Final Music Video

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Questions

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

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

Evaluation Question 2

http://www.slideshare.net/LaurenTaylor22/evaluation-question-2-lauren-taylor

Evaluation Question 1

Magazine Advert

Digipak

                                               

          

Editing update

We have added some very different shots from the ones we already have into our music video. We didn't want to reuse any of our material as we didn't want the video to become repetitive, so we filmed some random objects to add into our music video. This is a more abstract style, but we feel it contacts effectively to the dark colours and low-key lighting in the rest of the video compared to the brighter shots that we have added. Some of the shots include visuals of the sea, bubbles, the sky, metal ceilings etc.

In terms of the progress of our editing, also, over the past few weeks I have seen a definite change in the pace of our editing. The shots are all suddenly a lot faster and well-matched to the beat, creating a "blink and you will miss it" idea which is something I love. The video is now looking exactly how I pictured it to be when we were first coming up with ideas, this style of fast-paced editing and sped up shots is something as a viewer I find the most visually interesting.

We are now coming to the final touches of our music video, changing some of the speeds of the shots and making sure all the lip syncing and editing is with the beat and in sync. We are also trying different endings but we are restricted, the song ends very abruptly so we are trying to do what we can with the song choice we have made.

Media Showcase

In order to receive verbal feedback from our audience, as a class we set up a showcase of all our music video's as well as the AS film openings that we could present to an audience. Deborah and I filmed a few audience members afterwards and asked their opinion on our music video. This was extremely helpful in terms of thinking forward to our evaluations but also just being able to reflect on what we have created. There will always be things to improve on, in hindsight I would've liked to spend more time on the ending (this was something that was mentioned during the feedback), however the audience feedback helped me to realise the progression of our music video, and how our initial ideas developed into a product we can be proud to have created.

Draft 4

Draft 3

Warning sign

We were going to add a warning sign at the beginning of our video, as when we were editing we realised that the fast-paced shots could cause problems with epilepsy etc.

We added the warning sign onto one our drafts just to see how it would look, but we were advised against keeping it in. We are aware, however, that the flashing images and fast-editing may cause harm to some. For us it is a lesson in how editing can effect some people are we will bare this in mind in the future

Mental Health Research

One of the underlying themes of our music video is mental health, and our protagonists struggle with her 'inner demons'. In order to understand how to portray this character I did some research into mental health and some illnesses that our video could reflect.

"Pyschosis" - a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

In our video we are keen to explore the break between reality and fantasy, as our protagonist is unable to function in reality (the hospital scene) so she escapes to a fantasy she creates (the field/forest scenes).

Originally we were going to explore Multiple Personality Disorder

"Multiple Personality Disorder" - characterized by the appearance of at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that alternately control a person's behaviour.

To explore this we were going to have our character change costumes depending on which personality she is, because it's a music video it would've been hard to portray the change without any verbal speech.

However we decided against this idea, as we felt it wasn't an accurate representation of this particular mental illness and might make it seem a little 'cheesy'.

Draft 2

Designing/Creating my Digipak

From previous research into Digipaks and album's, as a group we quickly recognised that having the artist as a feature on the digipak was a successful marketing technique used by designers to create a 'trademark' for the band. Having already begun filming our video and making drafts, we already had a clear style and theme of our video. It is important when marketing an artist to keep all albums, posters and such merchandise in a similar style to any music video's that are released as to demonstrate to the audience the specific genre/category that the artist falls into. We therefore took some pictures in our school's photography room, deciding that using a black background would be most fitting with the grungy, dark colours in our video.

As the digipak was illustrating our artists' style, maintaining that grunge, alternative theme was important in all aspects. When choosing what to wear for the shoot I made sure to keep the colours of my outfit very dark which is why am I wearing mostly black, and wear heavy eye, dark eye makeup as a method of 'iconography'. We tried different outfits and hairstyles to test which ones we thought would look better:

However, we decided that the darker clothes look better and suited the style of our artist more. I was very pleased with the pictures we managed to take, already they linked with the theme of our video.

I decided, in the end however to go with this photo:

...

I chose this photo because of how close up it is, it creates more of an atmosphere between the audience and the artist and brings a sort of intimacy. I wanted to use a close up for my digipak and keep a long body shot for my magazine advert.

The front cover of my digipak was one of the hardest elements of designing the digipak. It was important not to cover the artist's face but also keep the font and style large enough to make the band name stand out. There were numerous extremely small, detailed, but important decisions to make. For example, I had to make difficult decisions about the font style I wanted.

However, in the end I decided to pick this particular font:

I thought this best fitted in with our animalistic style, and also fitted well with our genre and was a font I could use with our band 'logo'.

Some other small changes I made was deciding whether or not to add certain effects to the image. For example, choosing whether to have a black, vignette border like so:

As you can see, although small the effect does have a large overall affect on the image. I chose to add this border in the end, I thought it added even darker visuals. I'm extremely pleased with how the front cover of my digipak looks, I think it complies to the conventions of the genre and also fits well with the style of our music video.

The next aspect to creating the digipak was the inside two designs. When designing a front cover for the digipak there are certain elements that are nearly always included: the title, the band name, the artist etc. However, for the left inside cover the variety in what digipak's have is huge, varying from a quote to simply just another photo of the artist. I chose instead to have the title and the band name again, but focus more on the title compared to on the front cover.

I created the background myself. To do this I used the website 'ipiccy.com', which is a photo editing website. I started off with a plain white square

I then used a 'layer' which had handwriting on it (to represent lyrics that might've been on the album) and layered it over the white.

I also added another 'paper' layer which had a slightly more grungy look

Again, I added another effect to make the image darker.

After playing about with the brightness of the image and adding some other effects I finally began to add the font I would be using. I decided to go with a phrase that I'd often seen when researching digipaks and albums; "No.1 Hit Album".

Next I designed the CD. I decided to use the same background for the left inside sleeve for the background of the CD, as I didn't want too many different designs going on and for the Digipak to become messy and confusing. From CD's I'd seen before, most choose to have a certain image, or block colour for the CD, most were very basic. I decided to take advantage of the design opportunities, however, and again add the album and band name and record company to the CD. I thought this would be a good marketing scheme is terms of keeping all the merchandising similar in style, and having the most important information on most of the digipak, like the band name, album name and record label.

Finally, I designed the back cover. This was also hard. There are so many varied ways of setting out the song list. I knew I wanted to have another image of our artists, to reinforce the idea of the 'star image' and iconography. This made it difficult to add text, as I didn't want to cover the picture of the artist. After researching some different idea's I finally decided to go for a similar style to P!NK's album, The Truth About Love.

I used a similar design in that I had the image of the star to the left, and a block of colour to the right with the song list. I also added the record label and information below the list.

The back cover was the part I most liked of my digipak, I think that it is simply yet effective, the font is neat and the title 'Songs' still has that animalistic element. The dark colour palette links to our music video and overall I think I successfully maintained a clear style with each aspect of my digipak

First draft

Creating/Designing my Magazine Advert

Similar to the digipak, to begin designing my magazine advert, we first had to take photo's that we could use which would work with our style of genre. Therefore, we decided to have a black background and make sure I was dressed in dark, alternative clothing which would conform to the conventions of Indie Pop.

Here were some potential shots I was thinking of using for the Magazine Advert:

 

 

In the end, however, I chose to use this particular image:

 

 



I chose this image as I felt like it best suited our genre. I used a close up shot for my digipak front cover, therefore I wanted to use a long-body shot for my magazine advert, and this was the shot I felt best linked with our music video. I felt this image would allow me to work best with font and text too, as there is a lot of space surrounding the artist.

One of the strongest conventions of Indie Pop is the use of black and white, therefore I designed my magazine advert both in colour, and then in black and white

However, I decided I preferred the coloured version. I felt that the black and white version was too plan, and that having the colour brung more of a focus to the main artist, as I felt like in the black and white the focus on the artist became lost, and the text was what stood out the most.

This is my final Magazine Advert:

I wanted to make the album name stand out, and so I changed the angles of each letter to add effect to the font, and contrast it with the simpler font below.

I made sure to use the same font's that I used in my digipak, to maintain a sense of style. I also used the same colour scheme for this reason.

Digipak Analysis - The 1975 (self-titled)

 

 





 

The 1975 are an English alternative rock band. This is the digipak for their self-titled, debut studio album in 2013. Unlike most album designs, The 1975 chose to stick to a monochrome colour palette, with extremely simple visuals.

The front cover

• As the album is self-titled, the 1975 only needed their band name on the cover, which is an effective marketing strategy. The only font is the band name, arguably the most important piece of information the viewer needs to remember and recognize.
• The most eye-catching visual is the use of the luminescent lights behind the font and at the centre of the image. The lighting draws attention to the speaker at the centre of the image which is often used in Indie and Rock music videos, and merchandise as often bands include their technology/instruments in their visual designs.
• The monochrome colour scheme, although simple, is extremely effective in this case. The dark, low-key lighting is a key convention of alternative rock/pop. Sometimes the most simple designs can be the most effective, as they are sleek and sophisticated and focus on the band name entirely.

The inside

Again, the inside sleeves maintain the monochrome colour scheme. This is unusual, as from research I have noticed that most digipaks directly contrast the inside colour scheme from the front and back cover. However, the designers chose to stick with the black and white colour palette, which I think helps to maintain the sophisticated, professional style. The font also stays the same throughout, which is often used in digipaks to make the audience aware of the artist's style. Most designers choose to keep the inside of the digipak very basic, and with little to no text. However, the designers for the 1975's digipak chose to have text on the inside, which is a clever technique to use for adding in wanted information without taking up space on the front and back covers

The back cover

The back cover of the digipak remains similar in style to the rest of the digipak. Similar to the first image, the speaker is the most eye-catching visual as it is surrounded in fluorescent lighting. The song list layout is very basic, and the font used is quite plain. Personally I prefer song list's to be a little more unique, however this particular style works well with the rest of the digipak, as all the text is quite standard and sophisticated, therefore the style is maintained well throughout.

Magazine Advert Analysis - The Killers 'Day & Age'

The Killers are an American rock band formed in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2001. This magazine advert is promoting their 2008 album 'Day & Age'. The Killers fall into the Indie Rock genre which is very similar to the Indie Pop genre that we are focusing on. The band's name is the most prominent visual aspect of the advert, closely followed by the album name written underneath. This is typical of most magazine adverts, that make sure the band/artist name and the album name are the two most visible pieces of information. The advert uses very dark colours such as blacks, and very deep purples which is the type of colour palette often used in the Indie genre. To make the text clearer, the background images fades to black where the text has been put over. A common feature of magazine adverts is the promotion of a recently released single, which is demonstrated in this particular example 'Featuring the single Human'. The record label has also been included towards the bottom, which again is a common convention of indie magazine adverts. The designer has made sure also to include the website link, which is important in promoting the band as a brand and leading the audience to access more available information about the band on their website. Overall this example conforms to the conventions of Indie magazine adverts because of it's structure in text, and the dark colours used.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

The Uses and Gratifications Theory derives from Katz and Blumler, who's theory focused on the audience's influence on media, rather then the media's influence on audience. It suggests that audiences take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their lives. The theory suggests that audiences view media in order to fulfil specific gratifications.

Digipak Analysis - Marina and the Diamonds "The Family Jewels"

Marina and the Diamonds is a welsh singer-songwriter. Her music comes under the Indie Pop genre. This particular digipak is a design for her debut studio album The Family Jewels (2010) which incorporates indie pop and new wave musical styles. The album conforms to the Indie pop genre, with the dull, softened colour scheme and particular focus on the artist.

The front cover

• The artist is the main visual focus point of the cover, which is an important marketing technique when designing any type of merchandise for bands and artists.
• The artist's name is the largest font on the cover and is one of the most eye-catching aspects of the cover.
• The background has a floral print, which although does not conform to the indie genre because of it's dull colour palette the overall image still has an indie style to it.

The inside

Both inside designs are in black and white. This seems to be a common convention of digipaks, that the inside colour scheme directly contrasts that of the back and front cover. The use of black and white is something commonly used with Indie pop/rock as it symbolises a deeper sense of emotion. The artist also again features on the inside, it is important to have the artist feature on the majority of the digipak as the aim is to get the audience to begin to recognise the artist and their style.

The back cover

• The back cover is similar in colour scheme to that of the front, with dull, softened colours used which conforms to the indie pop genre
• The artist, again, is the main focus of the visuals in order to create a brand.
• The image illustrated the artist hanging downwards, and the way in which the song list has been designed reflects this. This abstract style is common in the Indie pop genre, as most Indie artists want to subvert from the usual conventions of most other genre's and use alternative designs to do so.
• The font on all parts of the digipak remains the same, which maintains a sophisticated style.

Magazine Advert Analysis -

Lana Del Rey is an American singer, songwriter and model. Her style of music tends to fall into the Indie Pop/Rock genre which is exactly the genre we are focusing on. Like most magazine adverts, the artist's name is the most visible piece of information. The name is at the top of the advert, taking up a large portion of the image and clearly promoting the artist as a brand. The album name is also clearly shown, perhaps not as much as the artist's name, as often most find that the artist's name is what the audience need to remember the most, as all other information can follow suit. Contrary to the conventions of an Indie Pop magazine advert, the colours used are very bright, and the lighting is clear and unlike most lighting used in the Indie genre. This, I believe, makes it unclear as to what genre the artist falls into, which can become confusing for an audience. The designers have also included the album release date, as well as social media links which is important in promoting and marketing the product. The artist herself, however, is the main focus of the image which conforms to the conventions of Indie magazine adverts. The artist/band often feature on the front of the magazine advert so that the audience can begin to recognize them and their style.

Filming day 4

We filmed the hospital scenes this week, it was one of the most difficult scenes to film as it took a lot of choreography and time to get the movements right and not get any other people in the shots. We are very happy with the shots we got despite the difficulty of the shoot

Filming day 3

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is an idea theorised by Julia Kristeva, who states "any text is the absorption and transformation of another". This means that media texts can be influenced by eachother and no media text stands alone. There are constant references to a variety of media texts. For example:

Avril Lavinge's music video 'Alice' is a direct link to the novel "Alice in Wonderland" as well as the 2010 film.



Another example is Iggy Azaelea's music video 'Fancy' which is a clear reference to the popular 90's film 'Clueless'

Filming day 2

Filming day 1

Music Video Plan

This is the final plan for our music video:

Mainly Narrative - some performance

• Begins with hospital scenes (This is Gospel - Panic! at the disco influence)
• In between cuts to shots of contrasting colours filmed in the photography studio (Calvin Harris - How Deep is your Love influence)
• Hospital scenes, starts of choreographed, actor appears calm before a sudden change and the protagonist attemps to escape
• Struggle - we see the doctors hands restraining her but do not see their faces, this removes their identity which allows the audience to only feel able to relate to the protagonist
• Protagonist is retrained and given a sedative which takes her to a metaphorical place of her own.
• She wakes up in fields and forests, isolated and seemingly being able to free in such a vast amount of space, however through facial expressions and movement we see that she is still trapped inside of herself as she trying to 'free her animal'.
• Narrative is vague and up for interpretation, we want the audience to question what has happened rather then making the narrative glaringly obvious.

Costumes and Props

Costumes
For our music video, we don't have any specific character costumes needed, our clothing for our protagonist instead needs to fit in with the genre of the music video, which is Indie Pop.

In the hospital scenes, we decided we wanted the clothing to be as plain and generic as possible, so that the audience would focus more on the actor's facial expressions, and the scenery would become enhanced. In this scene our protagonist will simply wear black jeans, a white t-shirt and black shoes.

For our field/forest scenes we are able to be a little more creative with our wardrobe choices, however because our genre is Indie Pop we cannot have any bright colours that may not look right amongst the low-key lighting and dull colour palette of our video. Therefore our protagonist will wear monochrome colours like black and white, but the outfit will be a little less plain then the hospital scene.

Props
Our props for our music video are very important, especially in the hospital scene. We are relying on props to set the scene, and show the audience that the scene is taking place in a hospital. We are planning to use:

• Rubber gloves (doctors/nurses gloves)
• Stethoscope
• Syringe
• Doctors watch
• Paper and pen (suggests doctors notes)
• Other clinical tools
• Movable curtains
• Hospital bed (made from a table, white sheet and a pillow)

There are no other props in any other scenes, as in the scenes in the forest and fields we want the focus to be more on our protagonist and her inner struggle, whereas the hospital scenes we want to have the other actors also be the focus and the scenery to become part of the focus too.

More video testing

We were really inspired by the Calvin Harris - How deep is your love music video, and have been testing out colour saturation

Final Location Scene Decisions

We went to test out forty hall, and got some good shots walking through the forest. However, we decided that it was too difficult to get through the fields as the grass was quite long and did not give us as much freedom to move about as we'd have liked.

Therefore, we have decided to film at Enfield Town Golf Course. The fields are a lot easier to work with here and we are hoping to get some good shots walking up the hills, as well as the alleyways next to the course that we could use for some lip syncing.

As well as this we have decided to film our hospital scene in the photography room. We decided it would be easier to use a plain black photography backdrop, and try and create the scene with props. Our school has some movable curtains that we may be able to use, and if we cover some desks with a white sheet we may be able to create a bed. We are quite lucky in that for the hospital scene the shots are very close up to the actor, so although the background is shown it is never entirely in frame which means that we do not need a vast amount of scenery.

We are also lucky in that the majority of our shots happen in places we can access in the school, such as the hospital scene. Our in between shots of the bright contrast colours can be filmed against a black backdrop in our photography room, therefore there is not much reason aside from the field and forest scenes to venture out for locations.

Magazine Advert Conventions

• Star image - large photo of the artist that covers the majority of the advert
• Dark, dull colours - grunge, indie look
• Artist's name as a main feature
• Review's along the bottom from newspapers or magazines
• 'The No.1 Album'
• First release; 'No 1. Single' etc.
• Website url
• Social Media
• Q Code
• 'Out Now'
• Release date
• Record company
• Clear link between album and the music video in terms of aesthetic
• Bonus tracks/ extra DVD
• Slogan/tagline

Magazine Advert Analysis - Ed Sheeran '+'

This is the magazine advert for Ed Sheeran's debut album '+'. The main focus of the visuals is the artist, which is important so that the viewer can begin recognize the singer. Ed Sheeran uses a variety of different musical genre's, but mostly falls into the pop, acoustic and indie genre. Although this genre is slightly different from our own, this particular advert is a great example of maintaining a style. The designers used the same font with all the text featured on the poster. The font is unusual and immediately allows the audience to recognize the type of theme and style that the artist is. The album cover is featured in the corner, which is renowned for it's striking orange visuals. Therefore the designers have used some orange font, and an orange strip at the bottom of the poster to make a link between the advert and the album. The designers have decided to include a review also, which suggests to the audience that the artist is well-known and renowned. The text is also below the artist's face, which is something that is important to remember, as to not take away the focus from the artist themselves. The designers also have website links. With social media's ever-growing influence, the opportunity for publicity and bigger then ever, so it is an extremely good marketing technique to include social media links and usernames. Similar to most magazine adverts, the designers have also included the record label symbol, which is a common convention of magazine adverts.

Digipak Analysis - P!nk "The Truth About Love"

P!nk is an American singer, songwriter, dancer and actress. This is the front cover of her digipak for her sixth studio album 'The Truth about Love' (2012). P!nk falls under the Pop, Rock, and R'n'B genre. The album conforms to the pop rock genre, with faded, grungy colouring (discoloured paper and unnatural colours in the photo)  and a stylised photo of the artist in dark, alternative clothing.

• The artist's name is the biggest font on the front cover, followed by the name of the album. This is arguably the most important information when creating a digipak as this is the brand name for the artist as well as the album name, which is what creators want the audience to take in the most. 
• The font's used are not the same which is rare, as often designers want to maintain a certain visual style. However, i prefer using more then one font, I think it varies the image more instead of the font all still being the same and the visuals becoming too plain. The font's still tie in with each other, as a coloured shadow has been added to each so they still look similar.
• The image of the Artist is the main focus of the digipak, this is an important marketing technique as often it is important for the audience to be able to recognise their artist.
• The colour palette of the digipak is almost fluorescent, yet it still maintains a grunge theme as the background is faded and worn. 

In this particular digipak the designer has chosen to have another photo of the artist, again to promote the artist's image. The album name is the only thing that is written on the inside, which I am a fan of as I think the insides of digipak's should be quite simple. The colours directly contrast those from the front cover and the back cover, and the designer has used block red and black whereas the colours are a lot lighter and brighter on the front and back covers. 

The image on the back cover is very similar to that on the front, the artist's stance is almost the same except her head is turned a different way and she is doing a different hand gesture. This however allows the digipak to maintain a style and a colour palette, as the front and back covers are almost identical, barring the text. The song list has been placed on the right of the image, so that the artist is the main focus. I also like this style, I think it's important to have multiple images of the artist on the digipak to make their brand memorable 

Shooting schedule

This is a brief shooting schedule. We will most likely have other days of filming, however these are some set dates we have to film the main shots of our video