Critical Reflection

The main intentions of “A keynote of life” is to represent the impact music has on teenagers and to display the emotional impact and day-to-day impact that music has on teenagers. There are various ways in which the piece formulates this with the most prominent one being interviews.

The development of "A keynote of life" focused initially on representing individuals that consider music an important part of their life. The documentary mostly focused on being able to represent the teenage part of these individuals by focusing on a teenage subject. The way this social group is represented is by focusing on the perspective of younger individuals. Initially the piece was going to focus on interviewing various individuals of different ages but after critical thinking and reflecting on the planning process the decision on focusing on the certain age group made more sense. Representing the music fanatics of the teenage years seemed like the perfect choice and to properly execute this there were various steps necessary. One of the key steps to being able to do this properly was to focus on the perspective of these groups. Interviewing the subjects seen in the piece was a process that helped show this perspective by asking open ended questions to provide the piece with answers in which they would provide nonbiased targeted answers to provide a sense of reality to the viewer and successfully represent their social group. The interview process also represents these social groups by displaying the common answers seen throughout the piece. The product created included various interviews in the beginning that offered similar responses that tie up the ideas of the social group, this helped represent the social group by allowing the subjects to speak openly about their views on the topic without being limited allowing them to represent themselves and the social group of young music fanatics through mentioning how they truly feel. Overall, the main way in which "A keynote of life" helped represent this social group was by allowing them to represent themselves and give their personal view on the topic.

This also ties to how the product engages with audiences. By interviewing various subjects that relate to the targeted audience the product engages the audience. This was intentionally done as mentioned in the last part and was a key concept throughout the documentary production. Another way in which the product engaged with the audience was by using a simple piece with an assortment of colors and different shots. From the middle to the end of the product it was intended to use various shots that would bring color, vibrance, and lighting to the piece to better engage with the audience. The use of these different filming strategies allowed the piece to be built in a way in which the target audience would be entertained and be able to watch with ease. The last way the product engaged with the audience was by following the main subject's story. This was used to try and find someone that would be like the intended audience and would represent them by stating similar interests. The use of the main subject engages the audience by giving them a sense of relation and connection with the subject and provides a friendly aspect to the product. So, by using shot techniques and creating a sense of relation to the subjects the piece properly engages with the audience.

This target audience also required research that informed the product and challenged conventions. The main convention challenged was that teenagers use music as a form of rebellion and identity. Although music can be used as identity this convention was challenged by instead representing music for teenagers as something that helps them improve mental health and overall is a good thing instead of just a distraction. This was done by displaying the main subject’s feeling towards music as he speaks about how important music has been to his day-to-day and overall life. The product also challenges the convention that teenagers do not have a powerful sense of emotion towards things since they are not fully developed. The way this is challenged is by displaying various emotions in the piece. In the piece's beginning, the interviews with the teenagers reflected this idea that they can feel strongly about things by displaying how they truly feel. The way they spoke about music represents this idea and highlights that their emotions and feelings towards music are strong and allow them to improve in their life. To develop these ideas research had to be done. By studying common demographic spheres such as the emotional connections to music the product was more successful. This research was done by interviewing individuals not seen in the piece. These individuals all gave similar answers stating that music has a connection to their emotions since the several types of music reflect how they feel and play a key role in the management of their emotions. This was also then researched leading to a conclusion in which music truly does affect the brain; by stimulating the brain and the limbic system the brain feels different emotions from music and is opened to various feelings. To conclude this the research put into the piece allowed the piece to challenge stereotypical conventions when regarding to teenagers and music by demonstrating the importance that music has not only on the mental health and feelings of teenagers but also their emotional intellect.

Overall, the product is used to represent the audience through the use of a “simplistic” production style through which the target audience can relate to the main subject and reflect on the impact that music has to them all while challenging conventions and representing the target social group.