The task of this years project was to produce a promotional music video with two supporting ancillary tasks. These involve producing a magazine advertisement and a ‘digipack’. The music video is important in promoting the song to a wide audience and also puts a face to the artist, so people can see the person behind the music. The magazine advert is used to help promote the single and when it will be released, although this audience will be a smaller target market than the music video. The actual ‘digipack’ itself will be used to package the project, the added advantage of this over conventional CD cases is that it gives the consumer.
I worked independently for my Media Studies coursework. Before I could begin practical filming work I had to complete the planning section of the coursework, and before the planning I had to analyse existing music videos in the hip-hop and funky house genres. The planning consisted of annotated lyrics for my song, it also consisted of a storyboard, a props and locations list, a shooting schedule and some research on my music video and the artist that created the song; I also had to do a breakdown of what will be in my music video.
As I was working as a individual I had to do all the planning and research myself, therefore I did the research on the artist, the breakdown of the music video scenes, props and locations list, I created the storyboard for the music video, the shooting schedule and the annotated lyrics. I am a fan of hip-hop and funky house music; I decided to look for a song in the hip-hop and funky house genre. It would benefit me greatly choosing a song in a genre I am familiar with. At the beginning I chose the song “Trick’n” by Mullage, however due to certain issues I wasn’t fully satisfied with the results of the final view of my music video so I decided to do another music video in totally different genre compared to hop-hop. I chose a song in the funky house genre called “Right Hand Hi” by Kid Sister.
The lyrics for my chosen song “Right Hand Hi” included annotations of what would be occurring at that moment in the song. I added ideas for outfits the character is going to wear. The reason I made my lyrics so detailed was due to the fact that it would be easier when I started filming also that I would give a clear explanation as to what would be happening in certain points in the video. The reason I created the storyboard was to generate a 2D version of my video, providing me with a vivid map in my mind when I’m filming it. However, I had to use my initiative and picture the scenes, actor postures and costumes and to note down what props I would need. This is how I produced the list. I found that producing a shooting schedule was easily done as I already knew what it was that I wanted to film and when. Therefore the task of the shooting schedule was rather simple though required frequent time and thought.
Before I began the construction of my music video I decided to list the generic conventions of music videos and most particularly those of funky house music videos. I also took into consideration that of our target audience, which was teenager and young adults who enjoy the house genre. The ways in which I ensured that my video appealed to my target audience was to keep it entertaining and also to guarantee that those featuring in the video would be of a young age. I analysed various music videos that were similar to my song, in the sense that they either were in the same genre or that the type of beat and song used was audibly comparable. On analysing these texts I discovered the generic conventions of funky house videos. For example they usually feature seductively dressed female characters, energetic performances, also some generic elements; they furthermore rarely contain significant narratives within their videos instead of just random footage, usually of the artist being in a celebrative event, party. Analysing these music videos and their concepts is what influenced me to come up by the idea of contradicting the way female characters are portrayed in hip-hop music videos. It was also with these denotations that I came up with many ideas, some that worked and others that didn’t and therefore finally emerging all the ideas that worked and discarded those that did not to create my final masterpiece.
For the construction of my music video I presented 1 actress concentrating only on very active performance behind a green screen. As I am working on my own I ultimately filmed the whole process of the film’s construction, and did all the juxtaposition and editing my self. I came to an idea of a variety of scenes using strobe lighting, which I filed that matched with the beat of the song, this I planned to use for the background on the green screen effect, I also used Screenflick to record the screen as I played the song on iTunes and played it with visualizer as I recorded the screen and used some shots for the background of the green screen effect.
I chose to do a performance based music video rather than one narrative based. The reason for this was mainly because with a performance based music video I could convey meaning and themes easier and also add the elements needed in order for it to be of funky house genre. The basic narrative of my music video was about portraying and influencing my target audience to dance as it is mainly targeted for teenagers that are interested in clubs and dancing. I conveyed these points through cinematography, mise-en-scene and a series of different shots. For example different variety of fast pace shots of the actress energetic dancing, shots matching the beat and close-ups of cheerful face expressions. My wide variety of cinematographic language helped me in my directing, production and filming of my music video. I used my skills to the best of my ability and I also tried with a hard effort to use every camera angle I know that would help to convey my point. Because I used a green screen for my video to make it more professional and funky house genre related, this made it very difficult for me to edit due to the fact that I had to do two different types of filming one with the performance near green screen and the second type of filming which I done of the strobe lighting which goes for the green screen. This was very hard to achieve because this was the second music video I was doing for the same coursework with the same deadline I had to meet, this put a lot of pressure on me but I knew I could succeed if I tried my hardest. The editing of my music video was very difficult as my chosen song is very fast paced, so I decided for the video to convey the speed through rapid editing, quite alot of the shots were 2 seconds long. I developed technical skills through the use of iMovie and Adobe after Effects. I was very pleased with the use of fast editing as the effect it had on my audience was of the need to watch it a couple times to better understand and recognise all the events that happen in my music video.
Part 1
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media products predominantly use conventions of real music videos and CD digipaks. My music video has taken ideas from videos that I analyzed. I wanted to do it performance based and for it to be focused mainly on the artist rather than have a story to it. My audience are used to the conventions of music videos, most of them being focused on the artist. They are not however used to them being only based on the artist, without any dancers or any other extras. So here, I have had a balance using and not using conventions. I found a variety of different music videos to analyse, using ones that are not necessarily only performance based, however they are focused on the artist. My artist digipak front cover reflects upon those already on sale. It features the artist name in the bottom right corner. Much like many of the ones that I analysed. The rear of the CD package features common conventions like the track names and a bar code, but the track names fit in better with the background image by flowing down the curves. I feel I have developed on a convention here by improving viewing pleasure. The magazine advert uses many conventions, but also develops on them. It naturally has everything you would expect to be on an artists advert like name of the artist, release of the album date, where available to purchase, picture of the album, newest single by the artist that are featured in the album etc. In order for a music video to be a funky house music video it would have to contain elements, conventions and key aspects that funky house music videos generally include. While creating my music video I took this into account. In order to know what people as an audience expect from a music video, I handed out a number if questionnaires, asking questions such as: Do you tend to listen to music on your own, or when your with a group of people, such as in night clubs or gigs? It was questions like this that assisted me in the creation of my music video as it is primary research and it is also the opinion of my target audience
Many funky house videos consist of performance, good-looking women, expensive and unique clothing, expensive sports cars, massive houses, lively party scenes and it is due to this that I have played on the conventions of presenting messages and conveying meaning. While I edited the filming I took into consideration my target audience and also the clarity instead of an enjoyable but knowledgeable experience. I originally had ambiguous scenes of narrative at the beginning and the end in my music video but after careful consideration I decided to remove these unclear aspects, as they did not successfully carry my message and did not make sense.
The application of performance within my music video helped it appeal to my target audience which are young adults aged between 15 and 25, with a passion for funky house, fashion, music, clubs, dance and language. The main reason that I thought that performance would be more appealing to my audience is because it is more entertaining.
Representation plays an extremely significant part in my music video. When creating my music video I thought a lot about the theme of my music video, which was quite basic, however very hard to achieve, it was very easy to get off track and underachieve the concept and theme of my music video. I used make up, very revealing garments and many close up and long shots to reveal these props, which also reveal the emotions. The entire video is rapidly paced through the editing; this is due to the content and speed of the song and performance. The fast edits present the idea of clubbing and having fun, as it is a very fast song, which is also another typical element of the funky house genre.
The use of dance in my text is important, as entertainment is needed to make my music video enjoyable and pleasurable to watch. The reason that this is vital is because my target audience are young and the text needs to be entertaining as to maintain the attention of the audience. For example there are shots that are fast paced and are made up of a mixture of close up, long and mid shots, they reveal the body shape of the actress and the movements. For every time I played my music video to my fellow college pupils I would have all of the audience attention on the video all concentrating until it finishes, therefore this means I have achieved my goals especially from my targeted audience.
Part 2
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that the combination is very good. I have tried very hard to link all of my products together and I think it shows. After making the main product (the music video) colorful. I thought it would be appropriate to make the two secondary products (the magazine advert and the CD digipack) predominantly colorful too. Throughout the digipack and the magazine advert the artist is portrayed with the same style, linking it back to the video. The digipack and the magazine advert link together very well. All the fonts and main colors used are featured on both, the artists name font is used the same throughout both products. This is what artists would do, they want their look and logos to be widely known and this can only happen if they spread their conventions across their products. When my music video is put back to back to another funky house music video you will see that there is not much of a difference between then except the fact that the quality of the video may not be as professional as a real music video, which was the main restrain of my video being as professional as I first intended it to be, even though I had a lot of issues occur such as while I was using iMovie because my editing was very constant a technical problem occurred because there was too much going on in one project the whole video kept freezing as I tried to edit and would not return to normal, so I had to export the video as much as I have done and upload it exported. Even thought I couldn’t go back and re-edit the shots I’ve already done I still had to carry on from what I have, however as I played it back some of the shots shifted by a few seconds only at a certain time while the technical problem occurred, this was very upsetting to me as I took careful measures to make the shots at perfect timing and at the end I didn’t get the full result, however I tried plenty of times to go back and try to re-edit the shots but I couldn’t, so I had to leave it as it is, I’m more pleased that nothing worse happened throughout the technical issue. When producing my music video I tried as hard as possible to make my video look professional and similar to other funky house music videos. The main differences between my music video and other house artist’s music videos the lighting used in my music video is not as advanced as the lighting and the quality of the video is not as good as professional videos. The location my music video is completely inside my sisters university at a green screen studio, which I had to ask her to rent, however due to other students already using the studio I only had the studio last minute and only for 2 hours, so I had to do my planning and preparing very quickly and I had my sister rent other equipment which I explain in my Props and Locations section. As I got to the studio there was a lesson going on in there and they used up another half an hour of my limit, so in over all I only had an hour and a half to shoot the whole music video without any breaks. If I had the opportunity to film it again I would try my best to get the equipment and the location rented and reserved for a longer time and give myself more time to spend on my planning and shooting, and maybe add other actors for dancing, even have a routine dance to go with the performance, and also use a wider range of clothing with vibrant colours to stand out from the backgrounds. This is an improvement I would make mainly due to the fact that the video would look much more specialised if I had more time to shoot the video and to plan it.
In order for a music video to be a funky house music video it would have to contain elements, conventions and key aspects that funky house music videos generally include. While creating my music video I took this into account. In order to know what people as an audience expect from a music video, I handed out a number if questionnaires, asking questions such as: Do you tend to listen to music on your own, or when your with a group of people, such as in night clubs or gigs? It was questions like this that assisted me in the creation of my music video as it is primary research and it is also the opinion of my target audience
Many funky house videos consist of performance, good-looking women, expensive and unique clothing, expensive sports cars, massive houses, lively party scenes and it is due to this that I have played on the conventions of presenting messages and conveying meaning. While I edited the filming I took into consideration my target audience and also the clarity instead of an enjoyable but knowledgeable experience. I originally had ambiguous scenes of narrative at the beginning and the end in my music video but after careful consideration I decided to remove these unclear aspects, as they did not successfully carry my message and did not make sense.
The application of performance within my music video helped it appeal to my target audience which are young adults aged between 15 and 25, with a passion for funky house, fashion, music, clubs, dance and language. The main reason that I thought that performance would be more appealing to my audience is because it is more entertaining.
Representation plays an extremely significant part in my music video. When creating my music video I thought a lot about the theme of my music video, which was quite basic, however very hard to achieve, it was very easy to get off track and underachieve the concept and theme of my music video. I used make up, very revealing garments and many close up and long shots to reveal these props, which also reveal the emotions. The entire video is rapidly paced through the editing; this is due to the content and speed of the song and performance. The fast edits present the idea of clubbing and having fun, as it is a very fast song, which is also another typical element of the funky house genre.
The use of dance in my text is important, as entertainment is needed to make my music video enjoyable and pleasurable to watch. The reason that this is vital is because my target audience are young and the text needs to be entertaining as to maintain the attention of the audience. For example there are shots that are fast paced and are made up of a mixture of close up, long and mid shots, they reveal the body shape of the actress and the movements. For every time I played my music video to my fellow college pupils I would have all of the audience attention on the video all concentrating until it finishes, therefore this means I have achieved my goals especially from my targeted audience.
Part 3
What have you learnt from your audience feed back?
From my audience feedback, I have learnt that it is the most important thing to consider, before attempting to create my own media products. Before beginning the construction of my media products, I did a questionnaire that when answered would help me better understand who my target audience is and what they want from my media product. I had a rough idea of what I personally wanted to achieve in my product, but I needed to clarify that others wanted the same. When I got the results back, I learnt from my audience feedback and improved on my initial ideas. After showing the same audience my finished products, I feel I have accomplished most of their original desires and even improved on them. However, there are some aspects I would change. For example I may include more scenes with possibly backup dancer in the video to gain extra interest, but I have learnt this from my audience feedback, not just my own.
In order to get record of audience response and also to know if my target audience would like my music video I decided that I could present it to a wider range of audience using a few networking sites and showing my video to people and class mates. I used www.youtube.com and www.facebook.com which are three very popular network sites which I have been using for many years now, when I showed my video to certain people I could see their whole attention on my video until the end and then they all gave amazing results, which made me proud and happy that my audience enjoyed it and it also meant that my work was completed successfully. When my music video had ended audience applauded and cheered, many people approached me afterwards and congratulated me on such a successful video. They said that it was “fun”, “made me want to get up and dance” and “amazingly put together”. I am happy with this response, as it is the one I have worked for. When I posted my final version of the video on youtube I used the link to post it on facebook to get a wider range of feed back.
When my music video is put back to back to another funky house music video you will see that there is not much of a difference between then except the fact that the quality of the video may not be as professional as a real music video, which was the main restrain of my video being as professional as I first intended it to be, even though I had a lot of issues occur such as while I was using iMovie because my editing was very constant a technical problem occurred because there was too much going on in one project the whole video kept freezing as I tried to edit and would not return to normal, so I had to export the video as much as I have done and upload it exported. Even thought I couldn’t go back and re-edit the shots I’ve already done I still had to carry on from what I have, however as I played it back some of the shots shifted by a few seconds only at a certain time while the technical problem occurred, this was very upsetting to me as I took careful measures to make the shots at perfect timing and at the end I didn’t get the full result, however I tried plenty of times to go back and try to re-edit the shots but I couldn’t, so I had to leave it as it is, I’m more pleased that nothing worse happened throughout the technical issue. When producing my music video I tried as hard as possible to make my video look professional and similar to other funky house music videos. The main differences between my music video and other house artist’s music videos the lighting used in my music video is not as advanced as the lighting and the quality of the video is not as good as professional videos. The location my music video is completely inside my sisters university at a green screen studio, which I had to ask her to rent, however due to other students already using the studio I only had the studio last minute and only for 2 hours, so I had to do my planning and preparing very quickly and I had my sister rent other equipment which I explain in my Props and Locations section. As I got to the studio there was a lesson going on in there and they used up another half an hour of my limit, so in over all I only had an hour and a half to shoot the whole music video without any breaks. If I had the opportunity to film it again I would try my best to get the equipment and the location rented and reserved for a longer time and give myself more time to spend on my planning and shooting, and maybe add other actors for dancing, even have a routine dance to go with the performance, and also use a wider range of clothing with vibrant colours to stand out from the backgrounds. This is an improvement I would make mainly due to the fact that the video would look much more specialised if I had more time to shoot the video and to plan it.
While commencing with my project I had to use the programs iPhoto, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator in order to produce my creative work such as the digipacks and the posters, I also used websites such as google.com, yahoo.com and youtube.com to do some re-search on existing products. I was already accustomed to using Photoshop and Illustrator from past experiences in GCSE, AS Media and AS Art; therefore I did not find it particularly difficult to create my ancillary text. However, however it was quite hard to achieve certain ideas I had in mind, so I tried my best to portray them as good as I could get them to look more like my ideas. To get the best achievement on my music video re-searching existing music videos helped me progress to get a professional result on my video as I studied and analysed music videos in the funky house genre. I also got a lot of ideas in my head from just watching music videos in my spare time, as I have a critical mind on things and I usually analyse videos automatically in my head.
Upon analysing these music videos I acknowledged that they were all fairly complicated and rather challenging to create, because they looked highly professional. This presented to me the idea that music videos have to be rather fancy in order to look professional and fit with the genre. Before I actually created my music video I had listed the conventions of a funky house music video, which I used in order to create my own video. Due to this presentation I added the conventions I needed into my music video and it would look similar to other funky house music videos. In post-production and after editing my final product which I watched several times and then I watched the original Right Hand Hi by Kid Sister music video to see the similarities and differences. There were hardly any similarities apart from the use of green screen effect. The whole video was based mainly on performance, which made me feel like I done a good choice by basing my video only on performance, even though it’s a professional music video I personally think that the video could be made better. The lack of energy used in the video does not attract the attention of the audience and does not match with the energy portrayed in the song especially when the video is all performance based, attracting attention from the audience is very important as its very easy for young audience to get distracted or get bored very quickly.
Part 4
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?
I used new media technologies in all stages of my coursework. In the construction, I used video editing software ‘iMovie’ to compile and edit my video.Using this software was not easy at first but by the time I’d finished editing the video, I was confident in using the basic features.I came to an idea of a variety of scenes using strobe lighting, which I filed that matched with the beat of the song, this I planned to use for the background on the green screen effect, I also used Screenflick to record the screen as I played the song on iTunes and played it with visualizer as I recorded the screen and used some shots for the background of the green screen effect.
Screenflick:
iTunes visualizer:
I used ‘iPhoto’ and ‘Photoshop’ to produce the digipack and the magazine advert. I am very familiar with what this software has to offer due to using it in AS Media Studies and in Art AS and A2 level. When doing research and planning, I used the internet and it’s services like YouTube that offer me music videos that I can analyse using ‘Microsoft Word’, pictures form Google and getting the lyrics for the song. I also got a lot of ideas in my head from just watching music videos in my spare time, as I have a critical mind on things and I usually analyse videos automatically in my mind. Upon analysing these music videos I acknowledged that they were all fairly complicated and rather challenging to create, because they looked highly professional. This presented to me the idea that music videos have to be rather fancy in order to look professional and fit with the genre. Before I actually created my music video I had listed the conventions of a funky house music video, which I used in order to create my own video. Due to this presentation I added the conventions I needed into my music video and it would look similar to other funky house music videos. In post-production and after editing my final product which I watched several times and then I watched the original Right Hand Hi by Kid Sister music video to see the similarities and differences. There were hardly any similarities apart from the use of green screen effect. The whole video was based mainly on performance, which made me feel like I done a good choice by basing my video only on performance, even though it’s a professional music video I personally think that the video could be made better. The lack of energy used in the video does not attract the attention of the audience and does not match with the energy portrayed in the song especially when the video is all performance based, attracting attention from the audience is very important as its very easy for young audience to get distracted or get bored very quickly. I also used ‘Blogger’ to present my work electronically as a blog. This shows that I am capable of using a variety of different new media technologies.
In conclusion I feel my products have achieved their purpose. The video has demonstrated aspects such appropriately faming a shot, selecting mise-en-scene like colors and lighting, and using sound with the video effectively. My CD digipak shows conventions of real media products, hosting a variety of images fonts and text sizes but complying with the conventions by having an ongoing theme throughout. The magazine advert combines text and images that is appropriately combined with my other products. I feel the advert communicates clearly and effectively, allowing the reader to understand clearly without any background information. The audience feedback shows that the majority are pleased with my final products and would happily make a purchase if they saw my work in a shop or online. I’m glad that they appreciated the funky house style that I created and got a ‘feel’ for the artist through the video. I am personally pleased with all my products and I feel I have appropriately done each task set.
