Evalutation Question 4

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

To create our music video and ancillary tasks we had to use quite a lot of technology in both stages of production (Pre-production and post-production). 

The technologies I used to create the product at each stage were;

Pre-Production Stage - In the pre-production stage the technologies that I used were; Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel to create documents and timetables for our music video. This could be easily used on the computers that we use at school as well as my laptop at home where I had been doing some extra work.

Production Stage - In the production stage the technologies that I used were; a HD camera, a tripod and a dolly.

Planning and research

In the research stage of this course, I needed to research a variety of music videos to look at in detail in order for me to be able to identify generic conventions within the music videos so I can use them in mine. To research these videos, the best place to find them in my opinion was YouTube.

YouTube is a place in which people can upload videos and others can watch them. It is arguably the main site for watching music videos as this is where record companies display them. YouTube allows you to see how many views the music videos have so you can see how popular they are.

Above shows a screenshot of the YouTube page with a video being displayed.

To use YouTube, it is accessible to anyone who has an internet connection. I personally used this on the computers we have at school, my personal laptop and mobile phone.

 

Another website we used in the planning stage was Googleblogger. This is a blogging website which we could use to post our work on.

Positives of using Googleblogger	Negatives of using Googleblogger
You can embed both images and videos to the blog.	It was hard to navigate round the blogger.
It makes your work clearly set out and well presented.	When displaying images, they did not always work for unknown reasons
You can make your blogger your own and personal by decorating it.	It was hard to move images around.

The other programmes I used for my research and planning was Microsoft Word and Excel. I used Word for writing all of my work up on so that it saved successfully and then I would copy and paste it onto blogger. I also was able to create tables on Word which I could also transfer to my blog.

I used Excel to create my shot list. It meant that my shot list was set out neatly and as a group we could see which different shots we needed to shoot and for how long.

The technologies I used within this stage was my Mobile Phone and iPad. I used my phone to communicate with my group and share work with each other. If I had found a good source which might help them, I would send them some whilst they would do the same.

The iPad was used when I needed to research music videos at home. I used this to visit YouTube and look at some of my artists songs.

The camera is going to be used for the filming of every shot. It is a HD camera so it will capture the footage in high definition, this therefore makes it look more professional. The camera is an essential piece of equipment because it is the device that will store and capture our music video.

We used this exact camera in the picture above. The make of it is ‘Canon’ and this is what we was provided with. I found the camera to be quite good to use and it produced a much clearer picture than I thought it would. It included features such as a zoom which we could control the speed of however I found it quite tricky to keep the zoom at a slow tempo.

The zoom was used by the nozzle at the top which you slide from right to left.

The battery life of the camera was good as long as it was charged up however there was points in time within filming when we did not prepare ourselves well enough in a group and charge up the camera beforehand. This meant that we lost time to film and may have rushed us.

The camera also displayed the live footage as you were filming. This came in handy because it meant that you are able to see what the set looks like on camera as sometimes it can look a lot different than in real life. This can look different by the lighting and it can mean images are not always clear. I think this was a good feature to have in the end because we created a set which we thought looked good in one of the kitchen scenes however we had to change things about because when we shot it, it didn’t look as good.

The dolly is going to be used to do the shots where the camera needs to be steady but moving at the same time, we will use this a few times when doing the shots where the camera will need to be steady but moving. The camera will be steady because it will be on a tripod, to operate the dolly properly the camera needs to be attached to the tripod then attached to the dolly.

The tripod is going to be used to steady our shots, it will be used for all of the shots that we do. This is because we want all of our shots to be steady, the tripod also attaches to the dolly so it will be used on the dolly as well. The tripod is telescopic so that it can be adjusted to many heights allowing us to do a variety of shots with it all with them being steady at the same time.

Post-Production Stage - In the post-production stage the technologies that I used were; iMovie, an Apple Mac

The computer that we used to edit on was an Apple Mac, I found the computer ok to use but it was a little bit tedious at times because I really didn't like using the mouse, the editing software that we used was iMovie on the Mac, I think that this software was alright but not the best that I have used. The main reason was because if you wanted to put a file on the Mac, you have to convert the file before it went on there. I have learnt from editing that the actual editing takes longer than filming the film and there are a lot of things to take into consideration when editing such as the CC, sound and how the audience will feel when they are actually watching the film.

iMovie

As a group, we used iMovie in order to edit the footage we created. I found this quite tedious to use because I was unfamiliar with this software. The only other editing software I had previously used was Final Cut Express.

 

In conclusion, I think the technology and equipment we were provide with was very good and we was very lucky as students of this school to be given this equipment. I also think it was helpful that I owned a good phone and iPad so that it could help me research further in any spare time and anywhere.

 

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Rough Cut 3

Final Cut

Rough Cut 2

Rough Cut 1

Digipak 2

Here is my second digipak. I kept with the same style as the first one as I liked the look of it however I changed the colour to what I think is a nicer colour. I like this digipak although I don't like it as much as the other one because I don't think it connotes the right things and looks right for this genre or artist.

Digipak 1

Here is a picture of my digipak. You can see the main colour is used was a dark red. I chose this colour because red connotes love however black connotes death. The song 'Goodbye My Lover' is about love and death so I thought it would be a good idea to use this as the colour.

Magazine Advertisement For My Chosen Genre

 

 

Above shows a picture of Plan B's magazine advertisement. I struggled to find a magazine cover of the same genre of James Blunt however I think plan B is quite similar due to both of the artists sing quite soulful.

 

When you look at this music advertisement you the main thing you will notice is the black and white effect with the big red writing saying the artists name. I think they chose to use this black and white effect as it can connote that it is quite old. Plan B has a style in which he is in the past and performs maybe in the 1980's and is very soulful. This whole effect gives the audience an idea of what genre Plan B is.  On top of this is the big, bold, red font. This really stands out on the page and this is because they will want to show the audience looking at this cover who this artist is and shows his importance.

 

As you look closer into this music advertisement, you see the big image of him in performance shot holding an old styled microphone. This again backs up my point about this particular artists theme and style of living in the past. It is a close up used on the artist so audiences can recognise his face and know who he is however I noticed the microphone was in the centre of the advertisement and I think this might have been used to connote that music is the main part of his life and it is more important than he is and he relies on making music.

 

Below this then shows the ratings that the newspapers have gave him which shows his achievements and again shows the audience that he is good and they should buy his album. Magazine advertisements are a tool to help sell a media product so they have to show audiences how good the audiences how good he is in order to sell. 

There is also a picture of Plan B in the bottom corner of the page showing him sitting down outside a club with his head held down. You can see his characters name in big writing and this picture shows maybe that he is upset or there is things not going well in his life currently and that's what he might be singing about.

I think this magazine advertisement is good because he has left it quite simple and this goes with the genre of the artist. Although it is simple, he has got everything there that needs to be.

History Of Music Videos 2

History of music videos

19^th century-

The success of music videos was started by MTV 31 years ago. However, the first actual music video was created in 1895 at Thomas Edison’s studio. It was made for a Kinescope. This is where a viewer would look through a peep hole and watch a motion picture along with music.

 

In the 1920’s, a theatre in New York displayed the first motion picture with sound on film. This synchronised movies with their soundtracks.  

 

In the 1940’s, jukeboxes played soundies. Soundies are about three minute performances which displayed a performance of dance and music and these jukeboxes were located in bars and restaurants.

 

In the 1960’s, the Beatles used film to promote their records. Shortly after, other rock n roll bands followed and copied this idea.

 

In 1981, MTV launched the first music video which was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles. MTV soon became a huge part of promoting artists such as Madonna and Michael Jackson.

 

Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” was seen to be one of the most influential songs for music video as it done so well. It was a 13 minute video which managed to sell a huge 9 million units.
 

In 1985, VH1 launched which displayed softer and lower music which connected with an older target audience meaning the audience for music videos overall had widened as more people could enjoy it.

 

YouTube was introduced in 2005 which allows people to now access music videos from the internet which means it is easily available. Vevo was then later introduced in 2009.
YouTube has made piracy of songs easy so Vevo was brought in so that they will make some of the money back over advertisements from that web page.

 

What Is a Digipak and It's Importance?

Part of our coursework is to create a digipak to go alongside our music video.

A digipak is something which is used to hold a CD in for when an artist how released a single. They are sold in shops such as HMV and another purpose of it is to advertise the media product you are selling. It is important that the digipak you create will stand out to audiences and potential customers because you want them to buy YOUR product and not someone else's. It will also help to identify your genre because if you have a heavy metal band with  a pretty flower as the cover, people will assume you are more of  a soft pop band.

Here is an example of Green Day's digipak. You can see from the colours they use it is a rock band because the colours and what they connote.

 

Pitch Idea Based On Lyrics

 

 

For this task we were given a set of lyrics we had never seen before and asked to pitch how you would make the music video. We done this because when we make our music video we will need to come up with ideas for our one and be able to understand how to come up with these ideas.

As I didn't know how the song went, it meant I had to read the lyrics and try and make a narrative out of it and make it how I am picturing it going in my head. 

How Many Shots are Used Within a Music Video?

Music videos differentiate with how many shots they use depending on the genre. I have noticed this from counting the amounts of shots different music videos use and I have researched into why they do this.
For example a rap video will use a lot more shots than a country pop video. The reason for this is because the pace of the beat of the song. If it is a fast rap video they will tend to use lots of shots to keep up with the beat and keep the audience entertained, however, if it is a slow paced it is likely to have less shots because it is an emotional meaningful song where the audience need to be able to recognise certain facial expressions in order to understand the ong/video.

Conventions of Music Genres

Conventions of music genres

 

R&B

Male

-Smart/Smart casual
-The majority of R&B music videos nowadays have male artists dressed in smart/smart casual clothing. This could be to represent class or status in society. Artists such as Drake, Chris Brown, Usher, Ne-Yo and many more all follow the Smart/Smart casual look.

-Tattoos are a big part of R&B culture again, with the majority having lots of tattoos all visible to the public. This could be used to show creativity and independence from other artists. Even if two artists sound similar, the tattoos and personalities they have could set them apart from each other so much that they wouldn't be seen as similar anymore.

-Jewellery is the most conventional piece of clothing in both R&B and Hip-Hop genres. In every R&B video you see, some sort of jewellery, whether that be a watch, a necklace, or an earring, the artist will have some form of jewellery, again, showing wealth and status in society.

 

Women

-Classy/Very Little clothing
-Depending on the sub-genre of the song, and the song itself, the women in music videos are usually dressed in accordance to the song lyrics or narrative of the music video. Women in the videos generally wear classy but revealing clothes, making them attractive to the males, who are the target audience for the conventional R&B music video.

-Jewellery- Again, women also follow the idea of having jewellery in the music videos, whether they are the main artist or just an actress. This catches the eye of the male, which is who the target audience is, therefore doing its job in making the target audience watch the video, even if it is just because of the women, and not the actual song itself.

Rock


-Display the bands performing on stage
- Uneasy camera movements
-Hand held shots to represent a frantic/manic atmosphere
(these camera shots and movements emphasise the roughness of the music, as you do not want clean smooth cuts and movements that you would use in perhaps pop music)
-Not common to use special effects, for example, green screen or CGI
- Usually deep dark colours are used to compliment the style of music.




This video by Imagine Dragons could be classed as rock but it has brought new iconography to the rock genre and has modernised it.

Hip Hop Music and Rap Music

The primary focus of Hip Hop is on beatboxing and DJ scratching. Rap music is another subset of this genre, and it revolves around the artist rapping to a fixed beat. Though this genre evolved in the ghettos of the United States, today it has spread to mainstream culture all around the world, and has become a multi million dollar industry. This genre of hip hop songs started involving more and more people during the 1970s.

 

You tend to find a mixture of narrative and performance based music videos for Hip Hop and Rap. The majority of music videos for this style tend to be set in a lower class area, on the streets. You find a wide range of different settings and styles for these genres however they are predominantly set in lower class areas.
Artists tend to feature within their own videos.

 

Lyric Analysis and It's Importance

Most music videos contain a narrative. Usually the lyrics within the song are used to either reflect or help enhance the emotions conveyed in the narrative; this is why analysing lyrics is important. Without looking at the lyrics before planning out and pitching a music video idea, your vision and lyrics could clash and not complement each other.

According to Goodwin's theory, the lyrics and the visuals should match at some points. Looking back at music videos that i have analysed, I have noticed this and it has made me think about the lyrics to our own song and how we can incorporate Goodwin's theory of the relationship between the lyrics and visuals and execute it in our final video.

Underneath displays a picture of my lyric analysis for the song 'My Immortal'- Evanescence.
I had never of heard of this song before so it meant I could have a go at making a music video for the first time as to what I think it would go like.

What Music Videos Have The Most Views and Why?

For this post I have decided to research what music videos have the most views on YouTube. I am doing this because I will be able to identify WHY they have this amount of views and what makes them so good. If I can do this then it might help me to find out what people want from a music video and it could potentially give me ideas as to what to include in our video to make it as popular as possible.

The most viewed video on Youtube is PSY - GANGNAM STYLE. This video has over 2 billion views and took over the web in the middle of June. This video kicked off over the social media and it went viral very quickly. Soon the whole world knew of this song and knew of the dance which came along with it.

I think the reason for this doing so well and being the only musioc video to reach over 2 billion views is because the idea was different and it had a dance which went along with it what people could enjoy and copy. This then went all over the social media and became more and more known and was soon playing everywhere so people can have fun and enjoy the dance.

Magazine Advert Analysis 2

I found this magazine advert for the album from Jessie J “WHO YOU ARE”.

 There are the obvious features such as artists name to make it clear who is being advertised, the album name to show what is being advertised. There is always an eye catching image, whether it be of the artist or a unique conceptual image, this not only shows us who the artists are but also gives an indication to the genre and artist style. A release date is often shown to highlight when the audience can get hold of the album and quite often ways of downloading the album/song to show where and how the audience can get hold of the music, making it easy will increase sales.  Song featured in the album is also common, often well known, chart music to get the audience hooked into why they should go away and buy the album/song, along with the new album cover to show what they can buy, also if its easily recognisable when they see it in shops they will be inclined to pick up a copy. Websites are often added to an advert to make it easy for an audience to know how to find out more, also to create a further possibly interactive relationship between artist and audience. Quite often an artist will have a certain font or logo that they are associated with, this helps an audience identify who the artist is and learn more about their style/genre. Occasionally the record label will have their logos printed small onto the adverts to build up artist profile, and audience can see who represents them and others they are associated with.

 

 

 

Jessie J's magazine advert meets many of the typical contentions, her name, album name, eye-catching image, hit singles, guest star/s, her own website and also logos of record labels. The advert itself if very striking, with the uses of black, white and gold. This gold colour may connote that she is expensive and everyone will want it because this album is something special and luxurious as is gold.

She is easily recognisable with her signature black bob with block fringe, matching with her dark clothing, makeup and nail varnish. The close up of her looking face on into the camera takes up the top two thirds of the advert, making it fully focused on her, and being her debut album it also helps to create a strong, fierce artist persona. The bottom third of the advert is taken up with the important information needed in the magazine like the album name, hit singles, website and record labels, these stand out well from the black background with the uses of white and gold and also a very simple 'caps' font so it is therefore bold and easy to use. Her name is pasted across the image of her in her signature font, also in gold to keep the typical genres of wealthy and powerful, which links well with her strong image. And by showing her website address fans can create a further relationship with the artist, finding out more about her, helping to create loyal fans. 

Magazine Advertisement Analysis

Chase and Status- No More Idols

I found this magazine advert for a chase and status tour that featured in many music based published products. It features the album art cover as well as the same style of text they used for it and other advertisements.


The image of the bulldog has become the most famous image associated with the band and has a lot of representation with their background. This type of canine was famously owned by many London based gangs and occupants, it shows the idea of a rural, urban upbringing and can be associated with the many acts that accompany the band on a number of tracks, especially Plan B. Because the music is fast paced and upbeat, the image is juxtaposing the flow of their music, bulldogs aren’t the fastest of canines and they tend to waddle as well as dribble, this shows what type of influence the music can have. It represents the modern era of drinking, drug taking and raving, where most participants become slobbering messes that can’t walk to usual standards and are left with hangovers. A sense of stupidity is shown through the image, that maybe the artists hardly tried to make this music and that the people who listen to it rarely understand its complexion, and instead just see it as a beat to dance to.

 

As for the text and fonts used, capital letters are extremely common in advertisements, especially to electronic and drum and bass acts. This is because it demonstrates the importance of the tour, it shouts excitement and energy, and because the artist’s main names are the largest in size, it helps publicize their rise to acknowledgement. The colour yellow helps emphasis these effects by what the colour can most commonly be associated with, danger tapes, electricity and the sun all generate a sense of fun and enjoyment and with the bulldog image being monochromatic and it’s expressed further.


Other parts of the advert are the albums cover, shown very small because of the main image, and various information regarding where to get tickets and contact details. These are in a plain white text and are a lot smaller than the others; this makes it seem like subtext and also gets the viewer to want to look closer for an interest in the tour. Another image is the advertising label branding there work, which is once again very small. Where the text is most concentrated the image is faded in to black, helping viewers to read the information and aiding the stand out features above.

 

Digipak Analysis 2

Here is the digipak for James Blunt' album "Chasing Time". I have chosen to analyse this because James blunt is our artist of whom we are using for our music video. This is going to be useful to us because if I analyse this, we will know what style to have for our digipak.

You can see from this picture that James is the bit which makes the digipak stand out and catches the audiences eye. By doing this it means that if a potential customer was walking round a shop looking to buy an album, if the digipak stands out it is more likely to make a sale. You can also see that he is holding his guitar in the picture which helps to show the audience what kind of genre this artist is likely  to be so I they like that genre but don't know the artist, they might be interested.

Just like most digipaks, James has added his songs on the disk to the back of the digipak so that the people interested in buying the media product know what they are buying. They might notice a particular song they like on the album therefore they might want to buy it.                                                                                                                                              
This digipak also used a black and white filter. This might connote to audiences that this album is quite soulful and meaningful. This again is going to attract audiences who like this kind of music.

From the picture which is used for the digipak, you can see the guitar is in the same shape as he is. This might connote to the audience that the guitar is apart of James and he lives through guitar and music.

They also used the main colour as red. This colour connotes love which might show the audience members what this album is going to be about and it might be a potential heartbreak. As part of the black and white filter, the white may connote the soulfulness of the song.

Digipack Analysis

This is Tinie Tempah's digipak from the album 'Discovery'. The main colour theme used is purple which can connote spiritual protection or royalty. We can also see that the artist is surrounded by a glow that can be linked to the colour purple's representation. Furthermore this could be linked to the title of the album 'Discovery' as this fits in nicely with the idea of spiritual protection. Therefore the theme of the album could be discovering or finding himself. The background behind the image of the artist is of stars and the galaxy which again can be linked to the word 'discovery'.

From the image of the artist we can see that he is wearing expensive jewellery on both of his wrists which could imply that he is quite 'flashy' which could conform to the stereotype of rappers. Another way the artist conforms to his genre of music is the sunglasses. They are another element that conforms to the rap genre and connotes the idea of him being flash. The artist (Tinie Tempah) is known for wearing sunglasses in nearly everything he is involved in so therefore if the company that is producing the album put him in sunglasses on the front of the album he is instantly recognisable. This could be a selling tactic by these people to make him recognisable as when this album came out he was relatively new on the music scene. Another trademark so to speak of Tinie Tempah is the font that is seen in the top left of the album cover. He uses this font a lot and therefore it is recognisable for his target audience for which he aims his music at.

We can see that the artist is holding a model city that looks like New York. The image could represent his power over a certain city, his dominance in the music world and his general dominance towards everyone. He seems to tower over the city and this also could be seen as him being the sole protector of the city. This towering over the city could make him look like a god-like figure looking over the city which links in with the space themed background to show him on some sort of pedestal compared to everyone else and that he has some sort of power over the people below. You can see from the album cover that there is some high key lighting beaming down onto the artist which highlights him and puts him as a solitary figure which can also be linked to what I said above about him having a dominance.

 

  

 

You can also see the list of songs on the back of the digipak. By doing this, when people pick the digipak, they can see what songs he has on the disk therefore they will want to buy it because his hits songs are on there.

Initial notes on magazine advertisments

We researched several music album advertisements that appear in magazines and began to notice lots of similarities.The conventions used in all these types of adds are similar due to the fact they all need certain information and aim to inform their audiences of release dates and the type of album it is.

 

From this image above you can see that it clearly shows the release date.

 

A lot of the magazine advertisements also had newspaper ratings so audiences could see how good they are expected to be.

 

 

They will also show the artists name in big writing so the audiences know exactly who has produced this album.

Cultural Effects Model

The cultural effects model

The view that the media are powerful in so far as they link up with other agents of socialisation to encourage particular ways of making sense of the world.

Strengths:

• Recognises the power of the dominant class to influence content of the media.
• Recognises that media audiences are not passive absorbers of media messages – they can and do respond differently to media content.
• Recognises that although the media generally present a biased, ideological view of the world, they don’t always have the same effect on media audiences.
• Recognises that the media are likely to be a key influence in shaping people’s view of the world. This is likely to happen over a long period of time rather than immediate and short term.

 

Weaknesses:

• The model gives too much emphasis to the active role of media audiences.
• Assumes media personnel like journalists work within the frameworks and assumptions of the dominant ideology.

What Makes a Good Music Video?