Music Video

Evaluation Question 1: In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In our music video we have used, developed and challenged conventions of real media products.

In our video we have used and challenged the stereotype of emotions.To show the themes of sadness and isolation we used washed out colours on the video, this is a conventional technique which is used to connote depression or distress. We used editing to bring out the colour blue of the hoody and then to wash out the background; the effect of this was the character would look alone and isolated. This engages the audience because it shows the mood of the character which they can relate to. The use of blue is a conventional way of showing isolation and depression in a character.

However, conventionally a character might be seen on his/her own with feelings such as this, but we have challenged this by having our character walk down a crowded street. But, to carry on the theme of isolation we have made the protagonists hoody stand out, and desaturate the background making the other people walking down the street seem irrelevant (see top left). This develops the conventions of other media products and conventions. 

However we have also used these conventions to show isolation, for example the boyfriend under the bridge is framed in a long shot with few people around him. This is a very stereotypical way of showing isolation and loneliness (see right). We again conformed to this convention, when used long-shot of the character on the bridge connotes the idea of isolation; this is signified through the absence of other people or characters – meaning the character seems to be even more dejected.  Moreover, the central framing of the character is also indicates the remoteness felt by the character because of the space around the him, which connotes the absence of happiness in the character’s life.


The locations in the video are all remote, with few people around the characters. This combined with the combination of the editing technique of bringing out the blue in the costume of the character and the grey background to the scene indicates the characters feeling – perhaps showing that he only cares about his own problems and nothing else to do with the outside world.

 We have used editing in a way which challenges conventions. Instead of straight forward cuts between each shot, we have used split screens to represent the the emotions of both characters in contrast with each other. These aren't typical conventions and aren't often seen in other indie music videos.


We have conformed to the conventions of romance, our narrative forms around a teenage couple who break up and over an argument, and then at the end of the narrative, forgive each other at the end. This is a conventional narrative of the genre of a music videos, it has a similar narrative structure to videos such as Taylor Swift's 'Tim McGraw' which cuts between the main story of the narrative and flash backs. We have used Goodwin's theory of having a clear connection between our the lyrics and the narrative in our video. 

When studying similar videos of the same genre we found that they used performance shots regularly, but mixed in with the narrative. We have used this convention, by using performance shots in our video. We also conform to the conventions as we have they band in a stereotypical studio environment, as well as the singer performing in a blacked out room with lighting just on her (see below). We also used instrument shots, these are also used in other media products of a similar genre. We used close ups of our actors playing the guitar, shots like this are frequently used in other indie pop music videos (see below).

With a narrative such as ours, a story about relationships and heartache, we have used stereotypical shots of romantic connotations. For example at the end of our video we have used a time lapse shot of a sunset. This shot is stereotypical of romance, as it is often used in other media, such as film and TV.

In our film we have portrayed teenagers in a stereotypical way, this again uses conventions in other media products. Teenager relationships are often represented as difficult and problematic, here we have represented this as well, in the fight between the couple at the beginning sequence of our video. This appeals to our target audience who are of a similar age.

 

Our digipack is conventional as well. We used a very conventional of the common layout in other digipacks we have researched. It is similar to Taylor Swift, an artist who is of a similar genre to Polly; the back of her album (below, right), "Taylor Swift", has a stereotypical back cover. It has an image, which is over the artist, and reflects a similar mood/theme to the front cover; it has the bar code bottom right and the track list to the right of the artist. We have used a similar layout to this, however we have used an image as a background and overlayed the text over the top.

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Video Script:

R: Our target audience is both males and females in the 18-25 age gap, and from my questionnaire you can see that this age group enjoy a modern but different aspect to a music video and its accompanying products.

T: Our main product is fairly typical of a video associated with heartache, but with the effects and the camera angles, which was another need of the audience, we have achieved a unique feel to it. This is portrayed in my ancillary tasks, as the images show both loneliness and happiness without it being too overpowering and leaves the audience with some imagination to what goes on in the music video itself.

R: On the front of the CD cover, there is a shot which is similar to one in my music video where the boy is standing underneath a bridge on the right using a long shot. This again gives the reader an idea of what the song will be about as he is lonely which is apparent even though the audience cannot see his face. As we automatically read left to right, there is nothing to distract the audience on the left but it takes a longer amount of time for them to identify the character.

T: The colours of the font are blue and yellow; blue to relate to the main character and his mise-en-scene of his jumper; having the feeling of despair and loneliness, and yellow to show that there is a happy ending and also that it is eye-catching and gains the attention of the audience.

R: In our opinion, the font itself is slightly childish for the intended target audience, an opinion which has also been expressed from the audience since the completion of it. This is a part of the ancillary task which I think is not successful, however, the colours are a concept which is still connected to the music video itself.

T: Both the video and the ancillary tasks are not genre specific, and this is shown through the use of having the boy as the main character of a woman’s song. Both genders are evident within both the video and the products, but to draw in a male audience aswell as a female one, we put an image of the boy on the front cover instead of the artist.

R: This is also for reasons to do with completing all of my own work by taking pictures and taking screenshots of what I have completed to use in the ancillary task. The black and white aspect of the video shows the emotion of sadness and loss, with the colour pop of the blue to again show despair.

T: The institution is Island Records who use similar artists to Polly Paulusma including Colbie Caillat, Bombay Bicycle Club, Gabriella Cilmi and John Martyn as they all have the Indie genre associated to their music. 

R: We believe that this artist and video will match Island Record’s needs, as they are a diverse record company who include such genres and artists such as the one I have used.

T: Overall, I believe that the combination of the ancillary task and my main product is sufficient in terms of being connected and containing the same theme throughout, especially on the poster aswell. However as I have mentioned, I do not believe the font is suitable for my target audience which is an unsuccessful element of the task.

Evaluation Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From our audience feedback we learned that we had in many cases succeeded in engaging our audience in many cases. I asked a number of my friends within the ages of our target audience for a critical feedback. Positive feedback included:

"I really liked the video, I liked the way the blue hoody stood out from the black and white background."
Richard (17)

"The band shots look good, especially the shots where the singer was [imposed] over the top of another shot - it looks great!"
Anna (18)

"The use of the black an white looks good, it reflects the themes and emotions in the video. Those shots where you split the screen are brilliant, it's in time with the music as well"
Ben (18)

"... the magazine did look good, the use of quotes was a good idea. The layout draws you in, and the colours work well on the background."
Lucy (17)
However some feed back did suggest that there were areas for improvement:

"I liked the video because it has some great shots in there... but the CD cover was my least favourite part of the final products. I thought that the font wasn't quite right..."
Frances (18)

"The music video was the best part out of the whole package [final products], but I'd say that the advert and CD cover could have been more exciting, the inside covers were quite repetitive. Having said that the shot used on the cover is dramatic . Good work!!"
Luke (18)

Overall, we have successfully engaged our audience with our final product. The feedback shows a specifically that our target audience liked our editing. They liked the way in which the background was desaturated and the blue in the hoody stood out. Other feedback we recieved also commented on the good selections of costumes, the hoody with the hood up did signify depression and isolation, and the dark clothes worn by the female protagonist indicates similar themes which we were trying to achieve. Comments also showed complements towards our cinematpgraphy, where many comments praised our shot of the male protagonist under the bridge.

However, feedback also showed that we needed to make our digipack more adult, as comments said that the font and colours weren't incredibly engaging

This shows that through our cinematography and editing we have achieved a film which encapsulates our target audience through the use of cinematography, mise-en-scene and editing.

Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Research and Planning
Google
Internet search engine.

MySpace
Myspace was a very useful piece of new technology. We used it in order to research new songs and also to compare them. It was a useful technology because it also helped us choose from a variety of artists from one genre, meaning we could explore and compare our song ‘Back to the Start’ with other songs, but also other bands image and style.


Youtube
Youtube was an obvious source of potential music and as a source of research and reference points to other videos. It was a good source for examples of band styles, but also a really important source for inspiration and research into music videos. We used Youtube in order to research, compare songs. Similarly to Myspace, we used Youtube to find a song that we both agreed upon, and also to research into our genre of indie-pop/folk. It was especially useful as it is a free source of videos meaning we could really examine different aspects of music videos. We found some of Polly Paulusma's songs on there and could compare our approach to music videos to previous videos of hers.

Blogger
We used our blogs in order to document and structure our ideas. We have used it as our base for all coursework, with links to external sites.


Apple's iTunes
Similarly to Youtube and Spotify, we used it to research and compare songs. However, we also used this in order to purchase the song in order to help us construct our video - for example we used itunes in order to help our actors lip-sync our lyric in our performance shots. 

Spotify
Spotify is a free music service in which the consumer can stream music for free and create a cost-free music bank. We used this, again, as a source for song research and comparison.


Construction
SD Video Camera
Although the shots weren’t as sharp as a HD (High Definition) Camera would have been, we still captured the shots we needed.


Camera
We used this in order to document our filming and construction as evidence.

Final Cut
This was the software we used in order to edit our music video. We uploaded our footage from the camera via the SD card and Mpeg Stream Clip (the software converter) and formatted our footage so we could use it to edit. We used final cut in order to manipulate, splice, cut and distort our footage

Photoshop
This program was very important for when we were constructing our digipack. We used is to edit stills from our music video, which we felt were appropriate, and craft a layout. We used is in order to edit the images, but also to create text and format the layout.

Conclusion
New media technologies were incredibly important to us, as they provided an
irreplaceable part of our digital research. When researching, initially, we used new media technologies to explore different genres, styles and themes. 


The internet was almost essential for this, as it was the most convininet hub of information for all the different bands. Sites like Youtube and Myspace proved invaluable to searching out new bands and songs. For example if we wanted to find a band which was of a similar music genre to that of Polly Paulusma, Myspace was very useful for finding artists for this purpose - as the band would often have album artwork on their Myspace page in which we could be inspired by to produce our ancillary tasks, for example. Simialry, Youtube gave us a platform inwhich to evaluate our music video alongside other videos from artists of the same genre. It gave us an opportunity to be inspired by other video and also to see other videos and make comparisons between our own and professional standard music videos.


The use of new media technology in constructing the music video and ancillary tasks was also essential. Obviously, the camera was the most important piece of equipment in this, allowing to capture our various shots, but we used software to convert the footage into our videos, and stills into our ancillary tasks. For editing our video, we used Final Cut for cutting our footage and putting our shots in order. The software was also used for adding effects such as transitions, such as fades, flashes, overlaying. For our ancillary tasks we used both Final Cut and Photoshop, as to continue the themes and concepts accurately from our video to our magazine advert and CD cover. However, we primarily used Photoshop for our ancillary tasks to arrange and create text for our digipack but also to crop and transform our images to create a look for our work that we believed suited the needs and wants of our target audience.



A screen shot of editing on Final Cut



Refilming Part 2

We refilmed the performance shots of our singer/actor, with a much better lighting set up, and the results are far better.

We filmed our actor from a number of different angles and varied the shots (low angle, close up etc). We have finished most of the editing and only have some minor adjustments to finish.

Refilming

Having filmed some of the band shots we needed to increase the quality of our music video, on examination we realised that some of the shots weren't good enough. The lighting on some of the shots meant that the singers face was too dark and the actors face wasn't visable enough - the lighting we had set up meant that our actors face was far to dark in some shots.

However the shots we filmed of the guitarists and the shots of the two of them together were successful, the lighting was good enough and we filmed some great shots of the guitarist. We managed go frame so good angles of the the actor playing the guitar, which will make our video much more engaging.

Ancillary Tasks Final Copies

CD Cover

Magazine Advert

Ancillary Tasks Ideas

For the ancillary tasks the thought we should use images/stills from our video in order to continue the themes but also to give a taste as to what the video has to offer. This will continue the themes in our music video - depression, isolation, relationships - which is what the research into other CD covers show.

We thought we should use the shot of tyhe boyfriend under the bridge for the front cover as it is a dramatic shot which will engage the audience.

For the back we thought we should use the shot of the flashback of the two together, as this shows the split themes in our song.

For the inside we were going to use the sunset shot, this again reflects concepts of romance in the song.

Ancillary Task research

When researching CD covers and magazine adverts I was looking for common conventions. CD covers typically had the songs listed on the back of the case, all the tracks were listed not necessarily in one column; some were broken up by images. However, there were elements that occurred more frequently than others cases: bar codes were on every case as well as the name of the record company. The bar code featured in the bottom right of the CD case and the record label appeared either bottom left or bottom right next to the bar code. However when researching I did find that some artists chose to be unconventional with their layout such as Ellie Goulding  (see below). She has the tracks listed in a conventional way in a central column, but

the bar code is centre top and the record label centre bottom. This gives us flexibility as to how to present the layout of the back cover.

Though, when I researched other CDs I found a trend: conventional album covers were relatively simple in design. Taylor Swift is an artist who is of a similar genre to Polly; the back of her album (below, right), "Taylor Swift", has a stereotypical back cover. It has an image, which is over the artist, and reflects a similar mood/theme to the front cover; it has the bar code bottom right and the track list to the right of the artist.

We could use the conventions of the stereotypical layout in order to attract and engage our audience with a format in which they are familiar. 

Video Refinement

After review, Rachel and I decided that are video could be improved in several aspects. Below are the notes we made in lesson in order to improve the video. Apart from the more minor adjustments below, we also needed to add band shots into our video (this was again from audience feedback). We needed to vary the pace video, as well as making the video more engaging; we believed we could achieve this throuhg incorporating performance shots into our video.

Christmas Filming

During the Christmas period Rachel and I finished the bulk of our filming, despite being hampered by the weather. We filmed in Cambridge, around the Cambridge University colleges as we decided before hand after audience research.

Unfortunately we have found it hard to get reliable actors, as many of them have pulled out from filming; so as to not get behind schedule we decided that I should play the main role as the boyfriend. This still fits in with the our research and should not detract from the quality of the end product of our music video.

Ideas

Having examined and studied other music videos, we have started to draft our ideas for our music video.

We will try to use mise-en-scene to represent the progression in the music video. For example have the male actor wear a hoody with the hood up to show his mood; then when he realises he's made a mistake he takes the hood down. We were thinking that maybe the girl/alternative protagonist could also be wearing clothes which reflect her mood.

We would then incorporate the editing and use washed out colours when he has his hood up and then bring out the colour when his hood is down. Bringing out blues/greys/blacks in the video would also emphasise the emotion of the character; as our music video is about a teenage couple, we could bring out the the stereotypical moodiness and depression commonly associated with teenagers. This would appeal to our younger target audience (the 16-25 age bracket).

Again we will try to use the camera angle and position to show mood; by having the character in an isolated area with out people around, which is a conventional way of showing this emotion.

We have storyboarded unfortunately, we were unable to upload due to a technical error.

Synopsis

Our idea for the music video is of a teenage couple who have broken up. The scenario in the music video is the two have had an argument and they have split up. We will show the two reflecting on what they have done; we will show flashbacks of the argument and we will wash out the colours to begin with and then towards the end we will make the shots brighter and clearer to show that they realise that they made a mistake and they still love each other.