Questions for my Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Introduction
For my evaluation I am going to analyse and comment on how I created our music video and our Digipak. This will link in with developing our codes and conventions. I shall also comment on what I can do to improve and how we tackled the problems. I shall be able to adapt a wide range of understanding towards the role and use of new media especially in different stages of my production especially when using the internet. I shall also have an excellent understanding of the significance of the audience feedback. From learning different theories to analysing different music videos we were able to create our music video with our group. The song we have chosen is 'After the Storm' by Mumford and Sons. This is where we adapted our theories and our intertextual references into creating our music video. The genre of our music video is Indie Rock and for creating our music video we had to think carefully about how we were going to target our audience. The questions above are linked throughout my evaluation, however I have provided subtitles to break up certain sections even though I may include other aspects from different questions.
Codes and Conventions
Firstly we looked at different theories on how they would create a music video for the genre. The way Lauren Mulvey told us how men would want women to look and this could be adapted into different music videos. The way women would be portrayed in short outfits and portrayed in an sexual manner. This can be an example of Nicki Minaj and her music videos with an example below. The way she is wearing short clothing and represented as a ‘barbie’ figure. After looking at this theory I thought carefully about how this would develop and challenge the conventions of our music video. Many music videos today challenge the conventions of how sexual they have become and how they have changed to target the audience. Due to the rise in technology, this has shown a great change in how music videos are edited and how they are filmed. Even with Lip syncing, this has changed significantly and will be used by slowing down the fast singing they would have to do, when putting this against the music video. This again can challenge the conventions of a music video, they way men want women to be portrayed as sexual in music videos. This is how many music videos will target their audience especially towards men by using women as ‘barbie’ figures. I learnt a lot when looking at this theory, especially when thinking carefully about our own music video when researching. Due to our genre being ‘Indie’ we did not need to include this into our convention of our music video. Such videos from Mumford and Sons will not include: sexual aspects, more nature, environment and indie clothing. This helped towards the construction of using different media technologies especially the internet to research these aspects to put together our storyboarding and filming.
Codes and Conventions
Firstly we looked at different theories on how they would create a music video for the genre. The way Lauren Mulvey told us how men would want women to look and this could be adapted into different music videos. The way women would be portrayed in short outfits and portrayed in an sexual manner. This can be an example of Nicki Minaj and her music videos with an example below. The way she is wearing short clothing and represented as a ‘barbie’ figure. After looking at this theory I thought carefully about how this would develop and challenge the conventions of our music video. Many music videos today challenge the conventions of how sexual they have become and how they have changed to target the audience. Due to the rise in technology, this has shown a great change in how music videos are edited and how they are filmed. Even with Lip syncing, this has changed significantly and will be used by slowing down the fast singing they would have to do, when putting this against the music video. This again can challenge the conventions of a music video, they way men want women to be portrayed as sexual in music videos. This is how many music videos will target their audience especially towards men by using women as ‘barbie’ figures. I learnt a lot when looking at this theory, especially when thinking carefully about our own music video when researching. Due to our genre being ‘Indie’ we did not need to include this into our convention of our music video. Such videos from Mumford and Sons will not include: sexual aspects, more nature, environment and indie clothing. This helped towards the construction of using different media technologies especially the internet to research these aspects to put together our storyboarding and filming.
The auteur theory is vitally as important when looking at music videos especially spike jonze which is linked in the video below. When looking at different music videos this can challenge the uses and conventions of real media products. The way the audience are looking for something different, the way they want something to stand out. The audience are extremely important and within the auteur theory, this is how something will be filmed differently. Such examples can be how how Alfred Hitchcock would be found in his own films, whereas in music videos spike jonze will use live action and animation. Again this is extremely important as many music videos need to target their audience carefully so when looking at media product use, people want conventions which people can relate to which comes under the ‘uses and gratification theory’. I learnt a lot about the research of Spike Jonze, especially when his filming is something different with animation.
For our music video, we wanted to create something different especially with an Indie genre. I thought carefully about the use of ‘clamps’ and the use of camera angles we would need when doing our own music video. The use of researching different theories, has helped be gather more information about the potential audience. Again this has to be developed and challenged towards the audience when creating a music video. The conventions of real music products can be adapted for our own music video because we are creating something different especially when adapting the auteur theory. Our group wanted to follow the auteurship especially when we wanted to provide our audience something different and to link this to something different. This can be represented with our shots such as the focus pull shots of the guy especially when he is looking around on the field and the shot where he is sitting down on the floor. All of these shots are trying to relate to our own auteurship because it is something different in providing towards our audience.
For our music video, we wanted to create something different especially with an Indie genre. I thought carefully about the use of ‘clamps’ and the use of camera angles we would need when doing our own music video. The use of researching different theories, has helped be gather more information about the potential audience. Again this has to be developed and challenged towards the audience when creating a music video. The conventions of real music products can be adapted for our own music video because we are creating something different especially when adapting the auteur theory. Our group wanted to follow the auteurship especially when we wanted to provide our audience something different and to link this to something different. This can be represented with our shots such as the focus pull shots of the guy especially when he is looking around on the field and the shot where he is sitting down on the floor. All of these shots are trying to relate to our own auteurship because it is something different in providing towards our audience.
Thirdly I am going to talk about the uses and gratification theory and how we included this into our music video especially following the codes and conventions. These will include ‘escapism, social interaction, knowledge acquisition and distribution and Identification’. These four aspects are extremely important towards the conventions of music videos. The audience will relate to these four aspects because they will want to ‘socially’ interact about the music video afterwards. The way they want to talk about the music video afterwards because it is different and are questioning the video itself. They can also relate themselves to the music video which is linked to ‘identification’. The way people will want to escape from reality and watch something that is real life which they can identify themselves to. Lastly the knowledge acquisition and distribution is a music video which will entertain the potential audience. This follows the real conventions of Media products as we are adapting this to our own music video as we want to identify and socially interact.
All of these aspects were extremely important when researching. As these are main conventions they were extremely important to learn about because you want the audience to become interested into the music video and where they could either relate themselves to it or talk about it with others. When researching for our own music video, we wanted a video where people would question about it, the way they would ‘socially interact’ or even to ‘identify’ themselves to the music video. The way they would talk about why the guy and girl are alone and what does this mean? The way they could identify themselves as well to be lost because they do not know what to do especially when in love. Even-though this sounds ridiculous how people can identify themselves, this is extremely important.
When it is more real life people will be wanting to watch it and know that they are not alone. I learnt a lot about this important aspect because I know that many music videos will try to include this to target their audience and I wanted to do this in our own music video about the boy and girl being alone. This theory uses our own media product because we are wanting our music video to identify and socially interact. I therefore think my music video follows this aspect as we do not know why the girl and guy are alone in the woods especially when they find each other at the end. From my audience feedback a photographer stated that it is as if a fairy is lost and the guy is trying to find her again’. This is an important convention to follow especially in our own music video which we can relate to as the girl and boy are lost, but why are they lost?
When it is more real life people will be wanting to watch it and know that they are not alone. I learnt a lot about this important aspect because I know that many music videos will try to include this to target their audience and I wanted to do this in our own music video about the boy and girl being alone. This theory uses our own media product because we are wanting our music video to identify and socially interact. I therefore think my music video follows this aspect as we do not know why the girl and guy are alone in the woods especially when they find each other at the end. From my audience feedback a photographer stated that it is as if a fairy is lost and the guy is trying to find her again’. This is an important convention to follow especially in our own music video which we can relate to as the girl and boy are lost, but why are they lost?
I researched a famous person called Michel Gondry. The way he filmed many music videos which were very different and very interesting. An example can be ‘The White Stripes’ hardest button which is shown in the video above, the way this was filmed following the band member playing the drums along the path and around the area. This was extremely interesting in the way it has been filmed. This can relate to developing a media product of a music video. Again this can relate to something being different which can be related to the uses and gratification theory. The way people will ‘socially interact’ because this video is something different and stands out.
Again I learnt a lot about this detailed research on Michel Gondry especially when relating other theories, because this helped me and my group to put together an idea for our music video. As this was something different, I wanted an interesting storyline for our music video, but also to film with precision with different camera angles and moving shots. This is why we include the reverse shot of the boy running backwards and also including many moving shots of the boy and girl walking through the woodland or fields. This again represents our own conventions because when I was looking at this music video, I was able to get ideas of how we could film something much different, especially when we included our focus pull shots. We included many focus pull shots to represent a mystic feel to our indie genre especially confusing our target audience because they do not know why the boy and girl are alone, but with the re-equilbrium at the end following todorovs theory, they are able to be reunited once again. Even with Propp's theory we have not included all the characters which makes our music video much more interesting because we do not know why they are there in the woodland or why they are looking for each other. We wanted to create an interesting storyline of them both lost in woodland plus fields trying to find each other, so both of these theories are extremely important in our music video because we have adapted them both. The way they are both lost and looking for each other but with a equilibrium or 're-equilibrium' they are able to find each other again. We have not included all the characters from the Propp theory, showing how this creates a much more interesting hybrid music video especially when we are trying to target our audience.
Another person I was looking at was Kandinsky, the way he would use different colours to convey emotion. I thought this was extremely interesting especially when looking at different music videos as you can see many colours, connoting meaning and emotion. This can be a primary example when filming our media, when thinking carefully about the ‘clamps’ especially the setting. Due to such a depressing song, we did not want somewhere where our music video could be portrayed where someone would be happy. As our song is also extremely long, we wanted an interesting hybrid music video which again we could relate to the uses and gratification theory.
Again all of these are vitally important when thinking about the conventions of our music video. This is why the research and theories were extremely important when using the media technology of the internet research about famous people where we could adapt these to our own idea and music video. I thought these two aspects would follow our music video especially the codes and conventions because we wanted to represent colour to represent the moods. The way the girl is representing purity wearing white however the earthy colours especially the blue that the guy is wearing represents sadness because he is lost and is looking for the girl. The codes and conventions are extremely important because he is upset but looking for the mystic girl which relates to our indie genre especially when adapting this towards our target audience.
Again I learnt a lot about this detailed research on Michel Gondry especially when relating other theories, because this helped me and my group to put together an idea for our music video. As this was something different, I wanted an interesting storyline for our music video, but also to film with precision with different camera angles and moving shots. This is why we include the reverse shot of the boy running backwards and also including many moving shots of the boy and girl walking through the woodland or fields. This again represents our own conventions because when I was looking at this music video, I was able to get ideas of how we could film something much different, especially when we included our focus pull shots. We included many focus pull shots to represent a mystic feel to our indie genre especially confusing our target audience because they do not know why the boy and girl are alone, but with the re-equilbrium at the end following todorovs theory, they are able to be reunited once again. Even with Propp's theory we have not included all the characters which makes our music video much more interesting because we do not know why they are there in the woodland or why they are looking for each other. We wanted to create an interesting storyline of them both lost in woodland plus fields trying to find each other, so both of these theories are extremely important in our music video because we have adapted them both. The way they are both lost and looking for each other but with a equilibrium or 're-equilibrium' they are able to find each other again. We have not included all the characters from the Propp theory, showing how this creates a much more interesting hybrid music video especially when we are trying to target our audience.
Another person I was looking at was Kandinsky, the way he would use different colours to convey emotion. I thought this was extremely interesting especially when looking at different music videos as you can see many colours, connoting meaning and emotion. This can be a primary example when filming our media, when thinking carefully about the ‘clamps’ especially the setting. Due to such a depressing song, we did not want somewhere where our music video could be portrayed where someone would be happy. As our song is also extremely long, we wanted an interesting hybrid music video which again we could relate to the uses and gratification theory.
Again all of these are vitally important when thinking about the conventions of our music video. This is why the research and theories were extremely important when using the media technology of the internet research about famous people where we could adapt these to our own idea and music video. I thought these two aspects would follow our music video especially the codes and conventions because we wanted to represent colour to represent the moods. The way the girl is representing purity wearing white however the earthy colours especially the blue that the guy is wearing represents sadness because he is lost and is looking for the girl. The codes and conventions are extremely important because he is upset but looking for the mystic girl which relates to our indie genre especially when adapting this towards our target audience.
Modernity and self identity was another aspect I looked at especially when creating our own music video. Anthony Giddens suggested how things have changed through science and the use of religion. From this, this has shown how families have changed and how it is now more common to have divorce. Again how men can become women and wear women clothing. A lot has changed especially through people being ‘gay’ which now can be represented in music videos. In Wham ‘wake me up before you go go’ is a key example of self identity, of how he is wearing pink to represent himself as gay. This can be shown in the music video below of him wearing shorts and brightly coloured pink. Again this can relate to the connotations of colour meaning something especially when a male is wearing pink himself.
The media can change our own views and perceptions, this is why when I created my own music video I needed to think carefully about the key ideas I would need to include especially when things have changed. Again this can relate to how we will develop and challenge music videos because it is not acceptable to see gay people in music videos, wearing pink or seen with more power especially for women. All of the research above has helped me gain knowledge about how we shall target our own target audience but how music videos will need to target their own audiences. We needed to relate our own costume and 'clamps' to the music video, so when looking at modernity and self identity we wanted to follow the indie genre when targeting our audience. This was extremely important as a code and convention to look at and analyse because we needed to think carefully about how colour will represent something such as us including earthy colours.
The media can change our own views and perceptions, this is why when I created my own music video I needed to think carefully about the key ideas I would need to include especially when things have changed. Again this can relate to how we will develop and challenge music videos because it is not acceptable to see gay people in music videos, wearing pink or seen with more power especially for women. All of the research above has helped me gain knowledge about how we shall target our own target audience but how music videos will need to target their own audiences. We needed to relate our own costume and 'clamps' to the music video, so when looking at modernity and self identity we wanted to follow the indie genre when targeting our audience. This was extremely important as a code and convention to look at and analyse because we needed to think carefully about how colour will represent something such as us including earthy colours.
The planning for our sueding helped me a lot when creating our own ideas. It was extremely hard to plan and storyboard thirty seconds ‘sueding’. I decided to do the A Team by Ed sheeran, where we would follow the same camera angles, especially when thinking about ‘clamps’. We had to include a lot of key detail into our storyboarding which helped me learn a lot that our storyboarding was extremely important for our music video. We had to include a lot of detail and key camera angles so that we would know what we are doing. Adding the lyrics as well was extremely important on our storyboarding so we would know what bits to add when editing on final cut express. All of this has helped me especially when doing our music video because it has helped me towards filming different camera angles and the use of the lighting. I also learnt how to adapt more knowledge towards using Final Cut Express such as sub-clipping.
The reflector would have been extremely important in our music video and I needed to use the reflector because this would help towards how the lighting would convey emotion. I had to also think carefully about the costumes because they would need to follow the genre. I learnt a lot about the editing of the music video, especially when using different transitions. I also now know how to adapt different uses of lighting and using different media technologies for our music video. Furthermore the use of Sueding helped me to create my own music video especially when looking carefully at the ‘Clamps’. This was extremely challenging especially when following the codes and conventions. In many music videos they have a lot of money to put towards 'clamps' especially lighting however due to minimal amounts of money, we had to think carefully about our music video. This was very challenging so we had to think carefully about what we were going to use especially when we had to use different torches to help represent the backlight or fill light compared to using big industrial lighting or large reflectors. This process was very challenging however I learnt a lot from this especially when creating our music video to learning to use the reflector or even using torches.
The reflector would have been extremely important in our music video and I needed to use the reflector because this would help towards how the lighting would convey emotion. I had to also think carefully about the costumes because they would need to follow the genre. I learnt a lot about the editing of the music video, especially when using different transitions. I also now know how to adapt different uses of lighting and using different media technologies for our music video. Furthermore the use of Sueding helped me to create my own music video especially when looking carefully at the ‘Clamps’. This was extremely challenging especially when following the codes and conventions. In many music videos they have a lot of money to put towards 'clamps' especially lighting however due to minimal amounts of money, we had to think carefully about our music video. This was very challenging so we had to think carefully about what we were going to use especially when we had to use different torches to help represent the backlight or fill light compared to using big industrial lighting or large reflectors. This process was very challenging however I learnt a lot from this especially when creating our music video to learning to use the reflector or even using torches.
The next aspect I have been looking at is the research I had done towards Mumford and Sons. I looked carefully at different music videos and their own conventions to help put ideas towards my own music video. The use of their performance was mainly in black and white. In comparison to this the use of the narrative was a mixture of nature, the environment and telling a story (narrative). The narrative can be extremely interesting and questioning especially when Mumford and Sons uses a blind guy but we do not know whether he would jump off the cliff or not. This was extremely important when thinking about my own music video and creating this idea.
Using the different aspects of different technologies such as the different platforms such as the internet has helped me to be able to research different music videos especially when they would fall under either performance, narrative, abstract and hybrid aspect. Again this is extremely important towards the codes and conventions when thinking carefully about how we were going to include this into our own music on whether we were going to do a hybrid music video or we were going to do just a narrative music video. We found this very challenging however after research we were able to do a hybrid music video especially we had ideas from different intertextual references such as safe and sound.
Our initial idea was to create a music video on the beach. We only wanted to do narrative about this boy and girl being lost. We have other ideas of adding performance but after researching videos by Mumford and Sons they would use mostly narrative. However this helped me learn and evaluate as with just a narrative would not be as interesting especially when targetting an indie genre. Such indie music videos such as Birdy use both narrative and performance. The use of having performance and narrative together helped bring together our music video. All of the research into hybrid or abstract has helped me gather my ideas especially when we wanted to film at the beach. Due to travel and other aspects with problems, we had to change our idea to filming in the woodland the field. This was helpful when thinking about intertextual references and representing a fairy style music video with the use of the costume and uncertainty of the characters. This was very challenging towards conventions when we needed to think carefully about different intertextual references we could include and we could adapt as well.
Using the different aspects of different technologies such as the different platforms such as the internet has helped me to be able to research different music videos especially when they would fall under either performance, narrative, abstract and hybrid aspect. Again this is extremely important towards the codes and conventions when thinking carefully about how we were going to include this into our own music on whether we were going to do a hybrid music video or we were going to do just a narrative music video. We found this very challenging however after research we were able to do a hybrid music video especially we had ideas from different intertextual references such as safe and sound.
Our initial idea was to create a music video on the beach. We only wanted to do narrative about this boy and girl being lost. We have other ideas of adding performance but after researching videos by Mumford and Sons they would use mostly narrative. However this helped me learn and evaluate as with just a narrative would not be as interesting especially when targetting an indie genre. Such indie music videos such as Birdy use both narrative and performance. The use of having performance and narrative together helped bring together our music video. All of the research into hybrid or abstract has helped me gather my ideas especially when we wanted to film at the beach. Due to travel and other aspects with problems, we had to change our idea to filming in the woodland the field. This was helpful when thinking about intertextual references and representing a fairy style music video with the use of the costume and uncertainty of the characters. This was very challenging towards conventions when we needed to think carefully about different intertextual references we could include and we could adapt as well.
The meta narrative and song structure can also be extremely important especially when we needed to adapt this to our music video. We needed to think carefully about the different uses of the music video such as the chorus or diminuendo. This can be an example of Foals especially when adding the different aspects such as the chorus, again this helped me learn about different music videos as we would need to think carefully about what parts of the song would fit with our narrative and our performance as well. Another aspect which has helped me especially with the conventions is looking at semiotics. A main feature can also include synesthesia which we related to our music video especially when adapting different connotations of colour to our music video such as the environment but also including different aspects of 'clamps' into our music video. We included this into our music video because we included shots such as 'flowers' in her hair or speeding up shots of the boy and girl running. When the song started to increase we used shorter shots however we used longer shots such as the focus pull or the girl looking around in the image above. So we thought carefully about adapting our filming with longer shots for the slower parts of the song especially when we slowed down many of our own filming shots.
Semiotics is the way something can be portrayed through connotation such as colour. It is an extremely important convention of real media products as certain colours can represent certain aspects. An example of this can be Foo Fighters - Pretender which is shown in the video below. This video shows different connotations of colour, the way the white will signify purity whereas the red will connote death or blood. The way the red is represent battle and death in the music video but also the white around representing them as if they are the good side. I learnt a lot about this especially when adapting my music video as we wanted to use colours which would represent the environment. This is linked throughout our music video shown in the images above, where we have included green and brown colours. This helped put our initial idea together of filming in the woodland and filming in the barn for our performance. Many of our ideas changed especially when we changed our performance ideas to filming in the bandstand rather than the barn. This uses the conventions into our own music video, the way we wanted to adapt the chorus plus the lyrics to our own music video. We wanted some of the lyrics to follow the filming such as ‘flowers in her hair’ or ‘I look up’. This helped challenge our music video by connotations of white representing purity which can be an intertextual reference from Cinderella.
Semiotics is the way something can be portrayed through connotation such as colour. It is an extremely important convention of real media products as certain colours can represent certain aspects. An example of this can be Foo Fighters - Pretender which is shown in the video below. This video shows different connotations of colour, the way the white will signify purity whereas the red will connote death or blood. The way the red is represent battle and death in the music video but also the white around representing them as if they are the good side. I learnt a lot about this especially when adapting my music video as we wanted to use colours which would represent the environment. This is linked throughout our music video shown in the images above, where we have included green and brown colours. This helped put our initial idea together of filming in the woodland and filming in the barn for our performance. Many of our ideas changed especially when we changed our performance ideas to filming in the bandstand rather than the barn. This uses the conventions into our own music video, the way we wanted to adapt the chorus plus the lyrics to our own music video. We wanted some of the lyrics to follow the filming such as ‘flowers in her hair’ or ‘I look up’. This helped challenge our music video by connotations of white representing purity which can be an intertextual reference from Cinderella.
The last aspect I looked into before we started storyboarding was the research into popular music and teenagers. The way they have changed music videos to become more specific to targetting the audience especially in the 1960’s. Even with technology this has changed from the MP3 in 1997 to Apple becoming launched in 2001. Again all these aspects help relate to music videos and how technology has changed. People today are able to watch music videos through their phone so when thinking about our own construction we wanted a hybrid music video which would be interesting to target our own audience. Furthermore this has been extremely important in the research and gathering our ideas together through research and planning. This helped put my idea together before we started to storyboard about Mumford and Sons. This helped me get ideas of the guy and girl being lost in the woods before they would find each-other.
Audience Feedback and Conventions
From the research I was able to create a questionnaire about the our genre. Whether they liked our initial idea and whether we should either have just a performance or narrative music video. After asking many questions this helped create our main product to be effective as well as our ancillary text. This helped us learn about the ‘audience feedback’ as this helped us put our idea together of a girl and guy but also the performance aspect where we filmed in the bandstand. This helped us learn that therefore we were going to do a hybrid music video and use lip syncing as well. This helped us with our next stage of storyboarding. I had to think carefully about storyboarding especially we we needed to put our ideas together down on paper. This was extremely difficult but helped us create an effective main product. We had to think carefully about our moving shots and the lighting. The use of the lighting would help represent or connote a meaning of emotion. This could be either use the fill light or main light in our own music video which we needed to think carefully about. The use of this new media towards the safe and sound video has helped us towards our researching and construction using different media technologies. This is shown throughout our music video because we have included focus pull shots and shots of the boy plus the girl walking throughout the woods. The girl is represented as upset and lost which helps create a mystic feel which links with what I have stated about 'paramore'.
The storyboarding was helpful in providing our idea. The way we were going to film and girl and guy lost in the woodland, where they could not find each other until the end. This could represent fantasy and fairytale stories. This could be an example of many intertextual references such as Hansel and Gretal because they are lost in the woods. The way we would use many slow moving shots of them walking and running representing how lost they are. Again all of this helped put our idea together especially when storyboarding. The intertextual references were extremely important when providing an effective combination of our main product especially from the audience feedback we had from our Questionnaire. The intertextual references we used was Safe and Sounds plus Paramore. The use of the different camera angles helped us use shots such as the girl lying down on the floor. Other shots we have included is the woodland around with the girl plus the guy walking through the shots. This is by including many moving shots plus still shots in our music video which can be linked in the video above.
The video above shows the use of the intertextual references we used especially when the girl was running into the woods and walking around the woods alone. This relates to our conventions of how we followed a media product as she is lost alone, which again follows our own music video. This helped us develop our convention of using colours to represent purity of the girl in her outfit to the woodland representing the natural colours, green and the dark greens as well. The use of the different shots of the girl walking through the woods, the mysterious use of the connotations of colour and the way it is representing a fairytale story from Paramore. This helped relate to the conventions of how this girl is lost in the woods, especially when the guy is lost in the woods as well. They are both looking for each other and when I asked for audience feedback, people were able to understand our narrative as they are both lost.
The video above shows the use of the intertextual references we used especially when the girl was running into the woods and walking around the woods alone. This relates to our conventions of how we followed a media product as she is lost alone, which again follows our own music video. This helped us develop our convention of using colours to represent purity of the girl in her outfit to the woodland representing the natural colours, green and the dark greens as well. The use of the different shots of the girl walking through the woods, the mysterious use of the connotations of colour and the way it is representing a fairytale story from Paramore. This helped relate to the conventions of how this girl is lost in the woods, especially when the guy is lost in the woods as well. They are both looking for each other and when I asked for audience feedback, people were able to understand our narrative as they are both lost.
The organisation was extremely important especially when creating an effective main product and ancillary text. The use of the organisation helped put together our music together, because we needed to make a plan of when we were going to film. However we did have a few problems with our filming. The way none of the guys turned up to our filming on the day when were were going to film or performance and due to the camera not working we could not do any filming in the October holidays. We were extremely worried because we had no one to be in our music video. We had to send out a message on Facebook ‘using different media technologies’ to try and find some people to be in our music video.
With luck we were able to find guys for our Performance aspect and Narrative aspect. The organisation was important to organise the times so we knew what we had to do and what we could another do if we needed more filming. On Two days of filming we were able to film all day by getting all of our performance and narrative. The filming went extremely well especially when we followed our storyboarding and do an effective amount of detail we were able to create an effective main product. I created some Blooper videos to get some feedback on our filming, even though they were shots that went wrong. My group then added these videos onto Facebook plus asked their friends to gather opinions about them. The audience feedback was positive as they thought the setting was extremely good and especially representing our intertextual references well of Safe and Sounds but also the song by Paramore. Again showing how we used different shots in the woodland plus the field as relating to our intertextual references. This can be seen in our 'Final Product' link.
With luck we were able to find guys for our Performance aspect and Narrative aspect. The organisation was important to organise the times so we knew what we had to do and what we could another do if we needed more filming. On Two days of filming we were able to film all day by getting all of our performance and narrative. The filming went extremely well especially when we followed our storyboarding and do an effective amount of detail we were able to create an effective main product. I created some Blooper videos to get some feedback on our filming, even though they were shots that went wrong. My group then added these videos onto Facebook plus asked their friends to gather opinions about them. The audience feedback was positive as they thought the setting was extremely good and especially representing our intertextual references well of Safe and Sounds but also the song by Paramore. Again showing how we used different shots in the woodland plus the field as relating to our intertextual references. This can be seen in our 'Final Product' link.
Media Technologies
After filming and when we started using the media technology of Final Cut express we were able to view all our performance and narrative aspects. Again we had a problem of the performance aspect not having the correct frame and being far too small showing black lines on either side when editing. However after using the internet we were able to research and change the size so the black lines were no longer showing. Again this was how we used different media technologies in creating our music video especially our Digipak. Lastly our final problem for our music video was the lip syncing. Due to having not enough lip syncing we had to film again. I thought carefully about the organisation by printing off the lyrics in large font and recording each section so when we could play it, Ben would be able to sing along to this. The use of different media technologies is extremely challenging especially when adapting them to different conventions. The use of Media technologies I have used at AS has helped me learn more about creating a music video at A2. I have been able to adapt my knowledge and skills especially towards creating an effective main product and ancillary texts.
This worked effectively showing that the combination of our music video was extremely important. After tackling of all problems especially creating our lip syncing after hours of research we were therefore able to edit effectively. We used different media technologies by the use of the camera when filming and tripod. The use of the reflector was extremely important when creating an effective main product. The editing was an extremely important process and I learnt a lot from Final Cut Express. The use of this different media technology helped construct our Media video together. I learnt a lot from using sub-clipping, changing the colour to tint 'monochrome colour' and the main feature was changing the speed of the shot especially when we reversed the shot of Patrick going back in time. The link above shows how significant Final Cut express was in creating our music video. I have learnt a lot about using this media technology especially when adapting our filming especially towards the lyrics when we had to lip sync. All of this was extremely hard to tackle and challenge.
The Media Technologies I have used for my research has been the internet and social network sites. I have used the internet to research using different theories and Youtube to get different ideas for my intertextual references. The use of the social networks was extremely significant to gain audience feedback for our music video and initial ideas. The social networks such as Face-book, Twitter and Instagram has helped me gain audience feedback using these Media Technologies. Media Technologies are extremely important in our planning and construction stages especially gathering ideas. I think the research was vitally as important especially when I was looking at safe and sound or other such indie videos especially Mumford and Sons. An example of how significant this can be is when I was looking at a video of Mumford and Sons where they includes many filler shots. This is why we adapted our own filming with the use of filler shots especially the starting sequence linked in the image below. This again shows how the use of different platforms especially the internet is extremely important towards different media technologies.
During our editing process of the music video, we were also creating our Digipak. We had many initial ideas of using polaroid pictures but our main ideas was the tea colour stained paper. Due to an indie genre we wanted to create a music video which would interest our target audience but also fit in with the whole aspect of ‘vintage’ and ‘retro’. Creating our Digipak was effective especially with the combination our main product. We included images from our filming onto the Digipak. I use many different media technologies in creating the Digipak and the poster. When I created the tea coloured paper and stained coffee paper I used the scanner to scan this in. I next use my memory stick to transfer onto my Macbook. This brief outline shows how much we need to use different media technologies to represent our narrative and create our music video. Again this helped create an effective piece of work through constant research of the internet and editing using my Macbook.
I next used photoshop to edit the photos and indesign to find fonts to put together our Digipak and Poster. Indesign and photoshop were extremely important especially in creating an effective main product and ancillary text. This helped me place images on top of each other, I was able to changed the contrast of the images to inverting the texts so that they had a black background. We changed our idea a few ideas after getting audience feedback. I put the poster on my Facebook to see what people would they think about our idea. This worked out well as they told us to make the title bigger and to make the image bigger. This was extremely helpful as this therefore helped us create an effective main product and ancillary text.
Lastly the use of the camera was an extremely important part of the technology we had to use. When we had to organise our filming and lip syncing. We again used the internet to research the lyrics, to then using Microsoft Word to print off the lyrics. The use of my phone was extremely important when recording the lyrics and the use of powerpoint helped us create organised timetables in which we could follow when filming. The use of the reflector helped us create lighting especially when using our torches. This was all extremely challenging towards our conventions however created an extremely effective main media product. Again these aspects were extremely important especially when we were using the Tripod. The use of the Tripod was extremely important when we were using panning shots or creating our still shots. Furthermore all I that I have explained above was extremely important in creating our final product.
I next used photoshop to edit the photos and indesign to find fonts to put together our Digipak and Poster. Indesign and photoshop were extremely important especially in creating an effective main product and ancillary text. This helped me place images on top of each other, I was able to changed the contrast of the images to inverting the texts so that they had a black background. We changed our idea a few ideas after getting audience feedback. I put the poster on my Facebook to see what people would they think about our idea. This worked out well as they told us to make the title bigger and to make the image bigger. This was extremely helpful as this therefore helped us create an effective main product and ancillary text.
Lastly the use of the camera was an extremely important part of the technology we had to use. When we had to organise our filming and lip syncing. We again used the internet to research the lyrics, to then using Microsoft Word to print off the lyrics. The use of my phone was extremely important when recording the lyrics and the use of powerpoint helped us create organised timetables in which we could follow when filming. The use of the reflector helped us create lighting especially when using our torches. This was all extremely challenging towards our conventions however created an extremely effective main media product. Again these aspects were extremely important especially when we were using the Tripod. The use of the Tripod was extremely important when we were using panning shots or creating our still shots. Furthermore all I that I have explained above was extremely important in creating our final product.
Even though I have stated how effective my main product and ancillary texts are throughout this evaluation, I am going to write a paragraph stating my thoughts and conclusions towards this question. My Media product is extremely effective because I wanted to create ancillary texts which would link towards our music video. The representation is extremely important especially when the genre of our Music Video is Indie. In the Media today, it is extremely important to have ancillary texts to promote towards our music video. This is very important as the record label will want to promote and campaign to make our music video more effective. In my conclusion I do think my ancillary text is extremely effective especially when we are linking in photos from the music video towards our poster and Digipak.
We have created a very 'vintage' and 'retro' feel towards our music video representing how important the 'effectiveness' of the Digipak towards our music video. We have thought extremely carefully about creating the Digipak, the way we have used tea colour stained paper throughout our Digipak and poster. Both these aspects are again extremely important in the way we are trying to portray an indie genre especially through using polaroid images and handwritten fonts. I have learnt a lot about how we have created our ancillary text and how this has helped create our Music Video to be extremely more promotional. It is very important to have interesting ancillary texts because we want to target our wide range of audience especially towards people who would listen to 'indie'. Many institutions would want to promote throughout our main product, so this is why the ancillary text would create our main text to be more effective towards a wider audience.
I have looked at many different ancillary texts especially analysing the main conventions of each one. I learnt a lot especially when looking at 'Babel' showing the indie genre. The use of this album covers shows how we have created our own Digipak by representing the environment through 'earthy' colours. The use of the narrative from our music video links in with our Digipak. The way we are representing the same colours throughout our Digipak, Poster and Music video. We also thought carefully about linking different intertextual references to our poster and Digipak. This helped us gather ideas about the colour and continuity of all our filming. This helped create a very effective main product and ancillary texts. The use of using different media technologies as well, has helped us learn more about different main products and ancillary texts. They are extremely important especially when including all of the main information.
I have learnt a lot about my audience feedback of my music video and has helped me learn a lot. The audience really understood our narrative the way the boy and girl are lost, but they are both trying to find each other and find each other at the end. They state that this is very ‘fairylike’in the way the girl is dressing in flowing clothes especially in the woods looking lost. This helps put together how this guy is trying to find her by looking in the woods and the field. Both the continuity works well as he is looking in two places for her located in a location of a ‘fairylike’ representation. The comments below are that they enjoyed our music video and that it worked extremely well. They thought that the lip syncing was to a very high standard and made no mistakes. They told me as well, to send this to Mumford and Sons because it is extremely interesting.
However one point from the audience feedback is that the running in ‘reverse’needs to be much slower in portraying time because he is lost. As it a very indie and fairytale music video, things that are different such as Michel Gondry, we wanted to create something different. This follows the convention of following real media products especially the auteur theory as we are wanting to adapt something different. The use of the audience feedback has helped me learn a lot about the music video especially that we should slow down the running backwards next time. I am rather glad that they were able to understand our narrative of them being lost and again someone stated a ‘fairylike’ story but they did not know what was going to happen. Again this follows the conventions of real media products especially towards the uses and gratification theory because they are able to socially interact about this and identify themselves. Many people thought our music video did fit the Indie Genre, the way they were wearing the correct costume and the setting was extremely good.
The second image below provides us with audience feedback about the ending. This has helped me and my group to recognise what we could improve on especially when I state this in my voiceover. I definitely think now we would need to add more to the ending of the music video, such as close up shots of their faces when meeting each other as one minute they are lost and the next minute they are back together again. I do think we could have included more to our ending but also included perhaps more lip syncing at the start of our music video. The use of the audience feedback has helped me and my group to learn from what we could improve on but also the positive aspects we had done. They thought our lighting was extremely good especially with the use of the reflector and the narrative was extremely good especially linked with the performance. I do think we would need to connote more towards the 'reverse' backwards of the boy jumping, the way this represents back in time showing that he is lost. I do think we could improve on the continuity between our music video especially from the audience feedback.
We did have some fantastic shots we could have added however as our media technology of the expensive camera ran out of power, we had to film on another camera which was not as high standard. The format was incorrect and when changing the format as I decided to buy a MOD converter this caused the filming to become more blurred. I therefore think if we had added these shots, these would have related much more towards our Indie Genre especially following many intertextual references about Safe and Sound to many Fairytales. These shots were to represent how lost she was and places where the guy had been before would have helped towards linking our narrative together more.
However one point from the audience feedback is that the running in ‘reverse’needs to be much slower in portraying time because he is lost. As it a very indie and fairytale music video, things that are different such as Michel Gondry, we wanted to create something different. This follows the convention of following real media products especially the auteur theory as we are wanting to adapt something different. The use of the audience feedback has helped me learn a lot about the music video especially that we should slow down the running backwards next time. I am rather glad that they were able to understand our narrative of them being lost and again someone stated a ‘fairylike’ story but they did not know what was going to happen. Again this follows the conventions of real media products especially towards the uses and gratification theory because they are able to socially interact about this and identify themselves. Many people thought our music video did fit the Indie Genre, the way they were wearing the correct costume and the setting was extremely good.
The second image below provides us with audience feedback about the ending. This has helped me and my group to recognise what we could improve on especially when I state this in my voiceover. I definitely think now we would need to add more to the ending of the music video, such as close up shots of their faces when meeting each other as one minute they are lost and the next minute they are back together again. I do think we could have included more to our ending but also included perhaps more lip syncing at the start of our music video. The use of the audience feedback has helped me and my group to learn from what we could improve on but also the positive aspects we had done. They thought our lighting was extremely good especially with the use of the reflector and the narrative was extremely good especially linked with the performance. I do think we would need to connote more towards the 'reverse' backwards of the boy jumping, the way this represents back in time showing that he is lost. I do think we could improve on the continuity between our music video especially from the audience feedback.
We did have some fantastic shots we could have added however as our media technology of the expensive camera ran out of power, we had to film on another camera which was not as high standard. The format was incorrect and when changing the format as I decided to buy a MOD converter this caused the filming to become more blurred. I therefore think if we had added these shots, these would have related much more towards our Indie Genre especially following many intertextual references about Safe and Sound to many Fairytales. These shots were to represent how lost she was and places where the guy had been before would have helped towards linking our narrative together more.
Conclusion
In conclusion I have enjoyed creating the music video from the very start. I have enjoyed the research and theories. This is due to more interest in how it is created rather than watching it. A lot of work will go towards a music video especially especially lip syncing. Our music video has tried to include all the conventions of music videos especially when using the uses and gratification theory, the way it is a hybrid music video and adapting many different intertextual references. The way we included shots and different filming, the girl walking through the woods but also adapting to many fairytale stories.
The combination of my main product and ancillary texts works extremely well together especially when they are both towards an indie genre. I have learnt a lot about the significance of my audience feedback and how we could improve. The audience feedback was extremely important especially learning about what we could improve on in our music video such as the running backwards of including more shots towards the ending. Our target audience was extremely important especially when the target audience towards Mumford and Sons can be a wide range of ages. I know that I may need to change the running shot backwards and include more shots of the band especially different shots of the guys perhaps using more moving shots.
I have used many different media technologies especially from my Macbook such as Photoshop, to Final Cut express helped again create our music video to be effective with our main product and ancillary texts. Therefore for my improvement I shall include more shots of the band and change the reverse shot of patrick going backwards. Many people did not understand this shot however they said if it was much slower this would represent going back in time. Furthermore I have learnt a lot about creating a music video especially the amount of effort, organisation and media technologies you will need. This has helped me develop my knowledge from AS. I have become more skilled towards different media technologies such as Photoshop, Indesign and Final Cut Express. This has helped me towards devising new ideas, synthesising with ideas and adapting to another and finally how I am able to create high standard storyboarding. This has helped me to become more confident especially during the two years and especially using indesign at Secondary school. My filming has become more skilled especially with moving shots and improving from my As Thriller.
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