips were too boring, but I discovered an option called "cutout" that allowed me to cut out anything or anyone and add any background I wanted. Also, I discovered the "stabilizer," which was quite helpful when I had to import some unsteady clips and the results were great. For this project's blog section, I used "Blogger." I've learned to work around it after using it a fair bit recently. It was suitable for me because my blogger page account is where I store all of my schoolwork!