Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of a real media product?

Music videos are shown to help promote and sell the song.


They can change the different ways in which the make the film (animation, live action, documentary) but they are sometime criticised for having fast editing, utilising jump cuts and having a fast kinetic style, this can often be dependent on the music.


At the start of the task of this year we looked at the conventions of a media products and these were:


What are the conventions of a genre/media product?

• Sexual scenes



• If band are in it or not



• Make belief scenes



• Settings



• Colours (right/dark)



• Instruments



• Lighting effects



• Action matching the lyrics



• Fast editing
  
  
  
  
  

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts ?

The combination of the main product and ancillary texts is very affective because having the ancillary texts helps promote the main product(video) by giving you a sense of what the main product is about it without not hearing or seeing it. Also it the ancillary products show and tell you what kind of genre the song would be and possibly tell you what you should or could be expecting to see while watching it.

What have you learnt from the audience feedback?

To get feedback from our audience we had used to different ways. We used video feedback and we also did an online survey. Below is a video which shows us asking questions to 17-18 year olds females on what they thought about the video, digi-pack and magazine advert.

From the feedback we had found out that all the girls like the video. Most of the girls said that they liked the style of editing and they mentioned that the lip syncing was done very well.

They said that the digi-pack was also very well done. They liked the colours used but they said we could have used different colours to try and catch peoples attention not just pink.

For the magazine advert they said that they like it because the colours and style of it was the same as the digi-pack so it matched.

We used a website called free online surveys.com. A screen print of the questionnaire is below.



These results below are what we got from the survey that we used above.

The results from above show that it did look like a music video, it shoes that all 4 of the girls liked the music video, 2 of the boys also liked the video, 1 said no and the 1 said other. This showed that the video not only appealed to girls but also to some boys as well.

For our video we wanted the subject for the erotic desire to be the girl. From the results of this question it shows that 3 of the boys said that the girl caught their eye and 1 boy said that they didn't know. 3 girls had said the girl also caught their eye and 1 other girl said that the boy had caught there eye. So by looking at the results the majority of both genders had found that the girl had caught their eye, which also helped in the thought that the video was a success.

To make the video scene's match the lyrics of the song can sometimes be very hard but not all video's have matching lyrics. With our video the lyrics did match, according to the results above it was done very good.




For the video the lip syncing had to be on point. If it wasn't it would put down the review of the video. For this question all 4 boys that we asked said yes the lip syncing was done excellent, 3 girls also said excellent and the other one said it was good. This still means that the lip syncing was very good.

From the answers of the question above shows us that even though the audience target was females and females would download the video but males also said that they would download the video also. Which means the video was quite successful.

For this question ' do you believe what is happening in the video(are they really in love)? as you can see from the chart above 3 girls said yes and so did 2 boys. Which meant that another 2 boys said no and 1 other girl said maybe. The acting during the video was crucial because the 2 actors had to look as though they were in love to help get the good results and feedback that we got not just from girls but boys aswell.


How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages of the music video we used many different media technologies such as, the internet, radio, cameras, Imac computers, photoshop, powerpoint and television.

(picture of diagram)


Research

During the research we used many different sources for information. The most popular one we used was the internet. We looked a many video's all with different genre, some of the songs we looked at were, Fat Boy Slim- Praise you, Keyshia Cole- I remember, Meat Loaf- I'd do anything for love and Kylie Minogue- Can't get you out of my head. Some of these videos we had seen when watching 100 Greatest Music Video and the others we had watched on you tube. After we had looked at the different genres we decided that our music video genre would be R'n'b.

We then had to find a song to use for our music video. The music that we chose had to be sang by an unsigned artist, which meant it would be quite difficult to find a song that we liked. We had managed to find a few internet webites, which were called newgrounds, unsigned.com and unsigned city. But and a few of the website we had to get permission from the artist for use to use the music, which meant that we had to write letter to some of them. Unfortunatly we didn't get a reply. We had then found a song on new grounds called Only you by a girl called Keshia Angeline. We had permission to use he music but we had to makes sure to put somewhere in the video that the some was made by her.

Planning

The target audience for our video was female teenagers at the ages of 16-19. We said this age range because the song is about a teenage girl who is singing about a boy who she is thinking about, wants to be with and/ or love him, this is something that happens everyday to teenagers nearly everyday in today's society. Some teenagers listen to music which expresses their feelings about the one they love. Teenagers today listen to this kind of music because some feel that is a way of helping them relax or they feel is one way of getting away from reality.


(Picture of diagram for initial idea)


For the group to know exactly what each scene was going to look like, for our final idea we spilt up each scene and explained briefly what it consists of.

(Table)


Justification for final idea


The reason behind us choosing to make this kind of music video is because it caught our attention. This was because the girl was singing about her feeling and emotions for a boy and it relates to the teenage society today, who may go through the same emotion and feeling everyday.

While filming we decided to change scene 2 and 4. The reason why scene 2 was changed was because when we were filming the girl walking and singing towards the camera, we found it hard to keep the camera steady while walking backwards. This scene was changed to the girl thinking and singing about her lover in the park. Scene 4 was changed from a party scene to the girl meeting the boy unexpectedly in London and spending a day together. It was changed because after looking back at the filming of the party scene we realised that it didn't look like a party scene because it was handheld while filming. This made it look like people were just gathering and not actually in a party.

Below is a video to show what we changed in scene 2 and 4:


Settings used throughout the filming

• The drama room, we used this setting when the girl sang with a black background.
  
  
  
  
• Central Park, we used this setting to film the girl in the park singing and thinking about the boy.

• Robert Clack dance studio, was used to film the part where the girl meets up with her freinds and starts dancing.

• London Southbank, we used this setting when filiming the girl when she met up the the boy.

Construction

In the construction stage of the task a combination media technologies were used. HD video cameras were used to film the video. The imac computers were used for editing the scenes for the music video, using the imovie program. The magazine advert was made using a program called photoshop and the digi-pack was made using microsoft powerpoint. We also used a digital camera to take pictures of the girl in the video to put on the the digi-pack and magazine advert.

After planning what we wanted in the video we were ready to film the music video. To film at different setting, we used HD digital cameras. We also used a tripod to keep the camera steady for us to film each scene. Using the camera with the tripod it also allowed us to film different shots such as, close ups, ECU shots, high shots, low shots, mid shots and long shots.





When the filming was finished we were then able to start editing the scene and putting them together, using the imovie program on the imac computers.



Using the imovie program allows us to edit scenes together as well as being able to put different effects in between each scene, such as jump cuts, straight cuts, fades, dissolve cuts, wipe cuts and cross dissolves. The editing to a long time because we had to make sure the editing was in synced to the lip syncing of the girl in the video. It was hard at the beginning but near the end it got easier to edit.

Planning the evaluation

Last week we started palnning our evalution looking at the evaluation questions and typing up what we would like to put as the answer. By the end of next week we are hoping to have finished our evaluation and put it onto the blog.

Theories of Narrative (Classwork)

Todorov

- Equalibrium
- Distruption
- Resolution (solves all the problems)
- New Equalibrium

Propp

-Analysed folk stories

-8 key character roles and they are:

1. The hero (protagonist)
2. The villain (antagonist)
3. The doner (provider)
4. The helper
5. The father
6. The dispatcher (sends the hero on their mission)
7. The princess
8. The false hero

Analysis of finished music video

How does the text communicate to the audience?

The music video was targeted at 16 to 19 year old females. It is targeted at them firstly because of the genre of the music which is R'n'B and secondly it is because the song is about teenage love. Throughout the the video the singer, who was shown as a teenager, was expressing herself about the one she loves, which happens in everyday to teenagers who have someone they think about and really love.


Analysis in terms of film language:


Camera Work

Throughout the video the camera shots were changed to make the audience just focus on that part. Different shots were used to see different angles of what was going on in the video, so camera angles would give a chance for the audience to see the different background/surrounds as well as the different angles of the main character and her lover.


During the video close ups of the main character while lip syncing were shown to help show her love emotion more to the audience. This shows the audience her feelings but sometimes may also make the audience feel some emotion for her. The close shots also gives the audience a chance to see the expression in her eyes, on her face and when the shots are not too close then it also shows the emotion in her body language, which also helps the audience see and feel her emotion.


In the video medium shots were used. These shots were used to show the costume of the characters and to also show their body language. This shot would also show a bit of scenery but not alot.


High and low shots were also used in the video to give the audience a view of the scencery as well as seeing what the characters of the video are actually doing. In the video the low shot was used to show her lover admiring her from the top of a building, he is show looking down at her. The high shot was used to show us looking up at her admirier from below. Sometimes the low and high shots can be used to make someone look more dominant than the other but it is not meant like that in this case.


A pan shot was also used in this video, this was to show the scenery in which the two teenagers were at. The pan shot was taken from a bridge in london and showed the river and boats. i think this was a very good shot. At the begining of the video the shot starts from the left and makes it way to the right and at the end of the song it starts from the right and goes back to the left. it was like a story going back to the begining to where it all started.


Lighting


In the video there was not much lighting used. The lighting that was used, was used on the main female character when it was filming in a dark room with black background. The spotlight was used when she was doing poses, this worked because as well as showing the poses it was also showing her emotion in her face and also with her body language. The shot was used to make the audience just focus on her instead of the background.


Mise en scene

Mise en scene is something in which had to be taken into consideration from the planning of the video becuase it something which may make/change the decision of the audience towards the video. In the video the girl was the main character, so throughout the video the clothing that that girl wore had to be glamourous but not too glamourous because it might discourage the audience considering she is not looking like an everyday teenager. In the video the girl had changed to 3 different outfits. There out fits were, addidas tracksuit in red and black, black jeans, cardigan and a scarf and for the poses she wore an off the shoulder dress with a stripped black and grey pair of tights. Her lover in the video also wear casual clothing which was blue jeans, shirt and a jacket.

Throughout the whole video make was used on the main girl character. It was used to bring out features of her face such as her lips, eyes and skin tone, she wore the simple grey off the shoulder dress because it bring back to the fact that she is just like an everyday teenager. In the video the body language and facial expressions had to be very well studied. the character had to make sure that she was showing her feelings through her body and face because if it didn't it make look like she was just acting really badly and it wouldn't give the targeted audience the feeling that she is actually in that situation.

Editing

The editing was done on imac computers using the imovie program.

Throughout the video there was many transitions used, the most popular transitions that was used was the cross dissolve and dissolve cut transitions. There was also straight cuts, fade in, fade out and wipe cut transitions that were used but not very often. By using the cross dissolve and dissolve cut transitions it allowed the two different scenes to blend together slowly instead of the quick jump cuts which are often used in videos.

The straight cuts were used at the begining of the video to show fast and slow clips of the character and her lover, the cuts were used on a quick violin beats which started the song. The fade in and out transitions was used at the end of the video at at the part where the girls are about to dance in the video, using this transition shows the start of a new scene and/or the end of another. The wipe cut was used when the girl and boy met each other and they are about to start talking on the riverside.

In the video there was also a scene which was changed to slow motion. The scene in which girl was getting chased by her lover, this was put into slow motion because it shows that fact that they are having fun. When watching the scene it gives you that cute and happy feeling because they looked cute and in love. At the begining of the video the screen was split into 9 screens of the same scene to show technicality.

Critical Theory

The Laura Mulvey theory was included in the video. In the video the girl is seen as the subject of erotic desire. Even though the video was aimed at teenage girls, because of the mise en scene used on the girl the male audience would want to watch the video and watch the female subject. You could also say the video included the triple gaze theory because in the video the boy is looking at the girl and the male audience is also looking at her with the camera.

In the video the girl is shown as a typical teenager, a girl who goes out, hangs out with freinds, has fun dancing and thinks and sings about the boy she has fallen in love with.

Contribution

For this task of making a music video I worked in a group of three with Houda Vernege-Fanus and Ardit Pashkij. When making the video i filmed and helped directing. When it came to the editing I did help whenever i was able to. I also helped plan the digipack and magazine advert with houda. When we were making the digi-pack and magazine advert i tried to get used to using the photoshop program but because time was limited i just did some designs as suggestions. I also did the photoshoot with houda in which the pictures were chosen to go on the digi-pack and magazine adverts. For the audience feedback i created a questionnaire and recorded some of the answers on camera.

Narrative (Classwork)

A narrative is;

• A plot
• Story

Elements of a narrative are;

• Time
• Closure (The ending of a story)
• Enigmas

Classical Hollywood Narratives;

• Linear
• If any, sub plots
• Tendency towards closure

Theories of Narrative

• Trodrov
• Propp