The document provides details about a music video and related media products created by the author for an A-Level portfolio. It discusses how the music video challenges conventions of romance and depression through its storyline of a girl discovering her boyfriend cheated on her. It also discusses how the music video, webpage, and digipak use sea waves as a branding element. The author explains how the products would be distributed as real media, using online platforms like Facebook, and engagement strategies like puzzles and controversies. Technologies like editing software and camera stabilizers were used to create the music video.

1. Creative Critical
Reflection
(for Advanced portfolio)
By Urwa Safdar Zaidi

2. Q. How do your products use or challenge conventions
and how do they represent social groups?
My product that is an Advanced A level music video
has challenged the conventions of romance as well as
depression.
The music video To Sink, originally by Yassou, is about
a girl who is betrayed by her boyfriend. The evidence of
her boyfriend cheating on her is a video that she views
on her Facebook account.
The romance between the male character and the
female character is conventionally portrayed as, the
making of the heart and writing the initials of their
names as a symbol of love.

3. The couple embeds their names as a sigh of love and
happiness promoting heart shape which gives the audience
a delight to watch.
Romance conventions are carried further as, the girl who
seems happy with her better half dances on the sea shore
which portray joy in their relationship which gives the
insights of “happily ever after”

4. Moreover, as the main lead actress watches the
video she breaks down into tears and certainly
enters the depression phase. The conventions of
depression is portrayed similarly. She is lonely and
sad. She is witnessed pulling her hair as she recalls
her past.
A symbolic video of glass shattering explains the
crashing of dreams that a girl could have. The next
scene in which she sits in front of the fire and stare
into it explains her pain and loneliness. She has been
betrayed by her love and exhibits a psychotic
behavior.

5. In my music video a social group of teenagers. This
is the age where most teens build or break their
personalities and confidence. A social group consists
of two or more people who regularly interact and
share a sense of unity and common identity. In other
words, it's a group of people who see each other
frequently and consider themselves a part of the
group. In this case, the boy is conventionally
portrayed as ‘the heart breaker’ and the girl who is
betrayed by is him is portrayed as ‘the innocent one’.

6. Boys seem to be ‘strong’ and dominant and easily
move forward with their lives however, the girls who
are ‘weak’ and ‘sensitive’ face difficulty in moving on
which causes high risks of depression and anxiety
among females. This stereotype has been portrayed
in my music video.

7. Q. How do you’re the element of your production
work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
Branding is a marketing strategy that involves
creating a differentiated name and image often
using a logo and/or tag line in order to establish
a presence in the consumer's mind and attract
and keep customers.
The strategy that is the branding of my music
video, webpage and digipak is the use of sea
waves. The video consists of a sea view location
and the happy moments enjoyed by a couple

8. Similarly the webpage holds a sea waves theme as
the backdrop. This gives a sense of branding and
relation of the video with the webpage and the
digipak which is also a photograph of a girl at the
sea shore. The similar locational touches in all the
three element that is the music video, the digipak
and the webpage combine and portray sadness.
The tagline used in the webpage “To sink” is also the
song that catches the audiences attention and
creates a sense of branding.

9. Q. How do your products engage with the audience
and how would they be distributed as real media
products?
My product that is a music video of the song To Sink
by Yassou had a dual relational cases portrayed in it.
There is romance and then there is tragedy. There is
a relationship sweetness and the effects of breakup.
There is an element of happiness and sadness both
portrayed simultaneously. This gives the music video
an upper edge and excitement for the audience to
watch it. The beautiful and soul touching music by
Yassou fills the empty space and hits hard to the
audience. The age exhibited in the music video is
related to the teen audience. This is another bonus
to the product as it manages to capture the harsh
reality.

10. The tragedy of the teen life helps in the product being an
acceptable release. This would be distributed as a real
media product by the use of it’s website, by the use of
the internet as the most effective distribution device. As a
real life product I would like to distribute my product on
Facebook by making a Facebook page, on Instagram by
updating behind the scenes and uploading on set
images. A twitter account page of the band Yassou and
updating the audience about the next release dates and
the band tour dates. Also by ‘meet and greet’ chances for
the audiences with the band mates and a lucky winner
winning a chance in a lucky draw for featuring in the next
video. Furthermore, if my product would distributed as
real life product I would release its accessories and t-
shirts for the audience to buy.

11. My inspiration behind this idea was from the film
“The hunger games”. The online distribution tactics
of the film played a key role in gaining popularity
and recognizing itself in the huge market. The film
was highly distributed on the Internet such as the
hashtag (#) was introduced, the logos of ‘mocking
jay’ were published online that were the eye candy
for the internet fans, behind the scenes and on set
camera got the most views as they gave a much
closer look of the life of the celebrity to the fans.
Another way The Hunger Game team managed to
distribute the film was through the online games
and live meet up calls from to the fans. The die hard
fans got a chance to live a day with their desired
celebrities.

12. I would publish an online puzzle game for the
audience in which they collect the puzzle of the song
to complete the lyrics and play the song. This causes
a thrill and excitement which would help in
distributing my product.
Another strategy for the distribution of my product
would be controversy. If it’s controversial or current
in some way, that is even better. The negative hype
gets more attention than the positive. I would create
a controversy regarding the band and the song such
as the band member slapping the audience while
performing or video with strong vulgar language as
the edited scenes, this helps in gaining popularity.

13. Metacafe.com is a video sharing website that
surpasses 40 million visitors a month. That’s some
heavy traffic. This community is moderated, and all
new videos are checked out by volunteers. They also
have a focus on short videos clocking in at less than
10 minutes – perfect for the music video format.
Sites like www.videowildfire.com,
www.tubemogul.com, www.veoh.com, and
www.heyspread.com offer different options for
distributing music video to popular websites.

14. Q. How did you integrate technologies such as software,
hardware, and online in this project?
The music video was not an easy job, it took time and use
of two different editing software. The initial video and
the basic editing such as background sound, sequence of
the clips and simple cut in. This basic editing of the video
clips gave me look of the storyline however, the more
complex editing was done on Vegas, a professional video
editing site. The Vegas gave me a more prominent and
complete look of the music video. Sound placement,
camera shot placements and extra lengthy shot were all
edited on Vegas. Vegas gave me various options for
experiments and techniques but it was not just the
editing the shooting was time consuming as well. The
introduction of camera stabilizer in my filming techniques
gave me more sophisticated shots and camera use.

15. A camera stabilizer, or camera–stabilizing mount, is a
device designed to hold a camera in a manner that
prevents or compensates for unwanted camera
movement, such as "camera shake“. This helped me in the
process of minimizing the camera shake and produced
some effective camera angles. The use of tilt camera
angle was the effect of the camera stabilizer.

16. The music video has a webpage that counts in the
online technologies used. The website consists of
the information regarding the made Yassou and it’s
upcoming events and performances. The header
‘what’s new’ deals with the promotional and new
arrivals of the music by Yassou and it’s teaser.

17. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media?

18. Looking at my digipak which represents a girl
on a seashore, arms wide open, in a
silhouette lightening, facing towards the sea
with a caption “To Sink” which is also the
song name, gives an idea of a sad music
video. However, the playlist contain all types
of songs for all age types.
The digipak cover promotes sadness and
heart break. This further describes the song
(To Sink) theme but the songs available on
the back of the digipak are equally
distributed and contains teenage pop as well.

19. I chose this theme for my digipak because it
collaborates with my webpage. The idea of
presenting sea as the symbol of loneliness
and it explains “..I want to sink” as my music’s
lyrics.
Due to the positioning of this product for the
consumers, the front panel will be something
instant that they see, therefore the image I
used must be both appealing to the
audience and powerful enough to grab the
attention of passing possible customers The
motifs or shots I used from my music video
as my digipak are easily recognizable or the
audience.