Media evaluation
1)
Representing music in a video is a relatively new phenomenon that has developed and grown over the last 40 years. As technology advances and improves so does our access to music and videos, with channels dedicated to showing music videos. In a sense our media product recognises and celebrates these advances in technology by creating the video within a video being shown on a mobile phone.
The recognition is that in order to survive the ever increasing advance in the technological environment, the music video industry must also keep moving forward. Our media product tries to capture this concept in its creation and its delivery.
The technological advances in video production have also meant that artists can quickly and easily reach a worldwide audience. However, specifically within this vast potential audience, it can target a subculture that identities and supports a particular brand or style of music and video. It is this image and brand, as much as the music, which promotes itself. Our media product creates a clear brand with the perceived culture that “Mia”, together with her ideologies, represents. However, in many ways our product uses conventional forms through the location used and the artwork design to reach the intended audience.
The success of the media products, poster and DVD, is ultimately dependent upon how the audience demonstrates their association with this genre.
I believe that our commitment to the artwork, the style and the presentation contribute to following the ‘Mia’ conventions which coincide and develop her image as an urban musical artist. We used a number of conventions that help to identify the genre: the location of a graffiti-covered wall as well as the constant energetic beat and non-stop movement of Will, the close-up and bold angled shots of Charlotte; these are some examples of how the techniques and conventions we used to help create an urban music genre.
Artists in recent times that have used a similar approach to performance include artists such as ‘the black eyed peas’ and ‘technotronic’. In their videos the conventions are very similar in the way that they focus on a person performing within a recognisable genre-setting to achieve an urban effect, image and style. Our approach in the video was to adopt similar techniques, for example the use of green screen was a process that the ‘technotronics’ chose in their video ‘pump the jam’.
The poster, DVD cover and video create a clear brand and the target audience will consume this music and its associated culture through the medium in which we present it – through a mobile phone.
As a consequence, the media product we have created is a very neat, compact, targeted and modern product.
Despite using relatively conventional techniques, I believe that the products are sufficiently close to the edge of technology and presentation. It is at the edge where the maximum potential return is possible, which is the aim of the production company and us as a media group.
2)
Popular music is increasingly surrounded by the genre associated with the type of music. Genre is now fundamental to the presentation of the music. It is not only limited to the actual track but the selling of the product is now packaged as a total concept in relation to the music.
In our presentation of the combination of products we have tried to maintain a consistent and common set of values in line with the genre associated with ‘Mia’. The main product, our music video, in my opinion fits very well with the ancillary texts of the poster and DVD cover. The location is consistent and the artwork and theme is the same giving the audience a modern day, urban life feel. The street life theme flowing throughout the product gives the audience an easily recognizable product range almost like a logo. An example of this is the presentation of Charlotte as bold and confident in her attitude and approach. She forms part of a changing and often vibrant colour scheme that at times seems abrupt and stark in its appearance. This as well as the distressed logo, which has been deliberately vandalised, do suggest and emphasize the street theme. It works because the conventions of urban life are not soft and gentle but can be hard and brutal.
We have kept within well defined boundaries of the genre conventions and expectations of the target audience. This application of a consistent theme we believe will be very useful in selling the package as a whole. The audience will have no problem in recognising the genre and identifying with their chosen genre. In this way the artist ‘Mia’ has been used to create a carefully constructed ideology that will mean clear identification of a brand. The marketing people will present this brand of the ‘Mia’ image. Once a brand is accepted and recognised, the selling becomes much easier.
Our ancillary texts do reflect the main product in style, content and particular brand. Using a photo from the music video for the poster meant that it gave us a honesty to the audience and a real feel of what to expect. This commitment to truth without deception is a principle that the ‘Mia’ genre sticks to and so we felt that its importance should be reflected in the whole presentation of the package as a whole. We also felt it was important to keep the same artist and song name as it gave us a good simple basis to work from and create a successful poster and DVD cover.
3)
Audience feedback is a critical part in the process of improving and refining our media product. Feedback shows us how the product has been received by the audience. It is vital that we access this feedback to see if we should make any changes in the content or presentation. In a sense it is similar to market research used in many different types of disciplines.
The official feedback has been posted on our blog. We have had 3 comments on our main music video and 3 comments on the DVD magazine advert.
In general the feedback has been very positive both from these comments and the informal feedback that has come from people who have seen the product and I have spoken to.
“Great music video9, good lip syncing and the style, background, clothes and characters all work really well with the music”. It is really encouraging that all the effort gone into presenting a convincing picture of the product seems to have been received very well. The consistency of presenting the genre throughout the video has been acknowledged by this feedback.
The second comment on the video describes how the techniques and “style of the late eighties, through technotonic, inner city, s.express which also used basic green screen effects and abstract patterns behind is back in vogue”. This confirms our belief that the video, we felt, was of the moment and in no way felt ‘dated’. Although it does have, as the feedback comment suggests a retro-feel to its presentation and look. The comment about the iphone providing a bookend start and finish is exactly what we wanted to achieve and therefore was very pleased with this feedback.
The fact that an extra performance would have made the cut “snappier” is perhaps also true. An extra location would have helped, but we wanted to be absolutely sure that the performance was in the right style. Finding such a location was hard, so we stuck with what we had and decided not to risk introducing another element which may have unbalanced the product.
The feedback on the DVD was also positive. The “it looks painted” and “surreal” was a look that we were trying to achieve along with the unusual title presentation. However I do agree that the extra information i.e. the written content could have probably been a bit more “interesting”. Perhaps we could have included further references to the urban life – with maybe a neon light effect or perhaps “a public information notice/street sign” title. This would personally be something I would do differently if we were to do it again. However we certainly wanted to make this very easy to read, as any uncertainty or lack of clarity my effect the sales. The existing presentation does look clean and uncluttered and doesn’t distract from the artist image and the title.
Again the focus on the artist was central to the theme as was the bold colours and the “garish” feel to the product, which help well with the retro feel of the product. The intended bold, confident and ‘in your face’ approach to the products seems to have been very well received which gives us confidence as to its likely success.
4)
Media is all about presentation and representation of ideas. The presentation of our product involved using new media technologies to present the product. However we also used these new types of technology in the research, planning and evaluation stages of our final work.
In the construction of the product, new technologies such as ‘Final Cut’ were used throughout the making of our video. Final Cut allowed us to use green screen as it has a programme in which it recognizes all the green, then takes it out which enabled us to put our moving background behind will. It provided an efficient way to edit and refine the production to give it a visual appeal that makes it stand out. This technology also enabled us to create simple but clear effects throughout the product. The number of options available from this technology meant that we could get the exact image that we were looking for.
‘Photoshop’ was a program used throughout the design stage of the product for the DVD and poster. It again allowed us to make the adjustments to the original picture in order to maximise its appeal to the target audience. We made the photo of Charlotte brighter and more vibrant through the use of Photoshop.
The internet was used very much in the research stage initially. Ideas for graphics, animation and basic layouts came from the significant research from browsing the web. The internet also helped to provide the background and information on ‘Mia’ culture and music. It also provided many examples and techniques used by other products. It was with all this that images and ideas formed for our own work. It is difficult to measure how things influence you but all input is always helpful even when searching for and making original work. I believe it’s a big help when trying to think of original ideas.
Blogger.com also helped to provide a way of receiving feedback, which was very useful in assessing what things worked and how things could be improved. This evaluation stage was an important part of the product release.
There is no doubt that nowadays it is essential that new media technology are an important tool in all stages of production when producing a media product such as our music video, DVD cover and poster.
We were able to do huge amounts of research and gather lots of information. It enabled us to construct the product with up to date software. The new media will be used to evaluate and distribute the product to the specific audience within the world-wide market. It is the increased speed of communication and alterations that is so useful. The technology is changing so rapidly that when making a media product you must use it quickly and effectively to make your product work and be successful.
Will Wise's Evaluation
Media Project Evaluation
1) Our media product uses many forms and conventions of real media products; our media product is a performance based video which includes a lot of dancing that is used in real music videos for the genre of our audio. Examples of real products which have many conventions similar to our product. It also develops real media products with the use of the green screen in our product; it allows us to view various backgrounds in the style of real media products such as Pump The Jam by Technotronic this video is similar to our product as it uses bright colours and a green screen to give the effect of a retro background, while dancing in front, the effects we used as the background for the green screen made the performance more dynamic. The female lead is the main focus in our video so we’re able to develop the artist reputation we also use lip syncing which is used in real media products such as In Da Club by 50 cent which is a video that has 50 Cent as the main focus building up his reputation as it was one of his early songs. In parts of the song the dancer has lots of bright UV clothing and jewellery on which is a convention that is used in many real products such as I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas which they use Glow in the dark paint and UV lights. Live performances and music videos are the main real media products that relate to our product which I believe we have done successfully. I believe that iTunes and HMV would be the two main media institutions that would stock and distribute our music video, as they specialise in popular and new music.
2) Our main product and ancilliary text combinations relate together to give a good effect as they compliment each other. By keeping a bright colour theme through out, where the artist is wearing bright clothes as well as the dancer, this is so we can represent the retro theme through out the product as the dancer is wearing glow sticks and florescent colour clothing to add this effect, also on the ancilliary text DVD cover the background includes lots of bright colours, the title has fading multiple colours in the background also represent ting the retro theme. The artist who is a strong female lead is shown a lot throughout the video as she is the main focus of the product therefore she is presented on the front of the DVD cover of the ancilliary text. The DVD cover and the Magazine advert have the same style and pictures as each other I believe that this worked to great effect as if someone was to see the advert and want to get a copy of the DVD they would recognise the advert and be able to find the DVD a lot easier.
3) We have learnt quite a bit from the feedback received from other media studies students and our teacher. Our teacher gave us some constructive feedback about the performance in our video one critism was we could have had more performance based shots “It could have done with one more performance to enable you to make the cuts snappier” to make quicker cuts making it overall more effective as a performance based music video, this is defiantly something I would change if we were to do the project again as a lot of the shots are of the same thing but I believe we have hidden this successfully with the editing. The audience which was intended for the media product is for both males and females aged 16-21 we have aimed it to this age group as they are more interested in the bright colours and urban settings, We have played with the audiences expectations by giving the music video a urban edge to it but also used some dance/techno conventions in it.
4) We used lots of new technologies in the making of our final product; one of the technologies was the use of final cut which is the program we mainly used from constructing our product. It gave us space and the ability to edit the product to a sound standard and add lots of effects to the product which worked successfully. We also used green screen technology for our product which we used to add different backgrounds for some of the dancing footage this enabled us to save time during filming as we could get a great deal of it done in one location and changed the background when it came to the editing instead of moving on to different locations, I believe that the green screen was extremely successful as it turned out exactly how we had imagined it while we were planning and it also made the performance more dynamic. We used photo shop to create our DVD cover which let us edit the cover in lots of detail which worked successfully but I would have liked to spend more time on photo shop to create more detailed and better effects for our product. One of the effects I am most pleased with in our product is the iphone at the beginning and end of the song opening and closing the video made it look more professional, with this we combined the green screen to get a hand to look like it was clicking on the screen to bring up different shots and expanding them. During making the product my skills developed greatly on some of this new technology most of all on the green screen since I had never used it before and believe it has turned out quite successfully.
1) Our media product uses many forms and conventions of real media products; our media product is a performance based video which includes a lot of dancing that is used in real music videos for the genre of our audio. Examples of real products which have many conventions similar to our product. It also develops real media products with the use of the green screen in our product; it allows us to view various backgrounds in the style of real media products such as Pump The Jam by Technotronic this video is similar to our product as it uses bright colours and a green screen to give the effect of a retro background, while dancing in front, the effects we used as the background for the green screen made the performance more dynamic. The female lead is the main focus in our video so we’re able to develop the artist reputation we also use lip syncing which is used in real media products such as In Da Club by 50 cent which is a video that has 50 Cent as the main focus building up his reputation as it was one of his early songs. In parts of the song the dancer has lots of bright UV clothing and jewellery on which is a convention that is used in many real products such as I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas which they use Glow in the dark paint and UV lights. Live performances and music videos are the main real media products that relate to our product which I believe we have done successfully. I believe that iTunes and HMV would be the two main media institutions that would stock and distribute our music video, as they specialise in popular and new music.
2) Our main product and ancilliary text combinations relate together to give a good effect as they compliment each other. By keeping a bright colour theme through out, where the artist is wearing bright clothes as well as the dancer, this is so we can represent the retro theme through out the product as the dancer is wearing glow sticks and florescent colour clothing to add this effect, also on the ancilliary text DVD cover the background includes lots of bright colours, the title has fading multiple colours in the background also represent ting the retro theme. The artist who is a strong female lead is shown a lot throughout the video as she is the main focus of the product therefore she is presented on the front of the DVD cover of the ancilliary text. The DVD cover and the Magazine advert have the same style and pictures as each other I believe that this worked to great effect as if someone was to see the advert and want to get a copy of the DVD they would recognise the advert and be able to find the DVD a lot easier.
3) We have learnt quite a bit from the feedback received from other media studies students and our teacher. Our teacher gave us some constructive feedback about the performance in our video one critism was we could have had more performance based shots “It could have done with one more performance to enable you to make the cuts snappier” to make quicker cuts making it overall more effective as a performance based music video, this is defiantly something I would change if we were to do the project again as a lot of the shots are of the same thing but I believe we have hidden this successfully with the editing. The audience which was intended for the media product is for both males and females aged 16-21 we have aimed it to this age group as they are more interested in the bright colours and urban settings, We have played with the audiences expectations by giving the music video a urban edge to it but also used some dance/techno conventions in it.
4) We used lots of new technologies in the making of our final product; one of the technologies was the use of final cut which is the program we mainly used from constructing our product. It gave us space and the ability to edit the product to a sound standard and add lots of effects to the product which worked successfully. We also used green screen technology for our product which we used to add different backgrounds for some of the dancing footage this enabled us to save time during filming as we could get a great deal of it done in one location and changed the background when it came to the editing instead of moving on to different locations, I believe that the green screen was extremely successful as it turned out exactly how we had imagined it while we were planning and it also made the performance more dynamic. We used photo shop to create our DVD cover which let us edit the cover in lots of detail which worked successfully but I would have liked to spend more time on photo shop to create more detailed and better effects for our product. One of the effects I am most pleased with in our product is the iphone at the beginning and end of the song opening and closing the video made it look more professional, with this we combined the green screen to get a hand to look like it was clicking on the screen to bring up different shots and expanding them. During making the product my skills developed greatly on some of this new technology most of all on the green screen since I had never used it before and believe it has turned out quite successfully.
Charlotte Thompson's Evaluation
Evaluation questions
1. in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
In our media product we develop and change a well known artist M.I.A, song URAQT and develop it into our own media product throughout our media performances we used lots of different conventions. We used these conventions in, performance, lip syncing, acting and continuity editing, we also used media conventions in our diggi-pak and posters and the postcards we produce. The main convention that we used where photo shop and final cut, these conventions helped us develop skills and sell our media product as a real product. In our performance we used dancing and lips syncing these were ideas for performance to get the image of the artist and the attitude of the artists and to also help sell our product to the right target audience. Photo shop, was where we produce our diggi-pack, we change the artist (me) to make her stand out more, we did this by changing the colour of my jacket and also changing the background to make certain colour stand out more than others. The backgrounds that were used the music video where also used and develop on the photo shop, in one scene where we have will, the dancer dancing we change the back ground on photo shop in to a kaleidoscope effect, this back ground was very effected and gave of a retro image to the look of the artist and the dancer. Other ways of using media conventions where using the phone as an ironic development to the lyrics of the song. This idea was them develop into the video of having the whole music video on the phone. We were able to create this effect by taking an image of a phone (I phone) and placing it on to photo shop then we were able to play around with the image and decide how this idea was going to work. We final decided as a group to have the phone at the beginning of the video and have the effect of the phone zooming in and then using the green screen to film a hand that would be touching the screen for the shots of the dancer to pop up. When filming we decided to use only a few of different back grounds. When using final cut we have to get the mise-en-scene right when changing scene if not, this would have an effect on the continuity of the music video and not look right. These changes where easy to make and help also to make our video stand out more using these conventions
2. How effective is the combination of you main product and ancillary text?
Our music video is target for a wide range of different types of music genre, it ranges from hip hop, to a retro rock to a slightly gangster rap, because our music video hits all these target audiences we had to think on what aspects of the video and song would sell. In the lyrics there was a lot of raping and repeated lines, we decided to use this and at the end of the video chop at the line “DT-DT-dt- n your mobile phone” and whenever I said this line in the last minute, to use different angle shots so that the effect of the repeated line would make an impact on the artist. In our music video I think we hit the right target audience and were very pleased about our music video and that we achieved the right genre. In the music video our main focus was promoting a solo artist with a new hit single. We thought that M.I.A, URAQT was an upbeat and catchy song that if we where promoting this video for a real media product the song would catch on. To interlink the music video to the artists we had to combine the combination of the artist and the video together to do this we had to look at a stereo type music video to this song. We also looked at other videos that M.I.A done, and other artist like the band Black-Eye-peas, this band was a great inspiration to our music video and help with the green screen effect and the attitude of our video, as I was the actress acting I found it hard to act in a different attitude. The setting and background are both effect to the artist and the song. These help create a suitable performance with combining all the effect together to help to produce a music video.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
After posting out video and diggi-pack onto our blog we decided then to ask other students and teachers what they thought about our music video and how we could improve it, from our feedback we got many different responses some were criticism and some was bad but most of our feedback was good and could help us into improve our music video and also talked about in our in our shot video clip where we talked about our music video. The criticism that we got was about our green screen and how we used it. The green screen took a lot of time to do, this was not good for when we had to put our video together and also delayed time, which we could of spent touching up edges instead of preparing our green screen we also wasted a lot of time not planning what we should have been doing in lesson and while we were debating what we were going to do, we could have been writing these points of ideas on our blog. The good comments were about the look and theme of our music video, some of our comments were also about the lip syncing and the performance of our video, witch a lot of people said was brilliant and well put together and also the linking in scenes together people said worked well with the artists and image the artist was giving of. We also posted our music video on YouTube and in our first week reach 133 views. We have yet no comments on YouTube yet. Other feedback we learnt from our audience was about the background and mise-en-scene. We also got some good points and bad points, some of the points were about the style and theme of the music video. The good points about our video where the graffiti wall and the colours we used throughout the music video and also how the colours were effective with the attitude of the artist. Bad comments we got were there about time we spent on preparing the performance and that should of spent more time planning so that we were able to take more shots and may of used different settings. We took this and decided that we could have planned our music video more and also could have done a time sheet where we could draw our scenes and that put then on photo shop and then made a shot video using idea from this to help develop our music video. Over all I think our comment were suitable for our music and the feedback we got from people we were able to collect and develop into our blog as a show of how good our music video would have been on the market and also to show how we could change and develop our product.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages.
When using new media technologies in our music video we spent time on developing our music video from these conventions. Thought out our media video we used photo shop, final cut, and paint. These are some of the new media technologies that we used in to making and producing and promoting our music video and our diggi-pack. In our planning and research we were able to construct a foundation which we picked and develop ideas for our music video from. In different stages of our video we change many ideas and ended up with a different idea then we started from. One of our first ideas where to use UV light and do our whole music video in UV this plan did not work because we were not able to produce any UV paint and it was very had to all ways find a black / dark room to filming in all of the time, since you only have a certain amount of time to film in. By using these technologies we were also able to use green screen and photo shopping pictures in to develop then into moving images this was shown in our video when doing our phone in the front and at the end of our video. In our music video I think that we achieved a standard witch the video was a suitable video for the genre we aim at and was able to receive a different look by looking at a solo artist rather than a band. When listening to the song we realizes that we had a lot of track to cover with footage, this became a problem when because we didn’t have enough time so by using photo shop we were able to cut out 44seconds this helped us have more footage for our video. By having the song to long it might drag on and might lose viewers. After finishing our music video we watch it many times to make sure we had everything in place! We also added a colour effect that we done on photo shop, we added this effect to the artist on the promoting diggi pack too.
Rachel Monaghan's Evaluation
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video uses, develops and challenges conventions of real media products. In any music video, not necessarily just of the dance genre, the audience would expect to see some kind of performance involving lip syncing by the artist. We included many performance shots. Throughout these we insured we included many different shot types such as an extreme close up, an above angle shot, a below angle shot and a long shot. This is so the audience would stay interested in the video, also the use of occasional jump cuts between shots is conventional of the dance genre as it fits with the jumpy beat of the music. In any music video, the audience would expect there to be some sort of story line or acting from the artist. As our lyrics tell a story for themselves, we had to make sure Charlotte was acting slightly as she was singing to make the video more believable.
As for mise-en-scene, the use of a graffiti wall as our main location is very conventional of the dance genre. For example, in many M.I.A music video’s she uses graffiti or other gang related images as backgrounds to emphasise the attitude of her songs. As the perceived attitude of the artist plays a main role in making most music video’s believable, the clothing of our singer was very important. Our artist, Charlotte, was wearing a bandana in the video, this again relates to a sort of modern gang culture making it very conventional of the genre. In the long shots of charlotte she is sitting on an amplifier, as dance music is often about being played as loud as possible this is again following conventions.
The use of green screen in our music video both uses and challenges conventions of the dance genre. Whilst some older music videos such as “pump the jam” by Technotronic, made in the 80’s, use this same effect, modern dance video’s have become more about looking into the future than the past. While the retro style has become very popular amongst the teen age group, this is more related to the indie style genre. For example, the music video by the mystery Jets, “Two Doors Down”, uses a lot of green screen with patterned backgrounds to create the retro effect. However, modern dance videos such as “Paris to Berlin” by Infernal use a lot of futuristic props and colours, like bright neon pinks and blues. We challenged this convention by using green screen in our dance video. This makes it different from what the audience might expect to see in our video, however we have included modern twists such as the image of the iphone.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilliary texts?
We had produced products; the music video, the poster and the DVD cover. The poster is supposed to attract the audience and make them buy the DVD, once they have bought the DVD they will then watch the video. The audience would need to recognise these products instantly as being by M.I.A if they were to easily do all 3 of these things. Firstly we had to create a brand that would be recognisable to the audience as being related to the artist.
We decided that our target audience would be teenagers. To attract this audience we used bright colours and a young main artist. We tried to incorporate bright colours on all three of our products. In the music video our bright colours were part of the setting, the graffiti wall, and the props, the bright blue pompoms. The DVD cover and the poster share the same background, this is a bright, colourful, stripy pattern. This combination makes the product very eye catching to the audience, and recognisable as a package. These two products also have the same “M.I.A” logo on them. Many albums’ are released and advertised using images of the artist as the focus point. For example, Leona Lewis’ new album cover is simply an image of her on the front cover. We used a similar style as our DVD cover and our poster have a big picture of charlotte on the front, as charlotte is also the main focus of our music video it makes sense to have her advertising the product as well.
In the video, Charlotte is seen to be dancing and telling a story through lyrics. Often the teenage market wants to relate to situations portrayed in the video, especially events to do with relationships. Our video provides for these needs of the audience as it is telling a story of two girls fighting over one boy.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
As our target audience was teenagers, getting feedback from fellow students in our college was the perfect opportunity for us. From our audience feedback I have learnt that it was effective to use bright colours on all three products and the M.I.A logo. I have also learnt that promoting Charlotte as the main star in all the products projects an effective image to the audience, as one person said “conscious effort to promote Charlotte as the star.” The effects we used on Charlotte also make her stand out as the star even amongst the bright colours we used as the background. The bright colours also fit in with the retro feel we have tried to create in the video. We found our one weakness of the advert and the DVD cover was the lack of information about what was included in the DVD, it was also suggested we could have made the extra information font a little more interesting on the back of the DVD as it fails to stand out against the bright colours of the background.
From our video feedback we learnt that we achieved the desired effect of creating a retro style video, as someone left feedback saying “It's a lot like the late eighties videos such as Technocronic” in the early stages of planning we used this video as inspiration. We originally had struggled to come up with an effective opening and ending to our video, we eventually decided to use zooming in and out of an iphone, we were also left feedback saying this was very effective. The only negative feedback we received was that we could have included one more performance scene to make the shots “snappier”. Overall we are very pleased with our audience feedback as we now know that our products are appealing to our intended audience of teenagers.-“Great music video, good lip syncing and the style, backgrounds, clothes and characters all work really well with the music.”
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the research and planning stages, our main media resource was youtube.com. On this website we researched and analysed many existing music videos such as “pump the jam”, technotronic, and “gangalang”, M.I.A. Analysing these video’s using Goodwin’s theory helped us to decide what features we wanted to include in our own music video, also to discover what conventions we should include. Looking at other music video’s showed us how to relate lyrics to visuals through props and acting and also how to incorporate certain techniques such as the green screen.
Our first idea for the construction of our music video was to use the green screen. To do this we set up big sheets of green paper on a plain wall. We filmed our footage, which were shots of Will dancing, in front of this screen. We then uploaded this onto final cut and began editing. We needed to make a brightly coloured background to have behind Will while he was dancing, to do this we filmed a short clip of some glow sticks shining in UV light. We then used the “kaleidoscope” tool on final cut to turn this image into a moving brightly coloured background. Then using the green screen tool we inserted this background behind Will.
For the rest of our footage we filmed multiple shots of performance scenes, we then had to edit these together carefully so lip syncing was in time with the music and the shots blended together nicely. To make sure the lip syncing was in time, we placed the footage onto final cut above the track. We marked the track using the marker tool whenever a significant point of the music appeared, such as the point of the lyrics “U.R.A.Q.T” we then marked the footage at the point where Charlotte was lip syncing these same lyrics and lined them up. To make sure the clips didn’t jump as they cut from one to another we used the blend tool. To do this we made the clips overlap slightly and had one slowly fading out as the other faded in. Finally, to fit in with the retro style of the video, we placed a filter over each clip in which we edited the colours to make them a bit brighter than they were on the original footage.
To make our DVD cover and advert, our main tool was Photoshop. We took a still image of charlotte posing and placed this onto Photoshop. As many artists do, we airbrushed this picture using different layers and the “surface blur” tool to make her look flawless. We then produced a bright coloured background and a bright logo.
To evaluate our work, we filmed ourselves talking about the project. Using final cut we created a commentary style video as seen on many DVD extras. To show what we were talking about in the commentary we inserted clips from ours and others video’s, also still images of our ancillary products to provide a visual image to the audience.
Our music video uses, develops and challenges conventions of real media products. In any music video, not necessarily just of the dance genre, the audience would expect to see some kind of performance involving lip syncing by the artist. We included many performance shots. Throughout these we insured we included many different shot types such as an extreme close up, an above angle shot, a below angle shot and a long shot. This is so the audience would stay interested in the video, also the use of occasional jump cuts between shots is conventional of the dance genre as it fits with the jumpy beat of the music. In any music video, the audience would expect there to be some sort of story line or acting from the artist. As our lyrics tell a story for themselves, we had to make sure Charlotte was acting slightly as she was singing to make the video more believable.
As for mise-en-scene, the use of a graffiti wall as our main location is very conventional of the dance genre. For example, in many M.I.A music video’s she uses graffiti or other gang related images as backgrounds to emphasise the attitude of her songs. As the perceived attitude of the artist plays a main role in making most music video’s believable, the clothing of our singer was very important. Our artist, Charlotte, was wearing a bandana in the video, this again relates to a sort of modern gang culture making it very conventional of the genre. In the long shots of charlotte she is sitting on an amplifier, as dance music is often about being played as loud as possible this is again following conventions.
The use of green screen in our music video both uses and challenges conventions of the dance genre. Whilst some older music videos such as “pump the jam” by Technotronic, made in the 80’s, use this same effect, modern dance video’s have become more about looking into the future than the past. While the retro style has become very popular amongst the teen age group, this is more related to the indie style genre. For example, the music video by the mystery Jets, “Two Doors Down”, uses a lot of green screen with patterned backgrounds to create the retro effect. However, modern dance videos such as “Paris to Berlin” by Infernal use a lot of futuristic props and colours, like bright neon pinks and blues. We challenged this convention by using green screen in our dance video. This makes it different from what the audience might expect to see in our video, however we have included modern twists such as the image of the iphone.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilliary texts?
We had produced products; the music video, the poster and the DVD cover. The poster is supposed to attract the audience and make them buy the DVD, once they have bought the DVD they will then watch the video. The audience would need to recognise these products instantly as being by M.I.A if they were to easily do all 3 of these things. Firstly we had to create a brand that would be recognisable to the audience as being related to the artist.
We decided that our target audience would be teenagers. To attract this audience we used bright colours and a young main artist. We tried to incorporate bright colours on all three of our products. In the music video our bright colours were part of the setting, the graffiti wall, and the props, the bright blue pompoms. The DVD cover and the poster share the same background, this is a bright, colourful, stripy pattern. This combination makes the product very eye catching to the audience, and recognisable as a package. These two products also have the same “M.I.A” logo on them. Many albums’ are released and advertised using images of the artist as the focus point. For example, Leona Lewis’ new album cover is simply an image of her on the front cover. We used a similar style as our DVD cover and our poster have a big picture of charlotte on the front, as charlotte is also the main focus of our music video it makes sense to have her advertising the product as well.
In the video, Charlotte is seen to be dancing and telling a story through lyrics. Often the teenage market wants to relate to situations portrayed in the video, especially events to do with relationships. Our video provides for these needs of the audience as it is telling a story of two girls fighting over one boy.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
As our target audience was teenagers, getting feedback from fellow students in our college was the perfect opportunity for us. From our audience feedback I have learnt that it was effective to use bright colours on all three products and the M.I.A logo. I have also learnt that promoting Charlotte as the main star in all the products projects an effective image to the audience, as one person said “conscious effort to promote Charlotte as the star.” The effects we used on Charlotte also make her stand out as the star even amongst the bright colours we used as the background. The bright colours also fit in with the retro feel we have tried to create in the video. We found our one weakness of the advert and the DVD cover was the lack of information about what was included in the DVD, it was also suggested we could have made the extra information font a little more interesting on the back of the DVD as it fails to stand out against the bright colours of the background.
From our video feedback we learnt that we achieved the desired effect of creating a retro style video, as someone left feedback saying “It's a lot like the late eighties videos such as Technocronic” in the early stages of planning we used this video as inspiration. We originally had struggled to come up with an effective opening and ending to our video, we eventually decided to use zooming in and out of an iphone, we were also left feedback saying this was very effective. The only negative feedback we received was that we could have included one more performance scene to make the shots “snappier”. Overall we are very pleased with our audience feedback as we now know that our products are appealing to our intended audience of teenagers.-“Great music video, good lip syncing and the style, backgrounds, clothes and characters all work really well with the music.”
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Throughout the research and planning stages, our main media resource was youtube.com. On this website we researched and analysed many existing music videos such as “pump the jam”, technotronic, and “gangalang”, M.I.A. Analysing these video’s using Goodwin’s theory helped us to decide what features we wanted to include in our own music video, also to discover what conventions we should include. Looking at other music video’s showed us how to relate lyrics to visuals through props and acting and also how to incorporate certain techniques such as the green screen.
Our first idea for the construction of our music video was to use the green screen. To do this we set up big sheets of green paper on a plain wall. We filmed our footage, which were shots of Will dancing, in front of this screen. We then uploaded this onto final cut and began editing. We needed to make a brightly coloured background to have behind Will while he was dancing, to do this we filmed a short clip of some glow sticks shining in UV light. We then used the “kaleidoscope” tool on final cut to turn this image into a moving brightly coloured background. Then using the green screen tool we inserted this background behind Will.
For the rest of our footage we filmed multiple shots of performance scenes, we then had to edit these together carefully so lip syncing was in time with the music and the shots blended together nicely. To make sure the lip syncing was in time, we placed the footage onto final cut above the track. We marked the track using the marker tool whenever a significant point of the music appeared, such as the point of the lyrics “U.R.A.Q.T” we then marked the footage at the point where Charlotte was lip syncing these same lyrics and lined them up. To make sure the clips didn’t jump as they cut from one to another we used the blend tool. To do this we made the clips overlap slightly and had one slowly fading out as the other faded in. Finally, to fit in with the retro style of the video, we placed a filter over each clip in which we edited the colours to make them a bit brighter than they were on the original footage.
To make our DVD cover and advert, our main tool was Photoshop. We took a still image of charlotte posing and placed this onto Photoshop. As many artists do, we airbrushed this picture using different layers and the “surface blur” tool to make her look flawless. We then produced a bright coloured background and a bright logo.
To evaluate our work, we filmed ourselves talking about the project. Using final cut we created a commentary style video as seen on many DVD extras. To show what we were talking about in the commentary we inserted clips from ours and others video’s, also still images of our ancillary products to provide a visual image to the audience.