Critical Reflection Task

I have been part of a group that has constructed a music campaign for a band within the genre of pop-rock and have created three products from this campaign. This is exclusively an all-girl pop-rock group, and this is a huge part of the band’s identity. The most prominent representation of a social group in our video would be gender. The video is used to construct an image for the band, who are represented as strong, independent, and not needing of men. Fast pace, close up action shots of the band members destroyed various parts of the set shows the strength and lack of care that the band have.

The lack of any male role in the video displays their non-reliance on men. The side angle shot of the drummer spray painting on the wall, paired with the spray-painted image of the female gender sign on the wall behind them shows their independence.

Their change in costume from pretty, fluffy pink dresses to black, rocky clothing also shows their independence as women, and their non-reliance on men. The ripping up of the teddy bears also shows their independence and also hints at their stronger side. This representation is intended to subvert the typical stereotypes of women and girl bands, however in some places our video still adheres to Laura Mulvey’s theory of Male Gaze, which contradicts the bands independence from men. For example, a handheld close up on the lead singer as she rips her dress, with the camera following her leg, showing a lot of skin could still be seen as the video being shot from the male perspective, or as assuming that the audience is male.

Although we try and contradict the need of male approval throughout the video, shots like this still adhere to the theory of male gaze.

Status is a secondary representation in our music campaign products. The social media and the album artwork are utilized for establishing hierarchy and status among the band members. A photo from the bands Instagram, with the lead singer at the front taking the selfie, and other band members behind shows that she is the lead of the group.

In addition, the lack of writing on the lead singer, and the two shots of just the lead singer in the album artwork show her status of the rest of the band as well.

This representation of status within the group works well in the way that it establishes a lead role, and adds a formation and dynamic to the band, however, it could possibly create an image of division amongst the band members, and therefore could lead to disrupting the image of strength that is also presented by the bands gender.










Our all-female pop-rock band mirrors the independent, slightly rebellious nature of the genre, and

appeals to our key demographic of young teenage girls. By having accents of bright pink

colouring, we are relating to the younger female demographic, whilst still appealing to the more

rebellious side by also using darker colours in make-up, lighting, costume, and other factors within

mise-en-scene.

By having scrappy and spray-paint influenced fonts on our album artwork, in

addition to the scribbles and annotations connotes the carelessness, again appealing to the more

rebellious side to our key demographic. The black and white photo juxtaposed against the pink

background with spray-painted graffiti appeals to our young teenage girl audience with the darker

photo suggesting a rebellious nature to the band, without being too dark for it to be frowned upon

by parents. The costume changes from a barbie looking dress to a rocky outfit at the end of the

video really appeals to our target audience in the way that it represents that they are all

independent and grown up. Also, the performance factor of the video, with them destroying parts

of the bedroom, combined with the slightly sarcastic and cynical facial expressions also add to

this. Designing the performance in this way really points towards the rebellious and independent

nature that would make the demographic aspire to be like the band members. The lighting,

colouring, costume, and images from the social media were designed to help the audience feel

more represented, and makes the band seem more down to earth in the video, social media, and

digipak.

The media products that we created (music video, social media, and album artwork) are all

accessible to the key demographic and they have all been constructed to seem more relatable and

similar to the audience. The obvious use of pink throughout the social media, combined with

images of spray paint throughout every media product we produced not only ties the products

together, but also gives the band a clear star image that the audience can aspire to be a part of.

An issue of this, however, is that despite consistent posting on different social medias allows the

band to become a larger part of the audience’s life, it also can have an opposite effect, and stops

the band seeming so special if they are so present that the audience becomes too accustomed to

them. We needed to find the balance between having them seem ordinary (so that they seem

relatable to their fans), but also extraordinary (so that they are desirable to their fans), present

enough so that they are on the radar of their fans, but absent enough that when they do pop up, it

still seems special to them. 

Our music campaign products engage with our target audience of teenage girls between 11-14, primarily on social media platforms, through personal relationships. On our social media, there are many examples of this, firstly through the use of asking the audience questions on both the twitter and Instagram. We also create personal relationships through the use of colloquial language, and through tweet or posting with more casual captions, reflecting a slightly more relaxed and therefore informal and personal relationship between the audience our band. We also do this through casual photos, and unprofessional photos uploaded onto social media, selfies of the band and silly poses.

We also use direct address for example “you” a lot when referring to the audience, again forming a casual and seemingly more personal relationship with the audience on social media. On the digipak, we also achieve this personal relationship through the scribbly font and again more casual layout of the album artwork. In the music video, we try to achieve this personal relationship through the use of props – having loads of normal, everyday items appear in the music video making it more relatable to the audience. Also in the music video, the band are seen multiple times relaxing, for example laying on the bed, again emphasising the band is more casual, and therefore allowing for a more personal relationship with the audience. All of this, especially on social media ties in with promoting the band and developing the name of the band, for example having the tickets for the tour posted on the social media using colloquial language really fits in with the personal relationship, but also sells the band.

We also use diversion to engage our target audience. This is primarily in the music video, as the band are seen doing drastic activities, such as destroying a bedroom and also performing on a stage, allowing the audience to use the band as a form of escapism from their usual, mundane reality. We were also able to emphasise this on the digipak, with the relaxed, yet clearly professional photographs of the band, again allowing the audience to idolise them and use them as a distraction from everyday life. On social media, we did this by posting behind the scenes footage of the music video, shots of the band in the studio, and shots of the band rehearsing. This really would have helped not only with diversion, but also going back to building the personal relationship with the audience that we also tried to form, and on social media in particular this would have helped increase the popularity of tour ticket sales and merchandise sales.
















Throughout our products, we adhered to Steve Neale’s theory of genre conventions, and made sure that our social media, music video and digipak were all traditional and repetitive of the genre of pop rock so that it was recognisable to our target audience, whilst also adding the odd unique factor to keep the audience interested and on their toes. Firstly, in our music video our costumes initially subvert the stereotype of pop-rock, but this only emphasises the genre more the band start wearing the traditional pop-rock clothing. The positioning of the band for the majority of the music video, with the lead singer at the front is another example of us adhering to the conventions of pop-rock. In addition, we made sure that the instruments of the band featured prominently throughout, according to other similar videos of the same genre. The spray-painting of the wall symbolises the rebellious nature of the band which is an archetype of this genre. When I researched into this genre, I looked into Kelly Clarkson’s music video for her song “Since U Been Gone”, she destroys her boyfriend’s apartment, and in our video, the band destroys their bedroom which was initially an idea to promote the rebellious nature of the band to the audience, but also turned out to be a general convention of the genre. The functions of using these conventions in this music video was to make sure that the audience had something relatable and recognisable from the genre in our music video, but we also made sure that we had some more unique factors to keep the audience interested in the social media and digipak. The use of teddy bears on the digipak is not traditional and does not conform to the conventions of the genre, but since this is one of the few things on the album artwork that doesn’t adhere to the genre conventions, it makes the digipak recognisable, but also interesting to the audience.

In the social media, we adhered to the genre conventions heavily, for example, when I researched into Avril Lavigne’s twitter page, I found she swears on her social media, and so we used this as well to our advantage. When I looked at Miley Cyrus’s Twitter, I found that she retweets other celebrities, especially musicians, which is what we did on our twitter page as well. Also having the darker connotations throughout the social media with the accent of pink also adheres to the conventions of the genre. We subverted this by adding the odd unique post, for example the post with the rubber duck in front of the lead singer. These conventions function again as a something that the audience can find recognisable, whilst also not getting bored and remaining interested.