alistair Free Evaluation

Media studies music video Evaluation by Alistair Free Group P.05

 

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

 

Our music video is different to most other music videos because it only has one main focus throughout the video which is just the male solo artist which if we were filming for real would have been the original artist M.Craft, but we used a member from our group instead to play the part which was Jonny.

I think our music video both challenges and sticks to the conventions of a music video, firstly our chosen song just has one lead male singer throughout so we could only really have one main focus through the whole video so when filming we used a variety of close-ups, mid-shots and low angle shots to sell the artist. This is also one of Goodwin’s points of analysis. Also the song is in the indie genre, very down beat and bit miserable so we have tried to keep that feel through use of shots and locations, close-up shots were used to show the artists emotion and isolation. We also did research into a stereotypical indie style of clothes so that we could meet conventions of groups such as the kooks and male solo artists such as James Blunt and James Morrison.

            When developing ideas for our music video we researched into artist such as James Blunt, James Morrison and Jack Johnson to see what the stereotypical type of video was for them and to see how videos for these artists were different to female’s solo artists and a selection of bands. We looked at videos such as Goodbye my lover by James Blunt and please don’t stop the rain by James Morrison. A particular them that we wanted to get across was the theme of being alone and isolated we wanted to create this by filming a time-lapse. We did this by filming at normal speed and then slowing it down in the editing process. We research into the way this was done by looking at a variety of time lapse videos on YouTube, and we found a video by Coldplay-Yellow where Chris Martin is by himself walking along a beach. This was a useful video to analyses because it had the theme of loneliness and isolation as well as being a time-lapse throughout.

Another convention from Goodwin’s points of analysis of a music video is that it is meant to have more than one costume change, this is so that you keep the audience interested and so that it doesn’t have the same feel throughout the video. We have challenged this by just sticking to one outfit for the whole video. We decided to do this because we felt that the feel the song gives you it wouldn’t really be appropriate to have a costume change, i think this went fine in the end and it isn’t a problem for our video. Also from looking at different themes of music videos the only ones that have lots of costume changes are more upbeat songs for example in Cheryl Cole’s video ‘fight for this lover’ she has something like 7 costume changes. This is because the director is trying really hard to sell the artist because girls want to be like her and guys will want to look at the video, this all means more sales for the artist.

            I feel our final product meets the convention of a music video for the area that we were working on as it is similar to artist such as James Blunt and James Morrison because they are almost always by themselves in there videos which brings across there feelings more and gives the audience a different feel.

 

 

 

 

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancilliary texts?

 

            When we were doing research into our ancilliary product we decided to do a photo shoot so we could get a section of high quality image to put on our DVD cover and our advert. We then edited these images on Photoshop so that we could get similar affects to other products such as James Blunt back to bedlam album.

I feel that the combination of our main product with our ancilliary product don’t really fit together very well because the digipack looks very rushed apart from the front cover and it doesn’t look very professional because of the way the images have been put over each other on the back cover. However it does have lots of references back to our music video so the two products could be related together. Then our music video advert also doesn’t really fit in with our video and also doesn’t look very professional, however I do feel it stands out quite a lot and will draw someone’s attention to it which is good because once someone becomes interested and realises what you are selling that’s when you will sell a product. Also on both the digipack and advert we are selling the artist by having them as the main focus so this is a convention and a need for a product. Also from having an image of the artist on both the digipack and advert relates the together to make a package.

When researching into DVD covers and adverts we looked at artists such as James blunt and James Morrison to see what there adverts looked like the main theme was that they would sell the artist by having a big image of the artist taking up most of the space and not having to much negative space. We had most inspiration from James Blunts back to bedlam album where there is a blue background and then a silhouette of the artist’s face we found that this was quite affective and we tried to get this across in our advert.

 

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

 

When we first started our project we had to pitch to the class about ideas for a music video this was useful because it gave the class time to reflect on our ideas for a video, but then it also gave the class time to tell us possible extra things to incorporate into the video. This was useful because it let us develop our idea and think of new things as well.

 Our audience feedback was very useful because it showed us what everybody really thought about our product so far, it also let people reflect on what they liked and disliked. The comments that people left where then posted onto our group blog so that we could remember what people had said and then we could refer back to it when needed.

Some of the main things that were brought up reputably about our rough cut were that we need to get our lip sinking more in sink. Also people had said that the video was very slow and boring at some points and that we were going slower than the song itself. These were very useful comments because without them we might not have changed them.

Andrea also left a post on our blog of a past music video created by a group, this was useful because it was a similar idea to what we wanted to do so we could see what problems that group had with there filming and we could see where they could have improved there video. These also helped us when we were thinking about ideas and also gave us something to work towards and hopefully make better. 

After the comments on our blog we went out again and filmed a selection of abstract images such as leaves falling from the trees and a selection of water affects created by throwing stones in water. We then added these to our video and the responses were very positive.

 

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

 

At the start of our project we made an animatic storyboard which we then took pictures of and uploaded to final cut, we then edited it together so we could get a rough idea ourselves how our final product might look, we also did this so that we could show other people what we wanted to create. This was a good bit of research for us because every time we thought of a new idea we could draw a picture of it and put it on our storyboard this meant that when we went to go and film our final video we could look at out our storyboard and tick of the shoots as we went.

We also created a timeline against the song itself to show where we wanted to bring particular things in we posted this on our so we could show people what we were intending on doing and then hope for feedback on what people thought of it. This was useful for when we put our final video together because we could look at our timeline and remember to bring things in at particular times in the song.

We then used Google maps to find a location for filming which was very useful because you can get a 1^st person perspective. We used a basic video camera to film our final project we then uploaded it to final cut were we could edit it and add a selection of filters to it to create special effects. We also used Photoshop to create ideas for a digipack and an advert this was a useful program to use because you could create just anything you could want on the program, however the program was very had to use at some points. 

 

In conclusion I feel our project went quite well and we planned and researched well to prevent any unnecessary problems, however we did have a few complications when we were filming our project because one of our group members Danielle didn’t turn up at all during the filming process. This wasn’t too much of a problem because we had enough people to do the jobs that were needed. However it did mean that some props that she said she was going to bring never turned up so our video didn’t end up looking completely how we wanted it to. Also if someone else didn’t turn up as well then we wouldn’t off been able to do the filming process this would of put us very fare behind in the project and we wouldn’t of had a finished product in time.