final music video

evaluation question 1

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

what are the conventions of a acoustic music video?

• Wide range and variety of camera angle's and shots to give the music video a certain level of interest to the audience.
• Having a focus on either one or two actors.
• Linked location/setting's to the songs lyrics, so it has meaning.
• Having a plot in a video which helps the music vido take form and gain interest to the person who is watching it.

 

what are the conventions of a magazine advert?

•  Picture of album you are advertising somewhere on magazine advert.
• Image of the artist who has sang the album.
• Ratings from different media's or companies such as closer, dailymail.
• Clearly stated name of the album.
• Date of when album is released in stores and on itunes.
• Record labels and producers logo or names.

what are the conventions of a digi pak?

• Images of the artist need to be noticable.
• Who the producers / record labels.
• Colour theme and pictures need all link together.
• Album has to reflect the artists theme and genre.

How have i used the conventions of  a music video?

 

I think the ways in which my media product use's the convention's of a music video, is the location and setting, this is because i think that by having the right setting that relates to the video and characters which are involved in the music video make it seem more realistic to my target audience.

In my music video we used a wide range of different location's such as the seaside scene's,driving in the car or in a flat where the two main character's live. I think by having these different types of location's it opens up the audience's mind by letting them have a bigger perspective and idea to the background of the music video and story. It is also good by it being able to link it back to the character's well, rather than it being in one location and it being isolated.
Another postive factor is by there being alot of different location's which are linked to the song lyrics quite well such as the seaside shot when the lyrics say "when the cold winds blow" this shows a good link to the setting as in the clip you see that it is quite windy and they are holding eachother to keep warm. Another good example is when it say's "travel the world with me" and John is driving in the car and driving off in anger. Both of these examples link well to the song lyrics which i think makes the music video flow better and easier to understand which makes it more appealing to the eye of the audience.

Another convention which i have followed well, is including shot's of the main female character and the artist singing and performing the song, i thought this would be a good idea as it break's up the music video more which makes it more interesting for the audience to watch then it just being clips of the couple. However in the video the main character who is Emily play's BryonyHope in the music video as the artist who sing's the song so i think that this has been successfully linked in well our aim's for our music video, because it portray's that the artist is telling a story through their lyrics of the song this also means that it shows the lyrics she is writing mean alot to her.

 

A convention which has also worked well is my wide range of camera shots and angles in my music video, we used a variety of close up's, extreme close up's, and match on action shot's this is so it make's the music video more quick and snappy and make's it interesting for the audience to watch rather then having the audience looking at character in one single shot without a variation in angles. By using these wide range of shot's you can gain more angle's of character's face and expression's he makes like low angle and high angle shot's which show the importance of a character and there hierachy in a shot such as when Emily and John are argueing in the flat, because we see that Emily is filmed at a higher angle than John because John is filmed from a high angle which shows the audience he is lower than Emily so this makes her seem like the bigger person in the arguement than John,this then gives the audience a better idea of who is trying to be the better person in that certain clip/scene.

I also think that by having a plot to my music video mean's that i have followed one of the most crutial convention's of a music video,if you base your music video on a storyline this then gives a meaning to the song and the lyrics in a more visual and interesting way. In my music video the way in which i have stuck to this convention is by using Todorov's media theory such as a typical love story,a good example of a music video which uses the same theory is katy perry's video called 'thinking of you' such as a couple having arguement then going through flashback's and happy memories,

 also having a wide range of setting's and location's.Then involving some kind of catch or climax to our music video for example like in Katy Perrys video when her Boyfriend in the Army dies in action, is the same kind of dramatic effects as our scene with the letter and the car crash at the end of music video. I think that these part's of our music video had worked well by the way we filmed them and edited them, and has made a good effect on how our music video works and it gives the video more depth and emotion when you watch the video.
 

 
The ways in which i have challenged the conventions of a music video?

The way's in which i have challenged the convention's of a music video is that i have used the singer who is BryonyHope as my main female character who is Emily in my music video, i think that this challenege has worked well because i think that this has meant that the audience have more of an understanding to the song from the artists point of view and the target audience can relate more the artist lyrics and song which will make them like the song in more than one way.

how have i used the conventions of a magazine advert?

How i have used the convention's of a magazine advert in my own advert is that i have used the album cover in which i am advertising in my advert, this has helped my album gain more interest within my audience as when people see my advert in a magazine they can relate the artist to the album in which it is advertising as i have used the same kind of image's in the magazine to what i have used in my album, this then has meant that people would be able to relate that image to my album either by the image of the artist on the magazine or the same colour scene behind the artist which is black so you can clearly see there is a running theme throughout my ancillary task's.

How i have also used the convention's of a successful magazine advert is that i have included picture's of my artist in the advert this has meant that my artist will get well known as you can see from this example that the artist is in the main part of the image this mean's that when someone see's my magazine advert they get confused at to what it is trying to advertise but will understand that they are advertising an album. As you can also see they have used an image which relate's to the album cover so that when people see that image they then link it to the album or the song from the album.

how have i challenged the conventions of a magazine advert?

How i have challenged the convention's of a magazine advert is that i have used the artist in my advert to be the main attention of the pictue whereas the example which i have used above of Rihanna's album advert is that they have used her album to be the main focus of the advert so that the album has more attention to someone looking at the advert. Whereas in my advert i have used my artist to be the main focus of the advert as i think that how the artist is in the advert is the main focus of the image as they are the person who has created the song and album so they need more attention to be on them in general then just there album. As you can see from my magazine advert i have inlcuded the image of the album in the corner of the advert as i thought that it only needed to be a small image i wanted it to be next to date release etc. But then however you could argue that the main reason for the advert is to sell the album but howver i chosen to challenge these convention's and overall i think i have successfully done this.
How i have also challenged the convention's of a magazine advert is that i have put my artist to the right hand side of the image and not in the centre like what most magazine advert's would consider to do, the reasons for this is that as my artist is seen as being quite shy and hide's her feeling's as she is seen to have two side's to her i wanted her to seem more less in middle and less of importance in the advert i think that this has quite challenged the conventions of a magazine advert in a big way but i think that in a way it works for our album cover well.


how have i used the convention of a digi- pak?

How i have used the convention's of a digi-pak in my own digi-pak is that i used image's of my artist which are original image's but i have also tried to link them into the music video in a way for example when my artist is singing alone in the dark studio which i think can relate to the image's from my photo-shoot for my digi-pak as i have used a dark background aswell in the shoot. By using image's of my artist throughout my digi-pak it has meant that when someone look's at my album they will be able to clearly relate all the image's together on my
 album to artist and the song's and it also links the connection's of the song's to the artist and that the song's in the album mean's alot to them so they want to portray that in the album. How i have really linked the image to my songs is that i had used the image on the front to relate to by her split personality by being happy and sad and this relates to the songs as the majority of them are related to sad situations.
 

what i have also included in my digi-pak is that i have included on the back cover the images of the producer's in which has helped into getting my album released which is island record's the reason's for putting this there is so that it pays dedication to the producer's who have helped you create the album and make it but also give's popularity to that label record and if the album they are selling is successful it then means that they will get well known more by other people.

Another factor on how my digi-pak has used the convention's is that i have used the same colour theme throughout the whole album this is so that it creates an effect throughout the whole album and means that the audience wont get confused as to what the artist is trying to way throughout the album. By having my album colour theme black it means that it represent's despair sadness and betrayal for example most of the song on the song list on the back cover of my album relate to things that are related to sad aspect's or running away from sad thing's people deal with through life. I think that overall i have linked all my album well to my song's and the artist so it look professional enough to undertsand what the artist is trying to say and what kind of genre the album is going to be to anyone who is going to buy the album.

how have i challenged the conventions of a digi pak?

How i have challenged the convention's of a digi-pak is that i have not used a wide range of image throughout the album which has meant that there isnt a variation in the visual elements of my album, which could possibly mean that my album may look quite boring to my audience when they look at it and may put them off of buying the album. However i stuck to using he same kind of images throughout as i thought that it would create an on-going atmosphere through-out the album which is what i wanted to achieve.

 

I have also challenegd it by having my artist to the side of my images on my album this may be mis-leading to my audience however as they may assume that the artist isnt as important, but however what i am trying to portray is that she is representing her feelings of sadness and being shy about he feelings and not expressing them so she is almost hiding from it and by having her at the side of the image represents that well.

As you can see i have also included some writing from the artist on the inside cover picture so that it gives you some information about the artist and why they wrote the album and where they are from. I think that this is a good touch to finish off my album as i think it give more of a connection to her fans and portrays her as being more down to earth. Overall i think this has challenged the conventions of a digi-pak and has been abit risky in to whether it is going to be successful with my audience.

 

Conclusion  

 

Overall i think that i have followed the conventions to a music video, magazine cover and digi-pak well and i think that it is a crucial part of making an album and song successful in the music industry. I have also learnt that it can be quite challenging in getting these conventions right and takes some research and comparing other artists albums's into knowing how to make it up to standard so it could be sold.  

evalutaion question 2

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

 

This is a view of all my ancillary tasks together as you can see we have made sure that the colours and fonts we have used are all within the same effect and you can tell it comes from that certain album such as in the background of the front back and inside covers it is all black.

We thought that by having a dark background it would make the artist seem more mysterious and daring. How the dark background is related to the music video is by the scene in our music video which has shots of the artist singing by herself in a dark studio so links in well with the design of the album covers.



We also thought as we used the two pictures which made the combination of the front cover picture to be on the inside and back cover so easy to look at without it being top complicated with different pictures we thought that this worked well. With our front cover of the album having two sides this meant it was well related to the character in our music video as she is shown to have two sides with her partner e.g. one side is nice, happy and loving.
Whereas the other side to her is more mysterious and dark and is heartbroken. overall We thought that the combination of the album cover and the song worked well together.

Another part of our front album cover which we took into consideration of combining the song and the album cover to together is by making our artist name 'Bryonyhope' relate to our music video which is named 'hopes and dreams' we thought that this would be good to combine as it makes the artist seem as though they have a deep connection with the song in which they have written.

What we have also considered in combining our ancillary tasks is that we have used the costumes in which she is wearing in the album cover to represent what happens in our music video such as when Bryony is having the arguement with her partner it represents the dark side of the front album cover and the costume she is wearing represents that she cares about how she looks visually but inside she is feeling despair and sadness which isnt easily shown on the outside. However with the other side of the album cover we have combined the clothing in which she is wearing on the front album cover by it representing having fun and a good time by the colourful clothing, we have represented in the video for example when you see the artist singing she wearing quite bright and colourful clothing which shows us in the video that she is trying to tell us that she is stronger than her partner and she can move on and have fun.

 

For our disc cover background we used a silhouette image of the artist making the shape of a heart sign in her hand, we thought that this would work well as the music video is about heartbreak and relationships so we thought it would be a good idea as to seem as she is holding her heart in her hand and risking giving it away, we thought that this worked well into relating to the music video as well because in the video we have a shot of a heart which has been drawn in the sand and this could also be seen as being related to the silhouette image.


For our magazine cover we used the same background colouring which is used in our album cover we thought that this would be a good idea as when people see the advertisement in a magazine they can relate it to the album or the music video by there being a dark background in the singing clips.

We have also used the same kind of camera shots in our album cover and our music video for example when bryony is argueing with her partner this is taken from a mid-shot angle so that she is the most noticable thing in  the shot and so when you watch it she is the main focus of the screen. How this is related to my album cover is that i had taken the images from a mid-shot so that i could also create the same effect with this as is did for the music video as the artist is the most important part of any song. I think that the combination of these two together has worked quite well overall and i think that my audience would be able to make a relation between the two.



 

 Conclusion

 

I think that the combination of our ancillary tasks and our main task has really helped us in creating a good professional looking product. The reasons for this is that if you look at any good selling album you will see that the whole album has a running theme throughout the album and it creates a atmosphere throughout the albuma and makes it to be portrayed through a certain genre like our you can clearly see that it isnt going to be a rock album but that it would be a quite mellow and acoustically themed album a clear example of another album which represents a running theme is Ben Howards album. As you can see below for his album he has had a running theme by having the same image for his album and his magzine advert such as he has kept it very plain and simple so that it isnt too busy and loud when you first see the album and the title is very clear so that is the main thing you notice like on our the title is very big and bright which stands out to you.

I think that by making a successful album and music video you need to have an idea of what combination of images and colours you want in your album to represent certain parts of your music video such as using images from the video or using images that use the same kind of colours in the the music video and by having these aspects it will make it more eye catching to anybody who buys an album, and i think that i have done this sucessfully with my album and ancillary tasks by having a running theme throughout.

evaluation question 3

what have you learnt from your Audience feedback?


Professional audience feedback

How i got these feedback sheets is that i got some qualified media students or teachers to watch my music video and for them to tell me what the strengths and weaknesses of my music video were, and how i could improve on it. Why i think this was a good idea to incoporate this into my work was because it think that it has helped me see my music video from another persons prespective.

1. Miss Wickson

what was said :

Strengths

• Sound is great
• song is Amazing
• good pacing edited well
• different shots e.g close up's/wide shot's and interesting shot's
• song fits images

What needs to be improved

• Are you thinking of showing the girl with the black background again? it may be good to incoporate it again as it seems a little out of place at the minute.

I agree with what miss Wickson said i think that i should include more shots of the singer as it seems abit random just having one shot of the singer and the rest the video. I have taken this on board and have included more shots of her singing. I think this added a good variety to the video and would make it less boring and add more depth to the video then it just being clips from the acting.  

2. Miss cole
 

What was said :

Strengths

• like the close up of hands when lyrics say it
• same with the 'sea' and it was clouded vision
• thought the pace of editing was good + smooth
• well written + sung song

what needs to be improved

• is the solo singer going to re-appear?
• it seems out of place at the minute

I also agree with what miss cole said as i think it needed to be more flowing to make the song seem more related to artist. I have taken this on board aswell.
As you can see i have screenshotted that i have taken what miss cole said and i have improved my film by adding more scenes of my artist singing in my music video
Overall we thought that that this did improve our video as it made the link between the artist and the song more clear than it was before, this has then meant that it is more easier to understand than when we didnt have the clips of her in.

3. Nikki Williams

what was said:

Strengths

• very nice framing in shots
• good variety
• music fits in nicely
• very clear

What needs to be improved

• add in titles
• car scene is a little choppy in the editing (the cuts stand out too much)

I agree with what nikki said about adding the titles in , so i am going to add titles in at the end of the video so we are almost advertising the artists name more. however i dont agree with what he said about the car scene being choppy as it had to be because i think by having more quicker shots it means that it is more interesting for the audience to watch, although i have broken up the car scene by adding different shots inbetween i thought that this worked more successful than before.

As you can see i have added in some titles at the end of the video to make it look more professional looking when you watch it. I think that this has worked quite successfully but we havent taken up much of the song with the title though it appears for a certain amount of time which we thought went well.

4. John hawe
 

What was said

Strengths

• cinematography
• acting
• colour in car works well (blues) - fits the music
• edit is strong
• story is easy to follow

What needs to be improved

• Include a few more shots of singer acts as a backbone to narrative as if its her story
• some shots last a little too long (shot of ocean at 57 secs.

I agree again by the fact there needed to be more shots of the singer, However i dont agree with what he noted about the ocean scene being too long because i think that the scene was just the right length as it fitted in with the lyrics and wouldnt have looked good if it was any shorter. It also breaks away from the video abit so the audience dont get too bored.

As you can see in these shots i made the ocean scene alot slower on the Corel editing studio, i think that this was nesseccary as they looked a little out of place to begin with but now i have slowed it down it fits in more with the beat of the music video which has made it more easier to watch the video.  

My conclusion

Overall i think that the feedback in which i have recieved was helpful, because i think that by having the professional feedback it has helped me gain more marks and has helped me understand what people are expecting of my music video to be and what standard it should be within the genre i am trying to portray.
Also by having professional feedback it has meant that i can gain more knowledge from other people who know what they are talking about within media and use the terminology in which i understand. I also think that by having this feedback from people who have made media videos before will help my video become of a more professional standard overall and will help me gain more marks and make the video look more visually better. I also think that by having this feedback it has helped me understand what is needed to make a successful music video and how other people with a good knowledge of media think a good music video looks like.

evaluation question 4

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

Blogger

This site has helped use a variety of different media's to
demonstrate my project in many ways, such as it lets me post and embed images and screen grabs through my textual post's which makes my posts on my blog seem more visual and interesting when people view it, i can also embed videos through either youtube or vimeo to my blog which i have made this helped me out for posting my final music video which has made it easier for me get my video across, also by having videos on your blog it makes it more exciting for people who view and has also gained me knowledge in using other different media's. The site has also let me set and customize posts or layouts of by blog in a very organized way by letting me put my post in chronological order by date this has helped me so it shows how much progression i have done throughout my blog and also lets people who view my blog make it easier to understand and view each post. Another factor is that each post on my blog can be clearly name with a title and heading and the date it was made, which has been an advantage for me.
 

Quite a fun factor about using blogger is that i can personalize my blog to how i want it to look by changing the background design and how big i want images and posts to be seen which is very helpful and this also means i can link my page design in well to my media product and make the blog have a certain look to it and look the way i want it to look.

corel video studio pro x3

This software is what i have been using to edit and make my final media piece i thought that this has really helped me into learning about the software and how to make your own film.What has helped me out the most with this program is how you edit, you can adjust how long you want each clip to be and you can make the pace quicker or slower, you can use multi-trim to make each clip accurate as to where you want it to end to make the film your making run smoother and look more professional, you can adjust the lighting and add special effects and words over the top of the video to make it seem more attractive visually. overall the layout of corel really helped me as it was very organised and was easy to adjust anything that needed to be. The only issue in which i had was the the scrolling bar which would be quite unpredictable at time and skip to the end of line which is rather annoying when you have a lot of clips on the clip line.
It has also helped me in making my music video by letting my look at the sound waves of the song and so i can put the clips of the video to the beat to make it look more in tune and make the clips look smoother to watch.

Another good thing about Corel is that you can out sound effects over the top of the video and voice overs this means that i could make my video more unique and different, a good example of this is that i used a sound effect over the top of when John leaves in his car in anger and drives off i put a sound effect of a screeching tyre over the top to make the driving off more dramatic in the video.
Another good factor of this software is that when you have finished editing your film you can easily share it to websites such as vimeo where i can share my final video to different audiences and then i can upload it to blogger.

Photoshop

I thought that this software helped me out in many ways because it helped me manipulate some of my images which were used in my ancillary tasks such as the album cover and the magazine advert. I thought that it was easy to use for the basic editing such as changing the brightness or the contrast or changing the light levels or making simple filters to put over the top e.g black and white. But however the more advanced editing such as using the clone tool or the spot healing tool to perfect the image needed a bit more time when editing an image because it meant you would have to be accurate with the brushes and tools.

 Overall though it has helped me produce  some professional looking photos and has gained me knowledge into knowing how to edit pictures better.
overall photoshop has really helped me for my music video as it had helped me to make my ancillary tasks more professional looking and has helped me clear up and defects in my images as you can see in the image above i have changed it by using several of the different  editing tools to make it up to a certain standard in which i want it.

Video cameras, web cams and still cameras

For the majority of my project i have used these types of software to not just help me make my music video but also to make uses of these different devices to make myself familiar with more technology, such as the video camera i have to film my music and several other videos such as my my preliminary task which has helped me develop my filming skills by using different angles and shots it also helps by it being very small so it means it is easy to take places instead of having to carry a big camera around with me. Also by using webcams it has helped me film my story boards and take still images and put them in a quick slideshow so the audience can see every picture from my storyboard individually this helped me alot when i was planning my music video.I have also been able to use cameras to put original images on my blog to show certain features of my music video such as the characters and there clothes or locations and props i think that by doing this it has help me develop my music video in more detail by explaining in depth every aspect of it.
 


Youtube

How youtube has helped me with my blog is that it has helped me gain knowledge form other music videos and how other people present there videos as you can see i have used videos from youtube in my textual analysis and to help me with my conventions post into exploring the ideas of different genres and how different there conventions are and how i can adapt them into my own work and learn from it to make my own music video. I have also used youtube to post my music video form corel so then i can gain more views and publicity from viewers which then makes my video overall more well known and more popular.

I also think that by having my video on youtube it has meant that i have a wider ranged audience worldwide as youtube is a worldwide based site which means that it can gain views from more than just the UK, which is an advantage to us.

conclusion

Overall i think that by using all of these softwares it has helped me into making my music video what it is and helped me into making my ancillary tasks more professional and i think also by using these softwares it has helped me gain knowledge into how the process works into making a music video magazine advert and an album and how much hard work goes into it. I think that i have gained more skills from using these softwares and technologies and could also help into making another movie in the future.