Evaluation

Evaluation for media

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Music videos in general have the same basic idea. Performance or Narrative is always used on top of music to create an image of the genre or the star. We decided to use both as the song had a clear meaning which could easily be interpreted by a narrative but we didn’t want to lose the performance aspect that is often used with this genre of rock. Lyrics in songs tend to establish a general feeling and mood to the song for example the Avril Lavigne song ’when your gone’ makes the audience feel the emotions of the title trough the narrative. For our video we have developed this, as a sad song of heartbreak, we created the mood firstly with the colour of the video, black and white, and also with the visual narrative of the relationship break up. The story line used to show the heartbreak was simply that of two young lovers fighting and arguing which has been used in a few videos including Avril Lavigne.
Often there is a direct link between the lyrics and the visuals for example in evanesences video she is having a nightmare in her room while the lyrics say 'my spirit sleeping somewhere cold'. We decided to illustrate this by using the lyric ‘you throw stones’ and a long shot of stones being thrown with rage. Music videos also use the pace of the video to show a relationship between the music and the visuals. For our video I edited the beginning sequence by slowing it down as the tempo of the track at the beginning is very slow and sad. This was contrasted by the quick pace and more cuts used in the editing for the chorus which had an electrical guitar and loud rock base. The cuts therefore became shorter than the beginning making the video look faster. We tried to include the video style and iconography often used in rock videos by using shots of a live stage performance. The singing on the stage and head banging is typical of this genre and we felt that we had to include this.
Music videos are designed not only to sell the song but also the artist. For this reason most record companies demand close ups of the artist we can see this in avril lavignes video were there are constant close-ups of her singing. By using close ups of the singer we aimed to make the audience aware of her look and also create a sense of intimacy for the viewer. These shots were mainly used to show her sadness and by showing her crying we wanted to make the viewer share the emotions with the artist. We also tried to create a star iconography feel to her by making her wear black which is typical of the rock genre and also big silver earrings which are typical of the hip-hop/soul culture; this showed the contrast of her sound. However most rock videos have a band with instruments and are only performance based, I noticed this a lot in evanescence’s video. This means we have challenged the conventions of the genre of this music video as we didn’t have any instruments and a band.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The house style of my ancillary text was black with red and white. I chose this because the black represented the dark, rock style and image of the artist. However the red was used to represent the song name; heartbeat was represented with the colour as it symbolizes the blood that is in your heart. The white was used to contrast both colours and make the title and name stand out. The video also included this house style as it was black and white however we couldn’t use the colour as it wouldn’t be as effective at giving it an edgy, modern and sad look. The ancillary text and the video both had images of the artist however the difference was that in the video her hair was out and she has big earrings whereas in the cover she has her hair back and no earrings. This therefore doesn’t show the iconography that is surrounding even though her face is recognizable. Another form of conventions I noticed on digipaks and cd covers was that they often kept the font the same for everything with the artists name on it. I tried to do this as much as possible to create an iconography look to her name itself. I also tried to do this with the name heartbeat as the symbol which is in the writing makes it look more professional. I think that my video combined with the ancillary text was effective at showing the brand of the singer. This is because I kept to the house style of black and white as much as I could to represent her dark style of music: - rock in both the video and the Cd whilst always keeping the hip hop/soul style in her voice trough her appearance. For example, by her use of big earrings and trainers.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
The audience feedback gave me a wide range of opinions. First of all it is clear that everyone loved the video and that they thought highly of it. Some of the comments were: - ’I thought it was excellent’, ‘video was very creative and professional, you could see how much hard work and thought was put into it. I liked the fact that it wasn’t stereotypical and matched the style of the song’, ‘it actually looked like a real music video, the storyline suited the song’,’ it looks like you put a lot of effort into it and the results were awesome’ and ‘I like the way the song showed the story behind it’ however they did find some flaws. For example the first person we asked said that ‘it was just black and white’ this might put off some members of the audience as they find this style outdated. We could have instead used a contrast of colours to show the contrast in style of the song. The second person also said that ‘maybe you should stick to the conventions of your genre a little bit more ‘this was something we had a problem in doing as the song has a mixture of two genres, Rock and hip hop/soul. However as the instrumental is rock we could have used instruments to make it a rock video. A convention often used in this genre. The third person added by saying ‘I found it a little scary ‘ this could be a problem if we were to target a younger audience but as most rock videos are aimed at teens I don’t think this was a big problem. The main criticism came from the last person questioned who found that ‘the camera was shaking a little’ this was used by us purposely when she began to dance to the music and head bang as well as when we see the ‘before’ shots of the couple filming themselves and being happy. Next time we could leave this out and use clips filmed from different angles by a camera on a tripod.

this is what the youtube page looks like :-

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

The research and planning
After downloading the track on ‘itunes’, which is an internet software ,I began my research by going on the internet to search the artist. This helped me to grasp the concept of the song and allowed me to watch the original video on ‘youtube’ which I didn’t like much. Next I analysed two videos which I found to have a similar concept and genre. We used cameras to take pictures of possible locations and then used the memory card slots on my laptop to upload them. After this I created a blog on blogspot.com which I later used to upload all my work on. I created the production schedule again using Microsoft word as it allowed me to make a table. We also researched stuff like looks for the artist, props we could use and other ideas on the internet, which consisted of a lot of searching on Google. For my ancillary text I used real digipak’s as well as images of digipak’s from online sources.

The production
As I was playing Nneka in the video I didn’t get to shoot much of the video. However I did learn how to use the video camera to shoot the bedroom scène of ‘the boyfriend having a nightmare‘. This was great fun and I loved playing with the angles. I also used a tripod which was very useful as it helped me keep it the shots steady. After uploading these shots and the rest that my group had made of me, we began to edit them. We used ‘imovie’ by Apple. You can see how much I loved this software in my article ‘how to make a music video’ as it was so simple and allowed me to make the video and music go together. We also used it to slow and fasten the pace of the video to make it go with the pace of the music. After this I had the option of exporting the video onto you tube or onto the desktop. I decided to do both although they took a long time. After the video was uploaded onto you tube I copied and pasted the link onto my blog so that the examiner could watch it on the blog rather than having to look for it on you tube. For my ancillary text I used illustrator and Photoshop. First of all I had to Photoshop the images , cut out the background, feather it and edit the colours. Then I created the backrounds for the poster and digital using photoshop’s brushes. After this they were imported onto illustrator where I put them together with all the writing and information it needed.

this is an image of what imovie looks like :-




Evaluation
To be able to evaluate my work I realised I needed some audience feedback. I decided to upload my video to ‘facebook’ and ‘youtube’ where anyone could watch it and give us any critism. This was helpful as it was already typed up and wasn’t biased as they didn’t know who made it. I also used the polls to gain feedback although this limited the comments as I could only include questions that had yes and no answers.

this is what the facebook page looked like :-

Ancillery text final

Poster





Final Digipak




Close ups

Drafts of Ancillary texts

Draft Of Poster




Draft of Digipak

Analysis of Digipak and Poster

The artist in the front cover of the digipak is shown from a low angle which is shows his importance and makes it look as though we are idolising his image. The lighting is used on his back to create a shadow which might represent the darkness of his image. His rock style is also portrayed by the clothing that he is wearing, the all black and tight clothing shows the punk style of the music he makes. The use of the guitar also shows this and its white colour makes it stand out showing its importance to the style of music the artist makes. The use of an image of his back shows that the artist is so big that we don’t need to see his face to recognise him. The image shows him pointing his finger and his arm is stretched out, this was used to symbolise the bullet.

The use of black clothing and its contrast against the other two colours might represent its importance as it stands out and creates an image of darkness which represents the bands image. The band often use the colour black which is symbolic to their gothic look. The title of the digipak is bullet in a bible; therefore the use of red is symbolic to the blood that is spilt from the use of bullets. The white font is used as a contrast from the dark image shown by the other two colours. This makes the title and name stand out more.
The style of the digipak does represent the genre of music. First of all the images are slanted which shows the alternative style of music. The images shown in a filmstrip style at the back show the continuity and pace of the music. This is because there are 6 different images montage to make one image of the band playing live. The design used on the images to make them red and edgy makes the pictures look worn away and old. This is used to show their gothic image.

The packaging is laid out to have a front cover of the lead singer with another image on the inside. The second image is of another band member, as the image is hidden until you open the digipak, it is showing that this member is not as important in the band. The third band member is shown as the least important member as his image is covered up by the cd. Then there is a cd with the band on it, the image is black and white, again showing their dark gothic image. On the back we have the credits. These are the names of all the people who were involved in the making of the digipak and the music. The last side is the back. This show the song names with images of the band live. It says who produced the music and who directed produced and engineered it. At the bottom we have a barcode, the logos of the record company, DVD video, compact disc digital audio and Dolby digital. It also has the website of the band and the record company next to the copyright details.



This magazine advertisement has all the conventions of poster used to promote a CD. First of all we can see that they have used a big image of the artists to promote him. They used a lot of Photoshop brushes especially at the back to show what kind of genre he represents. The use of the graffiti spills , tattoos and the tower blocks shows me that his music is urban. They made his name and the CD title very eye-catching by making their font the biggest so that it stands out. We can also see that they tried to sell the CD by including other names of people who are featured. The typical features which are necessary for these advertisements were also used. These include :- Song/Album title, Artist name ,Release date, Where is it available to purchase (HMV, itunes) ,website name (myspace) and record label (movement).

Images taken for ancillary texts

Taken by Lorena Montes

final version of video edited by Lorena and Siham. Filmed by danny and siham

Click on full screen and HD for the best quality.
or watch on youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ajoqoJWTWE

Rough Cut of video edited by Lorena and Siham Filmed by Danny , heather and siham

Best viewed on full screen and HD. or watch on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh243HymGJE

Production Schedule and How to make a video by Lorena

How to make a Music video by Lorena Montes

1. Plan what shots your going to make
If using performances make sure you learn the lyrics to mime to.
Have the song ready in a cd inscape you need to upload it to the computer when editing and for when you start performing.
Have a tripod ready or a dolly (moving tripod with wheels) for them steady shots.

2. When filming always remember that the audience don’t want to see a video where the camera is all over the place because this can make them dizzy. always try to use a tripod whenever you can because when it comes to editing it will make it much easier.
The performer needs to pronounce every letter in order for you to get the miming perfect. This also needs to be at the same pace as the song if you want it to look realistic. To make it easier for yourself have the song playing loud so that when it comes to editing you know what part goes with the song.

3.once you’ve got your main footage you can now start uploading the clips to the computer. Using the imovie by apple is very simple, so start playing about with the shots you have so that you know what your missing, if your shots are steady and if it looks good. At the same time you are also exploring the program and learning how to change the clips.

4. At this point you often realise that you have to shoot more scenes so after this is where the fun begins. You are now ready to start editing, you have your song on the program and all you have to do now is cut the clips to the size you want them and drag them into where the song is. The clips shouldn’t be too long as the audience may lose attention so remember to cut them down and mix them about. The precision timer was very helpful as it makes synchronising the miming very easy but remember to mute of the sound of the clip after your happy with it. Another good feature the imovie has is the clip trimmer which helps you make a clip smaller or shorter in one easy step. The effects including speeding up and slowing down the clips helps when there is a narrative story going on in the video as you can make it change to the pace of the song. The transitions where brilliant although remember you want your video to look professional! This means don’t go over the board with the types of transitions as its best to stick to 3 or less.

5. Following the steps above will make your video look as professional as can be but always remember to go over the clips and make them perfect. This may mean you need to crop them so that it focuses on one particular person or you might want to change the clip to black and white to give it that extra edge. All I can advise you to do is explore with the program and so that you can learn whilst making your video. Good luck!

Summary of Plan by Lorena and Summary of Artist by Siham

Summary of Plan by Lorena

The video needs to have a dark effect as the song is very powerful. The rock sound of the song suggests to us that we should create an evil image of either the artists or someone else in the video. This type of genre tends to be sad and it would be great if we could portray this in our video.

The song itself contains lyrics of heartbreak. We could use this to show the picture of the song. By this I mean we can create a story about a relationship break up between a couple. This should be quiet sad so we think we should show how happy they were before the fight and the argument that broke them up too.

However the mood of the song changes half way in to a more powerful base meaning that the pace of the video needs to be faster and edgier. For this reason we have decided that we need to add a twist to the story. This is where the concept of the boy having a nightmare about his girlfriend stalking him comes from.

The image we want to portray of the artist is very complex. First of all as in all videos we have to sell the artist so we have to make her look appealing to the audience. This can be hard to achieve as she has to show her sadness and heartbreak which may make her look less appealing and not star like.

However we can achieve a combination of the two by having beauty shots of her. By this I mean shots of her not singing just looking at the camera and looking like an artist. This should contrast nicely with the shots of her crying and then becoming ‘obsessed’ and stalking her boyfriend.

The video itself needs to portray the story but we want to make sure it can look like a real video by making sure we sell the artists image as well.






Summary of Artist by Siham




Nneka From Nigeria is a Hamburg resident, Singer/Songwriter Roots sensation Nneka is back following her highly acclaimed debut album 'Victim of Truth' which the Sunday Times in the United Kingdom described to be 'as good as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'. Even though Nneka sings more than raps, she names hip hop as her primary musical root and most important source of inspiration. Her lyrics reflect much of her history and life in Nigeria as well as her time spent in Western Europe. Her songs stress the issues of capitalism, poverty and war and are often loaded with moral and biblical messages and references. She admits she feels at home on stage performing whether to an army of fans at festivals or busking on the streets of London. Now armed with a growing reputation as a consummate live performer, she continues to tour and gig across Europe with the likes of fellow compatriot R&B group Styl-Plus, dancehall superstar Sean Paul, Seeed, Bilal and Gnarls Barkley at the same time working on the completion of her studies in Germany (Anthropology) whilst recording new songs.

Animatic made and storboard by Heather Aromin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsLE8gAXi8g

Synopsis, Conventions of Genre and Location Lists

Synopsis by heather and siham

This song is about the pain and heartache that a female goes through, in which this is shown in the video. At the beginning of our video we will see a female starting off the song singing in a park, showing her pain and reminiscing of the pain she was put through by her partner. in this we will have flashback images of them arguing. The following scene we have the boy at home trying to turn the TV on but i doesn't work until he hits it. after a while he goes off to sleep but keeps on having nightmares of his girlfriend who turns into having an obsession with him and generates an anger toward him which he see in his nightmare. throughout the video we see cut back clips of him tossing and turning constantly in his sleep; flashbacks of the couple together are seen in this stage. midway we see a complete different side to the artist (the girl) as she turns devilish and completely crazy to the point she follows him home and looks into his window while sleeping. Towards the end we see her crawling towards him up his bed whilst he is sleeping and then he wakes up to find her not there and it was all a nightmare.

Conventions of Genre by Siham
The genre we have used is in between urban soul and rock. I say this because i feel that the song "heartbeat" begins slow and then midway of the song the bass of the beat then kicks in. Our song inflicts aspects of rock as it is remixed by chase and status. The genre rock is known for its heavy, over the top bass and instruments; in our video we hear this more towards midway of the song. Over the years Rock has changed it has gone from progressive rock to glam rock to soft, hard and heavy metal rock Our song lies between soft and progressive rock as it dose not have the profound bass of the instruments from the beginning. The urban side of the music comes from whats know as music that is radio fromat. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a play list made up entirely of hip/hop, rap, contemporary R&B, more urban-styled pop. Urban contemporary was developed through the characteristics of genres such as R&B and soul. Our artist Nneka herself is listed as a R&B, souland hip/hop singer.


Location Lists by Siham pictures by Lorena Montes
This is one of the locations we used to shoot the music video.
This location is Arbour Square Tower Hamlets, London E1, UK.
we actually used this location for the first couple of scenes in our music video.



This location is Albert Gardens Tower Hamlets, London E1, UK.



This is the images of the room we plan to use for the bed scenes
- taken by danny antoine

Lyric Annotation by danny and Target Audeince by Lorena

Heartbeat By Nneka(chase and statues Remix)






Target Audinece by Lorena Montes
Our target audience is varied. the music genre is a mix of urban and rock therefore it has a wide audience . Urban music and soul is widely listen to by the ethic minorities and as it has become so mainstream that everyone listens to it. Rock music is widely listen to through out the world by everyone. this remix means that the genre will appeal to everyone however the music is tageted at young people over the age of 15 this doesnt limit the genre too much as these are the people more likely to buy the song and watch the video.

Analysis of real music videos

Avril Lavigne- when your gone



The first video I have analysed is by the artist Avril Lavigne, it’s called ‘When Your Gone’. The genre of this music video is ‘pop-rock’. There are many characteristics for the ‘pop rock’ genre such as guitars, drums and a narrative is used with a limited amount of performance. In this video we see the artist playing a piano which is an instrument; however it is not something that you would normally associate with the ‘rock’ genre which always uses guitars and drums and therefore it could be said that she is challenging the conventions. This video also doesn’t really have a dark and aggressive tone to it, but it does convey emotions.
There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals which is shown throughout the entire video. There are many examples of this relationship for example when she says ‘when you’re gone’ we can see the man leaving for war. Also when she says ‘my own’ we see a girl by herself looking sad. We see sad emotions when the artist says ‘cry’ and we see the girl leaving when Avril Lavigne says ‘gone’. All of these are examples of relationship between the lyrics and visuals. One of the clearest examples is when the lyrics say ‘i miss you’ and we actually see the man saying it or when the text message says ‘i miss you’. This therefore shows that the video was trying to convey the message very clearly in the video.
The relationship between the music and the visuals are also very noticeable. The video does not cut to the beat but it does follow the pace of the music. When the pace of the music is slow the video is in slow motion and as the music gets faster we see more cuts and action / movement. The drums are used to add to the effect when the house is being destroyed and the buildings are falling. This symbolised the noise that this activity usually makes. In this music video solo instrumental parts are illustrated, for example the piano is shown when we can just hear the piano playing.
The eye makeup on the artist makes her look a little gothic but not too much that it doesn’t go with the song this is used to attract both a rock genre audience as well as those who listen to pop. Her video make us feel sympathetic towards her by showing us her sad, emotional and crying. The image of the artist in this video is very different from her other video since she doesn’t look like a rebel anymore, she looks more vulnerable and innocent in this video. The artist playing the piano is a motif which has been previously used by this artist to show that she has more talent than just singing.
The notion of looking was used a couple of times. First of all they used the typical ‘looking at the star’ voyeurism that is often used in pop videos. This is used when the camera is following the star as she sings and it makes the audience watch her more closely. The boy and the girl are put on display for the audience as we watch them talk and cuddle up. This is done to add to the emotional effect that we get when they are split up by their mum. This effect was also used again as they showed the news on the tv and when we see the text message on the phone.



Evanesence- bring me



Another video that i have analysed is from a rock genre which includes some rap by Evanesence called ‘Bring me to life’. The characteristics of the ‘rock’ music genre is that there are usually many instruments seen throughout the video since it is mainly performance based. They also have a dark feel them. This music video follows the characteristics of this genre since almost all of the video is performance based; however there is a narrative which is intertwined with the actual performance. The dark tone of the music video is generated from the first scene where you can see the building being overshadowed by almost black clouds.

Some parts of the lyrics match visuals showing that there is a relationship between the two. An example of this is when the main artist, Amy Lee, says my spirit sleeping somewhere cold. We see the artist sleeping in her bed and it looks like she is having a nightmare. There is also a link between the lyrics ‘save me’ and the visuals. This is shown by the fact that she is climbing up the building towards the rapper so that he can save her. When Amy Lee says ‘only you’ she is looking directly at one of the men. This is another example of the relationship between the lyrics and visuals, however most of the lyrics are not illustrated though the visuals.

In the first part of the music video the camera moves slow to match the pace of the music, this shows the link between the music and the visuals. When the music becomes more up tempo we start to see more cuts and short scenes to match the song. The video does not cut to the beat but the video does change pace to keep with music, this can be seen from 35 seconds into the video.

At the beginning of the video there is a lot of close up shots of the artist Amy Lee. The more we progress into the video the less close up shots we see. We start to see more aerial shots of her while she is on the building and shots of her with the band in it as well. This could be because the record company don’t want the video to just be focused on her but the whole band as a whole. There are quite a few shots of the rapper, who is playing with the band in a room. Since this is the first video from the group there is no previous video to compare it to but the band have kept this same dark, gothic feel in the other music videos.

In this video the artist is not on display sexually, she is covered up and isn’t dancing. Her costume is very basic, it just a simply nightwear item. Amy Lee said that this song is related to something that happened in real life, something that someone said to her one day. Eventhough there is no intertextual references it is related to the star.

Looking at the characteristics of this video it is clear to see that they have followed the conventions of the ‘rock’ genre and havent included any 'rap' and 'hiphop' conventions.