The form of my production work is a music video. The genre of the music video is pop, this genre implies the word 'popular' it is popular because pop music is mainstream and everybody knows what it is but also popular because the genre pop is a clipping from popular. Before going into any planning or research I had to research the history of my chosen media product which was music video's. Artists of the genre pop often identify characteristics such as an aim of appealing to one general audience, they emphasis on craftsmanship recording production and technology rather than live performance. They like to keep up with current trends rather than create new ones. The lyrics of modern pop songs focus on love and romance and my chosen song is a prime example of this. Pop music as a genre is postmodern because it borrows elements from other styles for example dance, country and urban. Pop music is a genre which is commercially recorded to suit the desires of its large audience. My Product follows the forms and conventions of this genre for my music video, magazine advert and digipak. The song I chose was Vanessa Carlton A Thousand Miles because I didn't wish to make a music video to something what was in the charts because the song is 10 years old. It already had a music video so i needed to make sure i made it completely different and i think i have achieved this.
Each genre of music videos have conventions to represent that genre. Conventions are something expected of the audience,this gives the producer of the music video rules and guidelines in creating the music video for the correct audience. Pop seemed the only genre what had obvious conventions to any audience. Pop videos include the artist/band singing the song and I have used this convention because my artist features continuously in the video. Pop music conventions are the most recognisable because the artists have been given a manufactured look. My artist develops this convention because of her black and red lipstick and her red dress.
Figure 1- The lipstick design which gives her an image.
Conventionally in a pop music video there is more performance because pop artists like showing of their talent,they are known for singing to the audience. I chose an artist who would certainly interact with the audience which she shows during her performance of singing into the camera. In music videos the artist has to conventionally lip sync into the camera and my artist uses this convention because there is only 25% of the music video where she isn’t looking into the camera. The music video is all about her,the artist. In music videos the mise-en-scene helps represent the conventions of the genre, for example in pop videos there is distinctive colours which I have used in my music video, the red dress blue jacket and green grass all contrast together to make a beautiful scene. My music video has perfect cuts to the beat of the song which is used in many pop videos to show continuity. Music videos are made up of a narrative and I think my music video has used this convention simply because it follows Todorov's equilibrium theory with a basic narrative about a girl missing a ex boyfriend and visiting the places they had shared memories together and then ending with a visual clip of her memories which I tried to reflect with the ripple effect. I think the music video for fills its purpose because it has very fast camera shots with angles such as close ups to show the singer lip syncing to the music, also the long shots capture her over the top performance while singing. Just like any other music video the camera shots cut to the beat of the music. My music video uses some pastiche features from the music video's that I researched for example I took the field idea from Ellie Goulding's 'The writer.
Figure 2- influenced by Ellie Goulding's The writer.
Conventionally in a pop music video there is more performance because pop artists like showing of their talent,they are known for singing to the audience. I chose an artist who would certainly interact with the audience which she shows during her performance of singing into the camera. In music videos the artist has to conventionally lip sync into the camera and my artist uses this convention because there is only 25% of the music video where she isn’t looking into the camera. The music video is all about her,the artist. In music videos the mise-en-scene helps represent the conventions of the genre, for example in pop videos there is distinctive colours which I have used in my music video, the red dress blue jacket and green grass all contrast together to make a beautiful scene. My music video has perfect cuts to the beat of the song which is used in many pop videos to show continuity. Music videos are made up of a narrative and I think my music video has used this convention simply because it follows Todorov's equilibrium theory with a basic narrative about a girl missing a ex boyfriend and visiting the places they had shared memories together and then ending with a visual clip of her memories which I tried to reflect with the ripple effect. I think the music video for fills its purpose because it has very fast camera shots with angles such as close ups to show the singer lip syncing to the music, also the long shots capture her over the top performance while singing. Just like any other music video the camera shots cut to the beat of the music. My music video uses some pastiche features from the music video's that I researched for example I took the field idea from Ellie Goulding's 'The writer.
Pop album covers conventionally have the artist on the front my artist uses this convention and also is inside of the album. Three main things need to be included on a album the technical codes which is the image of the artist. The symbolic codes which will be the colour and the design of the album and the symbolic codes which includes names of the songs and the bar code. My album follows this conventions by keeping a simple house style of the same colours black light blue and white.. The album front cover is also inspiration from Olly Murs album because of the crazy font and the white background.
My music magazine advertisement defiantly uses the conventions correctly because its main purpose is to persuade somebody to by the album and to give information about when are where you can buy it. The image on my music magazine advertisement is a big picture of the artist in her red dress with the rest of the image in black and white so she is the main focus for people looking at the advertisement. A great promotion for an album is a quote from a successful magazine or celebrity and I think I have used this convention well by using the most successful man and looked up to man in the music industry 'Simon Cowell'.
Figure 3- CD cover influence
My music magazine advertisement defiantly uses the conventions correctly because its main purpose is to persuade somebody to by the album and to give information about when are where you can buy it. The image on my music magazine advertisement is a big picture of the artist in her red dress with the rest of the image in black and white so she is the main focus for people looking at the advertisement. A great promotion for an album is a quote from a successful magazine or celebrity and I think I have used this convention well by using the most successful man and looked up to man in the music industry 'Simon Cowell'.
Figure 4- comments about the artist on the music magazine advertisement
Using the icons of the amazon website and tunes is a promotional idea to inform the audience where to buy the album.
I think my main product and my ancillary texts combine very well because the fictional lead singer who features in my music video, digipakdigipak. The artist is represented as a artist who cares more about her image. To give the artist a original image (like most pop stars) she wears half red lipstick and half black. She is continuously wearing this lipstick on the album cover,the magazine advertisement and in the music video. I do think that more could have been done to combine all three products together. The name of the artist is designed to create community because it is meant to look like the magazine letter clippings from the video.
figure 5-magazine letter cut outs
These magazine clippings connotate newspaper articles and the pop media being all about the image. All three products are based on 'love' and the media because of the connotations of colours in the music video there is a lot of red (the dress,the lipstick) and a rose which is known for love. The music magazine advertisement shows her in the same red dress,wearing the same lipstick and the album picture is the same as the digipak album. The most important text is highlighted in red because its a bold colour and yet again connotates love. Looking back I should of added more red's onto the digipak but at the time I thought wearing all black would look affective on the white background. I should of included more magazine cuttings to represent the influence of the media on pop stars. The media element is combined from the magazine cut out letters that feature in my music video and the same feature is used on the album cover with the artists name. Also on the music magazine advertisement the use of 'Simon Cowell's' name is very media orientated because he is one of the most looked up to person in the music industry. The main colours which are seen throughout all three products are light blue,dark blue,red and black. The idea that I have combined my main product and ancillary texts is backed up by my overall audience feedback, where 13 out of 15 people agreed that they all look the same in certain ways.
These magazine clippings connotate newspaper articles and the pop media being all about the image. All three products are based on 'love' and the media because of the connotations of colours in the music video there is a lot of red (the dress,the lipstick) and a rose which is known for love. The music magazine advertisement shows her in the same red dress,wearing the same lipstick and the album picture is the same as the digipak album. The most important text is highlighted in red because its a bold colour and yet again connotates love. Looking back I should of added more red's onto the digipak but at the time I thought wearing all black would look affective on the white background. I should of included more magazine cuttings to represent the influence of the media on pop stars. The media element is combined from the magazine cut out letters that feature in my music video and the same feature is used on the album cover with the artists name. Also on the music magazine advertisement the use of 'Simon Cowell's' name is very media orientated because he is one of the most looked up to person in the music industry. The main colours which are seen throughout all three products are light blue,dark blue,red and black. The idea that I have combined my main product and ancillary texts is backed up by my overall audience feedback, where 13 out of 15 people agreed that they all look the same in certain ways.
Its always important to know what the audience wants so from the planning process of making my music video I collected audience feedback via my blog by setting up a poll to discover who I was going to be creating my music video for. I already had the idea of the song I was going to create a music video to,so I created a question in the poll asking if anybody had heard of the song and 90% of the people did. Then I asked what genre people prefer and the most popular answer was pop so I went ahead with this as my song. I also wanted to find out the age and sex of the people who I would call my audience, discovering that the primary audience was females aged 16-18 so I took this into consideration. 13-16 came up closely second. Because my feedback suggested I made a long video I decided not to cut down the song,my audience told me they prefer music videos with a narrative and performance, at first I wanted a dance sequence in my music video but this didn’t work out because my artist wasn’t the best contemporary dancer. The most popular place that my audience watched music videos was on you tube so after producing my music video I published it on you tube for all to see. I thought it was important that the audience had a input on what the artist would wear for the music video and the most popular feedback was a dress. So I took this into consideration and went out to buy a dress which connoated love (because of the theme of the song) and it was also eye catching because it was bright red.
I think my music video suits the target audience because its something they can relate to the narrative and the song lyrics. Throughout the production of all three products it was easy to collect audience feedback of friends in the class and the teachers. After all my three products had been created i wanted to know what my target audience thought of my progress so I decided I would try different options of collecting audience feedback to see which one would give me the most information and make it more interesting(http://gemmcarr94.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/auidence-feedback-on-music-video-and.html). At first I used go animate but it had a limit on text I could use so I only did a five question survey which didn't give me much feedback.
figure 7- go animate audience feedback
My next option was to video somebody from the target audience with fifteen questions, this worked very well and gave me detailed feedback.
But I couldn't find the time to do this for another 14 people so I took the easy option and created paper feedback sheets for people to fill in with as much detail as they could,after collecting this data I made pie charts for the more than one option answers which summarised the answers.
figure 6- example of the pre production polls
I think my music video suits the target audience because its something they can relate to the narrative and the song lyrics. Throughout the production of all three products it was easy to collect audience feedback of friends in the class and the teachers. After all my three products had been created i wanted to know what my target audience thought of my progress so I decided I would try different options of collecting audience feedback to see which one would give me the most information and make it more interesting(http://gemmcarr94.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/auidence-feedback-on-music-video-and.html). At first I used go animate but it had a limit on text I could use so I only did a five question survey which didn't give me much feedback.
figure 7- go animate audience feedback
My next option was to video somebody from the target audience with fifteen questions, this worked very well and gave me detailed feedback.
figure 8- Audience feedback video
But I couldn't find the time to do this for another 14 people so I took the easy option and created paper feedback sheets for people to fill in with as much detail as they could,after collecting this data I made pie charts for the more than one option answers which summarised the answers.
Figure 9 - Example of feedback sheets
From these sheets I found out that most people thought the narrative was a love story, some thought it was a girl going to meet a boy and didn't understand the ripple imagery effect at the end. Everybody thought the lyrics suited the music video because it went with the storyline.If they put them self's in my shoes they would of done certain things different like including the male more in the music video and made her look more individualised. I asked them to make suggestions about changes on the music magazine and digipak and they said on the music magazine they would of included more quotes and things to make her look like a big pop star for example reviews from music magazines on her album. On the digipak they suggesting including more things on the front cover because it didn't stand out as much. There opinion on the artists performance was that she interacted very well with the camera and it looked like she was enjoying herself.
Overall there was 16 different peoples feedback I collected and all this great feedback has taught me that if I was to do it all again I would actually include more people in the music video along with featuring the male more and include a contemporary dance sequence. If I could go back to creating the music magazine advertisement I would of most certainly not forgot the price because it is one of the important conventions. I do agree with the video feedback that I should of done a more close up picture of the artist so it was more focused on her.
Throughout the construction of my three products I used old fashioned creative techniques such as paper and pen and pencil to create my storyboard (http://gemmcarr94.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/storyboard.html) which gave me a rough idea of what shots and edit techniques I would use. The editing suites was very helpful before even creating my music video they allowed me to create a animatic (http://gemmcarr94.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/animatricvideo.html) which would fit with the music which made it easier to see how the music video would look. The process of making my animatic was simple I used the college scanner and scanned each of my storyboards then used Adobe Photo shop to crop and brighten them. This took a few hours before transferring them onto a memory stick after virus checking it on a laptop so it did not cause the editing suites to break. Making the animatic gave me practise for putting my music video together because it was the same process just without the editing. During pre-production blogger (blogspot.com) was were I stored all my research and planning in a organised order. Because I was making a music video you tube was great help to me when researching other music videos because it was easily accessible and I was able to embed the videos onto the post. Before filming I did Practise shots in the green room because I had a rough idea of what edits I wanted to use and matrox dve was easy to do once I got the hang of it so I used it more than once in my music video. It was important to practise with the camera to make sure I was not going to break the expensive equipment.
Figure 11-The end product from my practise of Matrox DVE
In the process of making the music video I Started off using a small portable camera from college but decided I wanted to challenge myself and use the HD camera because it was better quality. Using the HD camera went well until I was re filming some parts in a photography studio (because I wanted a plain white wall) I had pressed stop instead of start so it didn’t film the bits that I wanted the most. Here is the before and after shots of the white background.
Before: The image was to dark and I didn't use a real white wall.
figure 11- before shot
After: This shot was when I started to use the HD camera and the white background is a drop down white canvas which worked so much better.
figure 12- After shot
The main editing techniques I used was matrox dve,dissolve,fade,rate stretch and auto colour. My video wouldn't have been made without a big help from Adobe Premier Pro CS3 which allowed me to sink the music with the movement of my artists voice. It also allowed me to place the clips in order and shorten them down or make them longer if they didn't fit the sequence. Exporting the file was harder than I thought because you had to save the music video as a WMF and once you had saved it the quality disintegrated when it came to putting it on you tube. I already had a you tube account so it was simply just uploading it onto there and then embedding it onto my blog.
My digipak was easily created by photo shop. I created a front cover with all the main conventions, a album back cover 2 extra panels were the CD and DVD would go a inside cover and a extra panel. I have used this programme before but I had learned new techniques to make this digipak to my best ability. Because I was making a album I checked the dimensions of an actual CD and inserted them into the photo shop measurements in cm it was 12.5cm height x 13.8cm width. For the album cover I went to a photography studio and took several photographs of the artist and this one was my favourite because it made her the main focus. Then all I did to the photo was insert the text which was needed; the name of the singer and the name of the album. It took me a while to choose the text for the album name because nothing stood out enough,changing the shadow effect settings made the album name stand out more. I made a montage of photos of the artist pulling different faces for the inside panel which was simply downsizing and putting the photos together. For the two extra panels I took photos of the sky when I was filming because it was very simple and looked good against the blank Cd's. The album cover is a replicate of the front cover but without the artist sat on the chair, I also added the text with a shadow effect just like the front cover. To make the chair look clearer I had to adjust the brightness of the photograph. Conventionally I had to put the artists record label,the compact disc and DVD disc logo, the bar code and not forgetting the parental advisory logo which were all easy to copy and paste and re-size. The extra panel was a thank you note to the 'artists' fans, I created this taking photos of the male and female from the music video and then using the printer I printed these photos of to create a montage on some white plain paper then uploaded it to photo shop and added a text box.
To copy it onto the digipak template I saved the images as JPEG's and copy them on the template. To make sure they didn’t go out of focus or stretch I held down the shift key. I wanted to see what my digipak would look like if it was actually made so I got a blank template from google and dragged the JPEG images re-sized them and distorted the layer so it looked like they were actually on the plastic album. I did a few drafts of the front cover before I made the final one, due to my audience feedback from my teacher suggesting what he did and didn’t like.
Similarly to my digipak the music magazine advertisement which was promoting the music video was to promote the album was also made on photo shop. I used the colour splash technique on the advertisement by cutting around the artist and creating a new layer then turning the original layer black and white and pasting the artist back on top. I kept the same design for the artists name and then added some promotional text and information about the album and a picture of the upcoming album.
New media also helped me in my evaluation because without Microsoft word I wouldn't of made my audience feedback sheets and Microsoft XL allowed me to create data to represent my feedback in a more presentable tidy way. I used 'go animate' to present some audience feedback (which is an online video with a animated characters speaking your speech) to make it more interesting. My camera was also used to record some feedback.
Word count: 3257
Word count: 3257
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