What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When we finally finished our
music video, it was screened in the cinema, a few minutes away from college. I was
really excited to watch it with everyone who was also studying media. Watching
the music video with other students, knowing that me and my fellow peers have
created this music video, I was thinking
what kind of reaction would we get, would anyone cheer especially that not many
of the students know the song or seen the music video. Although, thumbs up that
our music video does not consist of an original video, therefore I could be
expecting any type of reaction towards it.
After the screening, feedback time!
The first feedback I was very pleased with, as she
mentioned that she really liked our music video, especially that she doesn’t
know the song or has not seen the actual video, therefore she did not have any expectations
of what she could be expecting from the video. Also she was particularly pleased with the
artist, he did a good job. When we asked her about any changes, there was
nothing she would change but she did mention that the location we chose was
very appealing and matched the genre and the subject about the music video successfully.
She did suggest an idea that we should have added a scene of a studio as it
would have been similar to the original artist Ed Sheeran. Her idea was
something that we did want to do but as our song mainly talks about the
surroundings and atmosphere around the city, we decided to just stick to
outdoor locations.
The second feedback was much different as she
talked about how she liked the effect around the artist, which worked really
well and our song choice was good as well. When we asked if she would make any
changes she said that she wouldn’t, even though we had
quite a few base tracks it was not much noticeable, because it blended in very
well. After I thought about the last comment I can understand where she is
coming from, because even though we used quite a few base tracks, they
consisted of a range of different activities in the base tracks.
After the screening I went
home and showed my friends my music video. They both replied back to me on the
social networking website, Facebook. The
first reply was quite negative but understandable. I can see that probably we
used too many of the same shots, which made it ‘boring’ for her to watch, but I think as our song
revolved around the city we did want to get across this to the audience but
with an emotive twist. However, she did say that our backing track matched very
well with what was shown on the video. The second reply I can see that she
enjoyed the music video as the music video conveyed the song and the artist perfectly,
whilst he was walking around the city, and the acting of the artist looked
EXCEPTIONAL, which I really agree with as well. I think without our artist
being passionate during his performance, then our music video wouldn’t have looked good. Also we did try getting the
guitar as much as we could into our music video, even on the shots of him
walking, as our artist was walking we were not able to get him to do two things
at a time, but I do agree that If I was to do this again then we would see more
of the guitar, but we tried to add the guitar in the music video as much as
possible.
My ancillary research and planning in my opinion went extremely well. From the beginning i research i have done a great amount of research on other existing blogs. I put together a lot ideas of my own and gathered ideas from previous artist.This research helped me a lot on the design of my ancillary as i made a lot of similarities to the previous artists works.
To do research for my ancillary i used many types of ICT skills to research and display what i have done such as the internet do gather information and Google images and artist web pages to see what designs they use and other artist of the same genre. I used annotate website to annotate different digipaks. i also used prezi to display ideas for my ancillary work. I think i used ICT skills for this part very thoughtfully.
3 final targets for my blog:
Add new own blogs
For the ancillary blogging add new detailed blogs
Make use of ideas and blog each step of the production of the ancillary products
As I said before the colour blue
is a pivotal in my products but there is more visual connections besides the
colour. The clothing that the artist is wearing in the different pictures is
very similar making the viewer familiarized with it, what he is wearing is very
simplistic because it is a convention of the genre and is
appealing to the audience. The facial expression that the artist have in the pictures are also
very similar, making his face another link, even though is a bit obvious it helps the viewer to create a connection between products.
(At the top from left to right, magazine advert, front cover of digipak and inside panel of digipak)
As you can see the artist wears in all products very simple clothing, a jumper with a shirt, which follows the indie conventions and create a link between the images. The facial expression (his performance) is always expressing the same idea, showing deep feelings, connecting the products trough the same expression.
The font of the lettering is the same in all the ancillary products, making it easy to recognize for the viewers and creating the link between them. The effect that I used for the digipak I used on the left side of the advert,creating a visual connection. They all have very similar shots of the artist, we see him repetedly in Close ups and in Medium close up during the video so the ancillery product have these kind of shots too to have that link.
Carol Vernallis studies were
mostly based on editing and camera work of music videos. She said that edits
are often more used in music videos than films and that music videos break the
rules of continuity to attract attention of the audience to what is being
displayed. There might be obvious edits
used to draw attention such as special effects and transitions.She also implied that a base track is used to
provide a structure for the video and editing might be in time with the beat to
add rhythm.
Andrew Godwin
Godwin implied that narrative analysis traditionally
does not rely relate to pop videos. This is because they are presented at a
different angle to films and novel narratives. Because songs do not have
traditional narratives their music videos won’t as it is based on the song. The
singer looks directly at the camera trying to involve the audience this is an
act of performance. Music videos are very repetitive. Repeating scenes and
images because of repeated verses or choruses. Structure of the video is to
build up hitting a climax and then fade away slowly.
Godwin’s 3 types of relation between song and video are
1)Illustration: Video tells the story of the lyrics
2)Amplification: new meanings being introduced which doesn’t
contradict the lyrics:
3)Disjuncture which there is little
connection between the lyric and video where the video contradicts the lyrics.
Does my media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video complies with the theory of
Vernallis as it has a great range of edits and contains many obvious edits that
are extremely noticeable.
One obvious edit used in our music video is the sped up
effect of traffic. This added a sense of time progressing and moving on.This edit was influenced by the music video
of the script “ The man who cant be moved” which also used the edit of sped up
traffic to show time passing.
As you can see that the camera angles of ours and The Scripts are similar with both being shot from the right and from eye line view .
There is also 4 base tracks in our music video which is one
where the artist is on the pavement with a guitar, one without an guitar, one
where the artist is walking towards the camera and one where the artist is walking
away in reverse singing, walking, which also fits in with Vernallis convention
where she says that base tracks are used to provide a structure. And order
which was base track, footage, base track, footage and base track again. A base
track idea also came from the script the man who can’t be moved. The footage is
from 1:51 of the music video and 1:25 of ours
Our music video also relates to the conventions of Andrew Godwin's
Some shots of our music video is illustrative for example an line in of the lyrics from The city is "The pavement is my friend" we linked to this line as throughout the music video there is many shots of the artist playing the guitar on an pavement (00:42). This idea also linked to the script as the artist is also sitting on the pavement in the corner (2:43).
The music video has some illustrative points however it does have a use of amplification because the video follows the lyrics but it has shots which isn't in line with the lyrics but still links in with the meaning of the song. This is because the video shows the city and shows means of travelling instead of following what the artist is doing at that exact point. this shows that we decided to follow the conventions of both Vernallis and Godwin which can be displayed in different parts of the music video
My digipak and advertisement poster also follow conventions.
The most important conventions are:
A picture of the artist which is clear
A suitable font which really be repetitive
The name of the artist and album name clearly displayed and readable
Tracks information
Production company
Some are more for one then the other
Suitable colour code
It can be seen that both digipak and poster that i followed the conventions. In both digipak i used an clear image of the artist and an suitable font which is readable however i did not use an consistent font size and design as i made the name of the artist a bigger font and the name of the album an different colour. The colour code i used for my digipak was very suitable and simple. The colour code for the poster was also very simple. one influencial digipak was florence the machine. I liked the simple but effective front cover of the digipak and decided to follow the idea of having another image of the artist on the inside however i decided to add an effect of the image.
The poster for Florence the machine also gave me ideas such a having an linking image to the digipak. Also having the album name stand out
In what ways does
your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
I
believe my music video follows most of the conventions concluded by Carol
Vernallis and Andrew Goodwin. Vernallis’s theory is based on the idea that the
editing is very clear and obvious and it also expresses that music videos do
not have the usual rules of “continuity”; as films or TV shows have, my music video has not a “continuity”
editing because in one shot we have the artist singing and walking towards the
camera and in the next one he is sitting on a different location, this sequence
of shots are repeated several times, which makes the editing very obvious and make it not continues in terms of story. There
is an effect that repeats itself each time, the artist sings the chorus, which
is the 8-point garbage matte effect, this changes the background of the shot
leaving the artist looking differently, this effect makes the editing even
clearer.
8-poing Garbage Mate Effect. You can see the difference between the background and the artist, making the editing obvioius.
The music video also has a series of jump cuts that draw attention to
it as the effect also does. The base
track is another conclusion of Vernallis theory that my music video follows,
because we have approximately 6 different base tracks that we use to give the
video a structure. Following Goodwin’s
theory my music video is classified as “Amplification” because it does not
contradict the lyrics but add layers of meaning. The lyrics talk about London,
how the interpreter is a traveller that is making the city of London his new
home and the video is showing London and the artist walking and singing, following
Goodwin’s theory.
Repetition
is something that I have got from the use of base tracks following Venallis’s
theory but also follows Goodwin’s conclusion about pop videos. The artist is looking at the camera in most of
the shots, trying to involve the viewer with the performance as Goodwin
convention says. The video does have a clear ending but does not build a climax
even though it has a change of speed before the climax of the song I did not
change the length between cuts so this is challenging this idea, but I think as
the song is quite slow the slightly change of speed before the climax work just
as well. The cuts of the video are done with the beat of the song which follows
the convention.
Base tracks
I
was influenced by 4 specific videos which are “The Man who Can’t be Moved” by
“The Script”, “The A Team” and “Drunk” by “Ed Sheeran” and “A la Primera
Persona” by “Alejandro Sanz”. Which one of these music videos, share the same
genre and also share shots and ideas that I transferred to my music video but they
have independent features that helped me very much to create an idea for my product.
The artists of these videos are not looking at the camera excepting the artist
in “The Man who can’t be moved” that looks at the camera briefly, so they
challenge Goodwin’s convention, they were a good point of reference to decided
if I wanted to challenge or follow the convention which at the end I decided to
follow because my artist is new so he needs the visual contact with the viewer.
Camerawork
and editing was the most influential part of these videos. I tried to use the
change of colour that I saw in the video “Drunk” by “Ed Sheeran”; in this video
the blue tone is noticeable and adds some sad and cold mood to the video so I
tried to recreate this because the lyrics of my song are about a difficult
time. Using colour corrector in editing I added a soft blue trying to get a cold
and a sad atmosphere which works very well. From the music video of “The Man
Who Can't Be Moved” by “The Script” I used the idea of the fast motion of cars
because it fitted very well in the idea of the city as a cold place. In
camerawork I followed the conventions of the genre and the main idea of the
music video which is to promote the artist, I used a sequence of Close ups and
Medium close up and Long shots to achieve this but mainly CUs and MCUs.
Traffic Scene in "The Man Who Can't Be Move" by "The Script" and in my music video.
You can see that both images have a blue tone. Image from "Drunk" by "Ed Sheeran" and my music video
All
of these videos share 2 types of shots and share 2 similar base tracks. Close up and medium close up are the shots
that they share and the base tracks that share are, that the artists are
sitting on the pavement and walking around in a city. These particular shots
(sitting on the pavement and walking around) I have used them in my music video
because, firstly it fits into the initial idea of the video, which was to
promote the artist, as well as, show London as the location of the music video
and secondly because all the videos that I had analysed have it, so it follows
the conventions of the genre.
Pavement Base Track
Walking base track
The
mise-en-scene of these videos was very simple so I also followed that, the only
prop that we used was a guitar which is the main convention of the indie rock
genre. It was a very simple performance just the artist singing looking at the
camera connecting with the audience. As “Ed Sheeran” our artist try to sell his
music and not his image or personal style and I the video reflects that, with simple
clothing following the convention of the genre.
You can see in these pictures that the clothing is very simple.
Overall
I believe my music video follow the conventions, not only Goodwin’s and
Vernallis’s but also the conventions of the indie rock genre.
During
the production of my ancillary product I was very careful about the conventions
of my genre because it is very easy to get out of them and I also had the list
of Do’s and Don’ts at all time. I researched many different examples of digipaks
and adverts inside the indie rock genre, trying to get the better of each one,
I had to have in mind that my artist is a new artist and one of the priorities
to make the ancillary work successful, is to promote his face to get the people
to know him. My digipak was influenced mainly by the digipak of “+” by “Ed
Sheeran” and “Seven Rainbows” by “Alice Gold”, their digipaks are very simple
and they share the same genre so I could be sure that I would be following the
conventions. The front covers of these digipaks are all about the artist which
for me is very important, in "Ed Sheeran's" cover there is close up of his face and in "Alice Gold". On the back cover I left the same effect that is on the front cover, trying to keep it simple following the convention and influenced by the same two digipaks. I followed the conventions of the digipaks there is no more than two colours in the panels and I used the same font for all the lettering, changing just the size and colours of some words. The font was very important not only because it is a convention but its also telling the viewer, who's work is it and if the font is unclear the ancillary product fails its purpose.
You can see that my front cover just have one effect, as "+" and "Seven Rainbows" have. The picture is very similar to the one at the right below but I tried to promote the artist even more, leaving his face as the predominant thing on the cover.
You can see that the digipaks have just 1 effect that is in both front and back cover. The position of the picture is to introduce the artist to the buyer which is a convention that I tried to follow.
All the panels of mi digypak have a blue tone trying to create the link between the advert, the digipak and the music video. The ancillary work, all have the same colours which are blue and black, by having minimum colours I am following the conventions of the indie genre which is all about simplicity. I looked at many different adverts before I took the decision about the layout of my advert but It is mainly influenced by the magazine advert of the digipak "+". The image of the artist is looking at a point very close to the camera influenced by the "+" advert that is at the top right side of the image, but the picture of my advert does not have any effect on it so the audience can recognise his face. The font is very clear and keeping the same colours,blue and black. The advert and the digipak have the same effect to create the link between them.
You can see the influence; I opted for the layout of the right because for me gives more space.
I follow the classic conventions as well as the conventions of my genre.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I
believe my music video follows the conventions of music videos established by
Andrew Goodwin and Carol Vernallis. According to them, music videos do not seem
to have a traditional narrative structure, which is true of our music video as
it does not carry a story with continuity, it simply shows the artist wandering
around the city and singing. My music video fits with the amplification type of
structure in Goodwin’s theory. We wanted to really incorporate the mood of the
song in our music video, which I believe we did effectively by contrasting the
loneliness of our artist Ray Jones and the business of the city, as well as
through the use of blue tones to create a cold atmosphere and get the touching
message of the lyrics across the audience through the video. In real media
products it is also common for the artist to play the role of both performer
and character, which we also use in our music video. Most of the time we have
Ray Jones singing looking at the camera (sometimes playing the guitar), which
presents him as the performer of the song. However, in between these
performances, we also have various tracking shots of Ray Jones walking around the
city on his own, without performance, that represent his role as the character
of the lyrics. A very similar structure was used in the music video “The Man
Who Can’t Be Moved” by ‘The Script’, a real band similar to our created artist
and that had strong influence on our music video. You can see both samples below:
My video
The Script
Vernallis
observed that the editing in music videos is much more obvious than in other
media products. My music video does follow her theory in a way, although our
editing is not as obvious as in it would be in a pop music videos, there is
some obvious editing in a more subtle way because of the indie genre.Like for example, we do use some jump cuts
that match the piano rhythm; at the opening of the music video we use a fast
cutting between different shots of Ray Jones walking that also follow the
catchy beat of the song; slow motion is used to dramatise certain parts of
the music video and it is a technique conventional of slow songs. The most obvious editing was the blur in the background in the chorus shots.
In
addition, Vernallis believe that the rules of continuity are broken in music
videos, which is also true of my music video, since we jump from cuts of our
artist performing, to traffic shots, or his walk through the city, without
really having a continuous link between one and the other. Most importantly,
Vernallis notices that in music videos it is commonly used a base track. In my music
video, base tracks are effectively used like in real media products, we have
various different base tracks used specifically at different parts o the music
video. Like for example, at the beginning we have the base tracks of Ray Jones
sitting on the pavement, then in the chorus we move to the base track of Ray
Jones singing walking towards the camera, later a base track of Ray Jones
sitting on the pavement and playing the guitar is introduced. Base tracks were
essential to the construction of our music video. We have filmed several base
tracks in different conditions (at day, night, different clothes) so we could
pick the ones we thought were more appealing. The base tracks create a sense of repetition that is also found in real media products, especially the way we chose to use the same base track every chorus. The base tracks are mostly medium close ups and mid shots to keep the focus on our new artist and getting the audience to familiarise with his face, which is also reinforced by the repetition.
The Script music videos
My music video
In terms
of genre and musical style, my music video follows most of the conventions of
real media products. Looking at the original artist Ed Sheeran, his music
videos are often minimalistic and show him as a normal individual rather than
having an opulent production to impress. It is all about the music and the
lyrics, which is not only common in Ed Sheeran’s music videos but in indie
music videos in general.
The same
way Ed Sheeran is portrayed in his music videos dressed casually, often with a
jumper, we also portrayed our artist in a casual style that is kept throughout
the whole music video and my ancillary products. The blue effect is also a
technique very often used in Ed Sheeran’s music video, which helps to create an
emotional atmosphere that goes with his touching songs. In my music video we
used this blue effect to create a cold atmosphere and catch the sad mood of the
song.
My music video also incorporates many conventions of real media
products that belong to the same genre, being inspired by other existing music
videos like ‘The A Team’ by Ed Sheeran, ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ and ‘We
Cry’ by ‘The Script’. These three music videos I mention have the street and
the urban area as their main location, which is also the main location of my
music video. Urban areas seem to be popular within the genre, the use of streets as the setting make connections with the real world and ordinary life, which suits the musical style and makes the audience see the artist as an individual, creating a closer connection with the audience.
My music video
We used the same technique of ‘The A Team’ which is to start a
shot out of focus and slowly get in focus, we have also used many shots of
people walking by and our artist lonely contrasted with all those people, just
like in ‘The A Team’ the girl who is the character of the lyrics is shown
lonely in the streets contrasted with a lot of people that walk by.
See between 1:11 - 1:20 and 1:39-1:43
The editing technique of traffic lights and people in fast motion
was inspired by the music video “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved” as well as the way
they are placed in between shots of the artist singing, we used it to create
the busy atmosphere of the city, since the lyrics are about London.
See between 3:20 - 3:44
Some long duration shots in the chorus of our music video are
also related to the Ed Sheeran’s music video ‘Lego House’ in which you get long
duration shots of Rupert Grint walking. Long duration shots however are not so
conventional of music videos in general, but can be used in slow songs like
ours.
See example below at 0:22-0:31
Musical instruments are an important prop for the indie genre,
since the purpose of the genre is to sell for the music rather than for the
appearances. Acoustic guitar makes its appearance in some of Ed Sheeran’s
videos, since his songs also have some acoustic style and he is a minimalistic
artist. Guitars are very relevant for the indie genre since it is an
‘independent’ genre and the artists can play the instruments themselves,
differently from genres such as pop and R&B where the artist is usually
just the singer and someone else is responsible for the musical composition. In
my music video we used an acoustic guitar as we felt it would be a very
essential convention of the genre, the acoustic guitar also keeps the minimalistic
style and can relate to the original artist Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran's videos:
My video:
Other videos of the same genre:
As my music video is
heavily inspired by the minimalistic style of the original artist and it follows
most of the conventions of the indie genre and the theories by Andrew Goodwin
and Carol Vernallis, I conclude that my music video uses and develops the conventions
of real media products. As for my ancillary work, I carefully looked at real media products of the same genre and I followed the conventions of ancillary print products and the conventions of the musical style. I did not want to challenge the conventions of ancillary print products, so I kept a colour scheme of two colours (blue and white); I used only one font that although its style is not the most basic, it copies a typewriter font style that gives a vintage feel and suits the genre; and I used clear images and placed my text appropriately. I tried to make my text as visible as possible, giving emphasis to important information.
My ancillary products are heavily inspired by the original artist Ed Sheeran.
I kept the outside panels of my digipak as simple as possible. The genre is a simplistic genre, and Ed Sheeran is a minimalistic artist. I used the idea that Ed Sheeran uses orange as his brand colour because he is ginger, to use blue as my artist's brand colour and create visual link with the blue effect used in the music video. Ed Sheeran uses a colour scheme of three colours, orange black and white being orange the predominant colour. I established a basic colour scheme of two colours, blue and white, being blue the predominant colour. Ed Sheeran's official font has also inspired me with the choice of my font, which is a very similar one and it has the typewriter style. 'Plus' is Ed Sheeran's debut album, although in this genre many digipaks do not have the artist's face in the cover, it is very conventional of a debut album by an unknown artist to have a close up of his face on the cover. In Ed Sheeran's cover his face has an effect that feels a bit grainy and vintage, in my cover I decided to leave Ray Jones face as clear as possible and easy to identify, with some blue tones to suit the colour scheme and create connection with the music video.
I based my inside panels in Ed Sheeran's different types of artwork, which mostly rely on illustrations like drawing, painting, graphic, digital art. The use of illustrations is not only commonly found in Ed Sheeran's artwork, it is also very popular in other artists of same musical style/genre.
In real digipaks the artwork is important to give the audience a feeling of having something extra for their money, a feeling of having something special and exclusive. I believe this is one of the reasons why illustrations may be quite popular, as well as because the genre is very simplistic and the artists often portray themselves in a ordinary but original way.
My magazine advert has a very similar layout to Ed Sheeran's advert. Although Ed Sheeran's photograph is a studio shot and most of the magazine adverts use studio shots, I wanted to use an outdoor shot to keep the connection with the other products. As my music video and main single is 'The City', I thought that having the street as the setting was appropriate to create familiarity, especially since it is the main location in the music video and it appears in the digipak. I also think it suits better the title of the album "Escape" because when you think of escaping you automatically think of getting out rather than being indoors. Like Ed Sheeran's I also use only one type of font, which is the same used in the album, and the same colour scheme used in the album. Ed Sheeran's photograph has a sophisticated black and white effect, which has some orange tones. Not only it looks vintage, as it also suits his colour scheme that has orange as the predominant colour. I have done something similar with my advert, by using a sophisticated black and white effect with some blue tones. I decided to have the artist making eye contact because I think it would be more appealing to the core audience mainly consisted of females, as well as it helps to promote his face as a new artist more clearly. The text is placed on his shirt, and the emphasis is on the artist's name and album title, just like in Ed Sheeran's magazine advert. I also decided to add big emphasis to the release date, which doesn't happen in Ed Sheeran's advert because the album is already released, but it is very common in other real media products to have the release date very large with a lot of highlight. In all real adverts an image of the digipak cover is presented, and if not, the same photograph of the digipak is used for the advertising (as you can see in Ed Sheeran's online advert). In my advert I present all the conventional information that will help to promote my artist and his digipak, therefore I believe I have followed most of the conventions of real media products.
