Sunday, 13 December 2009
Charlies evaluation
A2 Media
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
1. Our media product has been influenced strongly by many elements of the music industry. We researched music videos made for upcoming or famous artists and realised that the majority of videos were performance based; we decided to base ours on a narrative, which challenged the conventions of media products and also Goodwin’s theory. A narrative based video is more suitable for The XX’s song as it strongly fits the indie-pop genre. As ‘Heart Skipped a Beat’ is a romantic love song, we decided that our characters should appear as innocent and pure. We did this by making their costume youthful and formal, and ensuring the girl wore no make up. This challenges voyeurism and how generic videos use woman as ‘sex objects’. Another feature that challenges modern day music videos is our mise en scene as our location’s are of an old house and some of the lip sync is filmed in a University rather than a metropolis or a studio. We chose to use these locations as vintage appeals to celebrities and teenagers at the moment, this works as our target audience is of the adolescence. For our advert and digi-pak we did not feature the artist’s faces which challenged the media industry of today, we found it was unnecessary for our product as The XX are relatively unknown. The logos and companies we chose to use on our digi-pak and advert are Myspace and Warner Brothers. We decided both of these companies were relevant as Myspace is where The XX built themselves a name for themselves, and Warner Brothers are known world wide. Myspace is not usually used on products as a logo and company so this challenges the conventions.
We featured the artist by using lip syncing which uses conventions of music videos, within this we used eye contact which supports Goodwin’s theory ‘notion of looking’. Including a relationship between lyrics and visuals worked well, a feature which is commonly used as it makes the video and song a complete piece rather than two separate medias put together. Through research my group discovered that visuals always move to the beat of the song, and change shots relatively quickly to keep the audience interested. We supported this idea and cut our video strictly so that it did not seem to be behind or ahead of time and ran neatly. Our digi-pak includes lyrics, websites, screen grabs, song lists, titles and tour dates which are typical features of a media product. We also used images and colours which supported our mise on scene and carried on the overall look for all three products. On both the poster and the digi-pak the website is stated so that the viewers can find out more information about the artist which is commonly used. Also we had star ratings and comments from magazines or newspapers to promote the artist.
Developing our music video to make it unique was something that appealed to us. We began by using subliminal messages during our video of the artists name ‘XX’ which is featured in various parts of the song; on the mirror, the bottle in the cellar, the books and on the tissue at the end. To carry on this idea of using words, we wrote the lyrics as they came in the song ‘I’m not finished’ on the sheet music which the boy turns to, this is a direct link between lyrics and visuals. Screen grabs, a unique love letter and signatures are features we included in the digi-pak which are a development of typical products, most of which have unique selling points that use further technology such as website codes and blog information.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
2. When designing our digi-pak and magazine advert, we ensured that there was a strong link between each of the products and that they both referred directly to our music video. Many digi-paks and adverts today use the artist’s faces to sell the products, but as The XX are relatively unknown we chose to use establishing shots of the house we filmed in, creating a link between the products. Our digi-pak has a vintage, feel to it, carrying on the characteristics of the house; this is also mirrored in our advert. The poster particularly carries on the ‘hide and seek’ approach we took to the song, as it is of a dolls house. It is interesting how when you watch the video it is hard to link which room leads to which corridor, so the poster works as a ‘map’. We included some unique selling points in our digi-pak such as signatures, bonus tracks and a letter which we originally pitched at the beginning of our project. We carried the same font over from the digi-pak to the poster so that it was recognisable and unique to the artist.
We decided that a visual theme throughout all three products is necessary to give them an individual brand identity. Our artists’ identity is shown through images of rooms within a house which are quaint and mysterious, reflecting the bands current status as they’re not yet recognizable in the market. We believe that this idea of using a vintage style in a subtle, non-overpowering way appeals to teenagers who are our target audience, particularly those who enjoy different variations of indie style music. The products appear innocent and honest, the rooms within them messy and old fashioned, telling a story within themselves which we think The XX tell in their music. We hope that by creating powerful, individual products, which look good and pleasing to the eye, the products will sell themselves by word of mouth, rather than acknowledgement.
3. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
3. Research began by looking into music videos which were available to view through the internet on youtube. We looked into Goodwin’s theory and analysed many videos which we felt would influence and help develop our initial ideas from our pitch. We particularly liked Imogen Heaps music video for ‘Goodnight and Go’ as it features a dolls house, and has a quirkiness to it which is appealing. It was useful to use the internet to research into music videos within the genre from well known bands, as we had to see what it was that sells to our target audience.
As a group we did research into various music directors and posted our research onto our blogs. We researched and analysed Spike Jonze, and Chris Cunningham, who are unconventional directors.
As our band had a myspace, we were able to get information from there and get a feel for their style and music. This meant we could have a deeper thought into whether or not the way we were interpreting the song suited the band or not. The XX have a band website which we were able to look at, and we discovered that their song ‘Heart Skipped a Beat’ already had a video to it which was a large X windowing different scenes and filtering them into various colours. We found the video boring, and indifferent to many amateur videos, it also did not strongly support any of Goodwin’s theories.
We used Final Cut to produce our media video, where we also edited it in various ways. Having looked at past media students work, we used the ghosting effect by layering footage and changing its opacity, this was effective and fit our theme. Our college blogs had a large influence on our work as we received feedback through them from other students and also the public as our video was posted on there, and also on youtube. The blogs meant that we could look at other peoples work, and get ideas from their rough cuts, particularly when it came to editing and construction. In conclusion we decided to use filters to make our video have a greater ‘antique’ feel to it.
4. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
4. We have received feedback at various points during our project. Our pitch was successful and full of many strong ideas which we carried out to the end of our project. We pitched that we wanted to hold a strong hide and seek feel to out video, along with a mise en scene which would stand out from the conventional ones. When explaining our ideas, we did it by breaking the song up into its verses and describing the visuals with the lyrics or music. I had also looked into ideas for the digi-pak which we ended up using a lot of for our final such as the letter idea. This was helpful as it meant we were organised and had a clear idea in our head. We had very good feedback from it, but found that for our music video we had to include more performance and lip syncing when initially we planned on having only narrative.
Our rough cut received positive feedback on the blog from students and our teacher despite the fact we knew that there was a lot that could be improved or changed. There were suggestions that we should include more lip syncing in a separate location and also edit the footage more interestingly. Our peer group which are also our target audience particularly liked our unique location we used, which suited the innocent approach we had to the song. We also had a variety of shots, but it was felt that more close ups of the artist would make their recognition stronger. As a group we took the advice and ended up with a second lot of footage filmed at a separate location which was useful for the chorus’s towards the end of the song as it featured lip syncing.
Our blog was kept up to date throughout; we ensured that there was work on there illustrating each stage so that we kept on top of what we were doing. Our teacher told us that our blog was good but that further research into supporting Goodwin’s theory would be helpful, and also research into our digi-pak such as labels. I cartooned some images that we took on location which we thought we may be able to use for our digi-paks and/or magazine advert, the influence for this came from Mika’s cartooning affect he uses as an artist signature.
Our final music video was given positive feedback overall. Personally if I could do it again I would have made the lip syncing towards the end more tidy and filter it brighter. I am particularly happy how our artists’ innocent is portrayed in the house and that both character and location have similarities. Our digi-pak received particular praise as we decided to make a CD gatefold, rather than a DVD cover so that we could show our strong selling points within the case. For the digi-pak we used the cartooning image as the front cover as it gave a youthful look to a ‘vintage’ image. The digi-pak was reviewed and people were impressed by how we used various images and the layout.
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
1. Our media product has been influenced strongly by many elements of the music industry. We researched music videos made for upcoming or famous artists and realised that the majority of videos were performance based; we decided to base ours on a narrative, which challenged the conventions of media products and also Goodwin’s theory. A narrative based video is more suitable for The XX’s song as it strongly fits the indie-pop genre. As ‘Heart Skipped a Beat’ is a romantic love song, we decided that our characters should appear as innocent and pure. We did this by making their costume youthful and formal, and ensuring the girl wore no make up. This challenges voyeurism and how generic videos use woman as ‘sex objects’. Another feature that challenges modern day music videos is our mise en scene as our location’s are of an old house and some of the lip sync is filmed in a University rather than a metropolis or a studio. We chose to use these locations as vintage appeals to celebrities and teenagers at the moment, this works as our target audience is of the adolescence. For our advert and digi-pak we did not feature the artist’s faces which challenged the media industry of today, we found it was unnecessary for our product as The XX are relatively unknown. The logos and companies we chose to use on our digi-pak and advert are Myspace and Warner Brothers. We decided both of these companies were relevant as Myspace is where The XX built themselves a name for themselves, and Warner Brothers are known world wide. Myspace is not usually used on products as a logo and company so this challenges the conventions.
We featured the artist by using lip syncing which uses conventions of music videos, within this we used eye contact which supports Goodwin’s theory ‘notion of looking’. Including a relationship between lyrics and visuals worked well, a feature which is commonly used as it makes the video and song a complete piece rather than two separate medias put together. Through research my group discovered that visuals always move to the beat of the song, and change shots relatively quickly to keep the audience interested. We supported this idea and cut our video strictly so that it did not seem to be behind or ahead of time and ran neatly. Our digi-pak includes lyrics, websites, screen grabs, song lists, titles and tour dates which are typical features of a media product. We also used images and colours which supported our mise on scene and carried on the overall look for all three products. On both the poster and the digi-pak the website is stated so that the viewers can find out more information about the artist which is commonly used. Also we had star ratings and comments from magazines or newspapers to promote the artist.
Developing our music video to make it unique was something that appealed to us. We began by using subliminal messages during our video of the artists name ‘XX’ which is featured in various parts of the song; on the mirror, the bottle in the cellar, the books and on the tissue at the end. To carry on this idea of using words, we wrote the lyrics as they came in the song ‘I’m not finished’ on the sheet music which the boy turns to, this is a direct link between lyrics and visuals. Screen grabs, a unique love letter and signatures are features we included in the digi-pak which are a development of typical products, most of which have unique selling points that use further technology such as website codes and blog information.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
2. When designing our digi-pak and magazine advert, we ensured that there was a strong link between each of the products and that they both referred directly to our music video. Many digi-paks and adverts today use the artist’s faces to sell the products, but as The XX are relatively unknown we chose to use establishing shots of the house we filmed in, creating a link between the products. Our digi-pak has a vintage, feel to it, carrying on the characteristics of the house; this is also mirrored in our advert. The poster particularly carries on the ‘hide and seek’ approach we took to the song, as it is of a dolls house. It is interesting how when you watch the video it is hard to link which room leads to which corridor, so the poster works as a ‘map’. We included some unique selling points in our digi-pak such as signatures, bonus tracks and a letter which we originally pitched at the beginning of our project. We carried the same font over from the digi-pak to the poster so that it was recognisable and unique to the artist.
We decided that a visual theme throughout all three products is necessary to give them an individual brand identity. Our artists’ identity is shown through images of rooms within a house which are quaint and mysterious, reflecting the bands current status as they’re not yet recognizable in the market. We believe that this idea of using a vintage style in a subtle, non-overpowering way appeals to teenagers who are our target audience, particularly those who enjoy different variations of indie style music. The products appear innocent and honest, the rooms within them messy and old fashioned, telling a story within themselves which we think The XX tell in their music. We hope that by creating powerful, individual products, which look good and pleasing to the eye, the products will sell themselves by word of mouth, rather than acknowledgement.
3. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
3. Research began by looking into music videos which were available to view through the internet on youtube. We looked into Goodwin’s theory and analysed many videos which we felt would influence and help develop our initial ideas from our pitch. We particularly liked Imogen Heaps music video for ‘Goodnight and Go’ as it features a dolls house, and has a quirkiness to it which is appealing. It was useful to use the internet to research into music videos within the genre from well known bands, as we had to see what it was that sells to our target audience.
As a group we did research into various music directors and posted our research onto our blogs. We researched and analysed Spike Jonze, and Chris Cunningham, who are unconventional directors.
As our band had a myspace, we were able to get information from there and get a feel for their style and music. This meant we could have a deeper thought into whether or not the way we were interpreting the song suited the band or not. The XX have a band website which we were able to look at, and we discovered that their song ‘Heart Skipped a Beat’ already had a video to it which was a large X windowing different scenes and filtering them into various colours. We found the video boring, and indifferent to many amateur videos, it also did not strongly support any of Goodwin’s theories.
We used Final Cut to produce our media video, where we also edited it in various ways. Having looked at past media students work, we used the ghosting effect by layering footage and changing its opacity, this was effective and fit our theme. Our college blogs had a large influence on our work as we received feedback through them from other students and also the public as our video was posted on there, and also on youtube. The blogs meant that we could look at other peoples work, and get ideas from their rough cuts, particularly when it came to editing and construction. In conclusion we decided to use filters to make our video have a greater ‘antique’ feel to it.
4. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
4. We have received feedback at various points during our project. Our pitch was successful and full of many strong ideas which we carried out to the end of our project. We pitched that we wanted to hold a strong hide and seek feel to out video, along with a mise en scene which would stand out from the conventional ones. When explaining our ideas, we did it by breaking the song up into its verses and describing the visuals with the lyrics or music. I had also looked into ideas for the digi-pak which we ended up using a lot of for our final such as the letter idea. This was helpful as it meant we were organised and had a clear idea in our head. We had very good feedback from it, but found that for our music video we had to include more performance and lip syncing when initially we planned on having only narrative.
Our rough cut received positive feedback on the blog from students and our teacher despite the fact we knew that there was a lot that could be improved or changed. There were suggestions that we should include more lip syncing in a separate location and also edit the footage more interestingly. Our peer group which are also our target audience particularly liked our unique location we used, which suited the innocent approach we had to the song. We also had a variety of shots, but it was felt that more close ups of the artist would make their recognition stronger. As a group we took the advice and ended up with a second lot of footage filmed at a separate location which was useful for the chorus’s towards the end of the song as it featured lip syncing.
Our blog was kept up to date throughout; we ensured that there was work on there illustrating each stage so that we kept on top of what we were doing. Our teacher told us that our blog was good but that further research into supporting Goodwin’s theory would be helpful, and also research into our digi-pak such as labels. I cartooned some images that we took on location which we thought we may be able to use for our digi-paks and/or magazine advert, the influence for this came from Mika’s cartooning affect he uses as an artist signature.
Our final music video was given positive feedback overall. Personally if I could do it again I would have made the lip syncing towards the end more tidy and filter it brighter. I am particularly happy how our artists’ innocent is portrayed in the house and that both character and location have similarities. Our digi-pak received particular praise as we decided to make a CD gatefold, rather than a DVD cover so that we could show our strong selling points within the case. For the digi-pak we used the cartooning image as the front cover as it gave a youthful look to a ‘vintage’ image. The digi-pak was reviewed and people were impressed by how we used various images and the layout.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Evaluation
Alice Newnum
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product has many conventions of real media products in the way we have created and developed it. We kept our music video fairly conventional, as the audience is familiar with those media forms.
We researched the more unconventional directors like Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham. We really liked the idea of having a music video that was different to the rest, however these directors do not usually make videos for our type of genre, they usually do music videos to more electro music. So we tried to give it more of a feel of those directors but keeping to the genre of the song.
The media product we made is a narrative based music video, it also features some performance of the artists lip-syncing. This is a challenge to most music videos as they are usually performance based and we didn’t use it as the main aspect of the video. We wanted to create a more original music video something that would fit the genre of music. It still conveys the main media conventions of a music video even though it is narrative based, we has used close ups of the artists featured in the video. Also thought out the video we have placed the band name “XX’’ slightly in different places for example on the mirror with xx written in condensation almost like a subliminal message to make the band identity and keep the audience familiar with the name. Which is a convention used in many music videos lots of close ups we did this as well by having the band name to meet demands of the record label. We used many camera shots to establish the scene as location is a big part of our music videos style then we would then focus in on the artist with close ups and mid shots. We also used the convention of lyrics and visuals, we feature ‘im not finished with’’ as it is sung. We also incorporate music and visuals by having the artists walk to the beat, as well as editing so the cuts go to the beat of the music. We also have Intertextuality in our music video, the bathroom scene where the boy sees the girl in the mirror relates to Romeo and Juliet the version directed by Baz Lurhmann, in the movie there is a scene where the boy and girl both see each other in the bathroom looking through the fish tank.
Another challenge of our music video is our mise en scene we choose to do a vintage old school look rather than the all glamed up look like most music videos you see on mtv. This style relates to the genre of music and the audience that follow this type of music indie acoustic. We did this by filming in an old house with lots of antique features and keeping the lighting looking fairly natural. We feel the old look fitted well with the music and would work well as a style for the band, which we then incorporated into the digi pak and advert. The actors also followed the natural theme by their costumes, we kept them smart casual and in the old style, this developed on the fashion that’s quite popular at the moment vintage it went against the usually sexually provocative look most artists display in their music videos.
We took a different approach to the usual performance sequence in music videos and we kept it in a block, the reason we did this because we didn’t want to disrupt the narrative and they worked well being more separate. We conformed to the usual conventions by having lots of different shots and keeping the audience interested. We incorporated a lot of match on action shots these worked really well with the beat of the music creating a smooth transaction. We use the media forms and Goodwin’s theory however we put these classic features in a more suttle way as this sort of genre of music doesn’t usually go with extreme these.
Our music features a hide and seek narrative. Sort of an ideology of seeking for love and hiding form the past they can’t accept.
Our digi pak and advert challenge the usual media products as usually the artists are featured on the font cover as a close up. On our product we used images from the location we did this as the house in our video is a big part of the style and we wanted to keep everything linking to this bands style. So the audience will become familiar with that bands style. Our advert and digi pak however did fit with the standard forms by having the website and company logo’s. We decided to use my space as a logo as this is now a feature for most bands as myspace is a place to now look for new artists. Our digi pak was in a gatefold design as we were asked to make a special edition one and we thought the gatefold would give us room to add all these extra little features. We went with a quite quirky design after looking at artists like Mika and Bjork. We added quite personal touches like the artists signatures making it more unique.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our music video, digi pak and advert work well altogether as a combination. The reason they work well is because they all follow a distinct theme and style. We connected the digi pak and advert by using the same font and colours. We made sure we had ‘The XX’’ in big and in the same font for both digi pak and advert. To link the music video to the digi pak we placed stills on the back. For the advert we came up with a dolls house idea, which really helps to display the style. We put the images we took on location and created them into a dolls house on Photoshop. This gives the potential buyer a clear link between the music video and the advert. We did not use any stills form the music video on the advert as they were quite pixel Ted and did not look as good and professional.
All three come across as quite effective and would definitely appeal to the target audience of the genre, our target audience is teenagers and young adults interested in acoustic indie. We keep a visual theme, which is the location and house this brings all products together. All the products appeal to this audience, as it’s quite a big scene at the moment finding the more different and original music and bands. We really use this idea and try to keep the music video different. We create a certain representation of our artists in all three products, we keep the artists in a casual way we don’t over dress them and we keep the style of genre by having them look natural and making our products have an old antique feel. We have steered away from the artificial look of most artists.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
All the audience feedback has contributed a lot to how the music video should be edited, what should feature and even lead our group to do another filming session. Using the bog as a class means all our classmates have access to our work and can comment freely their thoughts. We presented our pitch for the song we wanted and this was in front of all our class, this gave us really in depth feedback, specifically to our idea fitting our genre. This was really useful after the rough-cut each group gave us feedback we had negative and positive and it was good to see what was working well and what we could improve on. It put in perspective what our music video was lacking. It ended up, as we needed to feature the artists more closely and get them lip-syncing a bit more maybe in a new location. Our teacher also commented on the bog, which helped us keep on the right track. After our first pitch it was fairly useful hearing people thoughts to develop on the idea.
Feedback involved going thought Goodwin’s theory and analysing our rough-cut, it made our group realise how important it is to get an audiences point of view on your work. What we really got out of having so much feedback was what is working and effective. A lot of groups commented on our style and theme incorporated by the pros and they said they thought it was effective and fitted with the tone of the music. This is one of the comments we received ‘Lots of different shots, quick changes, good story telling, good costumes and interesting footage’’ It was good to get feedback from our target audience teenagers that are interested in music.
We also got access to other groups progress, looking at the other groups would always give us ideas on how to improve our music video and remind us to think about certain points.
How did you use new media technology in the construction and research, planning and evaluative stages?
Through out our whole project we have used technology. At the beginning of our task we were given a cd of tracks to choose form and that’s all. So immediately we went on the Internet and got up the lyrics of the song’s we liked. If we didn’t have access to the Internet, our music video would not be as accomplished. We used the Internet to research everything; band, other music videos in that genre, different adverts, cd covers. It gave us most of the ideas. We also used social networking sites for instance myspace, as myspace is a big part of the music industry and it is becoming more popular to access music online and even buy it online. On myspace we found the XX and we got a feel for the sort of genre of music by listening to a few other tracks. We concluded that the genre was acoustic indie after listening to more.
On you tube we found the XX’s music video for ‘Heart skipped a beat” this was interesting as we were not expecting the video we found, as it seemed quite weak and dull and it didn’t seem typical of the genre. We also looked up videos from the same genre, researching this to see what are target audience is expecting.
Being able to access the Internet was really important to the development of our music video. The planning in particular as you can find a lot of useful information easily. We got access to the lyrics by googling the track. Having access to the lyrics was really important as we developed all our ideas using the lyrics, as we wanted the lyrics to go with the visuals, they were the basis of our ideas.
Developing all our ideas on a bog was different. It meant we could easily access what we did last lesson and it was much easier to plan. Also using the bog meant that anyone could access it and comment on our ideas. Which is what our class did, having the blog meant we got more feedback which is essential to the creating, for example when we were thinking on the ghosting idea and we did test footage we got positive feedback and used it. We also ended up putting our music video on to youtube.com this meant more people were likely to access it and comment their thoughts.
We used Photoshop to construct our two ancillary products a digi pak and advert for our music video. Using Photoshop meant we were bale to give it a more professional look and achieve more complicated ideas, which would have not worked out if we were doing it on word or paint.
We used final cut to edit our footage. Final is quite an advanced piece of software and it gave our group access to some really useful editing features fro example filters and transitions. We also put our storyboard into final cut, this really gave us a view of how are music video was going to fit together and look, which helped with planning each shot clearly.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product has many conventions of real media products in the way we have created and developed it. We kept our music video fairly conventional, as the audience is familiar with those media forms.
We researched the more unconventional directors like Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham. We really liked the idea of having a music video that was different to the rest, however these directors do not usually make videos for our type of genre, they usually do music videos to more electro music. So we tried to give it more of a feel of those directors but keeping to the genre of the song.
The media product we made is a narrative based music video, it also features some performance of the artists lip-syncing. This is a challenge to most music videos as they are usually performance based and we didn’t use it as the main aspect of the video. We wanted to create a more original music video something that would fit the genre of music. It still conveys the main media conventions of a music video even though it is narrative based, we has used close ups of the artists featured in the video. Also thought out the video we have placed the band name “XX’’ slightly in different places for example on the mirror with xx written in condensation almost like a subliminal message to make the band identity and keep the audience familiar with the name. Which is a convention used in many music videos lots of close ups we did this as well by having the band name to meet demands of the record label. We used many camera shots to establish the scene as location is a big part of our music videos style then we would then focus in on the artist with close ups and mid shots. We also used the convention of lyrics and visuals, we feature ‘im not finished with’’ as it is sung. We also incorporate music and visuals by having the artists walk to the beat, as well as editing so the cuts go to the beat of the music. We also have Intertextuality in our music video, the bathroom scene where the boy sees the girl in the mirror relates to Romeo and Juliet the version directed by Baz Lurhmann, in the movie there is a scene where the boy and girl both see each other in the bathroom looking through the fish tank.
Another challenge of our music video is our mise en scene we choose to do a vintage old school look rather than the all glamed up look like most music videos you see on mtv. This style relates to the genre of music and the audience that follow this type of music indie acoustic. We did this by filming in an old house with lots of antique features and keeping the lighting looking fairly natural. We feel the old look fitted well with the music and would work well as a style for the band, which we then incorporated into the digi pak and advert. The actors also followed the natural theme by their costumes, we kept them smart casual and in the old style, this developed on the fashion that’s quite popular at the moment vintage it went against the usually sexually provocative look most artists display in their music videos.
We took a different approach to the usual performance sequence in music videos and we kept it in a block, the reason we did this because we didn’t want to disrupt the narrative and they worked well being more separate. We conformed to the usual conventions by having lots of different shots and keeping the audience interested. We incorporated a lot of match on action shots these worked really well with the beat of the music creating a smooth transaction. We use the media forms and Goodwin’s theory however we put these classic features in a more suttle way as this sort of genre of music doesn’t usually go with extreme these.
Our music features a hide and seek narrative. Sort of an ideology of seeking for love and hiding form the past they can’t accept.
Our digi pak and advert challenge the usual media products as usually the artists are featured on the font cover as a close up. On our product we used images from the location we did this as the house in our video is a big part of the style and we wanted to keep everything linking to this bands style. So the audience will become familiar with that bands style. Our advert and digi pak however did fit with the standard forms by having the website and company logo’s. We decided to use my space as a logo as this is now a feature for most bands as myspace is a place to now look for new artists. Our digi pak was in a gatefold design as we were asked to make a special edition one and we thought the gatefold would give us room to add all these extra little features. We went with a quite quirky design after looking at artists like Mika and Bjork. We added quite personal touches like the artists signatures making it more unique.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our music video, digi pak and advert work well altogether as a combination. The reason they work well is because they all follow a distinct theme and style. We connected the digi pak and advert by using the same font and colours. We made sure we had ‘The XX’’ in big and in the same font for both digi pak and advert. To link the music video to the digi pak we placed stills on the back. For the advert we came up with a dolls house idea, which really helps to display the style. We put the images we took on location and created them into a dolls house on Photoshop. This gives the potential buyer a clear link between the music video and the advert. We did not use any stills form the music video on the advert as they were quite pixel Ted and did not look as good and professional.
All three come across as quite effective and would definitely appeal to the target audience of the genre, our target audience is teenagers and young adults interested in acoustic indie. We keep a visual theme, which is the location and house this brings all products together. All the products appeal to this audience, as it’s quite a big scene at the moment finding the more different and original music and bands. We really use this idea and try to keep the music video different. We create a certain representation of our artists in all three products, we keep the artists in a casual way we don’t over dress them and we keep the style of genre by having them look natural and making our products have an old antique feel. We have steered away from the artificial look of most artists.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
All the audience feedback has contributed a lot to how the music video should be edited, what should feature and even lead our group to do another filming session. Using the bog as a class means all our classmates have access to our work and can comment freely their thoughts. We presented our pitch for the song we wanted and this was in front of all our class, this gave us really in depth feedback, specifically to our idea fitting our genre. This was really useful after the rough-cut each group gave us feedback we had negative and positive and it was good to see what was working well and what we could improve on. It put in perspective what our music video was lacking. It ended up, as we needed to feature the artists more closely and get them lip-syncing a bit more maybe in a new location. Our teacher also commented on the bog, which helped us keep on the right track. After our first pitch it was fairly useful hearing people thoughts to develop on the idea.
Feedback involved going thought Goodwin’s theory and analysing our rough-cut, it made our group realise how important it is to get an audiences point of view on your work. What we really got out of having so much feedback was what is working and effective. A lot of groups commented on our style and theme incorporated by the pros and they said they thought it was effective and fitted with the tone of the music. This is one of the comments we received ‘Lots of different shots, quick changes, good story telling, good costumes and interesting footage’’ It was good to get feedback from our target audience teenagers that are interested in music.
We also got access to other groups progress, looking at the other groups would always give us ideas on how to improve our music video and remind us to think about certain points.
How did you use new media technology in the construction and research, planning and evaluative stages?
Through out our whole project we have used technology. At the beginning of our task we were given a cd of tracks to choose form and that’s all. So immediately we went on the Internet and got up the lyrics of the song’s we liked. If we didn’t have access to the Internet, our music video would not be as accomplished. We used the Internet to research everything; band, other music videos in that genre, different adverts, cd covers. It gave us most of the ideas. We also used social networking sites for instance myspace, as myspace is a big part of the music industry and it is becoming more popular to access music online and even buy it online. On myspace we found the XX and we got a feel for the sort of genre of music by listening to a few other tracks. We concluded that the genre was acoustic indie after listening to more.
On you tube we found the XX’s music video for ‘Heart skipped a beat” this was interesting as we were not expecting the video we found, as it seemed quite weak and dull and it didn’t seem typical of the genre. We also looked up videos from the same genre, researching this to see what are target audience is expecting.
Being able to access the Internet was really important to the development of our music video. The planning in particular as you can find a lot of useful information easily. We got access to the lyrics by googling the track. Having access to the lyrics was really important as we developed all our ideas using the lyrics, as we wanted the lyrics to go with the visuals, they were the basis of our ideas.
Developing all our ideas on a bog was different. It meant we could easily access what we did last lesson and it was much easier to plan. Also using the bog meant that anyone could access it and comment on our ideas. Which is what our class did, having the blog meant we got more feedback which is essential to the creating, for example when we were thinking on the ghosting idea and we did test footage we got positive feedback and used it. We also ended up putting our music video on to youtube.com this meant more people were likely to access it and comment their thoughts.
We used Photoshop to construct our two ancillary products a digi pak and advert for our music video. Using Photoshop meant we were bale to give it a more professional look and achieve more complicated ideas, which would have not worked out if we were doing it on word or paint.
We used final cut to edit our footage. Final is quite an advanced piece of software and it gave our group access to some really useful editing features fro example filters and transitions. We also put our storyboard into final cut, this really gave us a view of how are music video was going to fit together and look, which helped with planning each shot clearly.
Greg's media evaluation
Greg Field Media Evaluation
1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product challenges the forms and conventions of real media products by us trying to make our media product as personal and unique as possible. We tried to make the music video to have an antique atmosphere and setting, which I think that most music videos tend to be more modernized and follow the trends. I think our digi pak challenges others by being subtler rather than throwing information at the audience by having big messages on the front cover. I think by doing this the fans will have to want to find out information rather it being spoon fed to them but having the information easy enough to find if a fan would look for it. For the magazine advert we tried to carry on our theme and we used screen shots to form a doll house which we think fits into our mise-en-scene in the music video this also shows a strong link between them.
2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I think in the ancillary texts it gives you the kind of setting and mise-en-scene the main media product has. I think there is a very strong link between them. We tried to fit as much of the main product into the ancillary texts when we created the ancillary texts. We used still pictures from the location when we were filming for the ancillary texts. This would show what the main product would look like. When you combine them both together you get the full effect of what the band are and what they are about. The combination is very strong. Within 10 seconds of looking at them both you will know what the artist is trying to do and what effects they are trying to get across to you.
3.What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We learnt that most of the things we were trying to get across were received very well although a few of the points got the audience confused. They got the impression that the video genre was dream pop. We got really good feed back about the mise-en-scene and about our props and the acting and camera shots used. We also were complimented on our editing and how it fits very well to music. We got some constructed feedback about the lip syncing that we knew at the time could have been better but we seem to have run out of time and were not able to fit it in better. I think that the characters in our video we very well suited for the song and mise-en-scene that what I got from the feedback we were given. We got continuous feedback how our editing and theme was continuous throughout the video and that we were very clear about our intensions.
4.How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used the Internet to research by finding images using Google’s image finder. We found some good images of antique toys and books that gave us a good idea of what the mise-en-scene should look like. By doing this I was able to show my group what I wanted the video to look like. We also kept track of what our targets were for each week by blogging we had done. We also used a website called youtube to look at other artist videos to see what shots would look good for the song we were doing. This also gave us even more of a feel of what we wanted our music video to look like and we could see what it would look like in motion as well. We also did this when we re-filmed it to get even more inspiration. The Internet also helped us when we were researching for the magazine ad and the digi pak. We looked at other digi paks and magazine ads to see how they had constructed theirs and this helped us to plan and structure our ideas for these 2 media products. This also helped us to know what we needed to include in our digi pak and magazine advert like they used companies logos and the how to present the release date. This helped us make them look more realistic and professional. We used a program called “Photoshop” to create the digi pak and magazine ad. We were able to transform and edit the photos to make them stand out more and turn them more into art cover and make them into what we wanted them to look like. We also used an image from the Internet that we found used Google’s image search. It was a dolls house that we put our own images in from the location. We used a program called “Final Cut” to edit our music video and we able to cut clips to edit them together to suit it to our video and also add effects and change the colour and contrast of the video to make it have a better look for the song. We also were able to capture screen shots of our music video and use them in our digi pak.
1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media product challenges the forms and conventions of real media products by us trying to make our media product as personal and unique as possible. We tried to make the music video to have an antique atmosphere and setting, which I think that most music videos tend to be more modernized and follow the trends. I think our digi pak challenges others by being subtler rather than throwing information at the audience by having big messages on the front cover. I think by doing this the fans will have to want to find out information rather it being spoon fed to them but having the information easy enough to find if a fan would look for it. For the magazine advert we tried to carry on our theme and we used screen shots to form a doll house which we think fits into our mise-en-scene in the music video this also shows a strong link between them.
2.How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I think in the ancillary texts it gives you the kind of setting and mise-en-scene the main media product has. I think there is a very strong link between them. We tried to fit as much of the main product into the ancillary texts when we created the ancillary texts. We used still pictures from the location when we were filming for the ancillary texts. This would show what the main product would look like. When you combine them both together you get the full effect of what the band are and what they are about. The combination is very strong. Within 10 seconds of looking at them both you will know what the artist is trying to do and what effects they are trying to get across to you.
3.What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
We learnt that most of the things we were trying to get across were received very well although a few of the points got the audience confused. They got the impression that the video genre was dream pop. We got really good feed back about the mise-en-scene and about our props and the acting and camera shots used. We also were complimented on our editing and how it fits very well to music. We got some constructed feedback about the lip syncing that we knew at the time could have been better but we seem to have run out of time and were not able to fit it in better. I think that the characters in our video we very well suited for the song and mise-en-scene that what I got from the feedback we were given. We got continuous feedback how our editing and theme was continuous throughout the video and that we were very clear about our intensions.
4.How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used the Internet to research by finding images using Google’s image finder. We found some good images of antique toys and books that gave us a good idea of what the mise-en-scene should look like. By doing this I was able to show my group what I wanted the video to look like. We also kept track of what our targets were for each week by blogging we had done. We also used a website called youtube to look at other artist videos to see what shots would look good for the song we were doing. This also gave us even more of a feel of what we wanted our music video to look like and we could see what it would look like in motion as well. We also did this when we re-filmed it to get even more inspiration. The Internet also helped us when we were researching for the magazine ad and the digi pak. We looked at other digi paks and magazine ads to see how they had constructed theirs and this helped us to plan and structure our ideas for these 2 media products. This also helped us to know what we needed to include in our digi pak and magazine advert like they used companies logos and the how to present the release date. This helped us make them look more realistic and professional. We used a program called “Photoshop” to create the digi pak and magazine ad. We were able to transform and edit the photos to make them stand out more and turn them more into art cover and make them into what we wanted them to look like. We also used an image from the Internet that we found used Google’s image search. It was a dolls house that we put our own images in from the location. We used a program called “Final Cut” to edit our music video and we able to cut clips to edit them together to suit it to our video and also add effects and change the colour and contrast of the video to make it have a better look for the song. We also were able to capture screen shots of our music video and use them in our digi pak.