In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video generally follows forms of conventions. An example of this is how we focused mainly of the artist, using a lot of close ups and mid shots, and at the same time sells the artist. This is shown in similar artists like James Blunt, where he is the main focus point in most of his videos including ‘Goodbye my lover’, which only shows him throughout the music video. This is also one of Goodwins points of analysis. At the same time it also challenges forms of convention.
The fact that this its quite a lonely isolated song meant that we had to make the artist look isolated and lonely, but whereas most music videos of this type of genre, which also have a lonely feel to the song isolate the character by making him or her look completely different to the other people, or making them act differently, or just not have any other people in it like James Blunts video, we decided to make the main character look isolated by speeding up everything else around him, like the time lapse traffic clips which we had people in as well as the traffic.
Another shot which work very effectively which has not been used much in this genre was when we filmed in the dark, on a field with the city lights and a busy road in the background, with the characters face lighted up. The reason why i feel that this worked quite well is because it did a good job at making the character look isolated and lonely.
The ancillary project magazine advert also in ways breaks the convention of this genre of music video. Although lonely songs magazine adverts do sometimes reflect the mood of the artist by using dull colours, we decided that we would make the magazine advert black and white, even know none of our music video is black and white, and we though that it may stand out from other adverts in a magazine. Coldplay also did a similar thing with the breaking of conventions, but with a picture of the band in black and white in a magazine advert, and The Beetles, which we researched into also did a black and white magazine advert, but with shadows.
We though kept to the conventions in the advert by used brighter bolder colours and fonts for more the more important information which needed to come across like for example the release date of the album which had a white box around the black text, making it stand out particularly more from the rest.
Goodwin’s points also helped us to keep more or less to the conventions of this genre of music video, and we tried to apply them throughout the video. We tried to use genre characteristics by filming in quite a relaxing chilled out place (punting on the river) which reflects the slow pace of the song, whiles at the same time he is on his own in a punt which you don’t see much as punts are usually full of a group of Frends. This helps reflects the loneliness of the song. A relationship between lyrics and visuals is also used throughout like for example at the end he is standing in the dark with traffic behind him saying the verse ‘I can see it all tonight’.
We also kept to the conventions of this genre of layer back music by using shadows of the artists face as one of our magazine advert ideas which we took inspiration from by a number of artists including ‘The Beetles’ and ‘The Doors’. We where originally going to use the idea of using shadows, but we decided that using a silhouette as a band logo in both our magazine advert and our digipack, which we got inspiration to do from James blunts magazine advert which also uses silhouettes, which we thought was a better idea.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our first feedback which we received was by both people in our class, and our teacher when we had to pitch for our music video. In this presentation we explained parts of our blog, and presented our first initial idea which we had, which was relatively similar to our finished product. This feedback, that was explained in a blog of ours states that we needed to think more about the locations. We where also given by our peers examples of locations like a back alley which we used, and worked very well.
A teachers feedback was also posted on our blog when we where in our early stages of planning. This gave us a video of former students who had filmed a similar video on punts, which gave us examples of camera angles, and shots which we took inspiration from in some of our filming, and it also included that we needed to start coming up with ideas for our digipack and magazine advert.
Other audience feedback's which we have received at different stages in our project have also allowed us to improve parts which previously had not been noticed by any of our group members, like for example we had various feedback's on our rough cut from both our peers, and also our teacher saying that we needed more footage. An example of a feedback left on our blog is “The song seems to be based directly on the performer throughout, which makes some shots feel repetitive. More footage of surroundings or things relevant to your film other than the performer may make the film more interesting”. This feedback, as well as others said very similar things stated that more filming, possibly of abstract shots, so the next lesson, be took a camera out and filmed some abstract shots including leaves falling on the ground (which I previously researched into), and a pebble being thrown into a puddle. These shots drastically Improved our video when we finally finished it. This was shown in the feedback of our final video by our class in the quote “Enough variety of different shots to stop the video becoming boring”.
Our final video feedback also showed us that parts of our music video would be very effective if they where used as a background, or as a picture in our ancillary texts). On many occasions people stated that specific parts like for example the motorway time lapse, and the roundabout time lapse could be used, so we took the advise from our peers and used some of the strong shots in our digipack idea, which I think worked quite well.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Media technologies like for example Photoshop where a great help in the planning and the construction of our media project. We used Photoshop in the planning by creating a mood board on it, where we searched the Internet for pictures which particularly related to our media project at the time, and arranged these pictures in a nice looking layout. This mood board allowed us to explain our idea to our teacher with pictures so it could be visualised in the pitch which we did at the start of our project.
Photoshop also allowed us to create our ancillary projects, and particular tools, backgrounds, and filters which put on drastically improved our idea.
Another stage that Photoshop helped me was in the planning of the ancillary projects by allowing me add colour, text and pictures to a picture a sketched of a DVD colour. Tools like the magic tool, which let me put colour on, screen grabbing pictures off our video, and putting text on in different fonts and colours where a great help.
Final cut was another media technology which helped us in our project, but in the planning, construction and evaluation stages. It helped us in the planning by allowing us to create an animatic storyboard out of the pictures which we originally drew for our story board. Tools like fades, cuts and movements on the still photos allowed us to make the pictures more interesting whiles having the song in the background.
Final cut was most helpful for the construction of our music video. It allowed us to arrange our footage into a particular order, and then create the time lapse ghosting effects by copying one clip a number of times, and change the opacity, and the speed of each of the clips differently and also let us put filters over the whole clip.
Final cut also helped us in the evaluation by letting us create a video with a commentary explaining how our project went, and problems we encountered. Tools in final cut let us take parts of the video clip out and replace them with pictures from our blog, whiles keeping the audio clip intact, making it look like a professional commentary.
Other media technology which helped us with the planning for our music video include both email, and social networking sights like Myspace. We used both of these to contact the artist, asking him if he minded us making a music video for his song, and if he could mentor us by giving us criticism on our ideas and blogs. We used Myspace to look at current fan based groups for this artist and similar songs. We found that there was a lot of people both in fan groups, and who enjoyed this type of music.
Blogger.com which is an Internet based blogging site, where we showed our development of ideas was also a very helpful media technology. It allowed us to show each of the stages of development, the planning which went into the video, influential artists, and also let us show the videos that we filmed.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I personally think our main product and ancillary texts, including the magazine advert and digipack which our group made work well together because the colours were not too vibrant, which reflected on the dull colours of our video. Also the pictures on the back of the digipack allow the person viewing it to instantly recognise the video, and the band logo, of the side profile of the face also makes fans of the artist recognise him. The picture which we used of the river in black and white in the magazine advert is from quite a strong scene in the music video, and references to water, cities and boats in the song makes the picture work well, as it is the river cam running through the city of Cambridge.
Our initial idea for the digipack or the magazine advert was to take a picture of the lanterns on the punt which we planned to use, but one of our group members, who said they would bring the lanterns to the filming failed to turn up for the filming, so instead we took inspiration from similar artist like James Blunt, and use a silhouette with a strong image of ours, of the river in the background.
These are two of the three magazine adverts which we made, and considered. As you can see, the blue one is similar to James Blunts, but we felt that it could not be easily related to our music video, and the colour one of the river was also a consideration, but we felt that our black and white one worked better, and followed influential artists like Coldplay and The Beetles
The pictures on the back of the digipack also complimented the video nicely not only by showing all the different scenes, lighting and effects that where used, but also gives an insight into the video, and shows how the artist is portrayed as being lonely by only showing pictures of the video with just him in. The picture of the leaves on the middle of the digipack also let the person viewing relate to the music video as it is one of the strongest clips which we used.
Our music video generally follows forms of conventions. An example of this is how we focused mainly of the artist, using a lot of close ups and mid shots, and at the same time sells the artist. This is shown in similar artists like James Blunt, where he is the main focus point in most of his videos including ‘Goodbye my lover’, which only shows him throughout the music video. This is also one of Goodwins points of analysis. At the same time it also challenges forms of convention.
The fact that this its quite a lonely isolated song meant that we had to make the artist look isolated and lonely, but whereas most music videos of this type of genre, which also have a lonely feel to the song isolate the character by making him or her look completely different to the other people, or making them act differently, or just not have any other people in it like James Blunts video, we decided to make the main character look isolated by speeding up everything else around him, like the time lapse traffic clips which we had people in as well as the traffic.
Another shot which work very effectively which has not been used much in this genre was when we filmed in the dark, on a field with the city lights and a busy road in the background, with the characters face lighted up. The reason why i feel that this worked quite well is because it did a good job at making the character look isolated and lonely.
The ancillary project magazine advert also in ways breaks the convention of this genre of music video. Although lonely songs magazine adverts do sometimes reflect the mood of the artist by using dull colours, we decided that we would make the magazine advert black and white, even know none of our music video is black and white, and we though that it may stand out from other adverts in a magazine. Coldplay also did a similar thing with the breaking of conventions, but with a picture of the band in black and white in a magazine advert, and The Beetles, which we researched into also did a black and white magazine advert, but with shadows.
We though kept to the conventions in the advert by used brighter bolder colours and fonts for more the more important information which needed to come across like for example the release date of the album which had a white box around the black text, making it stand out particularly more from the rest.
Goodwin’s points also helped us to keep more or less to the conventions of this genre of music video, and we tried to apply them throughout the video. We tried to use genre characteristics by filming in quite a relaxing chilled out place (punting on the river) which reflects the slow pace of the song, whiles at the same time he is on his own in a punt which you don’t see much as punts are usually full of a group of Frends. This helps reflects the loneliness of the song. A relationship between lyrics and visuals is also used throughout like for example at the end he is standing in the dark with traffic behind him saying the verse ‘I can see it all tonight’.
We also kept to the conventions of this genre of layer back music by using shadows of the artists face as one of our magazine advert ideas which we took inspiration from by a number of artists including ‘The Beetles’ and ‘The Doors’. We where originally going to use the idea of using shadows, but we decided that using a silhouette as a band logo in both our magazine advert and our digipack, which we got inspiration to do from James blunts magazine advert which also uses silhouettes, which we thought was a better idea.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Our first feedback which we received was by both people in our class, and our teacher when we had to pitch for our music video. In this presentation we explained parts of our blog, and presented our first initial idea which we had, which was relatively similar to our finished product. This feedback, that was explained in a blog of ours states that we needed to think more about the locations. We where also given by our peers examples of locations like a back alley which we used, and worked very well.
A teachers feedback was also posted on our blog when we where in our early stages of planning. This gave us a video of former students who had filmed a similar video on punts, which gave us examples of camera angles, and shots which we took inspiration from in some of our filming, and it also included that we needed to start coming up with ideas for our digipack and magazine advert.
Other audience feedback's which we have received at different stages in our project have also allowed us to improve parts which previously had not been noticed by any of our group members, like for example we had various feedback's on our rough cut from both our peers, and also our teacher saying that we needed more footage. An example of a feedback left on our blog is “The song seems to be based directly on the performer throughout, which makes some shots feel repetitive. More footage of surroundings or things relevant to your film other than the performer may make the film more interesting”. This feedback, as well as others said very similar things stated that more filming, possibly of abstract shots, so the next lesson, be took a camera out and filmed some abstract shots including leaves falling on the ground (which I previously researched into), and a pebble being thrown into a puddle. These shots drastically Improved our video when we finally finished it. This was shown in the feedback of our final video by our class in the quote “Enough variety of different shots to stop the video becoming boring”.
Our final video feedback also showed us that parts of our music video would be very effective if they where used as a background, or as a picture in our ancillary texts). On many occasions people stated that specific parts like for example the motorway time lapse, and the roundabout time lapse could be used, so we took the advise from our peers and used some of the strong shots in our digipack idea, which I think worked quite well.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Media technologies like for example Photoshop where a great help in the planning and the construction of our media project. We used Photoshop in the planning by creating a mood board on it, where we searched the Internet for pictures which particularly related to our media project at the time, and arranged these pictures in a nice looking layout. This mood board allowed us to explain our idea to our teacher with pictures so it could be visualised in the pitch which we did at the start of our project.
Photoshop also allowed us to create our ancillary projects, and particular tools, backgrounds, and filters which put on drastically improved our idea.
Another stage that Photoshop helped me was in the planning of the ancillary projects by allowing me add colour, text and pictures to a picture a sketched of a DVD colour. Tools like the magic tool, which let me put colour on, screen grabbing pictures off our video, and putting text on in different fonts and colours where a great help.
Final cut was another media technology which helped us in our project, but in the planning, construction and evaluation stages. It helped us in the planning by allowing us to create an animatic storyboard out of the pictures which we originally drew for our story board. Tools like fades, cuts and movements on the still photos allowed us to make the pictures more interesting whiles having the song in the background.
Final cut was most helpful for the construction of our music video. It allowed us to arrange our footage into a particular order, and then create the time lapse ghosting effects by copying one clip a number of times, and change the opacity, and the speed of each of the clips differently and also let us put filters over the whole clip.
Final cut also helped us in the evaluation by letting us create a video with a commentary explaining how our project went, and problems we encountered. Tools in final cut let us take parts of the video clip out and replace them with pictures from our blog, whiles keeping the audio clip intact, making it look like a professional commentary.
Other media technology which helped us with the planning for our music video include both email, and social networking sights like Myspace. We used both of these to contact the artist, asking him if he minded us making a music video for his song, and if he could mentor us by giving us criticism on our ideas and blogs. We used Myspace to look at current fan based groups for this artist and similar songs. We found that there was a lot of people both in fan groups, and who enjoyed this type of music.
Blogger.com which is an Internet based blogging site, where we showed our development of ideas was also a very helpful media technology. It allowed us to show each of the stages of development, the planning which went into the video, influential artists, and also let us show the videos that we filmed.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I personally think our main product and ancillary texts, including the magazine advert and digipack which our group made work well together because the colours were not too vibrant, which reflected on the dull colours of our video. Also the pictures on the back of the digipack allow the person viewing it to instantly recognise the video, and the band logo, of the side profile of the face also makes fans of the artist recognise him. The picture which we used of the river in black and white in the magazine advert is from quite a strong scene in the music video, and references to water, cities and boats in the song makes the picture work well, as it is the river cam running through the city of Cambridge.
Our initial idea for the digipack or the magazine advert was to take a picture of the lanterns on the punt which we planned to use, but one of our group members, who said they would bring the lanterns to the filming failed to turn up for the filming, so instead we took inspiration from similar artist like James Blunt, and use a silhouette with a strong image of ours, of the river in the background.
These are two of the three magazine adverts which we made, and considered. As you can see, the blue one is similar to James Blunts, but we felt that it could not be easily related to our music video, and the colour one of the river was also a consideration, but we felt that our black and white one worked better, and followed influential artists like Coldplay and The Beetles
The pictures on the back of the digipack also complimented the video nicely not only by showing all the different scenes, lighting and effects that where used, but also gives an insight into the video, and shows how the artist is portrayed as being lonely by only showing pictures of the video with just him in. The picture of the leaves on the middle of the digipack also let the person viewing relate to the music video as it is one of the strongest clips which we used.
James Morrison -' Please don't stop the rain'
