Here is our finished project, a music video to "Summer Of 69" by Bryan Adams. I'm very happy with how the video turned out and thoroughly enjoyed working on the piece.
Monday, 11 February 2013
Friday, 18 January 2013
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Evaluation question 3: What have you learned from your audiencefeedback?
The first time audience feedback had an influence on our work was during the target audience research, where we developed a questionnaire and interviewed members of our chosen target audience (white men aged 17 and over) about what they like to see in a video from the rock genre.
The feedback we received after the pitch was incredibly useful as it really helped shape the video, for example one of the key images in the video is a guitar however the actor we cast as the singer at the time couldn't play the guitar. The feedback session helped here as after the pitch someone suggested we keep the top of the guitar out of shot, that way the audience wouldn't see that the actor was playing the wrong chords.
However after watching the video during the construction stage of the video the feedback we received was that hiding the top of the guitar worked on close ups but not on the wider shots meaning that on the whole the guitar work look incredibly unconvincing.
This led to recasting the singer and changing the shape of the story from basing the entire video around the singer, to having the song based around the events in the video shown by the narrative protagonist. Having two distinct main characters also meant we could use interesting and original ways to link the characters. This link became a narrative opening and ending separate from the track itself, the story being that the narrative protagonist is using his past experiences shown in the video to help the singer physically write the song. Linking the characters but us in good stead for the next feedback session, this was because the class felt that the video was becoming repetitive so we were able to use this link and build upon it by having footage of them collaborating on the song become part of the video. This was a good idea as it added lighter moments to the video and prevented repetition. The feedback we received that lead to these changes was to my mind the most important as it provided us with a new shape and direction for the video which is what we stuck with and gave us a good foundation to build towards our finished piece.
After the video was complete I posted it on my Facebook page to gain as much audience feedback as possible for the finished piece. The reason I did this was to market the video to as many members of our target audience as possible and as our target audience our 17 year olds and over using social networking was the best way to reach them as the majority are extremely well connected because of websites such as Facebook.
In terms of feedback for our ancillary tasks, this started with showing the class our first drafts for the digipak.
If we were to do the project again one thing I'd do differently is to hold proper auditions to see if people we want in the video can actually do what we ask to a good standard. This means we'd avoid the problem we had with re-casting and having to re-shoot a large amount of the video.
Finally when we showed the finished video to the class the feedback we received was that:
The idea behind the video was a good one however some of they felt that some of the scenes were their for padding. One that was highlighted was the scenes with the singer on a flight of stairs performing, as the class felt the scenes didn't look right. There were mixed reviews about the narrative opening and ending, as some people really liked them but some thought they were overly cheesey. Overall though I feel they were got a good reception. There were also mixed reviews about the tracking shot showing the band from behind, but again I feel this was well received overall, however the class did say that the lighting on the tracking shot and various other performance shots was too dark. A criticism of the narrative scenes was that the "couples scene" looked awkward and staged, however they enjoyed our use of transitions, in the video particularly in the break up scene.
One thing we learnt was that a popular type of video is a cross over video, containing both performance and narrative aspects. This gave us confidence as were planning to make a cross over video and learning that these videos were popular, meant we could confidently decide what video we were going to make and then focus on making the content of the video as good as possible.
Our next substantial feedback session was when we had a firm idea on what we wanted our video to be and then pitched this idea to the class.
The feedback we received after the pitch was incredibly useful as it really helped shape the video, for example one of the key images in the video is a guitar however the actor we cast as the singer at the time couldn't play the guitar. The feedback session helped here as after the pitch someone suggested we keep the top of the guitar out of shot, that way the audience wouldn't see that the actor was playing the wrong chords.
However after watching the video during the construction stage of the video the feedback we received was that hiding the top of the guitar worked on close ups but not on the wider shots meaning that on the whole the guitar work look incredibly unconvincing.
This led to recasting the singer and changing the shape of the story from basing the entire video around the singer, to having the song based around the events in the video shown by the narrative protagonist. Having two distinct main characters also meant we could use interesting and original ways to link the characters. This link became a narrative opening and ending separate from the track itself, the story being that the narrative protagonist is using his past experiences shown in the video to help the singer physically write the song. Linking the characters but us in good stead for the next feedback session, this was because the class felt that the video was becoming repetitive so we were able to use this link and build upon it by having footage of them collaborating on the song become part of the video. This was a good idea as it added lighter moments to the video and prevented repetition. The feedback we received that lead to these changes was to my mind the most important as it provided us with a new shape and direction for the video which is what we stuck with and gave us a good foundation to build towards our finished piece.
After the video was complete I posted it on my Facebook page to gain as much audience feedback as possible for the finished piece. The reason I did this was to market the video to as many members of our target audience as possible and as our target audience our 17 year olds and over using social networking was the best way to reach them as the majority are extremely well connected because of websites such as Facebook.
In terms of feedback for our ancillary tasks, this started with showing the class our first drafts for the digipak.
The feedback we received was that the class liked our idea to have a photo of the artist as the main image and they also liked how we had the text running down rather than across the front cover. It was here we received arguably our most useful piece of feedback, to market the digipak as a single rather than an entire album so we could include more imagery in the digipak. The reason this was so important was because having it marketed in this way shaped both our ancillary tasks as it gave us lots of still images to work with and allowed us to follow the convention of giving the digipak and magazine advert the same main image.
If we were to do the project again one thing I'd do differently is to hold proper auditions to see if people we want in the video can actually do what we ask to a good standard. This means we'd avoid the problem we had with re-casting and having to re-shoot a large amount of the video.
Finally when we showed the finished video to the class the feedback we received was that:
The idea behind the video was a good one however some of they felt that some of the scenes were their for padding. One that was highlighted was the scenes with the singer on a flight of stairs performing, as the class felt the scenes didn't look right. There were mixed reviews about the narrative opening and ending, as some people really liked them but some thought they were overly cheesey. Overall though I feel they were got a good reception. There were also mixed reviews about the tracking shot showing the band from behind, but again I feel this was well received overall, however the class did say that the lighting on the tracking shot and various other performance shots was too dark. A criticism of the narrative scenes was that the "couples scene" looked awkward and staged, however they enjoyed our use of transitions, in the video particularly in the break up scene.
on the whole the class enjoyed the video and thought it was well done.
Evaluation question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Audio file answer to evaluation question 2
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
Evaluation Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
To answer this question I'm first going to look at the conventions of music videos, these conventions are:
To have specific reoccurring themes, such as love, rejection or wealth. Another convention is to focus on the artist or specifically if the artist is a band, the camera will focus on the person who's seen as the leader of the band, this is conventionally the lead singer. They are focused on through a use of close ups in regards to camera work in a performance video. But they can also be highlighted if it's a narrative video by having the story built around them. An example is Telephone by Lady Gaga.
Our chosen genre was the rock genre, in order to make the best music video possible it was important to have a good understanding of generic conventions specific to our chosen genre. An example of one of these generic conventions is the costume is often jeans, T-shirt and some form of jacket which is either, denim, leather or a long coat.
Another convention we followed was that are costume was the conventional jeans, T-shirt and some form of jacket. I feel we also broke this convention because at one point in the narrative based scenes one of the characters wears a hoodie and that is something that isn't associated with the rock genre. I feel hoodies are more heavily associated with the pop or rap genres. Are pace of editing is also conventional as its medium at the start of the song but then speeds up as the song goes on.
Finally a convention that both digipaks and magazine adverts share is having the name of the artist bigger than the name of the album. I feel this is because that often an artist is more recognisable than an album or specific song. An example of this convention being followed on a digipak is "Dark Horse" by Nickelback.
To have specific reoccurring themes, such as love, rejection or wealth. Another convention is to focus on the artist or specifically if the artist is a band, the camera will focus on the person who's seen as the leader of the band, this is conventionally the lead singer. They are focused on through a use of close ups in regards to camera work in a performance video. But they can also be highlighted if it's a narrative video by having the story built around them. An example is Telephone by Lady Gaga.
Our chosen genre was the rock genre, in order to make the best music video possible it was important to have a good understanding of generic conventions specific to our chosen genre. An example of one of these generic conventions is the costume is often jeans, T-shirt and some form of jacket which is either, denim, leather or a long coat.
Another convention is that videos are often entirely performance this is to show how much the artist performing and how they want people to focus on the music rather than a storyline of a narrative based video. However cross over videos are also popular in the genre. An example of an entirely performance based video is "Shoot to Thrill" by AC/DC, an example of a cross over video is "Gives You Hell" by All American Rejects. In terms of acting in a performance video the artist has open body language and a happy facial expression if they want to focus on and highlight how much they enjoy performing in the video. If however they want thier performance to reflect on the themes of the lyrics then the artist's body language is more tense and their facial expression is more serious or in some cases neutral in order to focus on the lyrics. Conventional pace of editing is usually medium to fast pace depending on the tempo of the song. Again "Shoot to Thrill" and "Gives You Hell" are good examples of conventional editing. The lighting in the two videos are also conventional as they use high key lighting to make the artists stand out and highlight how much they enjoy performing. We developed this convention as we use a mix of high and low key lighting, to highlight the performance but also highlight the themes of regret and drifting apart.
Our music video breaks the convention of having an entirely performance based video instead our video is a cross over. However I feel that we have developed the idea of a cross over video because the opening of our video is a narrative based scene that is outside of the track itself. This is then repeated at the end of the video as the final scene is also narrative based and not part of the song. An example of a music video having narrative outside the track is "Born To Be My Baby" by Bon Jovi.
A general convention of music videos is that often women are over sexualised or portrayed as the needy "damsel in distress". The rock genre follows this convention and an example of women being over sexualised in a video is "American Badass" by Kid Rock. We chose to break this convention and made the female character more dominant when compared to the male narrative protagonist. We did this by building the narrative storyline around her leaving him and how he wants more from here and at times seems he's struggling to let go. This is made apparent in the opening of the video when he asks the singer "Did I ever tell you about the girlfriend I had a few years ago". I feel in a way we not only broke the convention but reversed it as it's the male character who comes across as needy at times. An example of a music video that has the woman as the dominant character in a couple is "Tears Don't Fall" by Bullet For My Valentine. Having said that there is a difference between the video for "Tears Don't Fall" and our own because although the woman is the most dominant character by the end of the video, there is still a highly sexual element to her that isn't in our video.
One convention we did follow is the use of a guitar in the video, this a rock genre generic convention as guitars feature in nearly all rock videos in some way. I feel this is because the guitar is synonymous with the rock genre, and images of guitars have connotations of rock songs and concerts. Also guitars have provided some of the most memorable moments in rock videos and the songs themselves. For example the opening rifts to "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead and "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. In regards to memorable moments in videos, I feel one of the best is in the video for "November Rain" by Guns 'N' Roses, when Slash begins to play outside the church where one of the narrative based scenes is set. In terms of our locations, they are conventional as the performance scenes are set on a stage and the narrative locations show the isolation of the protagonist but also reflect the more upbeat lyrics, an example is when the singer and narrative protagonist play fight on the lyric "Young and restless".
When we began work on the ancillary tasks I felt it was important to have a good understanding of the conventions of digipaks and magazine adverts as well. An example of a digipak convention is that it has a basic colour scheme consisting of no more than three colours, conventionally this colour scheme includes any text on the digipak. A good example of a digipak following this convention is "Only By The Night" by Kings Of Leon. Another convention of a digipak is that the main image of the front cover is an image of the artist or a piece of original artwork that is significant to the artist (As seen on "Only By The Night). An example of the artist being the main image of the front cover is "Reckless" by Bryan Adams.
Another convention is brand identity, this applies to both ancillary tasks and what brand identity is, is a tag line, image or logo that gains instant recognition for the artist and helps set the mood for the audience. Which is why a convention of magazine adverts is to use the digipak's front cover as it's main image as well as having the same font and colour scheme. You can see that these conventions are followed when we compare the "Only By The Night" digipak with the magazine advert used to promote it.
Finally a convention that both digipaks and magazine adverts share is having the name of the artist bigger than the name of the album. I feel this is because that often an artist is more recognisable than an album or specific song. An example of this convention being followed on a digipak is "Dark Horse" by Nickelback.
Here is our digipak:
We followed the convention of having a photo of the artist as the main image of the front cover, so we could promote the artist as much as possible, this why their is an image of the artist one of the inside panel as well. Also because we made the digipak as a single rather than a whole album it meant we could promote the video as well. We did this by having a photo of the singer and the video's narrative protagonist as the main image for the back panel. The convention is also followed on the other inside panel because the main image is a photo collage of various stills from the video and other footage that wasn't used in the final cut. This links to the convention as it's an example of artwork significant to the artist. We also followed the convention of a three colour, colour scheme. In our case these colours were red, white and black.
A convention that we broke is that the titles of the artist and album are the same size, this because we want to promote both as much as possible.
One convention that's specific to magazine adverts is to have ratings from critics on the advert. This is used to help promote the album and artist because if people see that an independent source thinks highly of the product then they will be encouraged to buy the album. Another convention is to include the logo of specific retailers on the advert, such as HMV or itunes. This is to show people where to buy the album and it adds to the sense of an independent voice promoting the album. Having a specific song mentioned on the advert is also a convention because often people will know an album because of one song. An example of a magazine advert following these conventions is the advert for "Wake Me Up When September ends".
Here is our magazine advert:
Once again we broke the convention of having the name of the artist bigger than the name of the album, because we wanted to promote both as much as possible. A convention we followed was having the same main image as the digipak as well as the same colour scheme and font as the digipak. This was so we could add to the Brand Identity of our product and have as much chance of gaining instant recognition from the audience as possible. Another convention we followed was to include the web adresses for the artist's Facebook and Twitter pages, as well as his official website, www.bryanadams.com we did this to promote the artist as much as possible. We also followed the convention of including critics ratings to help with promotion, as well as mentioning a specific song. However both the digipak and magazine advert we made around releasing "Summer of 69" as a single rather than a whole album. Finally we followed the convention of having the logos of retailers and the artist's record label on the advert. This was so we could promote the album to a wide a market as possible.This was added to when we developed the convention by including a smart phone scanner on the advert as well. Another reason it was a good idea to include these logos is that because they don't fit the colour scheme they stand out against the white background, helping to grab the audience's attention.
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Finished magazine advert
Here is our finished magazine advert
The reason we chose the font, background, and image is because they are the same on the digipak, this adds to the brand identity of the product and follows the convention of having the digipak front cover as the main image of the advert. Also we included the critic's rating because if it looks like an outside source thinks highly of the album more people will be encouraged to buy it.
Analysis of a student's magazine advert
The past student magazine advert I'm going to analyse is for the Foo Fighters song "The Pretender"
I like the use of the animated characters, and a mix of red and black text on a white background as it makes everything stand out. However I do feel that there isn't enough on the advert, this causes the white background to hinder as well as help it. This is because the overall lack of imagery on the white background makes the advert come across as sterile and unfeeling. This isn't helped by the facial expressions of the cartoon band have blank slightly sad looking facial expressions. I feel this is wrong as the rock genre is full of passion and feeling. This is evident when we look at the official video to "The Pretender".
The use of the animated band members is eye catching but I think they look amateurish and therefore lose some of their effect as if an audience see a badly drawn advert they often won't give it much thought. This means the advert can't promote the artist and album as well as it should. However including the animation does add to the brand identity of the product as they feature on the student's digipak, they also follow the convention of having the band in simple costume of jeans and T-shirts, this also adds to brand identity as the Dave Grohl cartoon has the Foo Fighters logo on his T-shirt.
Overall I feel this advert has potential that hasn't been fulfilled.
I like the use of the animated characters, and a mix of red and black text on a white background as it makes everything stand out. However I do feel that there isn't enough on the advert, this causes the white background to hinder as well as help it. This is because the overall lack of imagery on the white background makes the advert come across as sterile and unfeeling. This isn't helped by the facial expressions of the cartoon band have blank slightly sad looking facial expressions. I feel this is wrong as the rock genre is full of passion and feeling. This is evident when we look at the official video to "The Pretender".The use of the animated band members is eye catching but I think they look amateurish and therefore lose some of their effect as if an audience see a badly drawn advert they often won't give it much thought. This means the advert can't promote the artist and album as well as it should. However including the animation does add to the brand identity of the product as they feature on the student's digipak, they also follow the convention of having the band in simple costume of jeans and T-shirts, this also adds to brand identity as the Dave Grohl cartoon has the Foo Fighters logo on his T-shirt.
Overall I feel this advert has potential that hasn't been fulfilled.
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