G324 Evaluation

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products?

Our narrative format and structure follows the established forms and
conventions of music videos by cutting between a narrative storyline that is
related to the lyrics of the song and shots of a performer lip-syncing the lyrics
of the song. The use of either one of these is very typical of a music video, but
the use of both is becoming even more popular because of the strong
influence coming from the dominating Hollywood film industry. We developed
other conventions of music videos like the reference to voyeurism. The music
video did not go to the extent of which many of the major record labels
demand, for instance, the famous use of ‘video girls’ and dancers, mainly
because we did not have anybody willing to do this. We still however
managed to achieve a similar idea by using camera shots of where it seemed
that the performer and actress were unaware of them being watched, creating
an atmosphere of sexual predation for the audience. Following up to this was
the use of many close ups of the artist which is becoming a big demand from
record labels in recent years. It is used to enforce the concept of the male
gaze, whereby women are portrayed are fantasised sexual objects. The style
of presentation was developed from film noirs, which was used to make the
audience aware of the character’s part-cynical personality of when she is
under the influence of cocaine.

Watching someone walking

to an alleyway – A sense of A close of the artist’s face
predation.

The use of camerawork in our music video follows conventional, technical and
symbolic codes by using a variety of shots to portray a sense of personal
connection between the viewer and singer/actress. One way this was
achieved was by using close ups of their faces and objects of which they were
holding to create a sense of virtual intimacy that the viewer cannot ever really
experience. An example of this in use is the close up shot of cocaine ready to
be snorted. We also achieved this by having the actress walking towards the
camera while tracking out. This created a sense of teasing because the viewer
wants to get a closer at the look at the actress but cannot, as the camera is
actually moving away from her. A very good particular shot that helped to
engage personal connection was the shot of the actress looking into the
mirror. It created a sensation that as if the audience knew who this woman
was and could feel the emotion of what she was going through.

A close up shot of the use of drugs.

The editing follows the traditional style of transition cuts between the beats on
the music. Though this is not followed strictly, we felt that this can allow the
visuals to compliment the music, without it getting in the way of understanding
the narrative. During the intro and outro of the song, the mood of the music is
very mellow, which we therefore used gentler transitions to help establish the
mood the sadness. However, as the heavy drums and bass entered in the
middle of the song, the atmosphere became vibrant, which required faster
transitions to compliment with the energetic feel.

As our chosen genre of Dubstep is not a very established style of music, there
were no real music videos conventions that we had to follow according to its
genre. As a result, our use of mise-en-scene left us open for creativity and
ideas that are not common, for example, the heavy use of disorientated visual
effects. Dubstep has roots from London’s underground urban Dance and rave
scenes, therefore we felt the need to express this in our music video. We had
a large emphasis on both the urban and classy settings of London’s West-
End. On one side we showed the inspirational affluent lifestyle of London by
having one of our locations in a classy 5-star hotel. The other side was in the
backstreets on London’s West-End, which may be seen as less desirable,
establishing both sides of London’s urban life.

We however did deviate away from some mise-en-scene conventions, for

example, the extreme seductive allure that some music video directors will go
to. There has been much controversy about this and how music videos have
gone a step too far recent times, taking for example, Lady Gaga’s famous
video for Telephone (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgpQzLPWiKY) which
feature her wearing nothing but covered delicately in crime scene tape. We
also went away from the typical use of the performer singing on stage or to
other characters in a storyline (like a musical) because we wanted to
emphasise something different for the performer. Instead we had her against
a black background alongside with visual effects, creating a surreal and
disorientated establishment. With many music videos, it is common that a
bigger budget will be given to a bigger star. Yet we still managed to use
locations that they would have to pay a lot of money for. For example, we still
had access to film in a luxury country hotel by building a network of contacts
(which we did not have to pay for) and had shots of London’s West-End,
which anybody can film for free.

One of our shots used with the Lady Gaga’s music video
aid of visual effects. showing how sexual allure
might now be a step too far.

With regards to intertextuality, our use of forms and conventions from music
videos show that we have been influenced from other similar music videos
and genres. For example, our use of a music video that is very narrative-
driven has been influenced from Dance music videos. It is very common for
them to be narrative or concept focused or even wholly. Although they tend to
tell stories of love and friendship, we decided to take a turn to tell a much
darker story of a woman that is from a wealthy background who is actually a
heavy drug addict behind her classy lifestyle. Another big influence came from
Thriller films, which explains our use of heavy dark themes, for example,
snorting cocaine and being under the influence of drugs. The influence of
using conventions of thriller films came from the director’s passion for thriller
because of the suspense it can create.

2) How effective is the combination of your main product and

ancillary texts?

We feel that the combination of our main video product and its ancillary texts
worked well as they managed to adopt the key elements of branding. This was
firstly achieved in our video as we tried to differentiate ourselves from what
already existed in the current trend of music videos. We noticed that many of
the big acts like Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj have music videos that use very
surreal and creative ideas in terms of mise-en-scene, but no artist/music video
has really explored in visual effects (other than the use of CGI). Therefore in
our music video, we found it important to focus on keeping a consistent mood
of obscurity in the stage of editing, rather than the stage of filming, which was
achieved by overlaying and modifying colours of clips.
Evidence of creativity being used for mise-en-scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZCUtnuAXg8

By having adopted the key elements of branding, we were able to develop

characteristics from the video into the digipak. For example, our concept of
menacing was followed by the use of colours of red as it is a colour that
connotates violence and blood. The use of this was also so there is a
continuation of the mood from what the video gives, to what the digipak gives
because both products should compliment each other. They should be
complimenting each other because if the viewer were to buy the digipak after
watching the video, they would be expecting to see the digipak cover with
mise-en-scene that was associated with the music video, weather it be the
use of colours, location, props etc.
 Evidence of branding between the video and
digipak by keeping the use of red consistent

Our digipak follows several established forms and conventions, for example,
an image of the artist, the name of the artist, the name of the song and a
tracklisting. Although it is common for many singers to choose not to have an
image displayed of them on their digipak/album, we felt it was important factor
to include in order to sell the face of the singer because they are not an
established artist that has a name that many listeners may be familiar with.
Therefore, by viewers seeing the singer’s face on screen and on the digipak,
they can familiarise themselves more with the artist and feel a personal
connection with them for the future and avoid being known as a ‘one hit
wonder’. We also challenged the forms and conventions of digipaks by using
heavy visual effects on the image of the artist. It is more common that the
image may be modified in colouration, we however decided to make the
image look very contrasted because it complimented with the visual effects
that was used in the video. Although this was a to deviate one type of
convention, it followed another by having the mise-en-scene of the digipak
complimenting the mise-en-scene of the music video, which an example can
be taken from Rihanna’s Only Girl.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa14VNsdSYM)
With regards to the magazine advert, we tried to achieve branding largely by
keeping a consistent theme of sinister moods and disorientation with between
the magazine advert and the video. Yet we still wanted the magazine advert to
differentiate from the digipak so the
whole atmosphere of what we want the audience to experience would not be
overused and loose their interest. The final idea of having a ‘3D effect’ in our
magazine advert was inspired by maintaining the distorted atmosphere that
we wanted reflected from the music video and digipak. However the magazine
advert is not completely different from the digipak as it still contains vital
elements like the use of the same font. We felt this was important to maintain
a sense of continuity so when the viewer see magazine advert and then the
digipak, they will be able to recognise that the two ancillary texts come from
the same video.

Our magazine advertisement follows established forms and conventions by

showing an image of the artist, the name of the artist, name of the song and
the date of release. These are all included as there are all vital elements in
selling the final digipak to our audience. This is because our audience want to
know who the artist is and when they can buy it. The use of an image is also
very important because it needs to catch the eye of the reader. It has been
common in magazine adverts to refer to voyeurism, which is the treatment of
looking at women (and recently men) as sexual objects. We however felt there
was no need to go to this direction for our advert because it would not have
much significance to our video.

With consideration to intertexuality, our magazine shows that we have been

influenced from forms and conventions of other works of art. The inspiration
for the use of 3D visualisation was taken from Tinie Tempah’s album artwork
for his debut single Pass Out. It is a very simple, yet eye catching image,
which at the time of its buzz from the press, was the release of Avator, which
was credited for its breath taking quality of 3D cinema.

3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our initial target audience characteristics were males and females between
the ages of 16 and 24. This was decided because Dubstep is fairly new genre
and has only recently been receiving mainstream success, therefore we felt it
is more likely to appeal to a more younger as they are more likely to keep up
to date with newer artists and music genres. We felt that targeting to particular
ethnicities and genders would be irrelevant as the sound is suitable for all to
listen to - it is not too heavy nor too mellow. Our target audience research
showed us what they enjoyed in music videos. For example, we found that our
target audience’s favourite aspects of music videos were visual arts and an
interesting narrative. It was interesting to know that the use of a performer was
only the second least favourite aspect of music videos. This however my be
due to the fact that music videos with performances are more popular
amongst those who are favoured the rock music because watching a band
perform is part of the whole rock culture/experience. The majority of our target
audiences were fans of hip-hop and RnB, and videos of these genres tend to
focus more a storyline, as opposed to on-stage performances. For example,
comparing a music video by rapper 50 cent
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDMhlvbOFaM) and the rock band Limp
Bizkit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYnFIRc0k6E).
From our target audience research we then tried to create a music video that
would appeal to our target audience judging from what they told us they liked.
We tried to focus particularly on creative visual images and an interesting
narrative because our research told us that this is what they found most
appealing. Although our research told us that they found the performance
aspects not being an important element of music videos, we still felt this was
important to feature because familiarising your audience with the singer’s face
is key when trying to sell a new artist, rather than trying to make them side
with the character of the storyline, especially when dealing with a new genre
that the mass audience would not know of. The only social group that we tried
to represent were those aged between 16 and 24 and we tried to achieve this
by using an actress that looked around the ages of 20. This allowed us to
connect with the audience, which is what we particularly wanted. The
audience is asked to put themselves in the position of the main character
because only herself and the audience can witness what the reality of her life
is like. The impact this creates on the audience is that they start to understand
her very bad drug habit and lifestyle that she hides behind her middle-class
background. In our script development, we included the use of particular
camera techniques. For example, close up shots of the actress snorting
cocaine. This was helpful as it allowed us to incorporate actions of the actress
with particular camera techniques to connotate or emphasise a particular
mood that we wanted to focus on.
Drinking vodka from a wine
Showing the artist’s face to
emphasizes how she is
familiarise her with the
‘abusing’ her middle class image
audience for future singles

From our audience feedback, out of our main video product and its ancillary
products, the majority found the magazine advertisement and music video to
look the most professional. More than half of the sample survey said that they
did not understand the storyline, which was somewhat disappointing as this is
what our target audience felt was most important, yet we not able to properly
fulfil this. However, the majority said that they did feel that the visual effects
used were a key element that helped to create a feel of disorientation within
the music video. Furthermore, one person suggested, “The performance shots
could have been made more interesting by using a fan to blow against the
singer”, this perhaps might have helped made her look more seductive and
attract more interest from the viewer. What our audience feedback
questionnaire told us about the magazine advertisement was that the
audience did understand that we were trying to portray a sense of
disorientation, which is good was this is something we wanted to achieve from
the time of planning. This would be due the change in colour and 3D
visualisation used on the original image. With regards to the digipak, the
majority said it did not look like a professional product. One person said how
they felt that digipak/abum covers tend to look simpler and have less complex
ideas.

We feel that our end products successfully met the OCR brief as we were able
to comprehensively follow and challenge the codes and conventions of music
videos, whilst maintaining creativity and innovation. We were also able to
demonstrate excellence in technical skills like holding steady shots where
appropriate and editing with a meaning that is obvious to the viewer. These
uses make us feel that our music video stood up well against professional
products. However, looking back at the video, there were some flaws that
should have been altered, for example, not cutting shots early enough and the
setting of the white balance on the camera. These may have made the music
video seem amateur quality. We tried to incorporate important elements of
music videos, by for example, trying to sell the artist looks to encourage the
audience to go out and buy the digipak, as promoting the artist’s image is one
of the key reasons why record labels use music videos. Our video would be
more suited to a small and independent record label, largely because it is a
song and music video that is targeting a small niche market audience, yet in
hope of receiving mainstream attention. Evidence from our target audience
research suggested that only a small share of our sample listened to
independent artists, therefore it is not worthwhile initially targeting our music
video to a mass audience. Our music video’s unique selling point would be the
combination of dubstep music with the visual effects used because the two
together, have not yet been used to target neither a niche or mass audience.

4) How did you use new media technologies in the research,

planning, construction and evaluation stages?

The majority of our planning and research was achieved by gathering

information via the Internet and search directories. We found out that using
search directories like yahoo (www.yahoo.com), as opposed to search
engines like google (www.google.com), gave us a lot more relevant
information as the websites given are actually analysed and categorised by
real humans. The results given by google were collected by a computer
program called robots, which just gave us results from a match of any
websites that had the same words typed in the search box. Google however,
also provided us images and videos to what we searched, not just weblinks.
We also used youtube (www.youtube.com) to help with our textual analysis.
We selected the video we were going to analyse on youtube because of its
wide range of music videos that we were able to access with ease. The use of
facebook also helped us during our target audience research because we
were easily able to gain a large sample size. This may be because people
were more lenient to give up their time whilst on their computer, rather than in
person because they can be doing other things whilst taking a survey at
home/on their computer.

How the search result between google and yahoo varied

For the construction of the music video, we used the Canon XM2 camcorder.
To get the best out of this camera, we needed to know how to set up several
controls like the white balance so our recording would be clear and not grainy
in the current lighting condition. Redhead lights were available to us through
the college but we felt we did not need them at the time. Although we used its
automatic white balance setting, our shots did not look as clean and
professional as we wanted it. We did however use manual focus, which
allowed us to capture clear shots from different distances. We used the
playback feature on our camera so that on set, a recording can be played
back and seen if shot needs to be recorded again. This is a very good feature,
however we still didn’t use it at the time of our original shooting, which meant
we had to reshoot another time, causing inconvenience for the group
members and actors.

During the stage of editing, we used Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Most of the
techniques used were learnt during AS. When importing our clips into Final
Cut Pro, we had to use the log and capture feature whilst playing back our
tape though the external video tape player. This was a very long process, but
required us to watch all our clips again, taking note of any flaws in what we
had recorded. After the clips were imported into Final Cut Pro, some needed
to be shortened to fit in the correct timing of our sequence timeline, which
meant we were not going towards the script and storyboard at times. New
techniques that we had to learn were the adding of visual effects to our clips
and this was difficult to catch on as this was something I did not learn during
AS. To add the visual effects, I first had to highlight each clip on the timeline
and then choose which special effects I wanted to use. I also however still had
to alter the effects to get it to look exactly how I wanted, by for example,
changing the strength of the effect and colours. To add a cross transitions
between clips, I had to click between the clips on the timeline, then right click
and click on add cross transition. I was then able to choose how fast I wanted
the transition by dragging the transition left and right, making it wide or thin.

For the construction of our digipak and magazine advertisements, we used

our own camera which was the Sony NEX-10. We had access to different
types of lighting, but again, we chose not to use them as we wanted
particularly a night shot. We edited our photos on Adobe Photoshop, which
was difficult at first because it was completely new software to me. However,
we were taught the basic from tutorials given in lessons and we looked up
online tutorials on youtube on how to achieve particular effects that we
wanted.

We had to also upload our evaluations on to blogger. Although using this can
be very simple, knowing basic html which can still be confusing, would help us
with the appearance of the post. However, we decided to upload our
evaluations onto blogger via slideshare, which allowed us to easily upload our
documents that contained both texts and images. Otherwise uploading
documents direct to blogspot can be very time consuming because once text
is inserted, photos must separated be uploaded which can be very time
consuming.
The upload interface of Blogger and Slide Share