1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I decided to create a music video to the song 'Everything you wanted' by kele. In my music video I have used codes and conventions of real media products such as the black and white flashback footage. This technique has been used by many established artists within the music industry, an example is in Beyonce's music video 'If i were a boy', and Amy Winehouse's 'Back to black'. The black and white clips that I have used represent previous memories, when the couple staring in the music video were a happy couple. I chose to create the flashback footage to show the passing of time and thought it would allow the audience to understand the storyline better, it also fits in well with the indie genre.
Indie rock is a sub-genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_rock)
Indie music videos tend to be performance based.
I have looked at the different style of music videos, and the 3 main forms that they come in;Performance, Narrative and Image. Performance speaks for itself, where the song is performed either straightforwardly in a concert hall or in a more exotic location and the emphasis is on performance. Narrative is where the narrative of the song is played out or sometimes another separate narrative is told. Image is where the content of the video does not relate obviously to the lyrics and there i not an immediate concert setting, what is emphasised is the image of the artist.
By creating a hybrid music video, using a mixture of both performance based and narrative I have therefore challenged the codes and conventions of real media products. I have also challenged the codes and conventions by using effects sparingly. I believe that my finished media product is simple but effective. I didn't want to use loads of effects when editing as the song is pure, and the song lyrics wouldn't suit.
Another way in which our production follows the main forms and conventions is by including the logo of the music channel that would show this video in the top left corner of the screen, for example channels such as The Hits are likely to play pop/r&b and chart music whereas Channel AKA will be playing a lot of rap/hip hop music. For this instance I have used MTV hits in my music video as I believe this music channel is likely to broadcast music in the indie genre. I had the title of name of the artist, the title of the track and the name of the artist’s album pop up at both the start and the end of the music video, following the conventions. This allows audiences to easily recognise what the song is, and allow them to download it. Also on my print artefacts I have used the name of the artist, and the name of the song and album to keep to the conventions, and used black and white on the CD cover so the whole theme stays nicely intact. As well as using conventions and codes of media products, I also developed them by using a number of different locations within my music video. I used this idea to help keep the viewers hooked and remain interested. Although finding the locations and then filming took a great deal of time, I believe the locations I found fit in extremely well with the whole genre and idea of my music video, making it a success.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The combination of my main product and my ancillary text has proved to be a popular product amongst a group of fellow students. I believe this is down to the effective planning and consistent hard work I have put in. My main product flows very smoothly as during the editing process I ensured it was well synchronized which made it easier for my target audience to enjoy.
I have incorporated black and white flashback clips in my main product to compliment my CD cover, which is also black and white and very simplistic. My CD cover is made up of images/clips from the actual media product itself. I have done this because it not only makes the product more attractive and appealing to the audience but it ties in with the simple style of editing that has been used throughout. The black and white style makes my product recognisable from my peers and allows the genre to be clearly portrayed to the audience, an effective way of marketing my product.
The final version of my CD Cover and Magazine advert are below:
My marketing strategy consisted of tying in a sense of past and present through the use of black and white flashbacks and coloured clips. By creating this sense of past and present it is easier for my target audience to understand the basics of how the story formed, allowing them to not only be more sympathetic towards the story line, but to appreciate the story behind the video. I believe it’s important to make my CD cover and magazine advert appeal to my target audience. By using the images on the front and back of my CD cover, it straight away attracts the audience I am aiming my product at. It is important to grab the attention of the consumer straight away, as they are more likely to pick up and buy a product if they like the way it looks.
When creating my magazine advert I opted for HMV. This is because they are a leading retailer specialising in the latest music releases and able to attract a wide demographic. This is good for my products success as I can also target new demographics such as MTV music channel. My research into this shows that it would be possible to break into these new markets, over a period of time. MTV shows current, popular music with a diverse mixture of genres played on the same channel; this fits my song because it does not follow the conventions of a single music genre.
My magazine advert includes the shot used for the front cover, which immediately ties all three products together. This creates a much more powerful and structured product and advertising campaign. My main product, CD cover and magazine advert have all been of a high quality, using only a handful of effects whilst edited to keep it sophisticated.
Overall, the relationship between each of my products has proven to be effective, creating a powerful, high quality product, attracting the appropriate and desired demographic.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
On completion of my main product, I rounded up a group of students to watch and analyse my production. I then issued each individual with questionnaires to fill out and hand back to me to help make further improvements.
The feedback received gave me, as the producer valuable and beneficial ideas that I had not anticipated.
The larger percentage of my audience feedback was extremely positive. Consumers tended to take very well to the black and white colour scheme I adopted during the creation of both the main product and the CD cover. On the feedback sheets I handed out, I received comments such as ‘Your product was well constructed’ and ‘Very creative’, on both the magazine advert and CD cover. I also received some constructive criticism about the synching in parts of my music video, which I quickly took care of to ensure I delivered a product my target audience would be satisfied with.
The audience had also noticed a minor fault on the first CD cover I had created, they were unable to identify the correct name of the album, as on the front of the CD cover it had below the name of the artists album as ‘everything you wanted’. However on the back of the CD cover, underneath the artist’s name, it had the album name ‘The Boxer’. I didn’t anticipate such a blatant fault in my planning stages and didn’t notice it myself. To overcome this problem I had to go back into Photoshop and edit the front cover so it included the correct album name, ‘The Boxer’. Once edited, the product was then of an improved quality, until I had realised I had made the same mistake on the magazine advert. Therefore editing proved harder than expected.
This is my first copy of the CD cover before editing again:
Whilst editing the first section of my filming, I noticed there was a lack of long shots and only a few medium shots that had been filmed. I acted quickly upon this whilst I still had all the filming equipment, and went back out to a variety of different locations to film a mixture of different shots, some from different angles. This enabled me to switch between different scenes, locations and shots throughout the whole of my music video, so not one of my shots dragged on, in order to ensure the audience kept hooked during my production and watched it till the end.
On every piece of feedback I received, the audience agreed that I had stuck to the codes and conventions of a music video. I managed to succeed in doing so by using credits at the start and end of my music video, stating the name of the artist, name of the album and name of the song. I wanted to create a narrative production, telling a story, which also helps to follow the conventions of a typical indie themed music video.
Overall, from the evaluation of my music video I have learnt it is easy to make mistakes slip under your fingers and that peer assessment is an important part of recognising and learning from your mistakes. This has played an important part in the creation and success of my overall product.
4. H0w did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages in the following ways. During the planning stages of my production I had to first of all set up a blog using a site called blogger.com on the internet. Blogger is an online website used by a wide range of technophiles, giving people the opportunity to create a number of different blogs and offer variety by allowing them to customise it by changing fonts, templates and backgrounds to suit their needs. My blog was regularly updated with new posts, including research into the music industry and into my chosen genre. Once I had created my blog I was able to personalise it, adding a background, choosing colour schemes and changing my fonts. It was useful during the planning stages as I could keep going back and referring to information on my blog, for example my storyboard, to help me recognise which shots I had already filmed and which shots were left.
I used the internet a great deal, especially sites such as Google, Wikipedia and YouTube. Google and Wikipedia came in handy when researching about the music industry and different genres, helping me to decide on which one to choose. It also helped me plan my storyboard as I found examples on the internet to guide me on how mine should look. I used YouTube to watch music videos on and gain inspiration from, I watched a variety of music videos by artists such as Rihanna and Chris Brown as they have written a lot of love songs, the song I had chosen was also a love song, so this helped me during my though process in the planning stages.
During the editing of my production I was sometimes phased my editing techniques on Photoshop and wasn’t quite sure on how to complete certain effects. I found many tutorials on YouTube that guided me through completing the effects I was before uncertain of. I embedded videos onto my blog using YouTube, I had to copy a code from the music video then paste it into the html box onto my blog, I would then analyse the video I had uploaded.
During the construction of my music video I used the mini DV cameras and tape provided to film my desired footage. Once I had filmed all of my footage I had to log and capture the clips I wanted to use in Final Cut Pro on the apple mac computers. I then went on to edit the clips I had picked, using only a small amount of effects and transitions to keep in with the whole ‘simplistic’ theme. I used effects such as layering, whereby images are placed on top of one another allowing the same person to appear twice in one shot if correctly carried out. I also used slow motion when the character walks away from the camera, stop motions blur, grey scale, speeding up and changing the angle of shots. I then had to upload the mp3 file for my music video (Kele – everything you wanted) which I had previously downloaded onto my phone, so it was a case of plugging it into the apple mac and dragging it over to my production.
As well as my music video I had to create a CD cover for the alum and also a magazine advert. I took two still images that I had previously used in my music video and uploaded them onto Photoshop. I then edited them so they were black and white to tie in with the ‘simplistic’ theme, adding wording and the HMV logo in the bottom left corner on the magazine and a parental advisory sign on the front of the CD cover on the bottom left hand side.
For my evaluation I have had to write this 2000 word essay which I have typed up onto Microsoft Word in order to spell check my work and count the number of words I have used. I then copied and pasted it onto a new post called ‘Evaluation’ onto my blog.
