Before beginning this film project, we brainstormed about possible messages we want to send to our target audience along with what problems they're facing, in order for them to relate more to our product. After deep reflection, we decided on the epidemic of adolescents avoiding their problems due to past circumstances and feeble mindsets.
Due to the drastic changes in the world recently and in the past, many people, with an emphasis on the youth, have had to adapt to a multitude of ever changing situations, ranging from pandemics, to wars, to economic instability, all of these negatively affecting their mental wellbeing. This, in turn, has weakened their willingness to be proactive and fix their problems as more powerful people have fixed theirs(moderately). This putrid habit has sunken deep into their being, hindering their day to day life as they refuse to self-reflect and grow once more. This is what we aimed to show in our video, emphasising this avoidance, running away from the undesirable, running to comfort. The social groups are further represented by the main character, the star of the video, Eduard, he represents the youth, his humble demeanour is contrasted by the jarring and hostile music, he has to face reality as avoidance has proven futile. We follow his journey of reintegration, a once “loud” and “paralyzing” world, now tolerable.
I believe our minimalist mindset is what sets this project apart from others tackling similar issues, problems faced by the youth. We decided not to overcomplicate ourselves on the design of the digipak, the reasoning being that we didn't want our work's message to be skewed by unnecessary clutter and to better fit the inspirations for said work(artistically).
The album from which the songs is a part of has a fairly plain cover, consisting of the artwork itself along with the title of said album(written on the protruding object on the cover). Furthermore we continued with this mindset going into the music video, we don't stray too much from our main idea and message, that of “running”, which is the predominant “element” to our video.
Our aesthetic is also a key factor to our branding, the consistency of our “vintage” look helps with the identification of “Devanthum”. Our focus was placed on the nostalgic “vibe” of reminiscing memories thought long gone, we achieved this by using aged cameras along with desaturating and adding grain to certain pictures/frames. This has achieved 2 things: relatability and most importantly, a refined, notable look.
The editing is another crucial element to our “branding”, it helps solidify our look by using simpler editing techniques such as photo spamming and abrupt cuts, we achieved our desired look thanks to this factor. It was the synergizing element to our visual amalgamation.
I believe our product best engages with the audience through its relatability, it's very easy to relate to our product due to the fact that it addresses such a common problem, even though we target a more youthful audience, this doesn't mean that other age demographics can't relate. The places we filmed at and took photos of are all part of day to day life, each person has different connotations attached to said places, everyone goes through buses, walks near lakes, and slowly with time those places are given meaning, whether it be simply a marker of getting from point a to point b or a place of recluse and reflection.
Another thing to take note of is the fact that almost everybody runs away from something, big or small, everyone is or has done it. Shared experiences such as these create communities and support systems, these can boost engagement as they not only create a safe space for their interests but also a hub of artistic discussion.
The colder aesthetic is also favoured by adolescents, this further being shown from the more Rock oriented music preference shown in our questionnaire and if we go by gender stereotypes, this should also appeal to males easily, captivating more than half of the survey participants attention by the sheer aesthetic.
We were fairly acquainted with this style of music, along with the “typical” conventions used when marketing and engaging with their audience, this being said we still did manage to learn something from our findings. Through our Instagram page and digipak assessment we managed to realize that there are far more ways of interacting, communicating and advertising products and messages to your targeted demographics. Death grips and Grimes for example, both have seen massive success through 2 completely opposite means. Grimes mostly posts abbot upcoming events and her process of getting ready. This works for her as she is being informative whilst still showing glimpses of her personality, people appreciate that and feel caught up to date. Death Grips on the other hand stayed true to their initial goal of creating and transmitting whatever they felt was adequate, with total creative liberty and autonomy. You would expect such a project to fail however it has prospered greatly, their demographic address their raw approach to creating music, they create out of passion and are thus extremely unique as even at the height of their fame they did not change.
Keeping both of these examples in mind we decided the best course of action would be to adopt a mix of both strategies. We would challenge the normal conventions by decreasing the number of creative barriers that most people self impose yet still keep some semblance of a framework. We would include both informative snippets in our Instagram posts, hinting as to what's coming alongside more playful/partially cryptic posts from our behind the scenes.
We emphasised 2 sides of our production process, the playful and the serious, this reflects the balance needed for day to day life.
Comments