Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 2 Draft

Question 2 – How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Each of the media products I have created vary in terms of their role they play. The brief required me to create a music video alongside two ancillary tasks, by creating a digipak and an album advert. I ensured that there was a consistent theme in the font, colours and layout and the overall style of the album which can slightly match with the music video. With these features, it creates a sense of ‘brand identity’ of the artist which will help the artist be recognised more easily by the audience.

I created a house style which is running in both the digipak and the magazine advert. There is a similar layout with the font sizes varying. The colours are consistent with ‘Red and white’ gradient. The images have been given a black and white filter to it, this is because there will be a sense of ‘mystery’ and emotions in both digipak and the magazine advert.

There is a theme of emotions flooding in all the media products, hence there is such as ‘mysterious’ feel to the ancillary tasks and the main media product being more of a ‘find out more’ once the album is purchased.

The digipak is more than just selling the CD, it’s created to inform the audience on the music artist. Furthermore, it gives more of a sense of belonging for the audience rather than downloading songs/album/EP’s instantly with nothing to relate them to, it may also make the audience feel incomplete. Within the digipak, there is a thank you message from the artist to the audience saying their support has got them there and thanking friends and family for being supportive throughout her music career, in addition this can build this relationship between the artist and the audience and allows the audience to feel as if they, like the artist, have achieved something by being as supportive as fans. Therefore this digipak perfectly fits for the intended marketing purpose.

The album advert is there to persuade the audience to potentially purchase the album. It created to fit the promotional method to sell the digipak. The non-direct image of the girl with her eyes closed depict this instant mysterious and sad emotion, furthermore the favourable reviews supports he purpose of strongly advertising the artist and convince the audience that the album has been critically favourable and therefore suggests that the music created by this artist must be of a high standard. The reviews given are from different newspapers ranging from broadsheets for example ‘the guardian to genre specific music magazine for instance ‘Spin’. Using popular and acclaimed newspapers would create the album being a more respected and more of a creative asset rather than a typical manufactured pop album where a lot of marketing is focused e.g album launch, promotional method etc…

The sole purpose of a music video is not to sell the song but to get a suggestion from the audience for them to not only be interested in the song but the artist as well, which can then convince them to listen to other music by the same artist hence a digipak is produced for them to access other songs.. The target audience of this music genre are classified as mainstreamers and aspirers. The target audience would watch my music video watch their favourite music artist perform or listen to their favourite song and for entertainment/escapism.

As the music video is the key task of this course, I had to ensure that it’s suitable and ensures to reach out well to the audience and for them to enjoy the music video I had to research about the target audience. The sole purpose of my music video is to entertain the target audience and allow them to watch the artist perform while listening to song, this will also give them more of a visual towards the song. I have definitely achieved the aspect of performance and entertainment in my music video through the use many camera shots, angles and movements, locations and the use of a ballet performance.  In order to create a sense of direct address with the audience and make them feel like they are part of this. I achieved this by using frequent eye contact when the artist is singing to the camera. This clearly invites the audience in and maintains focus on the video.  However another purpose the music video can fulfil is a better understanding of the lyrical meaning behind the song and how it can be visually linked. This has been my main goal through the project, however there has been some difficulties in portraying a narrative via a ballet performance, hence why visual lyrical meaning is used, for instance ‘tears rolling down’ has got the ballerina performing a step where her hands are the tears and they are going down. Having a music video enables the audience to understand the artist is moving forward from her unsuccessful relationship and that she is ‘crying for no reason’.

Looking at the those three mediums, they link in strongly as each of the three mediums promotes each other, for instance the music video promotes a song from the album and the album advert promotes the digipak. In addition, the main products and the ancillary tasks follow the same conventions in order to stay within their genre of music and keep a fixed house style.

Question 1 - Question 1 – In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Music Video

 
Andrew Goodwin’s idea of clear link between the lyrics and visuals can be applied to my music video. The ballet performance helps the lyrics visually be understood, there is a part of the song ‘feel the tears roll down’, the ballerina signifies this lyric by performing a step where she her arms gradually go down as she is representing the tears rolling down. Andrew Goodwin also established that there can be links between the music and visuals. This is regarding pace and how often cuts are made and the speed of these cuts. The pace varies throughout my video and on the slow parts and verses, longer cuts are shown to allow the audience to take in what is being shown and connect with the singer. The chorus and faster parts of the song tend to have faster cuts so that the visuals don’t contradict with the beat of the song.

Alongside, Andrew Goodwin’s narrative theory can be applied; Goodwin talks about the 5 key aspects for music videos, 1. Thought beats, seeing the sound 2. Narrative and Performance – some sense of narrative can be applied where it shows the performer becoming a stronger and getting over a break up 3. The Star Image – the performer is portrayed as a star who is sharing her emotions with the audience. 4. Relations of visuals to song – The ballet performance have been a big aspect to visually relating to the song. 5. Technical aspects of music video – the use of wide variety of technical equipment to create a technical meaning to the music video. 

My music video uses, develops and also challenges forms and conventions of real media products in terms of using different aspects of techniques to construct meaning, Firstly, my music video uses different techniques to construct meaning, both techniques; symbolic and technical are used to portray some sort of meaning however there is more focus on technical technique, where meaning is constructed using technical equipment used to shoot the music video. Furthermore, through the use of key concept areas such as Camera, Editing and Mise-en-scene have been taken into consideration and those forms and conventions of real media texts have been followed, developed into my own or been challenged for my own media products. Camera angles, camera movement, types of shot and the pace and style of editing used to not only match the genre but to create meaning. I have used a wide variety of angles and camera shots, especially low angles and close ups to emphasis the facial expression of the actor, whereas long shots were used for the ballet performance. 

My music video leans more over to the performance convention of music videos. This style mainly consist of the actor performing, In my video I use this conventions and have two performers, one as the music artist and one as a ballet performer. Using technical equipment such as steadicam has benefited me into getting a close up shot of the performance and zooming out gradually. In my music video, there is a lot of steadicam shots used especially for the artist performer, this is because a steadicam can create cold continuous shots, and as there is direct address in my music video, it also gives this sense of the audience being part of this performance. 

When I researched into R&B music videos from popular artists such as Rihanna and Beyoncé. I decided to adapt those conventions into my own music video, however I feel like I have challenged them because the song I have chosen ‘Crying for no Reason’ has an element of breaking up but is fast tempo.  Furthermore, I also found out that if a song is a typical break up song, it is usually shot in a plain black room with minimal items or no items as the song tends to focus on the artist by using close up to show significant figure expressions. Another common conventions seen is all videos is when the artist is singing to the camera, it cuts to another part of the music video or a narrative that flows along with the song, this is evident in my music video however it is challenged, because my whole music video is a performance based video, so there are many close ups of the performer singing in few locations and then it cuts to the ballerina performing in a studio.

In terms of editing off my music video, in order to match the pace of the audio and ensure the ballet performance in is sync such effects like slow motion creates this smooth and graceful effect of the ballet performance, I have used slow motion mainly at the beginning where there is also the use of cross dissolve of the artist and the ballet performance. This effect also introduces the music video and suits the opening of the audio where it is instrumental and low tempo and gives the audience a chance to take in the video and focus solely on the artist’s movement.  I also followed a conventions of using colour filters throughout the music video, I have uses the greyscale filter to show emotion. I have also added a sepia tone to the ballet performance. Time Remapping gave a great effect to slow certain parts of the ballet performance, especially when the ballerina pirouettes few times on the spot and then then smoothly go back to its original speed. 

Mise-en-scene hasn’t been a big contribution in terms of specific props to create meaning however as it’s a performance video, the visual look of the performance and locations are needed to be taken into consideration. The locations I have used; the studio for both artist performance and studio performance to match up to the typical convention of a break up song.  When it comes to the outfits and the make-up looks, in a break up song, the artist would be wearing dark clothes. A lot of nude coloured/natural makeup will be used to convey the sense of natural beauty, because there a lot of close ups on the artists face. For my own music video I have somehow challenged this convention in terms of mise-en-scene, the performer of my music video is wearing make-up to emphasise her beauty. The typical make-up look of smokey eyes and red lips with her hair out has been followed due to the ‘dance’ element in the song. 

Where lighting is considered, when it came to shooting in the drama studio, I had set the lights differently for both studio shoots. For the Artist performer, I had two lights besides her, roughly around 3 metres away from her, alongside one behind her right shoulder, slight in the corner. I wanted a black background with the performer standing out which went successful as I wanted to a connection between the performer and the audience, with the emotion created with the black studio as it puts the performer in the spotlight as the audience would only be focused on them instead of the extra props.  In the ballet performance scenes, there is mild sepia tone to them, which gives this mood to the music video. 

The performer has to be key aspect of the music video as they need to be able to portray the emotions and feelings of the song through clearly. Looking at music videos by Rihanna (Diamonds), Katy B (Still), Ellie Goulding (Beating Heart) and The Script (Hall of Fame), they all have an element of performance which I have been inspired to use and develop into my own music video. I needed someone who can clearly portray a typical ‘break up’ feeling.  Natalie is a drama student and she is great in performing, her confidence proved she can fit perfect in the part; furthermore Holly is an experienced ballerina who also showed confidence and had bought in some emotions through her performance/dance routine. 

Overall, I believe that I have used, developed and challenged all conventions of real media products; there is a strong use of relations of visuals and music alongside performance being on spot to create a relationship with the audience. Typical camera shots, editing and mise-en-scene were conventions where I have developed and slightly challenged for my own media product. 

Magazine Advert

When it came to the creation of my magazine advert, as a target audience myself, I was able to know what could typically attract the audience, and with this option, the conventions were clearly used and adapted to fit in with this genre of music of R&B.  

In terms of my draft of my digipak, I decided to use a red kiss mark as the front cover, firstly because the album name ‘little red’ signifies something to do with love and with the image of the red lips, it signifies some sort of love letter left behind as a goodbye.

Camera –

Mise-en- scene – image of the red lips and the kiss with red gradient font to white – the image links in with the album name ‘little red’. As when the word red is said, immediately there are connotations of love.

Editing – manipulation of the image and text – position of the text at the top and the bottom

I have done portrait and landscape version of the magazine adverts. 

Digipak

In terms of the draft of my digipak, it digipak follows the same image as the magazine advert. It follows the same house style of red, black and white alongside the positioning of the images and the layout of the text matching.

Front cover features the album name and the artist alongside the image.

Inside pages – the second page features an image of Natalie with a thank you message for the fans. The Cd page has got the CD on it with its potential look of it. There is text written on the edges with the name of the album written on the top.

Back page – the album name and below is the tracklist – in a style of few digipaks I have seen – I have used and developed this convention to my own media product. I also included institutional information such as the barcode, CD format, social media and the production information. I have once again followed typical conventions that are commonly seen in digipaks.

Question 4 – How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Question 4 – How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

In order to construct my three media products; a music video, an album magazine advert and a digipak, it was vital that the use of technology was fully used. I consider myself lucky as there is a lot of professional resources where I have the ability to use. It’s very important that all of the technologies are used resourcefully whilst in the process of creating all the three tasks.

CAMERA
Media technologies has developed and progressed me to reach to the construction part of the project by using them to research for music genres, style of music videos and their conventions, then to planning out my music video, in terms of initial ideas, mood board and preproduction documents such as call sheets and floor plan. Then moving onto the constructing part, where camera and equipment were the main technologies to shooting and Premier was important for the editing stage.
With a range of media technologies just for filming and editing enabled me to understand functions of them. When it came to shooting my footage I used a Canon 600D SLR set on manual settings which meant I had to set up the aperture, ISO and the shutter speed. It was a new experience for me as compared to AS, I set up my photo-shoot to be shot in automatic settings, but as I am working with moving image, certain features such as the ISO and aperture may have to be set up due to the location of where I am shooting. For both my studio and outdoor shoot, I put my camera in the following settings: Prime aperture lens of 1.8mm, this is to allow more light and create a shallow focus and used for both indoor and outdoor. The shutter speed was 1/50 alongside with the ISO setting on 200-600, so that no grainy footage and images and gave the footage more of a HD look. The advantage of using a digital camera rather than a film camera is that I can spontaneously make decisions straight after taking an image or footage by reviewing it. This also saves time in planning out another shoot for another time whereas I can take more images and footage at the same time and same place after reviewing.  Nearly all of my shots, a tripod was used to ensure that all shots were sharp and still. If there was slight shakiness, then Premier enabled me to correct the footage by using the ‘warp stabiliser’ tool. Whenever I tried to apply this effect to the footage, it wouldn’t work and make the whole clip jump around, by asking my peers for help and staff, I learnt about the frames I shot on and there could be some complications if the settings were not right. However, there was another piece of equipment used which enabled me to shoot free hand close ups was the steadicam. The steadicam benefitted me shoot extreme close ups and move around. I achieved good quality footage that wasn’t shaky and proved to be ‘steadi’. Another equipment I used was lights, they were mainly used in the studio for the performance and the ballet performance. By having those lights set up, I could reduce my ISO on the camera and maximise the quality of the footage which also meant that the footage wasn’t grainy or pixilated.

SOFTWARE
In terms of constructing, I used Adobe Premier to edit the footage and to construct my music video. For me, this was the first time I was using Adobe Premier and had to practise by watching tutorials and create short case study analysis videos.   It seemed to be challenging at first as I had to work on a long continuous timeline. I chose Adobe Premier as the software provides a wide range of functions and effects that can be used during the editing process, the software is advanced and is commonly used in the industry. With my ancillary tasks, Adobe InDesign was the software I was very confident to use as I was already familiar with the tools and features. Adobe InDesign allowed me to create a digipak and an album magazine advert to support the music video by adding ________. In InDesign, there is a way to create two same pieces but in different layouts for example, for my album magazine advert, I made two versions, a portrait and landscape version. This tool allowed me to place images, texts and other features into one page and then it would automatically be applied to the landscape version, and it will be aligned to the exact position as the portrait one. Using these software’s has become beneficial to me due to having the opportunity to work with industry standard software.

INTERNET
The internet was the central element in this whole project because the internet provided me with information and allowed me to visit websites such as Blogger, YouTube and Google. I used Google a lot for majority of my research tasks and provides with plenty of information from many sources for any topic. Nonetheless, the internet facilitated to access many presentation websites such as Prezi and Slide share. Without this, I wouldn’t be able to research similar products of music videos, existing digipak’s and album magazine advert alongside planning out my music video by creating mood boards to using emails to contact the artist or the record label for permission and use blogger to post all the research and planning ideas.

At the start of the year, I had to create a blog for this course, the reason a blog was created is to be able to upload and share all work I have done that contributes to the planning, researching or constructing. I ensure I upload all tasks I have been doing so therefore I know what stage I am at. I used blogge­r.com to create my blog; I have been very familiar with blogger as I have used it ever since GCSE Media and AS Media, which meant that I wasn’t wasting my time into specifically setting up my blog. My blog portrayed my progress over the past 8-10 months of this project and were portrayed by using different presentation platforms via internet such as Prezi, Slide share and YouTube which enabled me to upload word documents such as the shot list and the rushes log via Slide share. Prezi is an online presentation platform that gives presentation a more creative and dynamic view to it. It was easy to use and made presentation more intriguing to watch rather than a basic PowerPoint and enabled me to present my thoughts clearly and make them look visually appealing. YouTube was also used to that I can access nearly any music video from any type of music genre, and get inspiration from them. YouTube was a platform where I was able to share my own work to the world by uploading a few raw footage, the many drafts of my music video and anamatic. Furthermore, my smartphone was another root to access internet and apps. I downloaded apps such as YouTube and blogger alongside Prezi to do some work via phone/tablet.

Question 4 - Plan/Draft

Question 4 – How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

•Softwares – Indesign /Photoshop – similar tools

•Premier – multicam, layers, images, time remapping, slow motion, footage, single frame advanced, motion, adjustment layers, lip syncing,

•After effects  - filters, key light, layers

•Camera – All camera setting are in manual  - Prime aperture lens of 1.8mm (allows more light and creates a shallow focus), 1/50 shutter speed, ISO 200-600 (no grainy images and footage, sharp footage (HD) –Cannon 600D SLR, alongside a 16GB SD card. Review the image or footage captured instantly and make decision then and there rather than planning out another shoot for anther time. Spontaneous decision making.

•Lighting equipment – Diffuser light, studio lights (4) for Studio shoot (actor and ballet performer)

•No lighting equipment for outdoor shoot.

•Internet to access google, YouTube – search specific music video for similar product research and inspiration, blogger  - post all work (planning and research)