Final Promotional Package

 Final Video 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrVqu8xWExc

Final Self Reflection

 This blog is where I write my critical self reflection for the project.

Document version incase the format bugs out (note! I added pictures in the blog so the document won't have the pictures): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lgLKXfJrmpOqVmaTcL9JqLL-uCoJ0CBLg59c9A4WPgE/edit?usp=sharing

Our  products heavily incorporate handwritten fonts, which reflect our concept as high school teenagers. They're not choices purely made for the aesthetic, they also dictate the impression that we leave on our audience. We carry this visual identity over to every part of our products, from music videos to our digipak to our social media presence. Every post, every frame, and every design choice is intentional in order to set our own branding. A prime example of this is within the music video, where Hannah (acted by my partner Sharon) is placed in the corner of the screen or in a separate scene where Hannah is sat in the dark entirely. This was an intentional choice made to reflect feelings of being alone and ignored (refer to images below).

The frame where Hannah is sat in the corner reinforces her feelings of loneliness and sadness. It makes her appear small and isolated, similar to the emotions that many teens experience after a breakup. It’s a universal feeling of seeing the world move on while you feel stuck, overwhelmed by said heartbreak. The shot of Hannah sitting alone in the dark further emphasizes her isolation, especially when paired with the text messages shown on screen. She scrolls through the breakup text from Brandon (played by our media classmate Gio), it’s something so many teens can relate to; the urge to reread older messages, searching for any closure, or even just a sign that things could have gone differently. Throughout the song, I wanted to convey the idea that Hannah was being unintentionally neglected by her own friend (not in a toxic or abusive way, but in the way that sometimes happens after a breakup when others don’t fully understand your emotions.) Unfortunately, we weren’t able to film enough scenes to fully convey that idea. Though we did manage to get the locker scene. In this shot, Hannah’s friend seems eager to leave, not fully listening as Hannah tries to talk about Brandon. The intention was to show how Hannah’s pain was being downplayed, how she felt unheard in a moment when she needed support. But because we only had that one scene to express this idea that Hannah was overlooked, it didn’t have the impact I had hoped for.

Through the Instagram account we created for Hannah, we wanted to shape her image as a down-to-earth relatable artist. Unlike Taylor Swift, whose Instagram presence is more polished and professional, we aimed for something more casual and approachable. Our goal was to make Hannah feel like someone her audience could genuinely connect with, as if she was a friend. The choice of our song, High School in Jakarta, helped shape this image of Hannah. Since the song revolves around a teenage girl going through a breakup, it perfectly aligns with our social media presence. We want Hannah to feel like the kind of artist that teens and young adults can see themselves in. We also used social media to show Hannah’s silly and fun personality. We openly shared her love for dogs, and also included behind-the-scenes pictures that are personal and informal (refer to the images below). These posts are to keep the audience engaged, whilst also giving them a laugh.

One of the ways we try to engage with our audience is through Instagram’s comment section. As Hannah, we can directly interact with fans whenever they leave a comment on one of our posts. This helps build a sense of community, where fans can freely interact with Hannah herself. YouTube also serves as a great way for fan interaction through its comment section, where people can share their thoughts of the music video. Unfortunately, we ran into an issue where YouTube won’t allow us to turn comments on in the High School in Jakarta music video. Sadly, this meant that Hannah’s fans couldn’t engage with the video in the same way they could on Instagram. 

Our music video had themes of adolescence and young love, portraying the highs and lows of teenage relationships in a high school environment. It explores common experiences like peer pressure, heartbreak, and the nature of having to move on. Like most music videos with happy endings, we conformed to that convention and ended off the music video with an open ended conclusion of Hannah walking down the pier at the beach towards the ocean, assumingly to throw out the box that contains belongings that were given to her by Brandon (refer to image below). This scene shows Hannah letting go of the past and moving forward. I chose to leave it up to interpretation, allowing the audience to have their own assumptions on how the story ended.