Through the creation of our campaign, as a group we wanted to make sure our work was convincing but also create an image/personality for our artist that the audience could recognise her by.
A major social construct/issue that our music video, Digipak and Instagram represents is the promoted invitation for the male gaze. The male gaze is the theory of media being produced through the point of view of a male, made specifically pleasurable for their stereotypical female desires. In our music video, with regards to our artist being female, we decided to portray her in a visually attractive way through her mannerism, facial expressions and costumes. Are actress, Kiera, moves her body in a slow and elegant way, with elements from the editing process such as the slow-motion shots, exaggerating this pace and creating this slow, sexual aroma which significantly fits with representing the male gaze. A specific shot which I felt exaggerated this idea of the male gaze in terms of facial expressions and mannerisms is the shot you can see here. In this shot, Kiera is slowly tilting her head back, closing her eyes before maintaining eye contact with the camera. This shot can be viewed as intentionally seductive with the lighting of purples and blues, exaggerating the beauty of the shot.
With our Digipak, the representation of the male gaze continued throughout. Each page contains Kiera as the main focus; however, it was mainly portrayed through the front cover of the Digipak due to Kiera’s pose and whole body shot. With the subtilty of the background, Kiera is immediately the focus in the shot. Her arched back and long, elegant gesture, instates this idea of a stereotypically desirable women and feeds into the stereotypical beauty standards that are portrayed in all media forms with reference to how you are ‘supposed’ to look and this ‘Ideal’ body type. Our Digipak invited you to look at Rubii this way and is almost its intention to attract a wider audience. Furthermore, this shot and the theme of red lighting running throughout the Digipak, magnifies the model being sexualised with the colour red being associated to sex.
In all three of our media elements, we tried to portray the same star image consistently throughout. As Richard Dyer states, “A star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed out of a range of materials”. For our branding we made sure to show clearly that our star image for Rubii is based on Urban Fashion and this is what we had set on to portray to our audience and draw them into. We made sure to dress Rubii differently, portraying her wide range of style, keeping each costume unique and visually fun. The image here, stands as a good example of our efforts to show this. In terms of her costume, we have put effort into the choice of Rubii’s accessories, with her head scarf and excessive jewellery creating an alternative and distinctive look. Moreover, in terms of creating this sense of ‘city street style’, we used background set ups such as this spray paint wall to integrate these aspects into the shot. We also enhanced this through the low-lit lighting with LED colour to give off the idea of being in a colourful lit Urban area, lit up by the range of shop/club lighting.
Our Star image also appears in the Instagram advertisement and is clearly relating to Urban fashion. As demonstrated in this post on her Instagram page, Rubii is wearing a fashionable suit which breaks the social norms of the stereotypical idea that suits are usually warn by men, continuing to portray her adventurous and exciting style which overall makes her up as an artist. Although this city street style runs throughout the Instagram though her outfits, it is also expressed through the high-quality editing of her photos. In many of her shots, the editing style creates this sense of individuality and originality, fitting perfectly to exaggerate her overall image of being stylish and cool. A visual element we repeated throughout our campaign was Rubii’s attention to detail within her style, i.e., her accessories. Rubii wears various hats, scarfs, glasses, body and head jewellery in the music video, Instagram and digipack which ties her image together and creates this sense of branding through this repeated image.
In order to elevate our campaign, we wanted to create an artist who we felt would target a certain audience and create personal relationships between themselves and Rubii. With Rubii being a young, admirable, teen it opens a wide target audience of girls, similar ages or younger, looking up to her as a fashion icon. With reference to this image, we can see Rubii elevating this desirable, iconic look through her costume. She appears very glamorous and glitzy, providing a relatable image many teens wish to replicate. With the relation of age and particularly girly interests such as fashion, music and makeup, it makes Rubii a suitable icon to grasp this target audience’s attention, letting them relate to her and feel as though they have someone who is like them. Furthermore, amongst having this wide audience of teen girls, Rubii may also catch the attention of teen boys as well. Due to her stereotypical preferable features and body, it creates this attractiveness for boys to desire.
One of the senses our audience is likely to grasp from our campaign is this sense of diversion. Especially in the music video, we allowed the audience to step into an alternative reality where everything appears glamorous and alluring. We exposed the audience to unique and elaborate shots, all different with different costumes, hair and makeup. In the photo here, you can see this alternative reality being portrayed through the excessive colourful and fun lights, complimented by the LED lighting
which gives off this futuristic, playful atmosphere. The set-up, complimented with this ideal, attractive woman, creates this new world for the audience, taking what would never be seen in day-to-day life and letting them visualise it through a screen. This idea was also portrayed through the Instagram, specifically the editing of the photos. As seen in this image, a futuristic atmosphere is carried on into the Instagram expressing the idea of diversion. The stereoscopic effect on this image, along with the detailed edit on the glasses defiantly express an alternative reality, giving off the same persona as out music video.
A way I used our research to help develop our ideas and help form a construct that followed similar successful R&B artists was my research into our Digipak. I analysed multiple Digipak covers from artists such as Jorja Smith and Solange Knowles to gather an idea of how similar artists present their products in the best way for them to sell successfully. The main theme that ran throughout all the digipak covers was their use of a head shot on the front cover, with them presented in a feminine, elegant manner. The digipak used the female artist as a selling point to help attract people to the music through the male gaze. The background of each page consists of a pastel, mellow colours, exaggerating the element of simplicity within the cover. Through this I decided to use Rubii as our statement piece for the Digipak and to create a convincing cover for the R&B genre of music. I made sure to include a head shot of Rubii on one of the pages with her styled to portray her fun and creative fashion sense but also lure in audiences through her beauty. I also kept the same colourway throughout the Digipak with little to no chaos in the backgrounds, giving it a simplistic image.
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