The evaluative essay below answers the following questions:
• How do your products represent social groups or issues?
• How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
• How do your products engage with the audience?
• How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
Coinciding with the findings of our primary audience research, the music video we created is a politically-charged one that focuses on the representation of women, feminist themes, and issues that plague patriarchal societies. The aspect of representation in the music video in particular is aided by several semantic and symbolic codes that may engage audiences and be interpreted by them in unique ways. Our music promotion package as a whole is tied together by its representation of the same issues, among which are a lack of access to education for marginalised women (represented by the protagonist of the video being blindfolded and trying to read Ken Follet’s “A Place Called Freedom” which evidently acts as a symbol of the pathway to freedom); women being overlooked in historical, mythological, and social narratives in a way that prevents them from asserting their identities (represented by multiple close-up shots of inanimate, nameless women in the form of paintings, statues, etc.); and the unfairness of the objectification/dehumanisation of women which limits their representation in media and beyond to objects of pleasure for the heterosexual male gaze as noted by Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (e.g. represented by a shot of a mannequin striking a pose in low-key lighting, underlining the dark reality of being reduced to an object or spectacle for others’ pleasure as a woman).
The music video’s mise en scène underscores the oppression ubiquitous in the lives of the social group of marginalised women it aims to represent. One example of this is the use of temporal motifs, particularly the recurring close-up shots of vintage clocks stuck in time which aim to highlight outdated values that breed patriarchal oppression and have caused it to be a long-standing issue. Another important prop that aids our products’ use of representation is a book, the lines of which are obscured with black marker ink to symbolically emphasise the theme of knowledge being withheld from women as a means of oppression—the use of stop-motion to show the lines of the book slowly becoming visible towards the end of the video underlines a positive progression in the narrative, hinting at how the woman represented in the video has persevered through her suffering to reach some semblance of a hopeful ending for herself.
Although a majority of the video highlights the oppression of women as a marginalised social group, a significant portion also invites the audience to perceive the strength of the female character in the music video and the glimmers of hope that exist amid oppressive settings; the progression of themes represented by her removal of the blindfold and also walking forward into a dark hallway plagued by the uncertainty and possible danger (heightened by the use of technical and colour codes, e.g. a moving canted angle shot, the orange/red light at the end of the hallway, etc.) that accompanies challenging the status quo emphasises the perseverance of the woman in the video, prompting the audience to perceive her as an empowering person. The name of our album, “antinarrative,” similarly carries the connotation of representing an empowering woman’s narrative that opposes hegemonic patriarchal ideologies and doesn’t follow conventions. The tracklist, too, points towards the same themes—e.g. the allusion to Diving into the Wreck by the feminist writer and critic Adrienne Rich to contribute to the feminist undertones with the track "book of myths."
The representation of women and their issues in the music video is also aimed to be holistic; it was a planned decision to represent women’s struggles in contexts both local (e.g. references to “azaadi” (“freedom” in Urdu) and the empowering Urdu poem by Iqbal on the blindfold) and global (e.g. the artist’s name, Mrs Midas, being a reference to the ancient Greek myth of King Midas) alike, underlining how the issues represented in our products are as much universal as they are local (i.e. specifically representation of Pakistan); in other words, many might be able to relate to them and hence find the video engaging due to its authentic representation.
Apart from the element of representation, there exist several other elements in our work that cohesively create a sense of ‘branding’. For instance, the recurring imagery and props in the music video match the iconography used in the rest of the products: e.g. our digipak’s front cover as well as our merch posted on social media feature an illustration I drew of the protagonist of the music video/the artist in a blindfold, something the audience will be able to recognise from the music video and which is likely to deepen their understanding of the themes our products aim to represent. Similarly, the use of blacked-out book pages is replicated in graphic elements of our digipak and social media, e.g. I illustrated chalky lines to make the tracklist visually fit our overall brand and again engage the audience by drawing their attention to how different technical elements of our production are tied together by the same themes.
The representation of the artist’s star image in association with literary references (e.g. the Instagram stories I made about books that inspired “antinarrative”) also creates a sense of branding by urging the audience to think of the artist as well-read and perhaps attracting/engaging those people who may also be avid readers or enthusiasts of the classics/ancient mythology.
Additionally, consistent, standardised use of fonts and a fixed colour palette also aid our products’ ability to fit into a unique brand. Noto Sans Serif is primarily used in all our products to make them seem visually cohesive along with the stylistic choice of using primarily all-lowercase text in our music promotion package—a rebellious choice that a lot of indie artists have recently started following (e.g. the indie band “wave to earth”). Moreover, in the music video, the artist is shown wearing a black/red/grey/white outfit, and the colours of the location are predominantly beige/off-white/brown. We used a colour palette that corresponds with both of these elements of mise en scène (set and costume)—consisting of black/deep red/white/light beige—in our digipak and social media pages alike to make sure our products are tied together by a cohesive visual aesthetic that evokes a sense of “branding.”
The emphasis on women’s empowerment—e.g. underlined in the digipak with the rebellious undertones of the album name, in the music video as a whole, etc—also contributes to creating a brand image that would attract the younger, progressive members of our target audience, most of which are women according to our survey results.
Needless to say, our products’ potential engagement with its audience shaped the decisions my team member and I made to create our music promotion package. This was achieved mainly by using the knowledge we gained through our primary audience research questionnaire to make informed decisions, e.g. making a politically-charged video that harmonizes with our audience’s preference for music videos that do not conform to bigoted representation (such as in the form of the manifestation of the male gaze in conventional alternative/indie music videos by male artists—a convention we opposed), making the merchandise we posted on our social media accounts according to audience’s preference for merch items with lyrics and illustrations inspired by the song we used (Muddy Waters by LP), and so on.
The importance of merchandise as an element that encourages audiences to engage with our media products and generates (hypothetical) profits was not to be ignored; this is why I proposed the idea of marketing our artist’s merchandise on Instagram as products that have been created sustainably; such strategies would allow our products to attract and engage with audiences that are conscious about their environmental footprint and may value the work of artists that do the same. This also mirrors the notion of alternative/indie music’s audiences being politically-aware and wanting to consume the work of artist’s whose ideologies are also progressive.
Another aspect of our social media page that reflected evolving ways and methods is the announcement of a virtual concert/performance by Mrs Midas (our artist), allowing the audience to see the artist perform live despite COVID-19 restrictions; inspired by how BTS hosted several pay-per-view live stream concerts during the COVID-19 pandemic, our marketing strategy engages with audiences in a way that reflects contemporary social contexts and represents the changes COVID-19 has brought about in conventional music industry practices (e.g. in-person tours).
Teaser videos and images (posted on Instagram and YouTube, i.e. platforms used by an overwhelming majority of our survey respondents) were also posted to create anticipation for the products’ releases, allowing the audience to engage by expressing their thoughts on the music video and album.
Our products do a particularly good job at attracting global and local audiences alike in my opinion. References to foreign texts like Greek mythology achieve the latter, while the setting of the music video being a niche but somewhat well-known museum (the Lahore Heritage Club) makes it more relatable for our local, Pakistani audiences as well, diversifying the pool of our hypothetical artist’s target demographic.
The music video and digipak noticeably feature multiple instances of intertextuality which may also encourage audiences to engage with the products on an analytical level by prompting them to look into the other texts we are referring to (or vice versa, i.e. prompting people to engage with our products because they feature referential codes highlighting texts they might already appreciate).
Our music promotion package as a whole features an abundance of intertextuality that I decided to incorporate while planning the project. In other words, we embraced a postmodern approach through the use of intertextuality and surrealism—which my research also examined—conforming to the conventions of the alternative/indie genre that gives artists the creative freedom to incorporate their unique perspectives into their work and the liberty to distance themselves from conventional mainstream music which aims to appeal to the masses instead of a niche audience (i.e. an audience that may be interested in seeing intellectually challenging music videos). A lot of my initial research examined how South Korean artist’s in particular have paid homage to Wong Kar Wai’s work in their music videos; I wanted our project to feature something like step-printing, i.e. a famous technical code frequently used in Wong Kar Wai’s films, to pay homage to the auteur; this effect was achieved by Esha, my teammate, through editing. I also paid homage to one of René Magritte’s surrealist photographs to conform to the alternative/indie convention of music videos often employing surrealism and abstract ideas. As discussed earlier on my blog, I wanted to represent Magritte’s surrealist ideas through a feminist lens and leave the interpretation up to the audience who can decide what the homage to the photo may mean—e.g. is it a reminder of the difficulty women face in asserting their identity under the patriarchy, an attempt by the protagonist/artist to hide from the prying gaze of harassers, or something else entirely? In any case, it is a polysemic scene that could be representing diverse experiences women face globally, and may appeal to them in its representation of the critique of patriarchal conventions.
Intertextuality is present in our digipak and the artist’s brand image to a great extent too. “Mrs Midas” is a homage to the myth of King Midas and Carol Ann Duffy’s collection of poetry called the “The World’s Wife,” which draws attention to the women in historical and mythological narratives who are sidelined to highlight and value the stories of men. Mrs. Midas, our artist’s stage name and persona, becomes a paradoxical representation of the female struggle as it highlights the existence of King Midas’s hypothetical wife, amplifying and empowering the female narrative, while also reminding us that often women are, unfortunately, only known in association with their role in the lives of men (in this case, a wife). In this way, my research about intertextuality was made use of to exhibit indie/alternative norms and move away from mainstream conventions.
My research had also revealed that alternative/indie audiences are known to value authenticity and are often united in their appreciation of subcultures fueled by the notion of individualism; by making a music video that is a mosaic of several niche texts (a convention of music videos as noted by Andrew Goodwin and John Stewart), we conformed to our genre’s conventions and simultaneously engaged our audience.
My research and knowledge regarding the work of Levi Strauss and Sven E. Carlsson’s work encouraged us to incorporate the notion of binary opposition into our project in some subtle ways, e.g. using low-key lighting to emphasise the music video’s protagonist’s metaphorical entrapment in the dark chains of the patriarchy, and using high-key, natural lighting (e.g. streaming onto the artist’s figure, seen through tree leaves, etc.) to symbolically represent the underlying hope which exists amidst darkness.
Analysing various music videos as a part of my research helped us make a project that conforms to alternative/indie conventions; for example, recurring mise en scène elements have been employed to fit alternative music videos’ typical use of meaningful symbols, e.g. stopped clocks in our music video—my analysis of Mitski’s “Happy,” which uses pearls/pearl bracelets as a motif, aided this idea in particular. Simultaneously, my research regarding various alternative/indie artists also shaped our digipak and social media page. The social media page, for example, features stories about books that inspired “antinarrative,” a marketing technique Florence and the Machine frequently uses, suggesting that it is a norm to use unconventional marketing techniques when it comes to alternative/indie media. Moreover, the use of an illustration in the album cover was greatly inspired by alternative/indie albums’ use of abstract and artistic elements, e.g. Arctic Monkeys’ “AM” and Lorde’s “Melodrama.” Speaking of research regarding real-life alternative/indie artists: the fact that I gave our artist a stage name (stylised as “mrs midas”) also follows Western alternative/indie conventions; according to my research, many artists of these genres have stage names that sometimes capture their artistic concerns, e.g. Lorde and King Princess—importantly, the use of a stage name defies conventions of the Pakistani music industry to a great extent.
Furthermore, our record label exemplifies some conventions a lot of indie/alternative record labels follow according to my research, e.g. the name I came up with for it (i.e. “Moonage Records”) is a homage to David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream,” much like how Dead Oceans is a real record label name inspired by the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.”
Ultimately, the music promotion package Esha and I created could be considered one that effectively represents relevant social groups and issues, conforms (and, sometimes, deliberately rebels against) certain conventions, engages with our target audience to a suitable extent, and is tied together cohesively with a sense of branding—all aided by the research conducted individually by both team members.
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