Evaluation - Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms of conventions of real media products?


To view some major conventions in music videos, we as a group identified what were the most important ones by looking at other music videos, such as the average time of a music video, whether a music video was performance, concept or narrative based, and stereotypes- with the help of looking at other music videos and identifying their major conventions, we managed to take this into consideration and we used a narrative based storyline to our music video, as our storyline is about love, and our singer is searching for her love in the beginning of our video, we use the Lavender fields pinkish colour corrected background to signify a crush, and the scene itself as it is such an attractive setting for her to search for her one and only. Brighton is also another attractive setting we used for her to search for her love, and we used clips to signify her loneliness such as her walking by the shoreline alone (use of close ups if her face, use of Laura Mulvey's male theory gaze, so more close ups of her legs- we use the theory gaze when she's on Brighton Pier, we have close ups of her face, arms and legs). We know there is a saddening storyline in our music video, but to appeal to the male audience, we use sex appeal- so close ups of our singer is necessary!

Timing of our music video was another convention that we didn't need to worry about too much, as it was the simple task of filling up the gaps of the music itself, so we never had to worry about having a 20 minute music video, as "Inna- The sun is up" is 3 minutes and 10 seconds long.

"Inna- The sun is up" is quite an up beat song, and so editing of quick shots was a must! In one of our set of time with the music, we used a cross over of two of the same setting shots but one was day, and one was sunrise, and most importantly, it followed the beat of the music, and as we found out, the simple task of following the beat of the music made the music video look really impressive if it was done correctly.

Our main focus for our music video was to give the impression to our audience that our singer is a strong, independent, sexy woman who has a storyline to follow in our music video. Not long before the process of our music video, I looked through a few music videos that give the impression of what I want our singer to be, and I found one song exactly like that:

This song and music video has a deep, emotional storyline to it; it's about a man breaking going from woman to woman, breaking their hearts, and unfortunately, Christina Perri was one of those women, and now she wants to face the man who broke her heart, and get even.

Throughout the majority of the storyline of "Jar of Hearts" it shows the man taking many hearts away from women that he has emotionally hurt, and you can see that Christina is looking onward at him. The music video not only allows Christina to express her feelings through singing, but through dance as well- though she does not dance herself, all the other woman that have been hurt by this one man, dance with him, and you can see his lust and their pain. Nearing the end of the music video, you can see all the women rising up, and fighting for her "Hearts" back against this man, and you see Christina finally face her ex lover, and get her heart back.

Christina's digipak has showed how strong and independant she is as a woman- and this tought me that a lot of other digipaks are very similar. We saw a lot of close ups and medium shots of the artist themself, and we learnt that this was important for the artist to get recognised and so for our digipak photos, we have done just this- we have included medium shots with scenery backgrounds that are used in the music video and close ups of her face. The digipaks we looked at were mainly Soulful and pop music- Adele's 21 CD shows just a close up of her face, something very basic:

In a lot of other digipaks like Adele's; they used big text and colour to stand a specific thing out- Adele here has used black and white of a close up of her face to maybe signify emotion in this album and even though we haven't created a digipak like Adele's, we have gained the same concept of using big, bold text for the title of the single on our digipak, and have used plenty of bright colours like pink, orange, yellow, and red to link to the title itself "The Sun if Up"- we have used these colours to give her a strong image of herself, and make her look very elegant with the scenery backgrounds we have chosen for the digipak that include the bright colours.

Evaluation question - Question 4

At the start of media, I wasn’t too familiar with blogger and how it work, so I spent some time planning while using it for when I will use it for media purposes- I just had to get used to the design of blogger, and how to edit and post, which took less than 10 minutes, but was very worth the time, so I didn’t have to waste any time getting used to it when I would be using it for more important times. Throughout my times using blogger for AS and A2 I discovered that blogger wasn’t completely reliable, as at times, it wouldn’t allow me to post or edit- but it was good for keeping an eye on what work I had done so far, as it allowed me to post after every other post, so I could then view each post without the difficulty of struggling to find where it is, as all my posts would be in order from the first time I posted, to the last time I posted.

I found Prezzi much harder to handle, it looked all so difficult to use, that I had to use my own initiative by looking at what other people were doing. But the time spent on how to use it paid off- it made boring presentations look quite fancy as it looked like an animated story, progressing onto the next step. But when I used it, it showed that I was capable of using other difficult technologies.

My mobile phone actually did come into use at some stages- when there wasn’t a computer around, I used my mobile phone to research things such as types of shots, and to jot down little notes that I may have forgotten.

Digital cameras were easy enough to get to, but like all cameras, it’s always different, so I took about 5 minutes what button/switch did what and how that could make my shot better/worse. But with the use of these cameras, it let me take great shots with great quality that was important for the editing side of things. But the cameras we used did have its downside, as it ran out of power quite quickly and would state when the cameras’ memory was too full to keep more photos/shots without warning.

Final cut express was the hardest one to figure out of the lot! I spent a good hour on it, preparing myself what to expect to be doing. While using it in my time of work, I already knew the basics such as inputting clips, cutting, colour corrector and fade. But of course, I would need to breach my basic knowledge of final cut express to a more challenging level, so I did what I did best, I observed other people using the piece of equipment, to view what effects they were putting in, how they were putting effects in, and how to actually make a good level music video.

Ashley and I used an audio recorder for our director’s commentary, we had only used it once before, but knew its purpose and how to work it. But when we were recording ourselves, we found out that the recorder wasn’t even recording, because unfortunately there were no outstanding features on the piece of equipment to say when it would be recording.

The internet was priority in the matter of researching for our music videos benefits, and it was like second nature to us, so practice wasn’t needed. We managed to find plenty of information on the internet that would fit our music videos’ needs. But some of the information we thought was legit, was in fact just an opinion, which gave us the wrong view on how to create our music video and to edit in final cut express.

Sites such as YouTube was vital in the role of researching, as we would be researching for professional music videos, to analyse what effects were taking place, what kind of shots, and what the storyline was about. But at times, the internet wouldn’t be working, which was really unfortunately, as it was just time wasting.

Evaluation question - Question 3

We had a lot of positive feedback and little criticism- though a lot of people didn’t like the music, the video was the main focus. We got 7 people including a teacher to watch our final music video, and then we took 4 of them to a room and created a focus group of what those people liked and why.

“I liked the sunset shot and the colour corrector used” – we had a lot of these comments, and I think people liked it so much because it related to the song so much, and fit in well with the beat of the song. They explained that they liked it so much because there were a lot of effects put in, as well as the shot alone with the sunset in the background of our singer.

“The amount of camera shots in the same scene was quite effective” – people liked these shots because they were quick with the change of the angle, and that it fitted in well with the beat of the song. They also said from looking at other professional music videos, they realised that they liked music videos so much because of the quick shots so that they wouldn’t get too bored with it too quickly.

“I found the storyline confusing” – people found our storyline to the music video confusing because the lyrics didn’t relate at all. They also got confused with her actions in the music video, they explained this because in the beginning of the music video, it gave the impression that she was looking for the “one” but when she found him, she pushed him away, which cancelled out what they just said.

“I didn’t find the acting convincing” – people commented mainly on the pushing away part of our singers lover, they explained that they feel it needed more emotion in her acting, instead of her looking motionless in the face the whole time

I found these comments really interesting and important, as it really reflects on how we all worked in our group, and by listening to the negative side of our music video; of course there was room for improvement. In the future when I would be working in a group, I would research more and harder into the subject of our group purpose, I would make sure everyone has an important role to play, and that I would report back to my group on how I am doing in the process of the work.

These comments also made me think about what I could have done to change in the editing side of a music video- I would have gathered much more angled shots of the same shot, I would have got my initiative from other groups and how and what they were doing to their music video editing, and made sure I spent PLENTY of time on editing.

Evaluation- Question 2

Having a house style and brand identity is crucial for an artist to succeed as a singer. Having those two same techniques is vital to get recognised and to be remembered. It is why successful artists like Lady Gaga and Adele have managed to climb to the top of the music industry- though two completely different artists, they share the same strategy of meeting a target's audience requirement; and that's being an idol/role model.

Both of these artists are role models, and it's important to keep that same house style. Both of these artists write and sing their own music, and both write meaningful songs. Adele's "Someone like you" is about an ex lover that changed her life in a good way, and that she'll have to make do with finding someone like him. Lady Gaga's  "Born this way" is a song about no matter what you look like, who you are, and where you come from, everyone is equal and that it shouldn't matter to anyone else. I've been talking about house style of songs, and that it's important to sing songs that are not out of a singer's genre- Adele is a soul/blues/pop singer whereas Lady Gaga is pop/dance singer and it's VITAL that both of those artists keep to the their own genres because if they don't, it could lead to fans abandoning them, thus the end of their music career.

Brand identity is also another major thing in an artist's career, and in this case: Adele's brand image her voice alone, and going against the stereotype of skinny women always being successful, and Lady Gaga's brand image is her costumes- though Lady Gaga may have a talent, her costumes are the majority of the thanks for her succes, which is her brand image, and without use of her costumes, her career is most likely to fade away.

What I've mentioned above is the explanation to why constant house style and brand identity is so important, and this explanation has been a research of mine which has benefited my media group and I into thinking how and why our singer could be as successful as the two women I have mentioned.  We have created brand identity for our singer, as we want to make her come across as "Sexy" to the audience- and this will be her true identity, without it, people will find it hard to realise who she really is- we've created this by adding in elegant, soft colours such as pink, light orange, and smooth red throughout our music video and on the cover of our digipak, and we have also kept the same style throughout our music video and digipak.

We have tried to keep our digipak in the same style as our music video, so we have kept the same colours, put in smooth elegant font, and have aimed to put in a photo of our singer, looking natural in a relaxing and calm background- looking at Rihanna's "Only Girl" photo cover, we have tried to aim for something similar to this:

We look at the word "Escapism" and think that a lot of people find life rough, so they like to escape to their own place in their mind, where they're happy; so we aim to achieve a relaxing and natural shot of our singer in a nice and calm background so the customer could be entised by how elegant and relaxing it looks like- we have learnt in today's modern music that the singing itself isn't everything, it's a lot to do with feature. The same goes for our advert as well, as we have used yet another calm shot of our singer, but as it's an advert, we have advertised a website, the productions and when the single is out so people are aware of where to buy it, who produced it and when it comes out- and this will help sell.

Digipak cover

Focus Group

Advert

This is our advert for our music video "INNA - Sun is up". Our priorities for this advert was a close up of our singer, and we have managed to create a "Relaxing" mood of our singer, with her reflection in the mirror, representing a reflection thought of her love life, which is about our music video! We used house style colours that are used in our music video such as pink, so that our advert doesn't look completely different to our music video, so then our target audience won't get confused. We have noticed by looking at other pop singer's adverts that they have close ups of their face, so we decided to do the same and get the same effect.