Evaluation

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

My media production is in the form of a music video. For my music video, I chose the song Punching In a Dream by The Naked and Famous. The song that I chose for my video falls under an ambient, electronic, independent genre with elements of post punk and new wave running through it. The band is not mainstream and does already have an established music video to this song.

1

I chose the song as I was inspired by music videos such as Time To Pretend by MGMT , Plage by Crystal Fighters and Rabbit Heart by Florence & The Machine as they display elements of a 'dream' state and abstract qualities (number 1 shows screenshots from Time To Pretend and number 2 from Plage). I realised that certain aspects of my music video would need to be similar to other established music videos to be able to target the audience I was intending to target.

2

The idea that youth culture is expressed very freely has
transformed the music video not only into the most effective tool for promotion within the music industry, but into a powerful ideological force. Abstract music videos are on a visually artistic level, which enters the realm of culture, if not art. Doing this, my music video will employ strong beliefs and will function within society.

To confirm that this ideology behind my video would be of interest to my target audience, I filmed two people's opinions to gain some in depth qualitative data- one of a peer within the right age group I wanted to target and my Media Studies teacher who was able to clarify whether or not the style would work well with my chosen song. I asked them a few questions straight after watching the 3 music videos which influenced me:

 

I also analysed ‘Young Blood’ by ‘Punching In A Dream’ in depth as the video is one of energy and zest and it is empowering to a teenage audience, which similarly I wanted to create. Sympathetically, it taps into their teenage angst and provides them with an idyllic world, in such high key that it is almost over-exposed (so as to create a dream-like effect) - definitely something I was thinking about incorporating into my video. There are repeated shots of fireworks and sparklers. These portray how dynamic and bright youth can be, in balance with their untamed and uncontrolled image (as seen with shots of teenagers crashing down on the bonnets of cars). They also fizz and whir about along with the impassioned drumbeats and chords of the song. The band can be seen in the video, but are not particularly glorified, they are shot individually and in the same manner as any other actor in the video, though the female and male leads hold their gaze longer with the camera. 

The youth are shown enjoying a wild, care-free existence, running and tumbling through the rugged countryside and swimming naked in lakes - acts which are deemed inappropriate in a conservative society. I planned to follow these conventions so my video could be deemed professional and recognisable but I still wanted to challenge the forms and conventions in order to convey my own ideology.Videos such as this helped to provide me with a creative flavour as to what I wanted my video to look like and how I wanted to portray the music as I found that the highly abstract tenancies helped to reflect the feel of their music and they focus on the idea of the imagery being created by the video to add to the over all effect that the music has on you . 

I felt the song I chose was at a similar pace to carry out something comparable, as I thought being able to represent the indie target audience was important with something they could relate to themselves in the video. I believed the song was not suitable for major performance styles which would define the whole video such as in the form of a dance routine or miming the entire lyrics. Instead, I was much more interested in creating a video which was able to represent something both compelling and expressive to its intended audience, rather than promoting the artist. consequently, My music video rebels against the idea of mainstream music videos but follows the conventions of small, independent, self releasing artists videos. As well as choosing this outlook because it would connect well to the general song ideology, I was aware that small independent ambient artists videos are commonly found as being an abstract montage of clips edited precisely to the beat and are unlikely to feature any form of performance from the artist themselves, therefore i wanted to stick to the codes and conventions of the genre. I also understood that an entirely performance-based video to accompany songs was more typical of mainstream artists and commonly the R&B genre, as the viewers want to see what they look like play. By constructing my music video using the form of performance, my music video would not fit the codes and conventions of the genre effectively.

One of the codes and conventions of ambient, abstract videos in the independent genre is to usually try and envision ‘real life’ either in a way that the audience can simply and adaptively relate to, or use unusual sense to attract and entice the audience such as through a self conscious art based image and intense expression. To put it simply, similar artists regard the video in an artistic way and consequently, they don't create a music video, they create a piece of visual art. For example, in MGMT's 'Time To Pretend' video, they use layers to create an psychedelic computer generated abstract moving image which can be seen as art. He layers lots of moving aesthetics on top of different colour filters to create this mesmerising, mythical themed, bright array of colours to match the feel of the music. By using similar techniques in my production, i would be developing on the psychedelic visual style in the 80s which is now deeply integrated into contemporary visual popular culture from Avatar to artist similar in genre to The Naked and Famous such as the chemical brothers. Furthermore, the psychedelic aesthetic is not symbolic of anything concrete and can hence be seen as arguably indifferent to content and used for a wide variety of purposes. By taking this ideology, the viewers of my video can create their own experience from the video and is therefore ultimately subjective to the viewers own past experiences and thoughts.

To re-alliterate the purpose of my music video, I wanted to use only one person to express the isolation and vulnerability of her fears which are presented in her dream, she is of a young age, and I thought this was extremely important to reflect the target audience as they will sympathise and get more of an emotional response from the video if she is of a similar age.Goodwin’s music video conventions theory states that music videos demonstrate genre characteristics in order to appeal to their specific audience. In order to achieve this I put strong emphasis on the costumes for the characters. Additionally, I thought it was important for the costume of my character to be able to form a strong identity of the artist and to represent the style of my target audience but also maintain a sense of simplicity, flair and elegance.  Although, because most of the music video is based on the dream, I was able to change what she wore as it wasn't real life. Despite this, I wanted to keep it simple yet still slightly different and vintage-esque, so i chose the actors outfit selectively. I decided to go with a long, shabby, white dress and dirty white plimsolls. During my research into the form and conventions of indie music videos, I learnt that indies’ need to express with freedom in both form and subject matter, therefore I wanted a one piece white costume to connote tranquility and innocence. Aside from this, I also used the outfit ironically, as the dress and shoes were dirty, the outfit moved from the usual representations of white such as cleanliness and purity. Similar styles are also used for similar artists such as 'Birdy' and 'Florence and the Machine'. The indie music genre and the fashion style is associated with secondhand clothing purchased from 'thrift' or 'vintage' shops therefore I wanted to simply recreate this style. I also thought about this ideology when deciding on my location, I wanted to choose somewhere which was simple yet effective and easily accessible, I found my inspiration whilst watching the music video 'Rabbit Heart' by 'Florence and the machine' I liked how she took the woodland and recreated it into something completely different. Furthermore, Florence incorporared similiar ideology in her video as it embraced the idea that The rabbit heart is a reference to fear. 

Perhaps a downfall of my casting is that using only one female actor reduces my ability to appeal to a larger audience of both genders, although, as stated previously, the ideology and values behind my video is more important than getting as much as a fan base as possible. 

I chose a large area of forest as the prime location for my video, which effectively added to the mise en scene. This kind of location also gave me a huge amount of space and light to create a variety of different action shots as well as having different elements of location in one place; the forest, the park, the trails etc, so was fitting to capture all of the action of the actor as footage I wanted to capture was jumping, running, stumbling through trees, dancing and so on. I also needed a lot of distance to work with to capture a variety of field sizes to express the emotion. The light seeping through the forest trees was perfect for filming, especially at dusk when the sun was low, although this was not planned, I found this looked great on the camera but did not add to the overall feel of the video as this would fit with a more content and idyllic narrative. I also found that the distance between my house and the location (around 15 minute walk) made it ideal to organise any re-shoots as it was so near, the location was also a 15 minute walk from Wyke College, making it easy to film during study periods. I was extremely lucky to have such a fitting location for my narrative at such a short distance away. Overall, I filmed all my footage on 4 separate occasions, from November 2012 to January 2013, gathering around 4 hours of footage approximately.

Through my initial research into music video forms and conventions, I learnt that to ensure repeated viewings and the effective marketing of the band/artist and song, the narrative code must be loose or simply suggestive rather than realistic or detailed. I developed this convention, and decided to maintain an intriguing, abstract narrative which is down to the viewers interpretation. I learnt that using first-person mode of address by directly engaging the viewer through the camera involves many close-up shots of eyes rolling, and that cutting this between performance and narrative helps the solo artist to become part of the narrative story as they are effectively acting as narrator and participant at the same time. I challenged this, as I wanted to create the idea that the character is isolated in time and space and more so disconnected from the real world. I felt that if I were to use close-up shots, this would would lessen the verisimilitude of her dream state as she would appear to have a connection with the camera regardless of whether she was scared/afraid/happy.

A convention of indie music videos, or just music videos in general, is for the content to be edited in time with the music. This ensures that the content of the video follows the song effectively, and the rhythm fits with the music. and this is something I made sure I did in my video. I think this is particularly effective with certain sections of my video with the extremely short clips to match with the increasing beat of the song , adding to the fast paced effect I wanted to create. I think I also stuck with the rhythm of the music at the beginning and end, as they were both similiar so I therefore made sure that the structure was similiar - the character put her head in the bath and at the end she came out of the bath.  

The Abstract/Image form is popular in the indie genre which I learnt during my research into the codes and conventions. It is where the video has no reference to the song what so ever. However these styles are often crossed and can be broken down and explained further. I have found this to be very popular within my chosen genre and it seems they seek out to reflect their music video as more of an art form which has a hidden meaning rather than to follow the lyrics or story. I have found a lot of the videos to have cliché imagery through the use of editing and mise-en-scene and that a lot of the abstract music videos I have researched into are very much a “surface without substance” For my genre, the music videos would use unusual props and vintage style costumes for a female band/artist. An example of where these two elements can be found is in the Kate Nash video for ‘Foundations’. Props such as toothbrushes, socks and watches have all been used to link with the lyrics but create a quirky tone to the artist and video. To fit in with the forms and conventions of my chosen genre, I thought of some experiments I could film and then further edit them to see if they fitted in with the general feel of my other footage. Initial ideas consisted of the Kaleidoscope effect, depth of field of fairylights, ink in water and a psychedelic elements incorporated somehow. I decided on the ink in water idea and used many different colours. I also filmed a bath bomb in water as I felt this gave off a very pretty, visually stimulating effect on camera and you could not tell it was a bath bomb. By using these methods, it was very cheap and easy to set up and film, which are a major convention of indie music videos, as they usually have a small budget and have to work with what they have got as they do not have the security of a record label to help them.

As well as understanding it was vital to take these codes and conventions into consideration whilst planning, filming and editing my music video, I needed to think of a way to find out what audience I need to direct my video at, what the most popular music genres were and what kind of music video they preferred.  They were a number of ways that I set about doing this. First, I created a questionnaire on my blog with the aim of finding out what age groups were dominant in my audience, what the most popular music genres were, what kind of music videos they prefer and their social class. The indie music genre was the most popular answer, with it gaining 67% of the votes. Electro and Pop came close behind indie music which was important to know as there are strog elements of electro and pop in my video and the ideology behind it. As I was planning on creating a indie music video to an indie song, this proved to me that there are many people who would be willing to watch my music video. Below are pie charts I created to showcase the results:

Aswell as gaining these audience demographics, I also researched into my target group through the audiences of similiar media products like NME magazine which have a similiar audience of mine, then through this I located key points such as their fashion style and hobbies, by doing this I was able to understand what would make my video more interesting and direct to my target audience.

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

When I started to think about my ancillary texts, I  knew that in order for the CD cover and magazine advert to be successful, they had to relate together as the poster and digipak are used to advertise the music video, and therefore means the audience will be able to spot when they see the advert, as they may have already seen the CD case. When I filmed the video,I also took photos for my CD and magazine advert because I was preparing myself to be able to create an effective piece that showed cohesion.

My primary thoughts about my ancillary texts based on my main product was that it would have to be abstract in parts, using interesting, intriguing imagery and to reflect the ideology of my music video. I researched into digipaks to gain knowledge as to what conventions are used and how each genre reflects their music style through them such as using similiar typography, imagery and other techniques which fit into that genre. Whilst researching, I found that indie/alternative artwork on the posters are especially beautiful and most certainly stand out from the crowd compared to posters from other genres. Most are minimalistic, and use typography and illustration to gain the readers attention. These posters are imaginative and thoughtful while not forgetting the fundamentals such as color and typography. The result is more often than not an eye catching work of art that sparks your interest and curiosity. One way of creating cohesion through my anxillery texts was to try and establish the same fearful atmosphere through the use of colour and so on, and to use aspects of the setting which I did as I used photographs of the forest which I blurred and further edited.

Advertisement research also helped me to understand how poster art plays a particularly significant role in an independent artist's marketing strategy and how minimalistic, eye catching and out of the ordinary designs can be stimulating. Using this simple strategy, the poster could easily become viral, especially when advertisers use the principals of genre and advertising conventions and play with them, with a single click, my poster could be shared online and therefore my video will become more popular as a result. I stuck with the same house style used in my video of light pastel colours and decided I didn't want to overload the digipak with too much imagery/text and decided on a simplistic theme and layout.  After having analysed already existing media texts advertising albums I had come to realise that they picked out one key element of that album/artist. And they had chosen that one key element to represent that artist in a very minimalist, simplistic way. Which proves to be more effective. For the background image of my final outcome, I used some line drawings i had put together for my Graphic Design A Level course which looked similar to the ink in water effects used in my video. I knew i wanted my advertisement to have abstract qualities which are a convention of many indie/alternative digipaks. aswell as this, the abstract qualities tend to fit the conceptual narrative in the video as many parts of the video are completely abstract and have no reference to the song whatsoever. Therefore, the artwork used on the advertisement reflects the video as it is merely a pattern which exists in thought or as an idea but doesn't really have a physical existence or meaning to it. Both the digipak and the advertisement shared the same ambigious but intriguing elements, and shared the same font types and colours.

I believe that all of the imagery used is cohesive because I managed to include a running theme into the prints. I was certain that I wanted a continuous theme weaving through the entire project - I wanted something that would be recognisable and make the audience/product buyer link the video, the magazine advert and the CD case together, this didn’t have to be huge such as the exact same image been used on both ancillary texts, but instead similar subtle details. To make my product unique, I came up with the idea of using the abstract background that run through many of the photos.

I went through photos from our collection aswell as some screenshots I had took from the actual video and chose one or two that stood out the most to fit in this 'theme'. I ended not using any of the photos for the magazine advert, which was largerly based on the fact that it wasn’t a convention of indie digipaks/advertisements to use the band/artists face. Instead, I used the abstract pink and white illustrations and played around with various techniques such as changing the brightness/contrast. Because it's just one image played around with it sustains the whole simplicity of both the video and the digipak. It strengthens the video in a sense because it's keeping the same style and the same feeling that the video connotes. But it's just taking one key element out of the video, the element that stands out most to people. I know this because in my audience feedback sheets, I asked questions such as "Which is the best element about my digipak?" And the response I got was commonly the abstract qualities.  This specific illustration was used as part of the CD cover, and was also used fo the magazine advert - already this shows cohesion as the same image has been used for two different things.

The cohesion of the texts affects and stimulates the audience, and the audience would be who I’d be targeting the prints at, therefore it is very important. In order to be successful with the sales of the CD, you would have to get positive audience feedback and a way of doing this is starting with cohesive and interesting visuals.

The noticeable coherent theme in the texts means that the audience could be able to link the texts together. This sets a brief overview for the audience, because as soon as they see the texts, they will judge what they see: what the band represent, who they are, and what their music is about. I think our products help the band because I believe the imagery has positive connotations. Two examples of this are: the brightness of the whole pieces connotes the upbeat pace of the music; the bold yet simple font connotes the strength and boldness of the topics and issues they address in their lyrics.

I think that the stylistic, unusual aesthetics of the magazine advert and CD cover/back represents the artists artistic and unique style. This is also positive because it sends a message that the artist is different to other bands, and have their own complete style, different to other bands around today.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Fundamentally, I knew that I didn't want my research to be rushed, and wanted to approach it systematically as I knew this was how my research would be efficient and beneficial to my products. I also knew it was important to direct my feedback towards the opinions of my target audience which is:

Gender

Race

Age

Socio-economic

Status

Gender=m/f

Race=any

Age=16-20

Socio-Economic status=any

Due to this, I needed to make sure I had a clear idea as to what I wanted to achieve and find out. Audience Feedback helped in all stage of planning, development and production. Before beginning the construction of my media products, I did a questionnaire that when answered, would help me distinguish who my target audience was and decide what they wanted from my media product. Although I personally had a rough idea as to what I wanted to create along with the ideology behind it, I needed to clarify that my ideas were substantial enough to interest my target audience as otherwise my products would be pointless without the viewers, as well as this I wanted to create a confidently produced, professional looking piece of work regardless of the chosen audience therefore the audience were able to clarify whether it was true or not. Consequently, by conducting audience feedback using several methods, I was able to develop and produce a strong and confident piece of work. As well as conduct audience feedback at the start of my project, I continued to gain positive and negative criticism through my drafts which helped to subtly change my final piece in order to interest and express the ideology of my chosen target audience. Luckily, I was able to gain audience feedback from the age group I was aiming my music video at fairly easily, as my class mates were around the ages of 16-19, which helped as my target audience were always accessible even if I wanted to clarify anything with them regarding their opinion of my video.

I also held my own views regarding my music video, and was able to express them with my target audience to see if they agreed or not. For example, I felt that the transitions might have been a little too repetitive, but having a new set of eyes watch my video, I was able to appreciate that the transitions helped with the continuity.

I used several different methods to gain audience feedback, which are presented here:

So, what have I learned?

I have learnt that a new pair of eyes can definitely help to change my perspective on what I see of my product and how asking people what they think makes you aware of even the obvious qualities which needs to be changed, which therefore makes gaining audience feedback very important. For example, when I posted by ancillary texts onto Facebook, I had a few comments which made me notice things I had missed and what would decrease the professionalism of my ancillary texts such as “the artists name is not on the digipak anywhere” and “you need a barcode”.

I learnt that a majority of the audience did actually enjoy the simplicity and minimalistic elements of my ancillary texts due to feedback from Facebook, and some people said this reflected the genre. By conducting the audience feedback, I was able to clarify thoughts I was already thinking as well as finding out new things I needed to change.  Another example would be the contrast between the background of my poster and the text. I gained feedback such as “the cream in the background could be a little darker and shrink ‘including’ as it should better highlight “punching in a dream” and “it is hard to read the text on the poster” and “punching in a dream needs to bigger than ‘including’”. By gaining this feedback, I realised the aspects that didn't jump out at a first look, audience feedback was very important as it almost gave the same effect of somebody viewing a poster on the street and the opinions they feel. After developing my products, this viewpoint faded and I found it hard to look at my products as a first hand viewer as I had seen them so many times.

I also knew I needed to change an aspect of my products when more than one person had said the same thing, then this made it clear that there was something wrong with that certain aspect. For example, several people picked up on the lack of space on my poster as part of my ancillary text, as the text was all focused towards the bottom of the page, therefore people recommended I placed the text higher. 

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

a short film with voice over to briefly explain the media technologies which were used

Throughout the construction of my music video, I consistently used a website called Blogspot to present my development and construction of my project, such as posting any drafts of my video and ancillary texts and posting and posting any audience feedback. By using this method, I was able to view my blog whenever I wanted thus enabled me to clearly see what I needed to change. I found it useful to have all of the media technologies I was using (Prezi, GoAnimate, SlideShare) on one platform as this enabled me to easily find information I needed just by scrolling through my blog. I also downloaded the blogspot app on my iPhone. I found this handy to have as whenever I was on the go and I wanted to post something I may have forgetten, I was able to post it there and then.  

Throughout the construction, research and planning stages of my project, I used a website called Prezi. I found this very visually stimulating and it enabled me to create image collages which helped me think of ideas and work out colour schemes. Using this software was quick and easy and the accesibility of blogspot enabled me to embed by Prezi animation onto my blog.

I also used a website called SlideShare, which enabled to update and share my powerpoint presentations. This helped me to present quick ideas I had which added to the construction and research stages of my project. I was aware that SlideShare content can spread virally through blogs and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter therefore I was open to comments and criticism which would help me to further analyse my work.

Throughout the construction of my music video, I used a website called YouTube where I posted my Music Video drafts and any audience feedback I recieved. By using this website, I could quickly compare my drafts to see what I needed to change. I was also able to view the work of my peers easily which helped me to develop my own work by viewing what elements I thought worked and what didn't (I made sure I was viewing music videos of the same genre).

For the actual filming of my music video, I used a video camera and tripod which I was luckily able to borrow from the media department. I had no previous knowledge filming a moving image, therefore I was completely useless, although the 30 second practice music video text helped a lot with this and thus I was able to learn the basics such as working with the tripod and different camera angles.

Audience Theory in relation to my music video

Media Theory

Throughout the development of my music video, I researched into the 5 key aspects of music videos that we (the audience) should look out for. One of these key aspects are thought beats which is seeing the sound in your head first. He stated that we should take into account the structure of the song for example the chorus and we should also take into account the voice of the song. By applying this to my music video research I was able to understand how the song reflects the music videos by listening to the song first and interpreting it visually in my own way through the use of mood boards and general feelings I get from the video. Furthermore, by adapting this ideology to my work, I learnt that the artists voice is extremely unique and can form identification or trademarks that work well with the star image. Roland Barthes theory of the Grain of voice can be related to this. He sees the singing voice as an expressive instrument and therefore able to make associations of its own. Thirdly, Goodwin also points out the artists mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the artist the storyteller, making the music video a two communication device, them telling us a story and us listening. This idea was the first thing to drive my to weaving a narrative through my music video.

Another key point of Goodwin’s theory was that songs fail to give us the complete narrative. We only tend to get a gist of the meaning of the song and then tend to make up our own idea of what is being told. Goodwin explains that music videos should ignore common narrative. It is important in their role of advertising . Music videos should coherent repeatability which inspired me to use this in my own music video in an abstract, visually appealing form. Narrative and performance work hand in hand it makes it easier for the audience to watch over and over without losing interest. The artist acting as both narrator & participant helps to increase the authenticity however the lip sync and other mimed actions remains the heart of music videos. The audience need to believe this is real. Narrative & Performance.

Similar to the idea of repeatability, I knew I needed to relate the visuals to the song. There are three ways in which music videos work to promote a song. Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics & genre, this is the most common and this is what I did in the form of my conceptual elements running through my video, the meanings and effects were manipulated and constantly shown through the video and drummed into our vision. This is where the meaning of the song is completely ignored but it still is very visually stimulating and therefore the audience are able to remember the video through this.

The media language of my music video suggest that the images are used to represent the meanings of the lyrics and genre based of the views of Andrew Goodwin. This is the most common feature of a music video regardless of the genre so I wanted to stay with this ideology. Although I used images to represent the meanings of the lyrics and genre in the form of a moving image and an actor expressing herself through the use of dance moves and so on, I ‘amplified’ my music video by using meanings and effects which were manipulated and constantly shown throughout the video and shown to the audience in the form of abstract elements which was the colourful clips of the ink in the water., which again is based on the ideology of Andrew Goodwin’s audience effect theory.

 

Final Music Video Audience Feedback

A2 Media Studies Final Music Video for The Naked and Famous - Punching in a Dream

Third music video draft audience feedback

Third Music Video Edit

This is my third edit for my music video. I am still not 100% satisfied with every single aspect of it, therefore this is where my audience feedback comes in. It is very important for me to obtain critical feedback at this stage as the feedback will help me to further edit my video to reflect my target audience.

I plan to ask people in questionarre form and ask questions such as "What are the camera work strengths?" and "Does the narrative make sense?" By gaining this feedback, I will be able to update my music video so it looks more professional and more so reflect my target audience as my target audience will who ill be asking for feedback.

Abstract elements of my video

This video shows my finished clips for my abstract elements in my video. I did this by using food colouring and water, it was a quick and easy way (although very messy!) too create something visually interesting and something which could be interpreted by the viewer without it being too time consuming and costly. Because of my genre being indie, I knew that a lot of the videos present artistic methods in their video and therefore I wanted to recreate this in my own video.