Evaluation Question 2: George Barrow

Evaluation Question 1: George Barrow

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

What is the Genre and Conventions of your product?:

The Genre of our music video is Indie. We chose this genre because we felt that with our limited budget and time, it would be the easiest genre to film for as it is a very liberal genre that allowed our director free reign in the artistic and design choices that we would normally be limited had we chosen another more standard genre, such as Pop or Country. This then allowed us more time then to edit and finish the last cut while still maintaining a large amount of marks within its own section, helping us develop our print products that were allotted a similar amount of marks.

There are also a large amount of conventions for the indie genre, that while lenient, had to be included so that we could still claim that it is in fact indie. The first of these is the setting, Indie music videos are normally in Parks, Studios or Solo performances, this is due to them also being low budget enterprises on the whole. Secondly, Mise-en-Scene also has a number of conventions, namely the ‘retro’ feel to their music videos, there is also a large focus on the lead instrument in the band, namely to reinforce the wholly musical experience of the song. For performance, there are a number of live shots at gigs, trying to showcase the passion for the art, as well as trying to include a narrative running alongside it.

What conventions do music videos have in general?

Andrew Goodwin writing in ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ stated:

• Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band).
• There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).
• There is a relationship between music and visuals.
• The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).
• There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
• There is often inter textual reference (to films, TV shows, other music videos etc)

We have used a number of these conventions in our own music video.

Which conventions have we used in our media product and why?

We have used a number of conventions in our Music video. One of the main aspects of our music video was our narrative running throughout. The main intention of this was to focus

on her exploring the forest that she wakes up in, as well as all the animals she interacts with. This ties into the first point that Goodwin makes in his conventions of the music genre, due to the setting, as it helped demonstrate the genre characteristics that are aligned with the indie genre. We cross-cut these scenes with those of our actress miming along with our song so as to adhere with a number of musical conventions within the indie genre. This range of shots allowed us to be more creative in our style, and also helped portray our linear narrative in a practical way. This also ties into the second point that Goodwin makes, as well as his third because there is a distinct relationship between both the lyrics and the visuals, and the actual melody and the visuals.

We include a number of close-ups of our actress, most prominently within the beginning scenes of our video. By doing this, we link our song entirely with the face of our actress,

because the first impression they will get would be associated with that image. However, we also broke convention in our video as we didn't include the artist in our product, and instead chose a different actress. This has become a popular trend among indie artists, and mainly ties in with the low-budget aspect because reusing the artist would be more cost-effective than getting and paying another actress.This also ties into the fourth point made by Goodwin in his distinctions about music videos, because we felt we needed to include more close-ups of our actor to try and conform to the industry standards that we have been influenced by.

Examples of our use of SFX:

We used very little in the terms of special effects in our music video. This is for a number of reasons, however mainly it was due to one of the conventions of the Indie Genre, in that it has a very ‘natural’ feel to it. Because we also tried to go for a natural feel in the shots that we took and the setting we chose, we thought that including this in post-production would break the immersion the viewers would have in our story.

However, we did also break convention on this by including one shot that is very obviously special effects. This was a kaleidoscope effect, and while we saw it as almost cliched, we kept it in as it was commented to us that it does tie in with our nature theme, mainly because the colour scheme and visual effects made it look like a flower, and it helped relate it back to the rest of the video. Other post-production edits we did were on the beat of the music, as during the video, around a third of the way through, we substituted a long shot of our actress for this special effect

Evaluation Questions 1-4: Georgina Gaber

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

When creating my music video for the song "Whispers" by Elena Gracia, I had to consider several forms and conventions in the Indie genre and noted how these conformed or challenged Goodwin's theories.

According to Goodwin, there are many forms and conventions to a music video:

• Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
• There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
• There is a relationship between music and visuals
• The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist that may develop motifs which reoccur across their work
• There is frequent references to the notion of looking and particularly voyeurism of the female body
• There is often intertextual references

These conventions were incorporated into our mise-en-scene, cinematography and editing:

Williams suggests that genre is the 'formats and formulas' used by media producers to construct texts which create meaning for the audience

Genre covers every aspect of a media text i.e. the characters, narrative, setting, representations, mise-en-scene etc which together create a genre.

According to Turow, producers of media texts encourage formulas and formulas in order to easily manufacture products as they are 'widely recognised principles' which allow 'organisational continuity and consistency while not necessarily stifling the creative dimension of media works'

I considered these theorists when creating my media products.

The indie genre have a different set of conventions to the next genre, which include:

• The music video having a natural backdrop, possible locations could include a park or forests
• It will contain instruments being played, most commonly by the artist
• Focuses on the instruments being played rather than the faces of the musicians
• Recently it has become more commonplace to feature a narrative throughout the video to give the lyrics more meaning. This does mean that part of the audience's focus is shifted from the artist and their music to the narrative
• Very few effects used throughout the video
• Close ups of the artist performing
• Crane shots of the live performance
• Long and wide shots for establishing scenes in the narrative

For my media text, a music video with an unsigned artist, I decided to include a minor narrative i.e. discourage the audience to focus more on the narrative than the artist. As she is a debut artist releasing her first album, I decided to conform to many of the genre's conventions and set the video in a natural location, the park, as the lyrics do allude to nature and escapism.

An example of a real media text similar to this is Florence + The Machine's Cosmic Love.

This has a similar theme to my video as it uses nature as a form of escapism and freedom. An interpretation of this video is about a woman who falls in love with a man - this video is the embodiment of this feeling.

Where my music video is similar to Welch's is in its choice of location being in a park (or a studio simulating the aesthetic of a forest). 


The artist is fascinated with the forest around her, I created a similar affect of wonder by having the actress wake up in the middle of a forest. The narrative follows her discovery of the park and the animals that inhabit it.


















Unlike Welch who intercuts between shots of her surrounded by nature and low-angle shots of her dancing surrounded by mirrors and light bulbs, in my video the camera does not cut away from the actress, only temporarily for the actress to mime a line from the song. This gives the effect of an uninterrupted exploration of, as the narrative tells us, a new environment for the actress.



By the end of Cosmic Love the artist reveals that she keeps the light that she discovered at the beginning of the video. Similarly, the actress discovers something by the end of the video as she emerges into an urban setting and discovers a populated street - creating a contrast between the natural setting of the park and the busy streets.


These two screenshots of the music videos also demonstrates the different uses of lighting. Whilst I utilised the natural light, Welch is lit by the light bulbs surrounding her and any additional lights that the production team have hired for the shoot. Because this music video is for an unsigned artist releasing her debut album, there is a small budget (conventional to the genre) therefore I thought it best to use locations and lighting readily available to me and that doesn't need to be hired or paid for.








Although I didn't have the artist in the video, the actress I did use mimed parts of the song. My intention was to focus on the narrative of her exploring the forest and the animals. I intercut these scenes with miming to the song to adhere to one of the music industry's conventions. The variety of shots made the video look interesting instead of having a linear video with a simple narrative.

There are many close ups of the protagonist, particularly within the first 5 seconds of the video where the camera pulls out from an extreme close up to a close up, then cuts to a wide shot.
By doing this I establish that she is the face of this particular song. I took a risk by not including the artist in her music video, but this is becoming a popular trend among artists.

An example of this in another music video is in Sia's Chandelier, where the artist doesn't feature at all in the video. Instead, it focuses entirely on a 12 year old girl, Maddie Ziegler, who dances in the video. The artist is famous for shifting the focus from the person to the music, she is very rarely seen in her live performances.

This, therefore doesn't conform to the convention of showing the artist in the music video - the record label usually demands close ups of the artist so the audience can familiarise themselves with said artist.

Compared to Sia, who sets the video in a dimly-lit apartment where the only light comes from a small window, I set my video in a park with a lot of natural light.

It was important to me that I did not use any artificial light in this music video - except street lights at the end to reflect an urban setting. This way I had a natural motif running throughout the video  which lends itself to escapism - the subject of the song.
Also, by using the park as a setting, I was able to make continuous links to the lyrics, e.g. "The children of the woods come out to play"


I took a risk by adding a special effect on one of the images in the video. Though I thought it was cliché to add this effect, my audience thought it was effective as it looked like a flower and related to the nature motif in the video.

I edited on beat for the majority of the song, but almost one minute into the song, the tempo slows down, so this image (right) was put in place of a longer take of the actress.
Although this effect doesn't conform to the images the audience see in popular music videos, let alone indie music videos, I thought it was unique and would make the video and the artist stand out in what is already a crowded market.



After having completed my project, I wanted to give the video a more authentic atheistic. I did this by saturating the colour (through the process of "colour grading") of the image, the difference is clearly shown in the image to the right compared to the image above. The above image is a lot more clearer and the colours are more vivid, whilst the image below shows a lot more neutral colours and gives the effect of a low-budget indie video - the desired effect for this specific genre.

This is my magazine advertisement for the artist's album.

The central image of the advert is of the actress' face. This mid-shot shows a child-like expression as it looks like she is peering around the corner, just as in the music video, she goes through a journey of discovery. I included this specific photo from other pictures I was deliberating between because it shows continuity between the video and the advert. The audience can, therefore, identify with it more if it is something they recognise from another media medium, i.e. a music video.

The image to the right was one of my other choices for the magazine advert. Not only does it depict an image that the audience see within the first couple of seconds of the video (so even if they haven't seen the video in its entirety, they will recognise this shot).It is also a picture surrounded by the central motif of nature; the flowers in her hair compared to the flowers in the park.

I decided against this as the actress' face would take up too much space - the addition of titles and institutional logos etc. would make the advert very crowded. An audience member seeing this magazine advert among many others, don't want to be overwhelmed with information. They want simplicity and, overall, for the magazine advert to fit within the 'formats and formulas' of the genre. 

Women are usually the focus of magazine adverts as they attract the audience, especially the male audience, with their beauty and youth. This is what Mulvey calls the 'male gaze' and what Goodwin refers to as voyeruism - the notion of looking, usually sexually, for a man's pleasure.

The image has been through the process of Photoshop. This is done to improve the image's quality and remove any imperfections. Although I conformed to the unrealistic expectation of beauty, it is a process that has always been part of the industry.

The first few drafts of this image included re-sizing the actress' eyes, re-touching of her hair and taking away small details of her complexion, such as her freckles. I soon decided that this didn't make the actress look human. I kept her appearance as natural as possible (even during the shoot for the music video, she was advised to wear very little make up). This is a common detail in the indie genre. Genre's such as pop include women who wear heavy makeup, the indie genre is about simplicity.



In terms of typography,

and the layout of the text, it is all placed at the bottom of the advert. This is so the audience's attention is directed to the actress as she becomes the face of the album - she features in the magazine advert, the music video and the digipak.

The name of the artist is written in white, bold lettering. I wanted the artist's name to be clear so I chose a font that meant each letter could be read clearly. Also, I chose white so it could stand out against a background of netural colours - if I had chosen black it would have been too dark for an album which is uplifting and positive.


The name of the album is written in a smaller font as I wanted the focus to remain on the artist who is making her debut. It is written in a lime green colour to reflect the natural setting of the music video. 

The font of the title was changed a few times and was a topic on which I asked my target audience about. They decided that this font worked best as the curling and mis-matched lettering worked well with what the album is called, Wonderland. 
It depicts a similar typography to that of Alice in Wonderland, and much like the tale, the actress explores a world she knows nothing about and much like Alice, the actress is young and naive about what happens.

Unlike the title above, the lines of my title are smooth and not jagged. But it has the same mis-matched lettering and curling letters.

It is conventional in the music industry to feature the most popular song on a magazine advert to draw the attention of the audience. An example of this technique in real media products is seen in Fall Out Boy's most recent album to date, American Beauty/American Psycho.

Although this album isn't of the indie genre, it is a rock album, it is a good example as it not only shows how all genres of music use the technique of saying to the audience that the most popular songs are featured on the album, "INSTANT DOWNLOAD OF "CENTURIES"..." but it also shows that the use of white for the lettering of the title isn't just a common theme among indie albums.

A real media product that subverts this convention is alt-J's album, This is All Yours. The band subvert the convention of using white lettering and instead use black, to contrast the bright colours of the background. Similar to my magazine advert, a lot of green is shown but the audience is distracted by the stripes of red and blue that are also seen in the image.

It is simple and doesn't show a lot of information. As a debut artist, I thought it was important to tell the audience as much information with as little words used on the magazine advert.










This is my digipak for the artist's album.

For the digipak, I have used the same colours and similar images seen in the music video for the rest of the panels. I have done this to conform to the genre's conventions of using white lettering and netural colours throughout.
There is continuity in the images in the digipak, each image shows a part of the park that was used as the location of my music video.

There is continuity within the digipak, much like that of Florence + The Machine. There is not much text on the panels, with the exception of the back panel to provide institutional information and additional credits and the front panel for the artist's name and the album title.
There is continuity between the front and back panels; the front shows the artist's lungs and the back show a diagram of a pair of lungs.

The artist also keeps to the convention of using netural or saturated colours in the digipak - the indie genre isn't known for loud or bright colours, instead it is under-stated and saturated.

The back of my digipak has a list of tracks. I have used the same font and colour as the text on the front panel of the digipak.
The block capitals are bold and relay the information clearly to the audience.
At the bottom is also a barcode, similar to real albums sold in stores and the record label and management.

During my research of record labels and institutional logos of mangement companies for independent indie bands, I noticed that many of them were images of animals, for example True Panther Sounds (right).





I conformed to this convention within the independent sector of indie music and chose to create a logo which is of a silhouette of a bird - relating to the theme throughout the entire digipak and music video.

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

Construction

For the production of my music video I used the DSLR Canon EOS 650D for filming. Any stills for construction posts were taken on an iPhone 4s. The camera was fairly simple to use but opted not to use the advanced options on the camera, instead I used filters and effects in post-production to give the desired effect to the film. The iPhone 4s camera was very simple to use, and was helpful for quickly editing and uploading pictures onto the blog.






The Canon did, however, give me an option to use 'the rule of thirds'. This is a setting available on the camera which allows me to take well-balanced and interesting shots. This shot taken from the music video (left) is an example of this.

The camera I used for professional shots, however, was the DSLR Canon EOS 650D. This was also for the pictures that would later appear in the digipak and magazine advert. This camera was able to give the clarity and sharpness that an iPhone camera wouldn't be able to give unless the image was edited in post-production.

For the editing process in post-production of my music video, I used a programme on the iMac computers called Final Cut Pro. This programme was simple to use and had a wide range of tools to give the desired effect on the footage. Importing the footage for the SD cards to the computer took a long time, but once imported, I was able to start cutting and editing together the music video.

A technique used in the final product was saturating the colour of the footage. This gave a low-budget effect to the music video which is the trend among many indie artists in the industry - not so much popular indie artists like Florence+the Machine.

The song for the music video also had to be edited so it followed the convention of the lyrics matching the visuals. Also, there are some shots where the actress mimes some of the lyrics of the song, so during post-production I had to ensure that the audio and the visual lines were in sync.

To edit the pictures for the digipak and the magazine advert, Adobe Premiere was used.

The images were manipulated through different filters and by changing the contrast and saturation levels. Once the images were edited, it was fairly simple to construct the digipak and add the relevant information to the magazine advert for my audience.

Research

The internet and the search engine Google was the most helpful tool I used when researching the genre, music videos, digipak's etc.

Google led me to discover websites such as <http://www.details.com/culture-trends/music-and-books/201308/independent-music-labels-by-artists> where I was able to gain very useful information about the indie genre and independent record labels who signed many indie bands and artists. This helped me construct a research post for this blog called, Record Label/Institutional Research (right). 
Blogger provided me with a creative way to present the research (and planning) of my media products. It allowed me to add text, pictures, colours, videos, and other programs such as Powerpoint presentation and Prezi allowing variety in my posts.

When presenting my findings, I used a variety of methods. The most common was to use this website, Blogger, but sometimes I used PowerPoint (in addition to using PowerPoint, I also had to use Microsoft Office Online in order to upload my presentation and keep links and animations intact) and Prezi to create presentations.

I used Prezi to present, for example, Music Video Analysis, as it allowed me to be more creative with how I present my information.
I used PowerPoint to present, for example, Digipak Analysis, as it allowed me to add more information than Prezi whilst remaining interesting for the reader.








To explain initial ideas for the music video and audience feedback, I recorded it on an iMac computer then uploaded it through Soundcloud.

I also used social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to see the following indie bands had. This gave me a better understanding of the fanbase of indie bands and their part in the music industry.
Most of my research posts and production posts were written on a blog, which was straightforward to use but had limited functions to make look interesting and moving images around was difficult.


Planning

To plan the music video, an animatic was created to show what types of shots will be seen during the music video and approximately how long for. This was then filmed on a flip-camera as it was small and easy to use (to import and upload onto the blog).

A mood board was also created to show what types of locations, costumes and props I would like to use in the music video.

To plan for the digipak, I research into nets that are used in real media texts - researched through Google. I picked a net which was the most appropriate and created a sample with shots of the actress and background pictures of the location which was then posted on the blog. 

I planned to use the same image seen in the music video and digipak front cover as the magazine advert - this would create continuity and the audience would be able to identify the magazine advert from the digipak, the digipak from the music video and so on.

Evaluation
When presenting my evaluation questions, I used a variety of media technologies:

• Question One: I used a simple format, choosing to present my answer in Blogger. I included a lot of images and screenshots of my music video and compared them to real media texts. I also included my music video alongside an existing media text to compare them. The post was made even more interesting to the reader with the use of colour and breaking up large amounts of text with pictures.

• Question Two: I created a PowerPoint and uploaded it through Microsoft Online to maintain the animations used throughout (as Slideshare fails to do this). This allowed me to put all the information I wanted on to different slides, gave me a range of designs and styles to use for the presentation, along with animations, and allowed me to insert different medias, including images, and move them around with ease.

• Question Three: I created a Prezi and uploaded by simply copying and pasting the coding from the website into the HTML of this blog. It was simple to use and allowed the presentation to look professional and sleek.

• Question Four: I returned to using a simple format to present my final evaluation question so that every question was different as I wanted to upload all my evaluation questions into one post so the reader doesn't have to click away and onto a separate post.