Evaluation of Music Video and Ancillary Texts

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5/16/12 By Radhika Barot

An Introduction

We chose, at the beginning of the course, to make a music video for an indie song. This was due to Hannah and I knowing the genre very well as we predominantly listen to indie and rock music above all else. Marissa and Mark listen to a bit of everything so this was a genre we could all contribute to though the decision laid with Hannah and I. We chose a band we were both very familiar with, Noah and the Whale. We used their song Blue Skies which we loved due to the heartfelt lyrics that can be applied to many people in all walks of life to identify with. They are a very current band and, like our video, use enough indie conventions to establish themselves as indie though challenge some of the norms to have a unique selling point.

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Indie as a genre has changed a lot in recent years, it used to be filled with guys looking scruffy with the just out of bed look. Florence Welch has a unique style of dresses and smart outfits, though indie used to look like The Verve as shown bottom. Now however it is much smarter. Indie is mainly men in suits, though the women also dress up in a more formal dress sense. The music has gone from being darker to more fun and easy going with a juxtaposition between 5/16/12 suits and scruff.

1. In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Our music video conforms to indie norms with challenges to some conventions to add originality and creativity. We did this by using indie conventions of settings of the outdoors with a great use of trees and greenery. This is shown in other videos of a similar kind, for example Ben Howards song Keep Your Head Up (right) filmed completely in a forest.

We added scenes in a shopping centre and average British streets to make it realistic to the audience so they feel comfortable in the environment we set for them. In contrast, they then receive the full impact of the characters severe actions. 5/16/12 The rawness of the scenery also reflected on how the male character was acting on pure raw emotions.

Actions/Behaviour

The severity of the characters actions hit the audience hard as it is something unexpected. We regularly find videos of love and hardships but our video takes it a step further. It shows how he wants and imagines his relationship to go, though his love for this girl blinds him into doing something he doesnt want to do, (partially regretting what hes doing as it happens) nor does he realize how bad his actions are. 5/16/12 It effects him so bad as in his head, it goes really

The use of natural lighting is a convention many indie videos use as illustrated in Love; Pass It On by The Middle Eight (pictured). I filmed our video with complete natural lighting though developed this indie convention by using effects to enhance the image colouring and reflect on the nature of the characters emotions at the time. I took the convention and heightened it.

Conventions Enhanced

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Artist Conventions

Indie videos are either solely performance in abnormal settings or wholly narrative; our video followed the latter. Its usually one or the other though we combined the two general indie themes. Performance elements of the video is a convention I felt was very important as it wasnt just about having our singer mime the lyrics but also showing him as the performing act we depicted him to be. This links in well with the ancillary texts as later discussed.

I filmed our actor in a way to establish him as a well-rounded performer playing the guitar, even though he did not know how to 5/16/12 play either. He was able to fulfil the indie norms very well despite lack of knowledge.

Enhanced and Developed

I edited the footage using slight tints of black and white for when the character felt angry and high contrasts for blue skies corresponding with the character feeling happy or in love and tying in with the lyrics. This is something that gave the video more meaning and we have found from audience feedback, it is something that helps the viewer remember it due to its strong link from lyrics to visual which connect with the viewer. The link between lyrics and song is shown in a convention which shows the lyrics exactly represented in the narrative. However, we took this convention and developed it to make in individual.

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Costume Conventions

An appearance convention of indie artists (such as the band whos song we used) is long hair and suits giving the genre a dapper look which is starting to become more popular. We adapted this aspect as it kept the look current and this was something our actor did normally so it felt comfortable and realistic. The costuming also reflected how he was different from the stereotypical teenage boy and didnt quite fit into society making his battle to get the girl even more difficult.

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We costumed Costuming

the girl in an outfit that felt very normal and everyday for the lead girl and her friends to illustrate how they are the stereotypical teen girls out and about. The female actor wore a poncho which is very current and fashionable (the same one as Fern Cotton-media personality). She also wore leggings, boots and sported stylish handbags.

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Inspirations & Intertextuality

The conventions talked about can be found in videos such as SOKOs True Love Never Die (right) as it follows the light and nature conventions. Intertextual references were also used to pay homage to artists we liked and drew inspirations from.
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We also used an inspiration of Birdys song Shelter (bottom right) with the movement of playing with a strong sun beam with a hand in the forest. We drew from this video as Hannah and I had reconstructed a minute of it as practice of filming and editing. We knew the conventions as we had to remake them The transitions used in indie videos are very minimal and usually a simple cut or cross dissolve (used in Final Cut Pro) and are discussed later.

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Types of Angles and Shots

There was a wide range of shots also, the variation that gives versatility to the music video. It complies with indie conventions as there are not many close ups but mostly shots of medium tracking shots to give a realistic sense. This is because in real life we see everything our eye can behold which is what we capture with the camera. Therefore, we used tracking, panning and predominantly mid to long shots. We used close ups of Jonathan's face looking directly at the camera to add a personal feel to the video, making the5/16/12 audience member feel involved.

Conclusion of Conventions

As I have illustrated we used a variation of conventions which ultimately establish the video to fit into the genre so it is familiar to the audience and those who arent necessarily fans of indie music. Though having the conventions in, it enables the video to be identified as an indie video with tributes paid to our favourite artists. However, to add some originality we included our own original ideas of taking lyrics literally with blue skies are calling paired with an extreme version of the lyrics being that the singer is so pained by his break up it leads him to commit the acts of kidnap and murder. Overall, I believe we have a very unique and interesting video proven by feedback and YouTube views. People have given us corrections which we amended to create a better video for those who 5/16/12 are our target audience. But ultimately we have made an entertaining indie video that conforms to enough conventions to be established as indie but

2. What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

Here is a look at how we have learnt from the audience feedback and also acted upon it. The general response was very complimentary reaching an average rating of 9/10 though here is a more detailed analysis.
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Audience Feedback/Surveys

We held a showcase event on 19th April in which we took surveys from people of varying ethnicities, ages, genders and musical preferences. This event enabled us to show people our work to get feedback on what they thought worked and help guide us in how to improve. A varied sample like that was very useful as it showed us things we wouldnt have necessarily noticed otherwise and also showed us how even though about 35% of the sample listened to RnB and Hip Hop they still liked and appreciated our work and can tell us it worked. Of the sample about 50% listened to Rock and Indie which was our target group though the surveys proved that our video worked on a more mass scale than originally planned.
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Surveys
We asked questions such as the following: Do you think the choice of setting in the video was appropriate? Of which the majority said yes, you had a very good setting, suited the song. However, one person commented on how it didnt look isolated enough, stating we shouldnt have used a public park due to a dog-walker in the background. We amended this issue and this spurred us into developing the scene further making us decide to change the scene. I then edited it to incorporate a shot-reverse-shot of Hannah and our actor Jonathan running toward the camera giving an even more isolated feel, also involving the viewer feeling like they are running toward them. How successful was the video in satisfying the conventions of the genre? Again majority said it was very successful, commenting on how effective[ly] we fit into indie music videos. Another 5/16/12 pointed out how it was very clear the genre of the music video was indie.

How successful is the editing? Many wrote bout how the editing was brilliant and very smooth allowing for people to feel at ease and fall straight into the narrative. We did however, have one person who said that we could use more effects which I agreed with. We added more effects and some simple transitions as we didnt want to take away from the realism of the story. How successful were the choice of camera angles and movement? People responded to this stating how there was a sufficient amount of variation to give a well rounded and professional feel to it. This was an area I was very conscious about improving and insuring we had covered. The overall consensus was that it was perfect. Other questions asked if the video worked with the song and based on how we tied the blue skies into the visuals, people loved how we linked the two. They commented on how easy5/16/12 it was to follow and the only person to contradict this was an 11 year old, which is understandable

Conclusion of Audience Feedback

Ultimately, the overview of comments allowed us to see what problems there were with the video, most of which we have corrected and has improved the video significantly. Thus proving how vital audience feedback was to the making of our media product. The only comments we havent acted on are minimal situations such as dont cut your hair to our actor Jonathan. This was an extreme case in which we had no control over. I feel like it could arguably resemble a change in character how he changed after meeting her and also to differentiate between the actor and singer. We did not reshoot this as I felt the shots we had gained were of a high acting standard and we also had to work with the weather which we were victims of so could not shoot with the right lighting conditions. Someone commented on how they didnt think Jonathan should be wearing a suit which is an indie convention that we were adamant on having from the offset so we did not change this. It was also just one persons view out of about 50 people. 5/16/12 The final issue was how the gun we used was blue which doesnt seem realistic however; there is a law in place banning

4. How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?

In a media course the use of media technologies becomes vital and a necessity. We used many varying media technologies from the software for editing, to websites to help broadcast our product to the camera we shot on in the first place.

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Necessities

I think the most important technology we used was the camera; without which we would not have been able to have any decent footage to begin with. We were given a Sony Bloggie though we also used Hannahs Canon and my state of the art Nikon to capture footage with a stronger definition than the school standard to attain the highest quality. I also used my iPhone to catch the images of my chess pieces. Editing gave the illusion they were moving on their accord and reflected on how the lesser male (pawn) took down the queen he was chasing. When we didnt have the group camera we were able to rely on these technologies to capture the 5/16/12 moment and get vital footage filmed.

Computing

The next most important technology we used was the editing suit. This consisted of the Apple Mac PCs and also the software on it; Final Cut Pro. At the beginning of the year our teacher gave us the opportunity to go on a crash course on how to use Final Cut Pro as we were all novices at it and Hannah and I were the only ones to go with our teacher to our local college to learn. This proved vital as we were the only ones who knew how to use it and edit our footage to a professional standard. This was hugely beneficial as we were able to edit at a high level straight away as opposed to having to learn as we go along. We were able to develop our already existing knowledge to become highly skilled by the end of the course. Without the training we wouldnt have been able to make a video as good and as sleek 5/16/12 as we did.

Using Final Cut Pro proved incredibly useful and advanced on my already existing knowledge, progressing to a Here is a link to Shelter by Birdy and below is a link to very high standard and I created media ours to compare: products that reflected this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXwPUYU8rTI&ob=av2e I learnt how to use sound and special effects and I edited in some transitions though, I didnt want to overpower or take away from the narrative. Some video effects and filters were further added which makes the footage look brilliantly sleek and has been received well. Hannah and I edited the whole piece http://www.youtube.com/w together, I edited majority of it and atch?v=tMK5JhwDF-8 added transitions while Hannah consulted and assisted on which effects to use and whether it all worked. We also filmed and edited a one minute recreation of Birdy-Shelter to practice our skills 5/16/12 as illustrated left.

Editing

More Editing
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As you can watch on the right we used the following techniques. However, this video was supposed to be situated in the corner of our music video so you would view the scenes as we talk about them, however we ran into technical difficulties which meant we were unable to get this up and running unfortunately. At the beginning we used the Splash Lower Third to establish our artists name, song and record label, giving off an expert feel from the very start. We then used the Echo effect on the candle shot which gave it a very soft dream-like state which is a subtle running theme as the character wrestles with his reality and his imagination of the girl hes in love with and the situation itself. We edited in performance shots post audience feedback as I thought it 5/16/12 was a good aspect to include as it looks a lot more professional and realistic for a music video, this was confirmed with feedback on

Editing Part Three

We ran into issues as our actor didnt know the song well enough, making it hard for him to sing the lyrics in time, had we more time we would have made sure there was a higher quality of timing. We did the best with what we had. Overall the performance shots work very well. We tried to speed up or slow down his singing for some other shots so we could use the chorus as we didnt want to shift other sections of the video as they all fit well with specific lyrics of the song and also there were lighting clashes. However, the timing issues didnt work so we aborted the attempt to technologically manufacture his singing timing using Final Cut Pro timing options.

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Editing Part Quatre

I added JPEGs of my conceptual chess piece scene as they were in different places of the board, when edited together it gives the impression they are moving on their own. I would have rather reshot them as my carpet is shown in the background which looks tacky in my opinion though we didnt have time to as we were sticking to a schedule. Hannah and I added a black and white effect on it which flows into the next dark shot very well. Finally, Hannah edited the scene of her and our actor walking hand-in-hand. She edited it using the Glow and Light ray effects and filters which give it again a dream-like state reiterating the idea of him imagining what we expects it to be like when hes with her. We initially had the idea that he imagined he was on a date when in reality he was kidnaping her in reality. We liked the idea of blurred lines of reality. 5/16/12

As illustrated above, Cross Dissolve effect and Splash Lower Third.

We edited scenes into black and white by bringing the saturation down on the Color Corrector 3-Way and the Black Limit Effect down a touch and the Whites up slightly. Hannah also edited together our credits page-with some old footage we initially intended on using though didnt fit in-using Pointer List HD, under 3D texts. This makes the video look so professional it is like a short film or an extended music video used for promotion. Indie videos use minimal slide transitions, we used Cross Dissolve, Dip To Color and Fade In Fade Out.

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Through the research and planning stages we used many different media to achieve the high level we completed at. The main avenues we used were Blogger, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. We created a blog at the beginning of the year which we used during the construction and evaluation stages, showing evidence of our extensive research and planning process. We firstly had to choose a song which we sourced from YouTube and searched for other bands of a similar nature to show us how our artist should be. We later used YouTube to broadcast our pieces of work as it developed. This was very useful as it proved a technology to help with audience feedback helping us with comments on what people like and didnt. I posted the video process on my Facebook page, also, to get peoples views on it and one girl said how its brilliant, you should make more videos!

Research and Planning

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My Blogger trafficking details show how people also sourced my blog through my Twitter posts showing how effective it is as a platform. Tagging famous tweeters also helped get responses through large publicity as more people see it if it is in connection with celebrities and musicians, which helps with getting audience feedback. Especially if tagging an indie artist as we share the same demographic. Below is an illustration of my blogs traffic sources for today, showing how someone has found my blog through twitter (t.co) and there is a chance they will comment-as I regularly encourage to get improvements.

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Media Technologies

People found our video and found my work through the use of social media and this is very helpful as it helps get our work out there, reaching more people than I could imagine from all over the world; the biggest market research you can wish for. Also watching MTV Rocks (in particular) really helped my research process as that is the perfect place for finding music videos of a similar kind to compare and contrast. This helped give us an idea of what style we could go for in the early days though we steered away from it as we didnt want to think about other peoples ideas but come up with our own to rival theirs. There was some intertextuality within our video giving credit/paying homage to those who inspired us and we look up to.
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The use of Scribd has also allowed me to share presentations to potentially the world. I make a PowerPoint and upload it to Scribd which makes it look more stylish and more professional. I then post it onto my blog to get even more views. I have only had Scribd for about 5 days and have already reached 100 views which shows the potential these websites have to broadcast opinions and media products, such as our music video. I will also upload this presentation using Scribd. We also created album artwork for a digipak and two posters which I used the afore mentioned websites and tools to create. I was very surprised to find out how much one can do to on Microsoft Word and Paint to make images and enhance their look to give them a very professional sheen. 5/16/12 I thought I would have to be equipped with the knowledge of using Photoshop or use sophisticated tools. However, I made a complete digipak that gained

3. How Effective Is The Combination Of Your Main Product And Ancillary Texts?

We had a group effort for the advertisements, though I thought one advert was hugely better than the other. I didnt feel it represented indie conventions even after widespread research and it didnt fulfil the ideas we expressed in the planning process. I felt the group texts did not give an indie feel, tying in with the main product, but instead a dance or techno one (as illustrated top right). Though I was told by Marissa, who made them without us (bottom left), that its flaws were something I could discuss in this evaluation however, I wanted to create the best product I was capable of so I made a digipak myself (bottom right) as her one felt insufficient. I surveyed to see how successful it was and the results came back in my favour.

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Link Between Texts

The second advert we made was much better and encaptured the essence of an indie artist. I feel the link between our ancillary projects and music video is strong one. This is due to the way the poster drew from the music video and perfectly encaptured the artist and the character we portrayed. The video showed both a character and a singer, which was a hard blend, though, I feel we achieved it. The expressions and body language are different from the singer to obsessive character he plays for the sake of the video. 5/16/12 the lyrics of in Oliver Fox he sang the words. Though the body The singer the song as showed language suggests hes oblivious to his extreme actions. his emotions in a softer manner

Characterisation

The way we envisioned an artist, (Oliver Fox) his debut album, (Unrest) and his hit single, (Nights of Broken Sleep) gave us a clear idea of how to present him. We even fashioned our own record label and its own logo (right). We surveyed for titles, names and images for him and the other ancillary ideas to a well rounded sample of people to attain a trustworthy and unbiased perspective. This truly helped in forming a link between our singer and the artist we have represented him to be and also tying together our media product with our ancillary texts successfully and clearly. When introducing a singer you need to make sure people get what his style is and what theyre all about. The darker advertisement did not do this and I felt was misleading. Thus, it did not link with the other texts we produced, unlike the other advert that 5/16/12 captured everything an indie artist is about. Just him, the raw nature around him and his guitar.

The most simple link is the tie between the lyrics of the single, Nights of Broken Sleep, and the imagery of the song. The lyric that stays with you if you listen to the song is blue skies are calling, but I know that its hard which when first sung the visual of birds flying across blue skies is played. This represents the freedom he craves but cannot have, the trees are obstacles in his way. The first look isnt as strong as the piercing blue skies later in the video though I like this slightly overcast 5/16/12 look to the sky as it gives it the typical London feel for weather that you identify with if you know England

Initial Branding

Our original ideas for the digipak was to create artwork that has a black and white theme though we didnt want all the images to be black and white, we wanted some variation in colour so it didnt give off a gloomy or miserable feel. We initially had the idea of taking on a look like The Drums but have our own twist on it which unfortunately didnt come together. Though our other strong plan was to acquire images like the one on the bottom right; we were required to purely draw from inspirations of the images due to copy write regulations. We did this and Hannah took the images shown in this digipak, what she didnt take, I found. Marissa edited the images on the group

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Course Conclusion

Overall I feel all of our media texts link together well and have been created with the utmost precision and effort. They each share individual ideas and themes to reflect different things; the music video reflects the character and singers lyrics, the advert introduces and promotes the artist and finally, the digipak shows numerous images reflecting different moods like the journey of emotions the buyer would experience when listening to the full album. Also I feel we made and I edited a successful indie music video that achieved all aims we set at the beginning of the course, maybe even exceeding our imaginations. Paired with the ancillary texts I feel the course has run well and I am proud of

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