My music video, digipack and social media page all aim to represent young people, aged at around 16-25, while focusing on themes of growth and emotional connection. The narrative of the music video follows a female young protagonist experiencing common human moments with friends and alone, which reflect the experiences of many young people, without the glamourising of social media nowadays. The solo shots help the audience connect and empathise with the protagonist, while the shots that include friends can show how interactions shape our behaviour, and in this case, they change the protagonist’s behaviour positively. This is showcased even in shots where the protagonist interacts with the camera operator, which makes them become a character in the story as well, considering that the behaviour of the protagonist lightens by smiling and laughing. (which we see through direct address with the camera, or with the person behind the camera). Instead of having a glamourised lifestyle with staged interactions, the video is supposed to become a personal journal of the protagonist, which lets the audience connect better with it. The ordinary environment where the actions take place , such as walking through the city, spending time with friends and celebrating a birthday further emphasise authenticity and relatibility.
The song choice used, which was Matilda by Harry Styles, talks about themes of independence and a somewhat emotional distance from their family. The video interprets these themes visually through moments of friendship and chosen family in order to reflect that, as this may be especially relevant and relatable in teenage years, as well as early adulthood, where it often happens that people might grow a bit distant from their families. For example, the birthday scene in the video reflects the lyrics in which the artist sings about being able to “throw a party full of everyone you know and not invite your family”. By including these authentic moments with friends, the video shows how young people often create their own support systems.
I chose to represent youth in my music video through focusing on emotional authenticity rather than stereotypes. Many mainstream music videos present young people through partying and luxury aesthetics but I wanted my video to contrast that, therefore it shows a rather quieter and reflective approach, through casual actions, which allows for a more intimate portrayal of youth. The social group is constructed through camera work too, as this visual approach reflects the way in which many young people document their lives through recordings and memories. It is also quite common for young audiences to romanticise past experiences.
The overall branding of the package focuses on personal authenticity and emotional storytelling. The camera work also helps support the branding. The slightly imperfect image quality and natural camera movement reinforces again, the feeling that the footage represents personal memories rather than staged scenes.
The digipack design also reflects this identity.
The images used for the album artwork are personal photographs, rather than heavily edited promotional images. This creates a sense of realism, which aligns with the music video’s aesthetic. The warm colours used in the digipack further reinforce this nostalgic tone. The typography and layout also helped me establish my branding. I used a consistent font and colour palette across the digipack and social media posts, which creates visual coherence between these different promotional materials, which respects media conventions that are often used by artists. The social media posts were supposed to create anticipation from the audience and maintain engagement. It includes more personal content, such as the “thank you” video featuring people waving at the camera, and more formal posts such as the tour announcement. This makes the audience perceive the artist as approachable and relatable.
The approach I used reflects the theory of star image developed by Richard Dyer. He says that an artist’s public image is often constructed through multiple media forms. In my project, the music video, digipack and Instagram page all contribute to building a star image based on authenticity and emotional openness.
Regarding audience engagement, my project primarily attracts the audience by visual authenticity and emotional relatibiity. Instead of focusing of performance or spectacle, I emphasised on everyday experiences that audiences can recognise in their own lives. The camera movement often follows the protagonist from a close, but observational perspective, which creates the impression that the viewer is experiencing the moments or ‘memories’ alongside the protagonist herself. This helps build audience connection to the narrative. The non-linear structure also encourages audience interpretation, it does not follow a clear storyline that is in chronological order, but rather shows fragmented moments that resemble memories. I chose to leave them as they are, even if ‘imperfect’ in order to further enhance natural flow and authenticity.
The audience engagement can also be seen across the social media page, as the page mimics real life artist promotions. The teasers, release announcements and lyric quotes encourage the audience to interact with the project in ways that reflect real marketing campaigns. The use of longer captions for each post are also a part of the audience engagement strategy, as they use emotive language devices, which’s purpose is to better hook the audience and help bring their curiosity out, in order to further interact with the project.
My audience engagement strategy could be connected to the Uses and Gratifications theory, developed by Katz and Blumler, which suggests that audiences actively choose content that satisfies their needs and desires, such as emotional connection. My project aims to satisfy these needs through the assembly of relatable experiences, and the themes of growth and nostalgia.
Another very important role was the research and planning, which helped shape both the narrative structure, as well as the visual style that I ended up choosing. I analysed multiple music videos beforehand, and artists’ social media content, as well as digipaks, in order to truly form an understanding of the common conventions that are used in such media forms, but especially regarding the alternative and indie music genres.
One of the conventions I identified and implemented was the use of narrative storytelling instead of performance-based videos. Many alternative and indie music vides focus on personal and emotional stories and themes, as well as everyday experiences, which often include and focus on human relationships and connections.
Another convention I explored was the nostalgic and vintage aesthetic, as many artists use film grain or retro visuals to evoke these feelings. Therefore, I decided to use was the use of the handycam, which allowed the video to have a naturally achieved nostalgic look, without relying on heavy editing or any digital effects.However, my project also challenges certain conventions of the usual mainstream music videos, because many commercial videos focus on polished cinematography, and elaborated choreographies or performances. In contrast, my video embraces imperfections and spontaneity, as a large part of the footage was unplanned, which creates a more documentary-like style.
The research done before creating the project also heavily influenced my creative decisions, for example, through questionnaires. I found out that my target audience is particularly attracted to storytelling and strong visuals, which encouraged me to focus on these areas throughout my music video, as well as social media page and digipak. Editing the video was also infleunced by the audience’s narrative structure preference. I chose to construct a fragmented narrative that resembles memories, which begins and ends with similar visuals, that added circularity to the structure, and reinforces the idea of reflecting past experiences,
Overall, the research helped me understand both the conventions of a music video and promotional materials, but also the expectations of my audience. This allowed me to develop a project that follows the commonly seen conventions of such media, while also letting me experiment with emotional storytelling and a spontaneous visual style.
