Before selecting a music genre, I decided to research on different genre.
Wednesday, 17 September 2025
Classwork: Persona
This is a classwork we did together, where we discussed on persona and build our artist persona for our music video project.
Reflection: we didn't face major problems since it was simple and because we changed our artist beforehand, we didn't need to redo anything on the slides. The only issue is that we did this last minute so the work was simple. We completed it quickly by splitting the task and later adding small details to make it look more intentional. Next time we should aim to be more detailed and explain the person I'm more clearly with reasons examples. We should also take the task more seriously instead of doing it last minute.Classwork
Here is a short brief explanation to technical elements and theories that we have learned in class.
Reflection: This task was really difficult for me because I had to create a new version of my classwork, which meant that all the hard work I did last year had to be replaced even though I spent a lot of my free time on it and I don't have much free time now, so I ended up doing it last minute. Thankfully, the solution was easier than expected because I could copy and paste most of my work from last year and into the new version although some parts like YouTube links couldn't be added to Canva which actually reduced the amount of work I needed to do. In the future I plan to create a complete new improved version of this classwork and I hope I'll have enough time to make it as good as the one I made last year.
Weekly Progress + Plan
This is the weekly progress and my plan for my music video project.
Pre-Production Class Term 2
Week 1
This week was the introduction week where we were introduced to the music video project which was also carried out with a preliminary research by looking at different music video genres to help shape our ideas. We were initially placed into groups, but due to disagreements and technical conflicts over genre choices, my original group decided to split. I then formed a new group with members who shared a similar vision, particularly an interest in creating a pop music video. Although it was challenging to find classmates who wanted to work within the same genre, working in a smaller group of three has made communication clearer and collaboration more efficient. Moving forward, I want to improve how I handle creative disagreements, as even when we agree on the genre, different ideas and levels of production can still arise, and learning to combine these ideas will help create a stronger final music video.
Week 2
We continued our media research both in class and during non-project lessons, and we were also introduced to a new theory in media ecology. I still need to continue my research as my team has decided to focus on the pop genre, which must be completed by next week, so I plan to do one piece of research each day to manger my time better alongside other subjects. However, I struggled with procrastination because the research for one specific genre was quite extensive, and we had limited class time, meaning much of it had to be completed in my free time. Although I enjoy researching and see it as a hobby, my motivation sometimes drops, and watching music videos often distracts me and slows my progress. To improve, I need to work on my concentration skills, as getting distracted easily affects how efficiently I complete tasks, especially in preparation for real-world situations. Learning media ecology was not a major issue, as the theory was straightforward and we would only use it to help for a classwork blog.
Week 3
This week was when we had to finish our research but we also did a lot of learning because we still need to discuss new topics like media ecology and media regulation. We also had a new activity where we shared music videos during class to help guide our imagination and support our theory lessons.
Week 4
We were introduced to the concept of persona and work more on our statement of intent. We had to create an artist for a music video so we worked on a class project about persona and looked for examples to help us develop our artist. This was difficult because we had to create a fake identity but also think about their real identity. Most of our lessons this week we focus on project.
Week 5
We focused on learning theories and briefly started practising how to develop essays because we had a unit assessment coming up about media ecology. We learned about ecology and more depth and how to use media context in our paragraph. We also looked at case studies to help us build stronger essay structure for the assessment.
Week 6
This week we had to finalise our project which included the mood board, storyboard, and location scouting. It was a very chill week because we didn't learn much new content. Since the holidays and exams were coming up, most of our class time was spent on completing our project.
Post-Production Class Term 3
Week 1
This week focused on understanding how artists carefully build a persona and identity that audiences can easily recognise and remember. We explored the Theory of Stardom, which explains that celebrities are not simply “born stars” but are constructed through media appearances, visuals, narratives, and marketing choices that shape how the public sees them. I learned that everything from clothing, colour choices, camera angles, interviews, and social media posts work together to create a consistent image, helping the audience clearly understand the artist’s personality, values, and style.
Week 2
This week we studied Postcolonial Theory and how media often reflects ideas about culture, power, and representation that come from historical colonisation. We discussed how Western perspectives are sometimes shown as more dominant while other cultures may be represented as exotic, different, or stereotypical. This made me realise how important it is to be careful when creating media so that culture is represented respectfully, accurately, and without reinforcing unfair stereotypes.
Week 3
In this week, we learned that fans are not just passive viewers but active participants who help build an artist’s success through online interaction and community support. We explored how fandoms share content, create discussions, and form emotional connections that make an artist more popular and influential. I understood that creating relatable content and strong visuals is important because it encourages fans to engage, share, and feel personally connected to the artist.
Week 4
This week focused on applying our theoretical knowledge to the practical side of our project by researching digipacks, social media strategies, editing techniques, and branding methods. We analysed how professional artists maintain a consistent visual style across album covers, music videos, and online platforms so that their identity is easily recognisable. This research helped me plan how my project should look, what colours and editing styles to use, and how I should present my artist across different media platforms.
Week 5
This week continued the development of the project by turning research and planning into practical creative work. I started experimenting with editing, colour grading, and visual effects that match the persona and branding I want to present in my music video and digipack. This stage helped me understand how theory directly influences creative decisions and how small visual choices can strongly affect how the audience sees the artist.
Reflection: This was really stressful for us because we had to make our weekly progress in detail. Because of how hard it is to talk about days of the week knowing that there's not much problems to it it made it difficult to elaborate and expand to talk about the week. So what I did was just talked about the main points that I learned in class and will start elaborating more after class so that the blog work is done well. In the future I hope that I can remember small details that he talked about so that I could use to write in my weekly progress. I personally think this weekly progress is the benefit sure thing to us because it helps tracks what we've learnt and what we've done so that we know if we have the time or not to do classwork and discuss about the things we've learned in class.
Monday, 15 September 2025
Final Documentary and Thumbnail
Here is my final product and thumbnail of my Documentary Project.
Thumbnail
Documentary
Critical Reflection (CR)
Here is my blog post for my critical reflection.
My team and I decided to make a documentary about a school bombing entitled The Final Bell: Thirteen Seconds. This crime documentary explores what really happened behind the "gas" bombing attack, which was unexpectedly caused by a minor suspect.
Our documentary represents teenagers, teachers, and detectives through technical elements that build empathy, trust, and suspense. Teenagers are divided into suspect, victims, and a minor character. The suspect is shown with a blurry editing (seen in fig 1) and happy moments to create mystery. Victims are highlighted through close-ups and zooms to emphasise trauma. The minor character is placed in an isolated setting (seen in fig 2) to reflect loneliness and spark curiosity. Teachers are portrayed with discord music and emotional interviews that evoke sympathy. While detectives are filmed in medium shots to establish seriousness and trust which guides audiences through the case. The documentary also explores issues between the suspect and the school showing the suspect in a way that creates mixed feelings of blame and empathy while the schools reputation evoke trauma and sympathy. By using stereotypes such as CCTV footage, detectives and discord in music, the documentary ads, realism and tangent which encourages audiences to connect emotionally with the event.
Branding means the identity of a product shown through style colour and presentation. This is important because it makes the work recognisable which can build trust and attracts audiences. Our production element works together to build a strong sense of branding through consistent visuals and themes across both the thumbnail and the documentary. In our case, both of the video and thumbnail share a dark theme with handheld evidence style visuals, creating a serious tone and evoking emotions of mystery danger and realism. The use of a striking yellow font (seen in fig 3) in both products, symbolises hazard and toxic warning signs immediately connecting to the bomb theme and grabbing audience's attention. The thumbnail featuring a CCTV footage directly reinforces the documentaries realism while also emphasising it investigate nature making it authentic and eye-catching. Together these elements established a consistent identity that audiences can decode as serious danger and true to life. By combining dark visuals realism and hazard symbolism the branding helps the documentaries stand out while creating a mood of tension and importance which encourages audiences to trust the story and engage with the content.
Our products engaged with the audience by targeting teenagers to young adults (15-25) who are familiar with the school setting and interested in true crimes, plot twist, and analysis. The thumbnail place a major role in attracting this audience as it directly connects to the theme of mystery, shock, and realism. It features a CCTV classroom footage which makes the situation feel raw chaotic and authentic which sparks curiosity about what really happened to the students. The dark colours reinforce the true crime atmosphere while the yellow font (seen in fig 3) pops out to symbolise hazard and danger making the title eye catching. The use of automatic code is also important as the thumbnail hints at "thirteen seconds" leaving audiences with unanswered questions that can only be solved by watching the documentary. This encourage viewers to decode the mystery and stay engaged overall the thumbnail combines realism, tension, and symbolic colour to appeal to a young audience seeking shock value, suspense, and deeper analyses within the true crime genre.
our research strongly informed how our documentary uses and challenges conventions of the crime genre. Typical crime documentaries often include close-up shots, CCTV footage, real life evidence, and dark lowkey lighting interview settings that create us tense and eerie atmosphere. They also rely on discordant background music to build up emotion and suspense while editing usually switches between fast pace flashes glitches and flashbacks to keep audiences engaged. We conform to many of these conventions by using CCTV footage, close-up of evidence, quick edits that link interview content with real footage, making the information clear and more engaging for viewers. However, we also subverted convention in several ways. Instead of focusing on the stereotypical older male psychopath, we entered the story around a young female student making the narrative more shocking and unique. We also avoided bloody or violent imagery, since the crime involved a chemical gas bombing which gave the film a more distinct and unexpected tone. Finally, we broke away from plain white titles by using a yellow font (seen in fig 3) which symbolise hazard and danger which makes the branding more eye catching. Overall research on existing documentary shape our choices while allow allowing us to add originality.
Thumbnail (Research & Development)
This blog post contains the thumbnail research and development for our documentary project. My teammate Tisha did the research and I (Kristine) did the development.
Editing
This blog contains editing process for our documentary project. This was made by my teammate Tisha.
Behind the Scenes
This is the behind the scene of our documentary project. This blog was made by my teammate Tisha and Panji.
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