I will answer the following questions in this evaluation of my created media products;
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1.In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2.How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4.How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The brief of my A2 media portfolio was to film,edit and create my own music video along with two ancillary texts, We were given a choice as to whether we wanted to work in a group or individually, I chose to work on my own as I wanted to have full control over everything and know that I would never be relying on anyone to do something, My original idea is completely different to what my final product is, Originally I wanted to do "Bring it on down" by Oasis, I chose this song as it carries on Oasis's trend of working class anthems with lyrics such as "You're the outcast, you're the underclass, but you don't care, because you're living fast" this line to me is referring to being jobless in a harsh economy and living off the welfare state, maybe committing petty crime and simply living for the weekend. The term "Underclass" is a phrase used by sociologist Charles Murray who describes the working class as "Idle thieving bastards" in reference to claiming benefits and having no job, due to this I wanted my video to feature a performance from the band entwined with a narrative of working class people, I had to change my song and storyboard early into the college term, This was because I had a realization that it wasn't going to be possible to do what I wanted to do due to the amount of people I wanted to feature in the video as the band, I wanted 5 people to be the band but had real issues trying to get everyone free together so in the end scrapped my idea and went for a whole new approach, with an easily accessible location and a smaller cast of three people who all lived in the area in which I wanted to film, this was also in walking distance to college so once a camera became available I would have easy access to my location. My new idea was heavily influenced by the film "Submarine" It consisted of a change of song and filming locations, My new filming locations where an area surrounding a train bridge in Hull near Wyke college and a nearby forest area, the new song was "Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend" by Arctic Monkeys, this song is about how temptation is always present and it's not always easy to walk away from, People have their reasons why they are tempted and some will always finds ways to justify their behavior, this is the narrative I wanted to put into my video, When I finally got my hands on a camera the weather had seriously deteriorated and we had thick snow, I decided I couldn't wait any longer to film as I was already behind so made it part of my idea and I am glad I did as it really helps the characters stand out against a background of purity, although this gave me the problem of once the sun had gone I wouldn't be able to film outdoor anymore as it wouldn't look right to go from a snowy shot to a sunny shot, therefore I filmed on four separate occasions in a week, two of which where full days of filming, So I have a lot of material left over on the editing suite. My Video uses a narrative structure which is commonplace in music videos of my genre and music videos in general therefore following the conventions, For my narrative and camera shots I took inspiration from the Arctic Monkeys video to "Leave before the lights come on" directed by Richard Ayoade (Shown below), The video has a "distorted" love story with no band performance in it almost like a short film, I built on this idea by also having an unclear love narrative but added small subtle performance sequences on the chorus and main verses to relate it back to the song. I kept my cinematography similar to this video as well by using fast paced walking mid shots and close ups of feet walking, also I wanted to have a lot of handheld shots to give the effect of someone following my main character also used in the Arctic Monkeys video,
(Please note: This blog displays and scrolls best in Google Chrome)
1.In what ways does your media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2.How Effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
3.What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4.How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
The brief of my A2 media portfolio was to film,edit and create my own music video along with two ancillary texts, We were given a choice as to whether we wanted to work in a group or individually, I chose to work on my own as I wanted to have full control over everything and know that I would never be relying on anyone to do something, My original idea is completely different to what my final product is, Originally I wanted to do "Bring it on down" by Oasis, I chose this song as it carries on Oasis's trend of working class anthems with lyrics such as "You're the outcast, you're the underclass, but you don't care, because you're living fast" this line to me is referring to being jobless in a harsh economy and living off the welfare state, maybe committing petty crime and simply living for the weekend. The term "Underclass" is a phrase used by sociologist Charles Murray who describes the working class as "Idle thieving bastards" in reference to claiming benefits and having no job, due to this I wanted my video to feature a performance from the band entwined with a narrative of working class people, I had to change my song and storyboard early into the college term, This was because I had a realization that it wasn't going to be possible to do what I wanted to do due to the amount of people I wanted to feature in the video as the band, I wanted 5 people to be the band but had real issues trying to get everyone free together so in the end scrapped my idea and went for a whole new approach, with an easily accessible location and a smaller cast of three people who all lived in the area in which I wanted to film, this was also in walking distance to college so once a camera became available I would have easy access to my location. My new idea was heavily influenced by the film "Submarine" It consisted of a change of song and filming locations, My new filming locations where an area surrounding a train bridge in Hull near Wyke college and a nearby forest area, the new song was "Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend" by Arctic Monkeys, this song is about how temptation is always present and it's not always easy to walk away from, People have their reasons why they are tempted and some will always finds ways to justify their behavior, this is the narrative I wanted to put into my video, When I finally got my hands on a camera the weather had seriously deteriorated and we had thick snow, I decided I couldn't wait any longer to film as I was already behind so made it part of my idea and I am glad I did as it really helps the characters stand out against a background of purity, although this gave me the problem of once the sun had gone I wouldn't be able to film outdoor anymore as it wouldn't look right to go from a snowy shot to a sunny shot, therefore I filmed on four separate occasions in a week, two of which where full days of filming, So I have a lot of material left over on the editing suite. My Video uses a narrative structure which is commonplace in music videos of my genre and music videos in general therefore following the conventions, For my narrative and camera shots I took inspiration from the Arctic Monkeys video to "Leave before the lights come on" directed by Richard Ayoade (Shown below), The video has a "distorted" love story with no band performance in it almost like a short film, I built on this idea by also having an unclear love narrative but added small subtle performance sequences on the chorus and main verses to relate it back to the song. I kept my cinematography similar to this video as well by using fast paced walking mid shots and close ups of feet walking, also I wanted to have a lot of handheld shots to give the effect of someone following my main character also used in the Arctic Monkeys video,
The shot on the left is from the video above and the shot on the right is from my video, I tried to recreate this close up walking shot in my video paying special attention to making sure my character didn't look at the camera, the scenes when played are near identical, although mine is shorter and in a winter setting,
Another shot I tried to recreate from "Leave before the lights come on" is the stairs scene although I was doing it from memory and my character is going down rather than up I feel I have still got a good likeness, also the image of my character going down connotes the leaving of one mindset/feeling to another more sinister one.
I also used the reverse handheld tracking shot used in the video which makes the viewer feel like someone is watching/following the main character, which in both mine and the "Leave before the lights come on" video this is actually happening, In my video the mystical female character is seen to be almost "stalking" the male character, playing on his mind, and in the real music video he is been followed by the female who he saved.
The meaning of the song I have used (Temptation greets you like your naughty friend) is based upon the temptation of wanting something/someone but knowing that by having what you desire you will end up hurting the other person or falling out, my videos narrative builds on this idea with the female character appearing in front of the male character tempting him, although it is not clear to the viewer whether she really is there or is just a figment of his imagination as he thinks about her. I have used colour connotations to a great extent in my video, Firstly my female character is based upon the Jordana character from the 2010 film "Submarine" also by Richard Ayoade, this character's danger and love prospects are indicated by the use of a bright red coat which is a classic technique used in many media texts, I did not have a red coat available to use at the time of filming so instead I used a bright red hat for my female character played by Amy Thisthleton which contrasted well with the snowy setting I used for filming (The colour white traditionally connotes purity/innocence). My male character is based on Oliver Tate also form the film "Submarine" and I had him wear similar clothing, Dark jacket, Jeans and trainers which sets a clear contrast between the two characters on screen. I tried to have close ups of the female character but not of the male to add to the air of mystery to why the male is avoiding the female. Throughout my video I have overlaid scenes from the film "Submarine" I did this by filming the scenes playing on my computer with a camera then putting them onto the editing suite this gave it a home movie effect which I think looks good and ties in with the film once again as Oliver films in a scene in the film with a vintage camera this is one of a number of inter-textual references in my video, the scenes I have overlaid are mostly from the trailer (Shown below) and show the love narrative of the film but show the female as being strange and mystical similar as to how I wanted to convey my characters, I spent a lot of time perfecting the use of scenes from the film, I felt use of this inspirational media text would help bring across the narrative of my video, even to people who haven't seen the film, I heavily edited them on the editing suite, the use of these scenes is an example of intertextual referencing something I have really thought about as all modern pieces of media whether it be a TV drama or a music video use intertextual referencing to reinforce their points and add depth, so the use of the Submarine clips and the fact I had my female model wear a bright red hat also adds links to texts such as Little red riding hood, Schindler's List and Snow white among many others for varying reasons including connotations of temptation,love/lust,danger, I think the use of these really adds credibility and authenticity to my video as referencing to other texts is a technique used by professional videos and also shows I haven't just gone out with a camera and filmed some people who have just turned up with no real meaning. Also a large part of the "Submarine" film is the use of a typewriter which Oliver uses to keep a diary I have made another inter-textual reference to the film by using a typewriter graphic I have made to write lyrics to my song during the verses (Diagram below), For the two verse sections in my song I have created a typewriter effect writing the lyrics using Screedbot (http://wigflip.com/screedbot/); an animated scrolling typewriter text generator, I then saved this as a .gif and filmed it playing with a video camera on my laptop, I then put this footage on the editing suite and cut it into several parts and adjusted the speed of each so as the lyrics are typed it is in time with the song.
This is the comparison of the on screen typewriter I created (Right) and the typewriter from the "Submarine" film (Left) As you can see they are very similar and both move on screen how a typewriter would, this is one of many shots what have been influenced by other media texts in my video.
I tried to recreate a scene from the "Submarine" trailer which features the male character looking into the distance with just the silhouette of his face and hair visible, unfortunately I couldn't get the lighting right so instead decided to make my own version, Having the face visible but still keeping the essence of the shot.
Another media text I was heavily influenced by was the music video to "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve, This video features a very famous walking sequence with low angle shots of feet walking which I wanted to carry over into the walking parts of my video, The two following diagrams show the comparison between the original shots and my own interpretation, These low angle shots give an air of mystery as to who the male character is but also imply power and dominance as by showing the feet close up it makes them look large and powerful, stamping down right in the viewers face.
As I have shown with examples from "Leave before the lights come on" , "Submarine" and "Bittersweet Symphony" I have really thought about my video's construction, I watched several videos by artists of the same genre of my song and others texts which inspired me to give me ideas for my cinematography this is called eclectic borrowing, this I feel is a very sophisticated and professional way of making a video because it can be deconstructed like a real media text and many meanings and values can be extracted from it. All of the other texts I drew upon have in someway a similar narrative or meaning therefore reinforcing my videos shared meanings and story line. From the lyric in my song "Temptation greets you like your naughty mate, One that made you steal and set things on fire But one you haven't seen of late" Gives me the meaning that when the male character see's the female it's like seeing an old friend; temptation. temptation made him do bad and hurtful things and she brings back those memories, but he hasn't done anything like that lately 'but one you haven't seen of late' so he's trying to get her to stay away from him so he doesn't end up hurting someone, this is a big part of the narrative as when she keeps appearing its like hes trying to get away from but doesn't really want to, you can tell that shes playing on his mind at various points especially at 0.31 in my video when he looks away but she stays in his "vision" on screen giving the effect that he cant remove her from his thoughts. Another Lyric meaning I have picked up on is "And I said that kind of talk, Only adds intrigue, To the cauldron of thought, It's already exceeding, Temptation, the very thing that held her back" this says to me "That kind of talk" (all that stuff about having a spark together) made him wonder about what could happen with them, it add's 'intrigue' and just makes her more tempting, but that temptation is already 'exceeding' beyond a limit in which he knows he shouldn't. The narrative of my video in which the female is tempting the male is backed up by the lyrics "And she said we've got that spark,That only lights a fuse,Helps you see in the dark,But it's a sight you'll lose when,The temptation greets you like your naughty friend" This means that she's saying that they could go together well, but not quite well enough, and they'll just be tempted into getting with others and hurting each other which the male doesn't want, this could be because they are very good friends and if the relationship doesn't work out then he doesn't want to lose her, a very common situation, which I have tried to convey to the audience.
Blizzard conditions on the day of shoot one.
Editing tutorial I used
Tutorial I followed to reduce the shakiness of some of my shots.
I also challenged the conventions by having an introduction seen to my video which makes it almost like a short film, not many videos in my genre use this technique, I got the idea to do this from the music video to "Two Fingers" by Jake Bugg which also uses a scene to introduce the artist and stars of the video, as well as this the director of this video (Jamie Thraves) is also from Hull the same as myself so I felt I could relate to his work more than other music video directors. I recorded a similar soundtrack to play in the background of the shot, Mine is of a passing train at the shooting location and the one in the Jake Bugg video is of a bus. A still from both videos is shown on the left. Another way I challenged the conventions of videos within my genre is the lack of band performance or lip syncing, I chose not to have this as I thought it would upset the balance of my narrative and the audience could potentially lose track of what is going on due to breaks in the narrative to accommodate the performance, therefore I settled on the already mentioned subtle lip syncing from an unknown mouth just visible on the chorus and verse sections, this I think is a happy medium as it doesn't upset the flow of the narrative but makes sure the narrative doesn't get boring or too long, as one of my biggest worries when creating my video was trying to make sure I kept the viewer interested. I have tried to keep a consistent theme across my ancillary texts this gives a strong house style I have done this by carrying on the snowy setting of my video and the colour scheme of white/black/grey this helps with looking professional and links the texts which in turn gives a stronger marketing campaign, so people can easily identify the related products. I created all my ancillary texts using Adobe Photoshop, and designed them myself apart from using a template for the inside of my digipak, drafts of which can be seen in an earlier post. My digipak follows the industry conventions by having the band's name and album name on the front with a track listing on the rear, I have "released" my album on the now defunct Creation records which was an indie label which at its peak had artists such as Primal Scream and Oasis on its books similar to my genre. I have tried to keep a consistent smart look throughout, the name of the album is Turn up the sun which is a song by Oasis but links to the theme of snow with the idea of the hotter the sun gets the snow obviously melts. Another way my digipak complies with the conventions is that it has a bar code in the rear right hand corner along with copyright warnings and music label logos. My poster also follows the conventions, It features the same band logo featured in the video and on the digipak as well as the same colours and snowy forest colour, as well as these it features the industry standard 5 star ratings and comments from music media outlets such as NME and Q, I chose these magazines as they are relevant to my target audience, typically social groups D,E and C2 aged 16-24 this is the same as the magazines, add to this the fact the Arctic Monkeys are a working class band it makes even more relevant I also created a band website in the same style, I think this gives the band and their album a very strong image and cross platform synergy giving them an effective combination, I have shown the products below, (Items have been scaled down, poster is A4 Size)
I have carried out some audience feedback for my ancillary texts and put them into a similar diagram to my video feedback,
I once again asked 10 people for their feedback this time on my ancillary texts (People asked where aged between 17-19, I tried to pick the people who filled out the question to fit with my audience profile and blog questions) and as you can see I received very good feedback which backs them up and shows I made the correct decisions regarding colour & font choices as well as the overall design which included shared elements between them and the video such as the setting and coluring. Once I had finished my ancillary texts I used Adobe Photoshop to place them in real world environments and Itunes to demonstrate what my marketing campaign would look like in real life and how the target audience would see it, as shown below;
The initial feedback I received about my video helped me make changes to it, including making the lip syncing easier to see and removing some shots which where to shakey, I also shortened some shots which from the audience feedback I received said they where too long, a selection of these edits are shown below,
Before my feedback the shot on the left was over 4 seconds long, and the shot on the right I hadn't even used as I didn't realize I had it as it had been put in the wrong folder on the editing suite, The results of my feedback showed that people thought that the shot on the left was too long so I cut it down to under half the size and placed the shot on the left in the video.
Another example of what I learned from my audience feedback is that when my video was played through YouTube it was hard to see the lip syncing (Left), Although I still have some quality issues when the video is played on YouTube rather from the actual file it is now easier to see the mouth singing after I adjusted the transparency levels on the editing suite (Right)
Below are a selection of shots from my video with explanations of how and why I made them. (Please excuse the quality due to them being screen shots from YouTube)
At 0.31 in my video I have edited to the music and have created an effect where the female character flashes up in time with the symbol being hit on the drums and the vocals kicking in, this is very imposing and represents the flashing up of her in the main character mind, as we are seeing it through his eyes as it is a POV shot, this was made by filming and walking up the blank path and filming another shot of just the female character standing still alone, this was then imposed on the other image and faded in, I then adjusted the timings so it was spot on with music
At 0.38 I have created a shot which gives the illusion of both characters being in the forest together when played, the reality is I forgot to film this shot so I blended two together to make it, I asked several people and only a couple realized what I had done, I did this by using the same technique shown above.
At 0.42 I have internally framed my female character between a tree and its branches, her red hat stands out well against the snow and gives the desired effect in terms of connotations.
Here is an over the shoulder shot of my male character walking through a forest location, this is the same location which features on the front of the album cover, this shot shows him walking through the snowy landscape alone, his all black clothing stands out really well against the all white environment.
I wanted this shot at 1.30 to demonstrate the vulnerability of my main character, I achieved this by internally framing him in a long shot showing a large proportion of my location, this makes him look small in relation to the filmic world this then gets across the point of his vulnerability.
During all the stages of creating my products I used the Internet/Web 2.0 to look for various pieces of information such as pictures and videos, a lot of what I did involved YouTube the most popular video streaming & sharing website in the world, During the year I have uploaded 10 different videos, these range from different versions of my video to audience feedback interviews. Another media technology I have used is Windows movie maker, I used this to create my animatic and to convert my finished video to HD, Movie maker is a good program but is very basic and couldn't be used to make a music video to a high standard, I used Adobe Premiere Pro which is a very technical program, I didn't have any prior knowledge of it so I watched several help & tutorial videos as well as asking fellow classmates and teachers for advice and tips, I am pleased with my progress on the program and I am confident in using it. To create my Ancillary texts I used Adobe Photoshop and Fireworks, Photoshop is very good for manipulating images as the name suggests but I find Fireworks is far better for actual graphics and product layouts, therefore I edited my images (Colour,size etc) on Photoshop and put the Digipak and poster together on Fireworks, As Fireworks, Photoshop and Premiere Pro are all Adobe products the all have the same Icons and similar menus so once you are familiar with one it makes the rest a lot easier, I have used Fireworks extensively in the past so I am quite confident with it. The Images I took for my digipak where all taken on my Apple Iphone on one of the days of shooting, I was worried about the quality but they have come out very clear. I avoided the use of Prezi and GoAnimate as after using them last year I was left very frustrated with them not working, not looking very good or not being able to get enough information on them, but I still have tried to keep my blog as interactive as possible by embedding videos where applicable, and spending a lot of time creating my own graphics and diagrams using Fireworks to show what I wanted to do/say and making it attractive. Another media technology I used was WIX.com, a free flash website builder, I created my band website on it and found it very easy to use, It highlighted to me how far technology has come, In the past websites where coded in Dreamweaver and Notepad now in a matter of seconds someone with no web developing skills can have a live site, Here is a link to my WIX created site; http://markreeve8.wix.com/eminencefront.
In conclusion I am very pleased with how my video and ancillary texts have turned out, although if I could do it all again I would change a few things. Firstly I would try and film much earlier in the year, to give myself more time to re shoot and more importantly more time to edit, I am pleased with my editing but there are things I would definitely change if I had the time, for instance there are a couple of shots at the beginning I would of liked to have replaced with more close ups of the characters faces rather than focusing on their environment and lower bodies, I feel if I did this it would give the on screen characters a bit more personality and help the viewers relate to their feelings and better understand their emotions as the Close up shot's main role in cinematography is to show emotion. Also I wouldn't use as many blend transitions in the opening 30+ seconds as they do look good but I feel I got a bit carried away with them and almost ruined the novelty and uniqueness of this type of editing. Another thing I would change if I was doing this project again would be to try and maybe get a band performance or someone properly singing during the chorus just liven it up, as my chorus scenes do get a bit repetitive once you have got past the second verse. If I am honest I don;t think I would change anything on my ancillary texts apart from maybe some slight colour adjustments to make them stand out better, this is because I think they have come out very professional looking and look like real band material, I believe that they are a very strong addition to my "bands" image and show really set the mood for the accompanying music video.
Word count (not including references) - 5014.
References/Inspirations list:
Here is a list of media texts and media platforms that have inspired me or helped me create my Media portfolio.
"Submarine" - 2010 - Directed by Richard Ayoade
"Leave Before the Lights Come On" - 2006 - Performed by Arctic Monkeys, Directed by Richard Ayoade
"Bittersweet Symphony" - 1997 - Performed by The Verve, Directed by Walter A. Stern
"Two Fingers" - 2012 - Performed by Jake Bugg, Directed by Jamie Thraves
"Fluorescent Adolescent" - 2007 - Performed by Arctic Monkeys, Directed by Richard Ayoade
"Schindler's List" - 1993 - Directed by Steven Spielberg
"Little Red Riding Hood" - Earliest version 17 century - Charles Perrault
"Don't Believe The Truth" - 2005 - Oasis
"Wix.com"
"Adobe" - Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Fireworks.
