Evaluation
For this evaluation, I will reflect on my journey of producing three creative works that serve the same purpose: a music video, a digipak, and a social media page that promotes my artist Evelyn and the song “Tek It.” Throughout the essay, I will discuss how my products represent social issues, how they are branded, how audiences can engage with them, and how they reinforce but also challenge genre conventions.
With the prime focus on the LGBTQ+ community, my products strive to challenge their false representation usually seen in different media texts. In many cases, LGBTQ+ characters are usually reduced to their sexual orientation or gender identity rather than depicted as “normal” people. My artist Evelyn directly goes against that one-dimensional stereotype and portrays herself as someone who is emotionally complex, intense, and bold, thus showing her complex personality.
Evelyn’s character in the music video is intentionally built to have the tendency to be obsessed with her unreal love interest Annabella, emphasizing how romantic topics in the LGBTQ+ community can go far beyond its traditional representation: not just pure infatuation or physical desires, but hyper-fixation and obsession. Through mise-en-scene, all three products revolve around two major props: Evelyn’s scrapbook (which is full of love letters) and polaroids, all gathered in her personal space. As Evelyn flips through each scrapbook page in the music video, the never-ending amount of love letters is revealed one by one. Together with the messy paper scraps and pens scattered around the dimly lit corner, they mirror Evelyn’s chaotic mind. Evelyn’s polaroids include photos taken with and without the love interest’s awareness, hinting to the audience that her feelings are unreciprocated.
Compared to the past, LGBTQ+ representation has become more prevalent and accepted, while LGBTQ+ roles are more complex and less tokenized (as seen in media texts like Heartstopper). However, challenges like stereotypical assumptions about gender expression remain. Lesbians are still heavily categorized as masculine, whereas gays are considered stereotypically feminine. Continuing to go against this LGBTQ+ misrepresentation, Evelyn doesn’t identify herself as either masculine or feminine. Her gender can be expressed fluidly rather than having to stick with one, aligning with Judith Butler’s Gender Performativity Theory, which states that gender isn’t tied to one’s biological sex but is socially constructed. As a result, according to Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory, the audience will view Evelyn in different ways. Those who are in the LGBTQ+ community relate to Evelyn and appreciate how her style is fluid, while others may relate to her because of that common feeling of unrequited love and her being a teenager discovering herself. In the end, Evelyn is a perfectly normal human being, and her gender can vary – she can be whoever she wants to be, and her character is completely up to each audience’s interpretation of how she identifies herself.
My products’ message can only be amplified through branding, therefore, cohesion between each product using mise-en-scene is extremely important. The products’ color palette consists of grounded colors like pink, cream, and beige with the contrasting color of silver, reflecting Evelyn’s versatility: she can be soft and reserved but also emotionally intense. In all products, Evelyn wears the same outfits. In non-performance scenes, Evelyn’s casual teen outfits connotes emotional struggle, which can be further shown in her timid and unnatural mannerisms as she avoids contact with Annabella, suggesting an unreciprocated relationship between them. However, in performance shots, Evelyn breaks free and unleashes her true self in her bold silver jacket and hairpins, an outfit that aligns with the pop-rock subculture. Her duality in personality can be shown in the digipak as well: on the outside (front cover), she is a bold, unapologetic pop star, but on this inside (inside left & right), her vulnerable side comes off, making her more approachable as a normal humanbeing, aligning with Richard Dyer’s Star Theory: an artist should be unique and individualistic, at the same time relatable to their audience (e.g., by experiencing ‘real emotions’).
In terms of design elements, my brand identity is also reinforced by the consistent use of typography, color palette, and theme choices. The font “Fall In Love” is used for both the song’s title and the artist’s name, creating a handwriting pattern across the products, hence highlighting her emotional storytelling. This is similar to artists like Taylor Swift, who also uses handwritten typography in her albums “folklore” and “evermore” to reinforce her poetic and confessional branding identities. This design choice will appeal to Gen Z audiences as they search for an authentic connection between them and the artist on a personal level in the digital age.
Based on John Hartley’s Audience Theory, my branding strategy is not just designed to repeatedly spam the artist or the song to increase recognition but also help Evelyn connect to her fanbase through a certain relatable identity. To make her stand out, I stick with the main use of symbolism, which is the scrapbook and polaroids. On a side note, Evelyn will have a sensitive, cute persona on Instagram, welcoming the audience to interact and closing the gaps between her and her fandom. As a queer artist, Evelyn is deeply inspired by artists like Lady Gaga, who openly advocates for the LGBTQ+ community through her music and the Born This Way Foundation. Just like her products, Evelyn strives to be a role model and a voice for the underrepresented in the LGBTQ+ community.
John Hartley’s 7 groups to classify audiences helped me identify my products’ target audience as young adults, varying from 15 to 20 years old, preferably female, and having a strong interest in the LGBTQ+ community. Our products value self-expression and navigating relationships, therefore aligning with Blumer & Katz’s Uses & Gratifications theory as our audience would want to actively engage with my products if they can be entertained and feel connected to the products on an emotional level.
As many audiences of pop and indie-rock music are familiar with the film “500 Days of Summer”, I used its iconic elevator scene as an intertextual reference to attract familiarity as well as engagement. In the film, Tom’s feelings were unreciprocated, which was the same as Evelyn’s in the music video. As seen in the image, Evelyn is in the dark lighting while Annabella and her love interest are in bright lighting, emphasizing how Evelyn has never belonged in the circle and that her narrative from the start of the music video was unreliable.
As audience engagement works best with social media, I set up an Instagram account for my artist and made it her personal account instead of the company’s account. This allows for more personal content, hence making it easier for the artist to connect with her audience. A variety of interaction methods have been used on Evelyn’s account to push fan’s participation in the fanbase, including behind-the-scenes, Q&A with the artist, merch release, guess the film reference challenge, and giveaways. These types of content allow direct interaction between Evelyn and her audience, strengthening fan investment. This mirrors the engagement strategies of LGBTQ+ artists like Troye Sivan, who frequently host Q&A sessions discussing identity and self-expression. This aligns with the Uses & Gratifications Theory, as LGBTQ+ fans seek representation and validation in media. Furthermore, in all posts, there are #TekItbyEvelyn and #Colorburst to push Instagram’s algorithm, helping our content reach a wider range of audience. Once the content reaches LGBTQ+ advocates, our messages will be amplified, hence attracting more audience engagement (Two-Step Flow Model Theory). Based on Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory, the dominant reading of the products and Evelyn’s multifaceted image should be the power of self-acceptance and resilience in facing emotional struggles.
Given the feedback from audience testing from the early stages of post-production, my group adjusted our pacing in the music video to maintain viewers’ excitement while making sure all products shared cohesive themes and choices of design. Furthermore, we increased our engagement strategy by adding in give-away contents with signed digipak to guarantee the audience will be entertained throughout their experience using our products.
I wouldn’t have been able to produce my three products without researching the music genres and the conventions of its products. My music video reinforces the indie-rock element of the song by including vintage effects of film leakage when Evelyn and Annabella take photos of themselves. I decided to reinforce pop music conventions by letting our artist star throughout the music video, in both the narrative (which centers around themes of love and heartbreak) and the performance. However, I also challenge this typical representation by delving into themes that are more prevalent in alternative genres, exploring fixation and emotional instability in an LGBTQ+ community. The same thing can be seen in artists who can combine more sensitive topics into mainstream pop aesthetics, such as Conan Gray, who explores the same theme of one-sided love in his song “Heather” using warm color tones and soft lighting, or Olivia Rodrigo using scrapbooks as an element of her branding identity in the album “SOUR” to express vulnerability. Additionally, by challenging the convention of sexualizing the artist in pop music products (usually in a way that aligns with Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory), we were able to help the audience focus on Evelyn’s emotional journey rather than objectifying her.
A successful music video is likely to follow some certain elements in Andrew Goodwin’s music video theory. For example, to follow the song’s pace, hence helping my audience connect themselves to its rhythm, I had my music video cut on beat. Similarly, I managed to link my music video’s visuals of Evelyn’s extreme close-up shot of her eyes following a subject with the song’s lyrics “I watch you”. Furthermore, by linking the same lyrics to her scrapbook, the lyrics can be interpreted uniquely, saying that the artist is always staring at her unreal love interest, reinforcing the music video’s themes of fixation.
Finally, the notion of looking is frequently used in my music video, especially in performance scenes. From the original cut from Pulp Fiction, the two characters establish their chemistry and desire for each other, which is not the same when I used it as an intertextual reference. Using POV and close-up shots, I wanted to emphasize Evelyn’s longing for unreciprocated affection to be revealed strongly, thus scaring Annabella and giving the audience an unsettling feeling.