Evaluation Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We gained a lot of feedback during the process of making are video. From our teacher - Who has the experience and knowledge to help us edge our video to it's full potential. We received constructive critism from are teacher that noone else would have been able to give us.

The initial ideas for our music video changed rapidly once we began to film. Some of the ideas were not possible to carry out. So we as a group had to alternate are plans to what could fit. Throughout the filming we had the extra enthusiasm from are actors. The were very much involved in the outcome of the video, not only because they were in it, but because they came up with some clever, and productive views. Jon (the protagonist) especially. For this we thank him very much.

Audience feedback has shown to be one of the most important attributes in producing our video. It has given us direction to succeed. Showing us what needed to be done, and what was well done. Audience feedback has also generated ideas that maybe we as a group would never of thought of ourselves.

We decided to post are music video on our Facebooks. The reason being is because the target audience we were trying to live up to is around the same age as the people we have on our Facebooks. E.g Our target audience is 16-25 years old's, this is the general age span of friends we have on our Facebooks. Also posting this video on Facebook is a great way to receive critism from all kinds of people, whether they study media or not.

Evaluation Question 2

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

Evaluation Question 1

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

Before identifying the forms and conventions of our music video, it is important to fully understand the genre of music and the target we are targeting towards.
The genre we have chosen to represent within our promotional package is, ‘Pop Rock’. The key forms and conventions of a Pop Rock music video are;

• The lighting is often quite dark.
• Lots of different camera angles are used.
• Black and white is used in parts of the video sometimes.
• live performances mixed with narrative.
• The colours/lighting in the video change. Depending on the lyrics, tempo and structure of the song.
• Casual clothing.
• Close Ups are used quite often to show the emotions of the characters.
• The mise-en-scene reflects the mood of the characters and the tone of the music.
• The artist/band tend to predominate the music video.
• The pace of the editing fits the pace of the music.
• A cameo is also quite common in a pop-rock music video. Where the band or artist features in the video however they do not perform.

Conventions of a Music Video: General Theory/Famous Theories

• Lyrics: establish a general feeling/mood/sense of subject rather than a meaning
• Music: tempo often drives the editing
• Genre: might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and editing styles
• Camera work: has an impact on meaning. Movement, angle and shot distance all play a part in the representation of the artist/band (close-ups dominate)
• Editing: the most common form is fast-cut montage, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing. Often enhancing the editing are digital effects, which play with the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience.
• Intertextuality: not all audiences will spot a reference, which would not significantly detract from their pleasure in the text itself, but greater pleasure might be derived by those who recognise the reference and feel flattered by this. It also increases the audience’s engagement with, and attentiveness to the product.
• Exhibitionism: The apparently more powerful independent female artists of recent years have added to the complexity of the politics of looking and gender/cultural debates, by being at once sexually provocative and apparently in control of, and inviting, a sexualised gaze.

Famous Theories

ANDREW GOODWIN’S THEORY

• Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.
• Genres often have their own music style/iconography
• Close-ups should always be included
• The artist/band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image
• Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos
• Intertextual references are also popular
• Goodwin argues that the female performer is frequently objectified principally for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.

STEVE ARCHER’S THEORY

• There needs to be a strong and coherent relationship between narrative and performance in music promos.
• Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band
• A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor.

JOHN STEWART’S THEORY

• The music video has the aesthetics of a TV commercial, with lots of close-ups and lighting being used to focus on the star’s face.
• He sees visual reference in music video as coming from a range of sources, although the three most frequent are perhaps cinema, fashion and art photography.
• Stewart’s description of the music video as ‘incorporating, raiding and reconstructing’ is essentially the essence of Intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar, to generate both nostalgic associations and new meanings.
• The video allows more access to the performer than a stage performance can. The mise-en-scene, in particular, can be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle.

SIGMUND FREUD’S THEORY

• Refers to the notion that erotic pleasure may be gained by looking at a sexual object (preferably when the object is unaware of being watched)
• LAURA MULVEY’S THEORY
• Because filmmakers are predominantly male, the presence of women in films is often solely for the purposes of display (rather than for narrative purposes).
• The purpose of this displace is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in spectators, which presumes a ‘male gaze’ one that is a powerful controlling gaze at the female on display, who is effectively objectified and passive.

These theories have helped us vast amounts, throughout the process of are video being produced.

The standard conventions of a music video, are as follows:

1. Mise-en-Scene
2. Camera Angles
3. Lighting
4. Editing
5. Sound

Mise-en-Scene

The Mise-en-scene in a music video is largely important.

You have to take into consideration; The Location/Props/Costumes. The locations in are video are very important.

Editing

View more presentations from Jakey Coppin.

How did we use conventions in our music video?

Before beginning the process of actually filming the music video, we had to plan what conventions we would use to make our video fit into the genre of the song conveniently. Our initial plan was to talk as a group and analyse the lyrics so we could enhance the convention: Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music.

The main sentence in the lyrics of the song that emphasises this the most 'If you want me out then I'm on my way..'. As we hear this, we see Jon driving away just after he's left Sophie. It is vital that the lyrics actually fitted with the images that we were seeing in our video. Our sequence was very narrative, it told a story, so this was vital that what we as hearing, was what we was seeing in some stages of the video. Andrew Goodwin said that there should be some sort of relationship between the lyrics and visuals. This gave us a sense of ability that we was able to achieve that.

Andrew Goodwin - "There should be a relationship between the musics and the visuals. The visuals should illustrate, amplify or contradict the music.

A relationship between the lyrics and visuals. What we hear should illustrate what we see"

Music Videos

Music Video Features

Once we had constructed the music video itself we discovered that when watching the music channels on your preferred station, that at the beginning there is a slide on feature which contains the songs name and artist. We thought it would be a great idea to add this feature into are video.

Final Cut

Untitled from Sophie Butler on Vimeo.

Final CD Case

Inside CD Covers

Poster

Final Poster

Feedback

Once we had produced are 'Rough cut', we had a lesson in which other students got the chance to see analyse each groups videos. Everyone wrote what they liked and what they thought could be improved on separate pieces of paper. These are shown above ^.

Rough Cut

Rough Cut from Rachel King on Vimeo.

Risk Assessment

What potential hazzards could be encountered?

1. Weather - Some of are filming would be filmed outside, and if for example the weather is raining/snowing etc maybe we would have to re-arrange the date in which we film.
2. Filming in Millie's/Jake's house, damage to the house during fights between the couple. Objects may be in the way when we are filming and we may not want them there.
3. Getting to the location can be a problem for some of us in the group.
4. Conflict within the group. For example if we were to disagree on something.

How would we resolve this problem?

1. Check the weather report make sure its a suitable time to film outside if need be.
2. Make sure we move the objects that are in the way and make sure that there is no damage to the house.
3. Plan well ahead and try and sort out transport, so filming can take place.
4. Make sure everyones views are heard, and discuss professionally which idea is the best for the group.

Effects

Whilst researching into other music videos we came across a few ideas which we liked:

Magazine Adverts

Pictures of Filming

We took some pictures whilst filming :

Digipak Planning

Lifehouse's Digipak

Before we start to think and create are own Digipak for the track 'Halfway Gone' we had to create a plan. This picture is of Justin Timberlakes album. 'Justifed'. The Cd and case are very similar. The case has the same colours and theme. Obviously without this attribute the digipak wouldn't work.

Researching into digipaks, I have realised that the CD's themselves are very basic and not very creative. The case itself normally has the same theme throughout. I believe that the best way to establish if the CD and case work well together, is to pick a handful of random CDs and take the CD's out and ask someone which CD goes in which case.

Screen Grabs

The screen grab from above is from the scene of when the woman stands up her date to find the man she loves. The reason I screen grabbed this is because we filmed this many times, to try and get the emotion correct.

Above is the scene where in which the man leaves his lover. This is of course a crucial part of the video because we don't know wether they get back together or not.

Both of these screen grabs are from the 'fight'. This took hours too film because we wanted too get this spot on, and try and make it look real.

Filming 3

The third day of filming again took place in Millies house. We then filmed the argument scene again, to make sure we got every possible angle. We filmed in the evening. We also filmed him packing and leaving the house to move to his new house. We filmed the meal. Where the woman goes on a date with another man to try and forget about her lover. The time of filming was productive and we ended up getting a lot of footage to edit and play around with however we feel as a group that we need another day just too get everything wrapped up and make sure we have everything we need to finish the music video.

Copyright

Once we had come to the conclusion about which song we are going to use, we had to consider copyright. We had to make sure it was fine to use the song 'Halfway Gone' by Lifehouse, for are music video. We researched the producers of the group 'Lifehouse'. So on behalf of the group, Millie wrote an email to the producers of the band, to get permission for us to use the song. We are yet to hear back from them, so this means its full steam ahead with the filming.