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.

Director's commentary

Post #2- 6th week of filming (31st Oct - 6th Nov 2011)

We got a lot done today! It may have just been Ashley and I, but we fitted in all our planned Lavender field shots and we were happy with the outcome. In all of our Lavender shots, we used colour corrector to bring out pink in the shots to signify a crush in the music video, we had the sunset in the majority of our lavender field shots.

We know throughout the editing process of our video, we're still going to tweak little things, more/less of Lavender field shots that we've added today will probably be seen in the near future.

Post #1- 6th week of filming (31st Oct - 6th Nov 2011)

We moved onto cutting in Lavender fields and more Brighton shots into Final Cut Express, and we always aimed to keep the more elegant shots of our singer and scenery. Now, the official editing began and we started off with our introductory shots of our singer walking up to the camera from each scenery (Brighton, Lavender fields and London). We managed to finish out introductory shots as well as fitting in our singer walking down the pathway in St James' park with lots of close ups of her face and lips.

Post #2- 5th week of filming (24th - 30th Oct 2011)

Before moving onto implimenting our Lavender and London clips, we positioned where we planned our Brightin clips to be. It took a while, and unfortunately, Rakulan wasn't with us this lesson. We then moved onto putting in our London clips, and the London clips were by far the majority of the music video as it seemed- as we took the majority of filming in London, where our singer's love would appear. We took many shots signifying she was a strong individual looking for her love, and we took lots of shots of her new found love.

Post #1- 5th week of filming (24th - 30th Oct 2011)

Today we officially started with the editing of our music video. We looked at all of our footage, but started embedding the Brighton footage. Rakulan helped us choose the footage to implement onto finalcut express.

Today wasn't a matter of major editing, it was simply following our storyboard, and cutting pieces of clips to put into our final cut express file. We used most of our clips, we disregarded the other clips are they were mistakes, but the clips we chose were mostly close ups of our singer walking by the beach and the sea, and others of her on the pier- we chose the clips that came across as elegant and "sexy".

Post #2- 4th week of filming (17th - 23rd Oct 2011)

As I've said before that in my previous Lavender field post; we knew we didn't have enough time to shoot all we wanted to.

So, in today's time spent in the Lavender fields, we luckily had another background scenery of the sunset, and even better, less vicious wind! So with the wind quite steady, we managed to shoot more of our falling rose petals shot, which came out great. We got more shots of our singer walking whist singing, so we pan shot her.

In the end, we managed to complete all of our planned shots within a few hours, and were happy with the outcome.

Post #1- 4th week of filming (17th - 23rd Oct 2011)

 

Third time going back to London, but without our singer this time- Ashley and I had planned to take more scenery shots and eye view shots to be put into our music video. 

We spent a good three hours in London today, and were lucky enough to get sun this time! But unfortunately for us, it faded within the hour we got to London. We spent our time taking eye view shots, giving the impression to the audience that our singer would be walking through crowds of people. We used many pan shots of rivers and close ups of plants to relate to what occurs when the "Sun is up".

Post #2- 3rd week of filming (10th - 16th Oct 2011)

Today was the day that we actually went to Brighton! Ashley, Kim (Our singer) and I arrived at Brighton station after two train rides.

We headed straight to the beach, which was where we started our filming, most of our shots were planned from three days before with the practice shots, so we had a lot of shots of our singer walking alongside the shoreline, using pan and close ups at the same time of her head, chest area and legs- with the burnt pier in the background to viewers would realise where we were.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as we hoped it would be- we were hoping for more sun, but we got more clouds, but there was no turning back now, as this was our only chance. After the beach shoots, we moved onto the Brighton Pier, and walked all the way to the back of it, so we could film our singer leaning by the rails with the sky in the background.

Our final shot was of our singer standing a bit up high up with the sea in the background, we used low angle shot to give the impression she is a powerful woman, graciously standing in front of the beautiful sea.

Post #1- 3rd week of filming (10th - 16th Oct 2011)

This week we were planning for our most important trip to one of our three scenery locations; Brighton. In preparation to this date, we did to practice shots of our singer with a nice sunny background.

Our practice shots took place in a nearby park in Coulsdon, with flat landscape- we took many close ups of her body and pan shots of parts of her body like the legs and the chest area (Taking in Laura Mulvey's theory about the "Male gaze"), as we want our singer to come across as sexy to appeal to our male target audience.

The sun was a necessity to appear in our background footage considering the song title "Sun is up", we aimed to get as many bright shots as we could.

Post #2- 2nd week of filming (3rd - 9th Oct 2011)

As we now have our singer, Ashley and I decided to go up to the Lavender fields with our singer- and we had a fantastic sunset to work with.

Today, we couldn't have asked for a better shot, we had an orange/pink sunset, there was enough light to film, and today managed to give off the effect of "elegance" feel. But we also had to work with the freezing cold, vicious wind, and most importantly, TIME. We knew we wouldn't have enough time to film all of the Lavender shots we wanted, as time wasn't on our side.

Through mass amount of effort, we managed to film brilliant shots of the scenery and our singer together- these shots by far were our favourite. We managed to get side on view of our singer leaning against part of a canape frame in the Lavender fields with the sunset glow next to her, it almost looked like a silhouette of our singer which gave a great vibe of who this mysterious woman might be. We shot plenty of panning shots of our singer whilst she was singing, as well as our prized shot of our singer, spinning around with rose petals falling around her with the sunset in the background- which gave the most relaxed and elegant feel of all our shots.

Post #1- 2nd week of filming (3rd - 9th Oct 2011)

This week, Ashley and I managed to find our singer for our music video, and we went up to London to start the filming process. Yet again, the weather wasn't great, the grey clouds in the sky was unfortunate, but we managed to cope with them.

We aimed to film our singer with very known sceneries such as Palmal, St James' park, London cathedral, London eye, Houses of Parliament, and Buckingham Palace so the viewer could relate to where that is,as London is internationally famous.

This time in London, we wanted most of our London shots if not all of our shots done, so we did many of our shots to do with our singer finding her love in London. London was the only scenery setting where we also did night shots- these shots would be put at the end of the music video to represent the song ending. We used a variety of camera shots such as a pan of when she walks down a pathway in St James' park to show she is a strong able woman, we used two different cameras for the same shot near Buckingham Palace so we could put in two different angled shots in our music video to keep up with the music beat, we used close ups of our singer's face many times to signify that she was being "sexy" at times, and we also used handheld shots to give the impression to the audience that she was being watched from a distance.

Updated storyboards

Post #2- 1st week of filming (26th Sept - 2nd Oct 2011)

On Wednesday and the following weekend, Ashley and I went up to London to get more scene shots- we aimed for more sight seeing shots such as Big Ben, Houses of Parliamant, London eye, Westminster bridge Pal Mal and Buckingham Palace.

Sight seeing shots was only a small deal of purpose of going to London, we also managed to do various other shots in London that looked attractive enough, but less known, and we also made the impression that our singer was going through crowds on the pavement alongside sights using the camera as her eye view.

The weather was an issue as well; before getting the train to London, it was grey clouds everywhere spitting rain, but we decided to take the risk, and hoped the weather was going to get better, and so we went to London- we were both glad we took the risk as the weather didn't get any worse. We managed to use Pan, hand held, still motion, tracking and low/high angled shots in this scenery to give off the correct effect.

Post #1- 1st week of filming (26th Sept - 2nd Oct 2011)

On Monday, Ashley and I went up to the Lavender fields near Oaks park. We were hoping for a blossom of lavender throughout the field with the sun and blue skies, but that wasn't the case; it was more of a dull looking purple lavender with the sun struggling to get through the grey clouds, but still good enough to film. The point of us going to the Lavender fields was to shoot one of the many scenes we are going to use, so we can introduce it at different angles and sights in the Lavdender fields into our music video, so the viewer can expect what scene is coming up next.

Though the colour of the lavender was a disappointment, we did still manage to find a patch of lavender that was beaming with a better colour of purple, so we managed to film at that patch as well. Eventually, the sun came out and considering the title of the song we are using for our music video is "The sun is up", we tried to get scenes of pan shots with the lavander field and the sun- it was a success. We also used tracking, still motion, low angle, zoom out/in and hand held as well as pan shots; all of which were good shots.

Storyboards carried on

Storyboards

Location list

1) Brighton beach. PROS: It would be great scenery to relate to the song we're using for our music video and we know the route there. CONS: It's quite far away, and might cost us a small fortune to travel there. HAZARDS: We'd be filming right near the shore, so some of our valuable possessions could get wet!

2) Lavender fields near Oaks park. PROS: Beautiful scenery, a big field of lavender to film in, easy to get there. CONS: Can be quite risky getting into the Lavender fields as most of the time it is closed, and it is considered trespassing. HAZARDS: If it isn't open when we need to use it, we'd have to climb over barbed wire, which could give us all serious injuries, and it's open/clear land, so risking our possessions could prove bad.

3) London streets. PROS: Easy to get to, we know the area, and yet another use of scenery for our music video. CONS: London streets can be quite dirty, and we will be looking for a street that is reasonablly clean, and we will be wanting a quiet-ish street to film on, and we know London streets can always be really busy.
HAZARDS: London streets can be quite dangerous, as a lot of crime is dealt with within London, and as we're carrying expensive equipment with us, we will have to be extra careful whilst filming.

We have chosen various locations and not just one as many music videos have at least two locations in them. When appropriate with the lyrics, depending on what part it is into the lyrics, we will change to whatever locations most suits that part to make our music video successful. I believe each location will represent a mood for the viewer.

Construction of the mise-en-scene in the music video

The purpose of the mise-en-scene is to set a mood/feeling, so that the viewer can relate to whatever is happening in certain clips- this is exactly what we will be trying to achieve in our music videos.

For example; we have now planned how our music video is going to be made, and certain clips will set the mood, such as when our singer is at the lavender fields, it will come across as a relexed mood, very calm and peaceful- this is what we aim to achieve with each of our selected locations but of course with different mood settings. The lavender fields will consist of:

- Purple lines of lavdender
- Sunset
- Elegant clothing on our singer
- A wooden frame in the middle of the lavender fields where you can sit

The list just consists of what people expect to see at any lavender fields, giving the vibe that this is an actual field of lavender.

Representation of people/groups in my video

Our aim is to represent our target audience, so that they are easily attracted to our representative footage of them. To represent our audience which are 16-20 both male and female, we look at some ideologies of the majority of late teenagers:

- "Relaxation" - 2 out of the 3 of our locations come across as very relaxing, and this is why we chose those locations; to give the relaxation vibe.

- "Sex" - Being a teenager is when you start to get interested in sex, so we add in love and search between a man and our female singer.
- "Idolising" - Normally women would idolize a singer/celebrity because of their tone, beauty and fashion; so our singer will have great tone, beauty and fashion sense so that our female audience can look up to her.

Just looking back at simple ideologies of teenagers, we have managed to plan out what stereotypes we're going to add into our music video to successfully engage our target audience.

Questionnaire

1.      Male / Female

2.      Your age:

3.      Who is your favourite artist?

4.      What do you think of dance routines in music videos and why?

5.      What do you think of stereotypes in music videos?

6.      What do you think of sex appeal in music videos?

7.      What do you think of the female artist, Alexandra Stan in her music video: Mr Saxobeat? Rate from 1 – 10 (1= bad / 10= perfect) and explain why.

8.      What would be your ideal music video? What would you have in it?

9.      Why do you watch music videos?

10.  What do you find engaging for YOU in music videos?

List of Props

1) Actress - vital, main attention in the music video

2) Extras - used for background scenes

3) Alcohol - Used for effect in our video, giving it the party vibe mode

4) Mini bar

5) DJ

These props used in the making of our music video will be the key to grabbing our target audience; these props will give off the vibe that our audience can relate to, they will also set the mood of the scene, giving our audience what they want to be satisfied.

Research into adverts for Digipaks

I am going to analyse two digipak advertisements, and explain why certain types of advertisement is used for different digipaks.

Traditional advertising:

Traditional ways of advertising such as billboards, magazines and newspaper are still very effective today, but a new generation of advertising is slowly taking over, but whilst people still view paper read advertisements, then this way is still effective.

http://www.mojo4music.com/blog/newsletter/

Thought more and more magainzes are shutting down, and deciding to just stay an online magazine, there are still some paper produced magazines such as "Mojo"- a magazine dedicated to music. This magazine advertises lots of music in ways that engages the reader, such as keeping it as articles- this makes the reader aware of whatever artist/band they're reading about (making them aware about their new album/single, and when it's out).

Simple articles about artists- in this case, Ellie Goulding is featured in a newsletter about a performance of hers; this is allowing readers to know when this performance is of hers, and her single- a simple, but hidden advertisement.

Electronic advertising:

A new, modern way of advertising that is extremely effective as a lot of people nowdays use TV/Internet as a source of entertainment. Simple and effective ways of electronic advertising for free would be Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, and paid: advertisements on TV, advertised in magazines.
Putting your music on Youtube is a form of advertising so that people can hear what they soon buy. However, in my opinion, the best form of free advertising is Twitter- it's a popular social networking site alongside Facebook, you get to "follow" your idols (e.g. Lady Gaga) so you can keep up to date with their latest music, and gigs, and when your idol "tweets" (updates their status) every single fan of that artist/band knows what they just said: