Kiera Pollard A2 Media Studies
Friday 19 April 2013
Thursday 18 April 2013
Evaluation
In what ways
does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
For my music video, I decided on choosing the
song 'Need You Now' by the country band Lady Antebellum. My chosen artist
already has a current music video for this song however after researching,
there aren't many covers made of it which inspired me to run with it. My
decision for using this song is due to the fact I thought I thought I'd be able
to work with the story line and create a good effective music video. I feel it
is quite a sad song and I really wanted to create a narrative music video which
would fit with this and I planned to do so. I felt the song I chose was
appropriate for this and was at a slow enough pace to create something with a
sad emotion whilst also conveying the country theme in there too and the audience
could relate to it. Due to producing a video with a narrative, it was essential
to keep all continuity at all time, and as it was country I feel it would have
looked odd to have performances or dances in because this is more a typical
convention of R&B/Pop genres of music and if it were to be placed in my
music video, it would have broken the codes and conventions of my country
genre. It was vital to maintain the editing with long shots rather than quick
cuts through to increase the emphasis on the sad theme.
Many country
music videos feature the artists, for example in this video of 'Love Story' by
Taylor Swift it features her and the guy she's singing about. I used this
whilst also adapting it to fit around the fact that my male actor is also
singing. They don't generally feature many characters because quite often there
is a narrative to it which stays simple with a few characters to base the story
upon. So I tried to incorporate this into my music video. Initially I thought
about having many different couples singing about one another however thought
this would get too confusing and narrowed it back down to keep just the two
main artists in the hope that it is something my target audience can still
relate to. Additionally, I thought it was important for the costume of my
characters to be more updated so it is closer to today's trends but also
something that looks acceptable. So I decided to dress my female artist in a
night-going out dress and the male artist in a casual shirt with a jumper with
coloured trousers. I thought this was appropriate for the scenes featuring
together because I feel it could demonstrate the past times that they both
experienced were wonderful as they're dressed up and that they used to go out
together to lovely places and dress lovely. I feel it puts emphasis on the fact
they had good times when they were together which my target audience could
relate to.
Adding to
the mise en scene, I chose to shoot in the green room at Wyke College for my
main location, this is the location which features both my two artists in black
and white. I thought this would be a pretty simple basic backing for them both
to sing in and share their thoughts with each other because it is a story in
the past. Having my female actress as the main artist, this made it quite
difficult to organise shooting during college time as she isn't a student
studying at Wyke. However she always agreed to meet me at Wyke to do any
filming or re-shoots in the green room after college hours and during the
college holidays. My male artist attends Wyke which made it fairly easy to get
him to be available though it was often difficult to get them both available at
the same time so this made it harder to organise any re-shoots to be taken. All
together, I filmed my entire media footage in 5 different locations. I started
to film my project in October and continued editing it until January. This is
when I decided that I didn't like any of the footage I had taken. This was
partially due to the fact I wasn't keen on how the actual scenes looked and
also the footage had come out looking a bit grainy which I was really unpleased
with. When deciding it was best to re shoot these scenes, I chose to change my
plan for the music video as I just didn't like how it was looking and a lot of
other media students in class had given me some negative feedback that they
were not entirely sure what was happening.
I began my
music video with both the artists sitting together to show the happiness at the
start and progress through the video to see the how the couple have come apart.
I feel that the first shot of my video at the piano would give off a happy vibe
to my target audience allowing them to connect with it and wanting to see how
it continues. A typical convention of country music is to be naturalistic and
unique giving the audience something to associate with and being able to relate
with the certain artist.
The two images above show similar neutral scenes to ones that I have
based my music video on to follow the typical conventions of a Country music
video. In the top photo it shows the woman looking wearing a night dress ready
to go out which is one of the reasons I had my artist wearing a similar costume
to add the impression that the couple were just heading out. The costume for my
artists was key because it had to be suitable and believable to the narrative
and emotion. I chose her dress to be a dark red and black to show the contrast
between the two different colours. The Red is connoting love and black
connoting death or the end of something. When editing the scenes, it is not
possible to see the colours of the clothes due to change in the black and white
layover making it harder for the audience to take notice of these factors.
I chose to set the background story of my music video in my house, on
Hessle Foreshore, on a bus and a train. This was mainly for a neutral setting
and something that looked like a typical everyday lifestyle. I decided against
filming in a field because I couldn't see how I’d work that around the lyrics
in the song and I didn't like the idea of putting my artist on to a field to
sing about a break up. I felt like it is something that is done too many times
and didn't want to repeat the general field scenarios.
The shots filmed at Hessle Foreshore were mainly shot for ‘scenery’
purposes only. I filmed the shot of the shore with the intention of giving the
idea of having someone being swept away from you or having the wave symbolising
a fresh start but it was quite open to interpretation for the audience to
interpret how they wish. The shot of the Humber Bridge was a build up to
leaving and getting out of the city. I was hoping to get a closer shot of a car
driving across to get the impression of a long journey because this shot is
followed by a shot of my artist taking a bus journey to get a train out of Hull
which is then followed by another shot of Newcastle Bridge. I wanted to show
the audience that in order to get away completely it was a matter of a very
long journey.
When beginning my music video, I had taken two shoots until beginning to
edit the first draft of my music video. Overall it has taken seven shoots to
complete the whole thing leaving me with lots of unused scenes too. These
shoots would often take most of a day, setting everything up and getting all
props I need ready. I didn't need to use all footage because there would be a
lot of footage that needed re shooting there and then due to having to
forgetting lyrics etc. During the days without a camera I ensured I had made a
list of things that needed doing on days when I had taken a camera out from
college.
I never faced a lot of problems; just the general issues such weather
conditions, needing permission to film in places and time issues. Due to the
weather conditions, this partially ruined the continuity of my music video. As
some days during filming it was really sunny, or cloudy or full of rain. On the
day I planned to film on the bus, the weather conditions were awful and it had
decided to rain. However I feel it can work with the narrative because at that
present time my artist would be feeling sad emotion which is expressed through
the weather.
It then continues to a shot of the view from the train with weather that
appears brighter. It isn’t amazingly sunny, just a few clouds which I think is
great because I feel that this could give the intention that as she’s getting
further and further away, her mood is increasing and corresponding with the
weather.
When I knew that I had definitely finished filming all footage, I focused
entirely on trying to finish the editing process of the music video. It was
fine getting all the footage I needed, but found it trickier to actually fit
them in particular areas of the music videos so they made sense with the
narrative and the lyrics that were said at that exact time. I didn't stick to
my storyboard at all but I’m actually glad that I didn't because I think the
ideas that came to me later on worked better than ideas that I’d focused on
towards the beginning of the course. This did make production a lot more difficult
than if I’d initially stuck to the storyboard first and changed it around later
on leaving me with plenty more time to improve it.
I’m happy that I didn't follow my storyboard because I ended up getting
shots that I never would have explored with otherwise and that I actually really
like within the music video. Here are some examples:
The most common convention of all music
videos is having the artist’s voice in sync with the song to add to the
verisimilitude. I find this effective and decided to make sure I did the same.
I found that the sync of the lyrics added to the emotion of the narrative
because it’s coming directly from the artist’s mouth making it easier for the
audience to relate to them. Because the song I chose is sung by a band, there
were also male vocals included meaning it was vital for me to definitely have a
male artist alongside the female artist. The filming in the background of the
main singing is solely female focused because I wanted the audience to be aware
it was all happening to her and that she was the main artist for the song. I
ensured all my shoots were slow and worked with the genre of the song. I could
have filmed quick cuts of teenagers partying hard on a night out to show
emotion but this just wouldn't have worked for the narrative meaning it had to
be slow, natural and calm with a sad theme. I tried to ensure that my shots weren't extremely long as this would have been boring for a member of the
audience to watch. They needed to be short enough to give an idea of what is
going on for the artist and hat their story is telling. I feel that I used a
lot of medium close up shots, but I did intend to differ between medium, long
and close up shots to show different emotions at different time and to keep it
a little more interesting for an audiences’ perspective.
Evaluation (1) by s0013065 on GoAnimate
Video Maker - Powered by GoAnimate.
How
effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Before creating my ancillary texts, I took lots and lots of photographs
in my room against a plain background and also some outside against neutral,
natural settings to keep with the Country genre. When researching into other ancillaries,
most artists have plain backgrounds with a close up image of the artist and
edit their background to how they want it. I took this research on board and
opened up Photoshop CS6 to start designing my own ancillary texts. Having my
main artist being female, I obviously used her on the front cover of my album to
keep up with the continuity.
I tried out lots of different fonts and colours, experimented with the
different photographs and explored with the positioning of everything in order
to create the best finished product I could.
I am quite pleased with my finished front cover because I feel it looks
simplistic but not too simplistic in that nobody would care to look at it. I
maintained a clear background with a slight tint to it in the hope it would
give a slight resemblance to that in the music video. I also gave a black and
white effect to my artist featuring to keep with the continuity of the music
video. I used a bold capital lettered greenish coloured font to title the
artist’s name ‘Kristen Partridge’. I think this works well because it can still
be seen clearly over the top of my artist’s grey skirt. I differed the colour
slightly for the number 1 single of the album ‘Need You Now’ so that it stood
out separately from the artist’s name and it was a clear differentiation.
This image shows a medium/long shot of the artist holding a guitar.
There is no guitar used in the music video but you can hear that musical
instrument within it. A convention of country music is having different music
instruments featuring in the music video eg, piano and/or guitar. My reason for
using a guitar on the front cover is to suggest that she would use it in other
music videos within the album.
I wanted the inside of my digipak to be quite simple therefore decided
to use screenshots from my music video so there were elements from the actual
video in my digipak. I chose to use screenshots of both the artists sitting at
the piano and a screenshot of the piano being played for the pictures inside
because I thought they were simplistic yet elegant enough for a digipak. I
decided to use a shot of the Humber Bridge with an overlap of a shot of my
artist for CD number one. For the second CD, I did the same with a shot of the
sea as the background and a shot of my artist overlapping that. I thought it
would give a good image for the digipak whilst continuing the continuity and
males them stand out. I chose not to have any text written on the CD’s as it
would just not have been clear enough to read over the top of the images. I’ve
kept the general theme of my digipak in black and white to keep in with the
music video itself.
I really like the back cover of the album because of the simplicity. As I’d
chosen to have the front cover a paler colour, I decided on having a variation
and made the back black. I made the artist’s name ‘Kristen Partridge’ in a yellowish
colour to ensure it had definite clarity. I chose upon a close up image for the
audience to see a differentiation between the many long/medium shots that were
used throughout the video. I think it also emphasis a more serious emotion
instead of an upsetting emotion that is seen within the music video. For the
other songs that would feature in this album, I have chosen a white font and
put them in a list to keep the simple look.
For the sides of the album, I simply kept with the black colour with ‘Kristen
Partridge’ and ‘Need You Now’ written in their colours that are used on the front
cover.
I really wanted to create a magazine advert with similar continuity to
that of my digipak to ensure it was noticeably the same artist to the audience.
To do this, it was vital that I keep the colour scheme of black and white the
same.
After researching into posters advertising albums, most looked quite
simplistic whilst getting to the point of what they’re advertising. When
designing both the digipak and the advert, I thought it best just to call the
album ‘Need You Now’ as it is the number one song and it keeps it realistic and
to the point of what it’s about. It’s also great because that’s the song I chose
for my music video. Most magazine adverts include the artists name, an image of
the artist, a review and the album itself. So I made sure to include all these
things. I chose a pale colour for the background with my artist being in black
and white theme. Reflecting back on this, I do not like the pale colour and
wish I’d have opted to go for black as the background. I featured the text of
the artist’s name and ‘Need You Now’ in the similar colours as the digipak. I
included a review from a magazine that features ‘country’ genre music. The key
information such as the magazine name and the website for the artist is both in
red. This is just in case of the audience wanting to check them out and also
shows that they want more viewers. I wanted my artist to lean on a side to show
that she had a casual look about her. I feel like this is quite appealing for
members of the audience rather than having a close up shot of her looking
directly into the camera. The whole idea of having the website ‘www.therealkristenpartridge.com’
is to promote the artists and it gives the audience an opportunity to purchase
any merchandise and other songs that they could download. Underneath the review from a music magazine I added
5 gold stars to show that it had a good rating. Without a good rating, the
audience may not be as interested to go out there and listen to the album.
I also included a smaller image of the front cover of my album for the audience
to be able to see. This makes it easier for them to find when going to purchase
it as they’ve already seen it on the advert.
I think my advert and digipak are really effective and work well in
comparison with others. They have all the important information that would be
needed to know to recognise the artist and works well with the music video in
terms on continuity. What I have realised after giving my artist the name ‘Kristen
Partridge’ is that within my music video, it features a shot showing her facebook
under the name of ‘Kirsty Windass’ which has broken the continuity slightly. If
I had more time, I would definitely correct this by re shooting it immediately.
What
have you learned from my audience feedback?
I decided to conduct recordings of individuals who are within my target audience
to find out their honest thoughts about my music video.
From my audience feedback, I have taken on board that for the majority
of the video during the black and white effect it is a lot brighter than I had
imagined. A lot of people have told me that it’s hard to see the actual faces
of my artists meaning it has been hard for them to empathise with any emotion
because they’ve not been able to see the emotion on their faces. To improve
this I would just have to change the contrast between the colours.
Another piece of feedback was that the editing of my music video works
more towards my target population. Due to the narrative and how I have chosen
to demonstrate the narrative, it works for the present time and for my
population in this generation.
I would personally re shoot the background narrative to improve it as I feel
I rushed through to get shots without taking a lot of time to think about why I
was doing this and what I was using them for. My concentration was totally
towards getting it finished for the deadline. However I think a lot of the
shots I used work really well with the narrative, a few do not as some people
have commented in the feedback.
The filming in Hessle Foreshore was taken quite quickly and edited into
the video rather soon. I’ve had a lot of feedback about those few scenes with
the sea and the Humber Bridge. A lot of people have questioned the reasoning
behind those few scenes as they didn’t understand the purposes for them. One of
my reasons for having them in there was basically to fill a gap but after
watching the video back a couple of times, I thought to myself that it could
connote hidden messages about the tide coming in on a relationship or
travelling across the Humber Bridge, panning across the sea to show the pass by
of time but I figured it could be up to the audience how they perceived it.
Unfortunately this wasn’t the case and many people were uncertain about those
certain scenes.
Nevertheless, I also had positive feedback about the narrative saying
how well it fitted in and a few people genuinely felt emotional watching the
music video. During the editing stages of my music video, I constantly had
people running back and forth telling me the most amazing thing I could
possibly do to make my video better was to add a kissing scene into it. They
felt during the black and white scenes of the video, it was like a teasing
temptation for the audience to hold on to wait for that finale ending. However
there was no finale ending for them because I originally decided against it.
After constant thoughts about wanting to make my video really good, I decided
that people these people were right. Maybe it did need something to conclude.
Before the kissing scene was even filmed, I had a lot of feedback telling me
that it kept building up to nothing which was disappointing for them so I gave
in and filmed a kiss for the finale of my music video. This pleased people a
lot and they kept watching my music video more and more.
Another positive I’ve had is about my artists. A lot of people have told
me they really like the male artist because he adds a lot more emotion to it
with his facial expressions. They like how well synced he is with the song.
I’ve had audience feedback about my ancillary texts saying that my
digipak has a consistent colour scheme all the way through which can be
associated with the music video very clearly. However, instead of using the
pale colour it may have been better to use a nice colour eg, purple to enhance
the whole image and make it look nice on the eye for the audience.
Another piece of feedback is to create a better design for the CD’s as
the idea of two screenshots on top of each other. It could be a good idea to
have a blank bold colour which bold font written on top with the artist’s name
and album title. I think this could be a much better idea as it seems more simplistic
and still gives a clear impression of what it is.
I have been told that the font is good, as it looks plain bold and
simple. It looks like it’s just straight to the point and is clear for people
to read. Nobody thought it was boring and just thought of it as any other album
cover.
The feedback for my digipak in comparison with the magazine advert was
quite negative. Personally, I am unhappy with the editing I’ve done on my
artist on Photoshop because I found it slightly tricky to blur the edges as it
didn’t even look sharp at all. I feel as though it looks rushed and too smudgy.
I have been told it looks like there’s still a lot of room on the advertisement
which could be filled with some more interesting facts about my artist.
A lot of people like the golden stars I have used for a star rating and
have told me it looks quite official which I’m pleased with and also that I have
used the album cover within my advert too towards the bottom right corner to
show the audience what it looks like. People have commented on this as good
because it gives the audience a chance to see what the album cover looks like
so they are able to purchase it.
However, a few people have stated that it only slightly resembles that
of the digipak and music video as the colours are just a tad different but I agree.
If I had more time I would definitely change the colours on both the digipak
and magazine advertisement and the font on the advert looks slightly different
to me so I would look about changing that also.
How
did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?
It was a fundamental part of creating my music video to use technology.
In order to meet all the essential requirements of my brief, it was vital that I
used many different media technologies. One of the main pieces of technology
that was needed was the internet. This allowed me to carry out all my research
and create my online portfolio on Blogger.com. This is where I was able to keep
all my production plans, any risks that I needed to be aware of, rough drafts
and edits and all finished pieces.
Planning for my music video, I printed out storyboard sheets. I used
these to draw each shot that I planned to film. After doing this, I scanned in
each sheet to the computer and cut each shot individually, placed them into an
order of the correct sequence onto Windows Movie Maker, I added the music that I
would be using for my music video and edited the times of each shot to ensure
it would be to the correct degree of accuracy as it could possibly could be. This
enabled me to see how it would work if I was to film each shot exactly how I had
pre planned it. It was a massive help because it had shown me whether or not I was
going to like it being filmed this way or not.
For the problems that I started to encounter during the beginning of
filming my music video, I used a website called goanimate.com. This was amazing
because I could put down all my problems in the form of a media conversation
rather than type them out.
In order for me to see what my target audience prefer, I set up a poll
on the side of my blog. I have received quite a lot of responses which has
given me quite a reliable sample to base my music video on. It has enabled me
to see what features my target audience prefer in a music video eg, performance
or narrative etc. The results have shown that my target population prefer a
performance based music video with 65% closely followed with narrative with
55%. The majority of my target population are females with 85% and males with
only 15% within the age range of 16-19 85%. Therefore I knew my music video
would be aimed mostly towards 16-19 year old females.
This was an important
factor to consider when creating the narrative music video as females show a
lot more emotion so I needed to work with this so I could ensure it had a lot
more emotional content.
Having created a poll, it has helped me identify the fact my target audience
are within college age range which has already given me an insight into
possible shops and places they would consume their music and the type of
networking sites they would possibly use.
To create the actual music video, I used software called Adobe Premier
Pro CS6 on an editing suite. I was able to upload all my footage onto the
editing suite using a memory card that was used in the video camera during
filming. I created my own folder on this editing suite so I knew where all my
work was. I uploaded all footage into this folder and exported them into my
Adobe Premier Pro folder. I would label this first upload ‘shoot1’ to help me
organise what and how many shoots I have done. I would be able to alter the
colour and brightness of my video clips using the Adobe Premier Pro and it was
quite easy to work. However if I was ever unsure about how to use something, I would
make sure to ask either subject teacher or the technology advisor. Some shots
would appear quite subdue, so in order to improve this I would be able to
improve the quality of the lighting making it look still as natural as
possible. At the beginning of the academic year of this subject, we were given
an introduction task to create a 30 second music video just imitating the
current music video we were using. We were in a group of 5 with people having
specified jobs to do. I feel as though this gave me such a confidence boost as I
felt so much confidence when using the editing suite before. So when it came to
using it solely on my own, I was comfortable with it instead of being
terrified.
In order to get all my recorded feedback, drafts and final music video
onto my blog, I initially uploaded them to YouTube. The reasons for doing this
are that you are able to see how many views you’ve had on each video. It also
enables any public audience member to anonymously post feedback to you without
feeling judged by you. One major problem I faced with YouTube is that the song I
used had been copyrighted by its owner meaning I wasn’t entitled to use it
without permission so a lot of my first drafts were unsuccessful in making it
to YouTube. Therefore I had to show people my drafts on my editing suite for
them to give feedback later on causing a lot of time consumption.
I used my Samsung Galaxy Ace phone to record all my feedback; this didn’t
need to have good clarity as the feedback was only going to be beneficial for
me to take on board. It was a simple process of uploading this from my phone
onto the computer and then to YouTube so that wasn’t a problem and didn’t take
too much time.
For my ancillary texts, I took all my photographs on a Fujifilm 12
megapixel camera hoping to get the best image I possibly could. Not all my
photographs came out in great condition due to the lighting of the outdoor
photos. But that wasn’t an issue as it wasn’t necessary to use all photos.
After taking the photos and uploading them onto my blogger profile. I went
straight to Adobe Photoshop CS6 where I edited the images that I specifically
chose. This is where I added all the text onto the photo too. With already
having experience with this software using it in my first year AS Media Studies
course, it wasn’t a shock to my system. I felt quite comfortable using it
making it less time consuming to work. The basic tools to use were the ‘selection
tool’ in order to cut around my artist eliminating any unwanted background
imagery and the ‘blur’ tool to smoothen the edges around my artist to limit the
choppiness around her.
After getting the desired parts of the photo all cut out, the next thing
to do was adjust the brightness and contrasting levels of the photograph to
create a more effective and professional look. To get rid of any unwanted marks
or spots on the skin or to just give it more of a smooth skin look, I used the ‘spot
healing’ tool to give it a more natural look. To create and change the colour
of any text added was fairly simple. I would enter my text and transform it to
change the size rather than change it by font size. To change the colour I would
use the ‘paint’ tool.
Overall, the whole process of making a music video was a lot trickier
than I expected. However I have really enjoyed learning all the new skills. It
has taught me a lot of things, things that I can use in everyday life as well
as for the media studies course. I have learnt to manage my time a lot better
and with a lot more pre planning I could have produced something better with
time to spare for improving. Yet, this time I ended up leaving things later
than I should have done. Another thing I have learnt is not to have so much dependency
on things because there are things in life that you just cannot control. If the
weather is how you would like it to be then ensure that you do the filming that
day instead of leaving it for later to end up having weather you didn’t want
for continuity reasons. Also, you can never depend on your artists as they have
their own lives and when needing them for something as important as this I have
to expect that they will sometimes let me down which cannot be helped.
Thus, I am enthralled with the work I have put into my music video because
I put a lot of effort into it and I feel I have met the brief clearly with the
narrative of my music video. Obviously, I would change a lot of things if given
more time or if I was told to do the same again I’d change it but at this given
time I think it is a good standard for the time I have been given.
Word Count: 5,930
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