Final Post

This is my final post and I would like to say how much I have enjoyed this course, I can definitely say Media is my favourite subject. Hope you enjoy my work and my groups music video.

This blog is now closed.

Evaluation Question One

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (Part 1)

The still shots on the left is of our music video but the still shots on the right hand side are of other artists music videos which we were inspired by.
Above are nine still shots from our music video and other artists music videos that we have been inspired from. (Click the image to enlarge)


1. Taylor Swifts video for 'Belong With Me' inspired our narrative and our location as it is set in the female protagonist bedroom, we decided that we wanted our artist to be getting ready and she would be performing in her bedroom. We felt that the audience would be able to connect with the artist because the pop genre is targeted at a young female audience and they are able to relate to the narrative. From watching Taylor Swifts video we realised that the artist performing in her bedroom gained a comical feel and it is also shows social realism.


2. The second frame is from Kate Nash- 'Foundations', the video uses an editing technique called stop motion which we felt would suit our music video. The director in 'Foundations' used stop motion to portray the unstable relationship between the couple. However, in our music video we used stop motion editing to show the fickle minds of teenagers which is presented by the different nail polish colours.



3. Shot three is from B.O.B ft Hayley Williams - 'Airplanes', the use of the projector inspired us to create a similar background for our music video. In 'Airplanes' there are moving sequences of stars which reflects the lyrics well "Can we pretend that airplanes in the night skies are like shooting stars". We used a combination of still and moving images on our projector, though in 'Airplanes' they only used moving images. In our music video we liked that the audience could create different interpretations by the use of the projector such as the purple fields could represent freedom and growing up through the blossoming of the flowers.



4. Our music video is similar to Alexis Jordan- 'Good Girl', as they are both performance base music videos. Also, both music videos use the same backgrounds such as the artist performing in front of a black and a white background which makes the video seem more sophisticated. There is fast pace editing in our music video and in the 'Good Girl' music video, through the fast pace editing we were able to change the artists make up and her clothes which is often seen in music videos from the pop genre.




5. In Alexandra Burkes music video 'The Silence' the narrative and performance is set so that Alexandra Burke seems like she is in a photo shoot, we felt that this made the audience connect with the artist as they feel like they are at the photo shoot. In our music video we wanted the audience to connect with the artist by the flashing lights on the artist in the mid shot and the extreme close up shot. It could be interpreted that the artist is getting ready to perform or she is at a photo shoot.




6. The sixth still shot is from Sia- 'Breathe Me' the photographs in 'Breathe Me' shows the artist in different places in the house and the artists movement. For the seventeen opening beats in our music video we wanted to use seventeen photographs showing the artist growing up, which fits with the idea of time and how quickly the youth of today grow up.



7. In our music video we wanted to show that our artist is an established performer, from watching Keri Hilson- 'Slow Dance' we was influenced to use an iPhone to introduce the song which creates synergy as we used a photograph of the artist to make the audience recognise the artist.



8. In Jessie J- 'Nobodys Perfect' clocks are used to show that the artist wants to go back in time to change certain events, in 'Nobodys Perfect' the clocks are used to taunt the artist and it shows that the events keeps playing in her mind. However, in our music video we are representing how quickly time passes.



9. The ninth still shot is from Labrinth- 'Let The Sunshine' we liked the close up silhouette shot of the artist as it adds mystery to the artist and the meaning of the song. We thought that we could use a similar shot would suit our music video as the heart silhouette has a dream affect, which portrays that love is a desire of hers which reflects the theme of growing up.



10. The still shot on the right is from Lady GaGa- 'Just Dance', in the still shot one of the extras writes on a mirror Dance which fits with the lyrics in the song. In our music video we decided to make the performer write a lyric of the song on a steamed mirror.

Evaluation Question Two

Media Evaluation 2

Evaluation Question Three

3) What did you learn from your audience feedback?

From the viewing of our music video we received great audience feedback and we feel that we have learnt a great deal from our feedback, here are some of the following comments:









To get a better understanding of our audience feedback we asked 10 people to complete a scoring questionnaire of 8 topics of our music video. Lip-syncing, Editing on Beat, Narrative, Colourful, Success of projected background, Stop Motion, Mise en Scene, Enjoyment. Here are the results of our responses in the formation of a bar chart.

Media Audience Feedback

Overall from analysing our audience feedback we have learnt we were successful in producing a music video with precise lip syncing, however we learnt our audience would prefer to have more of a narrative in the video because they were interested to know what happens next, also because the pop genre is targeted towards young females who are able to relate to the female protagonist in the video. At the beginning of the course we constructed a questionnaire to gain information from our audience preferences for a pop genre video. From this we learnt that the audience preferred a performance based video as they enjoyed seeing the artist, however from comparing the feedback received before the video and the feedback received after the video viewing, we may have conformed to a performance based video too much because it was commented that the audience would have preferred to see more of a narrative video.

From the feedback received it was clear that the audience enjoyed the fast paced editing, especially of the photographs at the beginning of the video because the shots were edited to the best of the music. We learnt that this was successful because the photographs represented the theme of our video, 'Time'; a girl growing up and the change in time. We learnt that the mise-en-scene of the video was important for informing the audience of the pop genre. From the bar chart it is clear that the mise-en-scene was well received by the audience because the artist changed costume and make up throughout the video similar to Alexis Jordan's 'Good Girl' video. This made the video appear professional along with the studio lights in the photography room of the extreme close up shots.

Therefore we learnt how important the mise-en-scene is in a pop video from the original questionnaires aimed at the audience. We are pleased that from the following feedback we achieved successful mise-en-scene and from the bar chart and questionnaire we have learnt that our music video was well received and enjoyed by our audience.

Evaluation Question Four

Evaluation Question 4 Media

Time Speeding Up

This is a video of the clock speeding up on Final Cut Express which was quite difficult to do. We used this clip in order to convey the idea of time passing by quickly when Michaela is changing.

New Opening Kaylas Photos

This is the new opening that we filmed with Kayla's photos instead of the wedding album that we had previously. This is because this idea made more sense with the narrative of our video being the female protagonist growing up and how quickly time passes.

First Completed Music Video Draft

We finally have an ending to our music video, however we still have a lot to do in terms of tidying the editing to make sure it is completely on time. We also want to make a few changes such as:

• Where the shot zooms into the door and then back out again to show a change in time as Michaela has changed into a dress, we want to change to a clock. We will film the clock passing time and then make the shot faster on clip adjustments.


• The photos at the beginning also need to be changed. We have decided to change them to photos of Michaela as a baby and growing up in each photo to show how quickly time goes by and to show that she is now a teenager to relate to the song title 'Teenage Dream' and this will make our narrative clearer to the audience.


• Where there are jump cuts also need to have sharper editing to go to the beat of the song.


• Where there is stock animation with her nail varnish changing colour and her hand moving, we want to include more colours. This is because after showing it to someone, this was the feedback they gave us and we agree that it will make the editing better.


• We may also change a few shots around


• The beginning where the music is played also needs to be longer to make it clear to the audience what it is.

Change of Photos

We have decided to change our opening photos for out video. Instead of having photos from a photo album, we are using photos of Michaela with friends, in the same dress she is changing into in the video. This is so it looks like she is getting ready to go out somewhere and seeing as we are not using a narrative in our video anymore, the new opening will make more sense.

Behind the Scenes Hair

This is a video we edited when we styled Michaela's hair:

Changed Video Idea

When we were watching our video back so far, we noticed that the narrative was quite confusing, and it was unclear as to what was happening in the video. Michaela showed it to her sister, and without knowing what the narrative was about, she was confused as to what was happening. With this in mind, we have decided to make the video all performance. This is mostly what Pop videos are anyway so we do not mind changing it. I think in order to make it interesting though, we need a lot of different camera shots and angles, different locations, and different costumes. We already have most of these elements anyway. The video below is an example of a performance video, so we could use some of the ideas from this video:




This is our storybaord for our changed video idea:

Second Magazine Advert Draft

This is my second magazine advert draft. I am not sure that I like this one I think I prefer the other one because I think it looks more like an album advertisement whereas this one does not seem to stand out very much. I think the same image is quite boring and I do not think the writing is very clear, even though I have put a border around it. So I think I prefer using a different image and then the album image because it looks more like an advertisement.

First Draft of Magazine Advert

This is my first draft of a magazine advert. I have used a different image to the one on the album cover and have used a pink border similar to the album cover to keep the theme going to it is recognisable to the audience. I have used the same style font as the one on the album cover as well to show some similarity. I have used a different font for the record label and the website because it was unclear in the other font.

Album Advert Analysis

I found this advert online and it is a Pop advert album release. In this advert, the image of the artist is a close up image of the album cover. So I am thinking of creating my magazine advert like this as many adverts use the same idea. However the magazine advert that I found of Katy Perry, uses a different image of her to her album cover. So I might try out both ideas and see which one I prefer. Either way I am going to show a smaller image of the album cover.

Music Video Draft

This is what we have edited so far for our music video:



We used a projector in the background which has worked quite effectively because it makes the video more interesting to watch.

Magazine Advert Analysis

This is some analysis that we did in class:

Advertisement Analysis

Advertisement Analysis

Conventions of a Music Advertisement

• Release date
• Image to represent the band/artist/photographs/graphics
• Album name and information
• Record label
• Website
• Reviews or ratings
• Same image as album cover- synergy
• Record labels logo
• Tracks featured
• Slogan/tagline
• Quotes from newspapers
• Product content
• Magazine reviews/endorsements-smash hits
• Tour dates
• Outlets in which available e.g. HMV, Amazon
• Limited edition
• "Out now"/"debut album"
• Offers free download

Conventions of a promotion advert

1. To make the audience aware so that they have heard about the album release

2.To capture the interest so the audience are more likely to buy the album

3.Encourages the audience to buy the album

The purpose of an advert is to inform us about the product and then show us the benefits of the product and then persuade us to buy what we are seeing on the advert. In order to persuade the audience further, the advert needs to stand out in order to catch the readers eye. The ways in which adverts do this is by using bold colours and fonts in order to make it stand out so the audience are more likely to read it. Especially when targeting a particular audience, such as people who like Pop music, adverts usually make the artist's image bigger than the writing depending on how well known they might be.

This example shows Lady GaGa on the front cover of Billboard magazine and she is the main focus of the front cover. She stands out from all the writing and headlines. This represents her quirky style as she has purple hair so her fans are more likely to recognise her. Her name is not that big either so this shows that she is quite well known to be able to be recognised without her name being big on the cover.

This is another example: Chris Brown is on the cover, but this is slightly different as his face is not shown just a long shot of him from the side. The subtitle is a rhetorical question and his name is smaller than this. This may indicate that he too is well known so the advertisers did not think he needed his name big in order to be recognised. His clothes match the colour scheme of the magazine in order to stand out. As his genre is Pop the colour purple is used because it is both a masculine and a feminine colour as he is a male Pop artist.

Album Promotion-Magazines

These magazines above are promoting the artists by having an image of them and then a title saying number one artist. This will make the readers want to but the magazine and then it may persuade them to buy the album by the artist.

This magazine has a pink background which represents the Pop genre and Katy Perry is dressed with flowers on her to show her quirky style. Her name is in bold which will persuade her fans to buy the magazine. On the website for Billboard magazine it gives a bit of information about the magazine which is below:

Katy Perry has landed the cover of the latest issue of Billboard Magazine to promote her upcoming sophomore album Teenage Dream.

The extensive accompanying article goes into a lot of detail about Katy’s plans, chatting to the singer herself, her record label and her various managers, who all make one thing very clear: The goal with Teenage Dream is to turn Katy Perry from a singles artist to an album artist.

http://www.theprophetblog.net/katy-perry-covers-billboard-magazine-as-teenage-dream-storms-the-charts

Final Digipak

This is my final digipak design:

Teenage Dream Research

I have noticed that on The Orange British Academy Film Awards, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream was played as Jessica Alba walked onto the stage to present an award. It was also used in an episode of the television programme Sun Sex and Suspicious Parents shown on BBC three. This suggests that the song is very popular to be played on shows like this. It also featured in this weeks episode of Glee which is an American television programme. The cast did a cover version of the song, which again indicates the popularity of the song. The fact that it is played in American shows as well as British, also indicates that it is widely known.

Take Me Out

After watching this weeks episode of Take Me Out, I noticed that there was a man at the end that also dressed as a woman. The fact that all the women turned their lights off when they saw this transformation shows that maybe society still does not accept this especially in terms of dating. This is what our narrative is about for our music video, but with ours the boy keeps this identity secret from his girlfriend which again represents the fact that he is hiding from society and is afraid of showing his true identity.

Digipak

This is my front and back cover to my digipak.

Album Cover Draft

I think I am going to use this one because the colour pink fades out to purple and her eyes look brighter so it makes her stand out more. The writing is also clearer.
I think the pink is too bold in this photo, although it is quite similar to the one above I still prefer the one above.

I do like this cover as well, but it makes Michaela's face blue so I am not sure about it. However the writing does stand out more.

Feedback on Album Cover

After some audience feedback, most of them said that they liked it, but it could have some changes made to make it clearer:

Some people said that they was not sure about the border. However I think I might keep the border because it represents the Pop genre as it is pink and girly. Whereas if I left it plain and without a border, I do not think it would stand out. I might however, make the writing stand out a bit more because it is a little bit unclear.

Album Cover Draft

This is my first draft of my album cover I am going to do some research to see whether or not I am going to keep it. I have asked for some audience feedback, one person said from looking at it straight away they thought it looked like Adele's album cover. So this is conforming to the Pop genre but I am still unsure of whether to keep it yet. I am unsure of the font and colour as to whether it is visible or not:

Comparison

The image I was going to base my album cover on is this one below:

I liked the pink make up and how the blue of her eye stands out. This is similar to a photo that we took yesterday:

I like the one that shows her make up and that she is looking away I think this looks really effective. I think I want to have pink make up though instead of blue so I might have to take some more photos.
I also like this one with her looking straight at the camera so I am not sure which one I am going to use yet. I still need to edit the photos though just to make her eyes really stand out and sparkle like a crystal to represent the artist name.

Katy Perry Merchandise

Katy Perry has recently launched her new perfume called 'Purr'. This shows that she is a popular artist as there are a lot of fans there to see her launch the perfume.

Digipak Photos

When we were filming today, we also took photos which we are going to use for our digipaks. We still need to take some more as I want a few of Michaela in different outfits and make up. We now need to photo shop the photos to add effects for our digipak designs. I have made a collage of some of the photos we took today:
Collage
I like the images of Michaela looking down as it shows the make up and it looks really bold and bright which represents the genre. I wanted photos of her eyes particularly for my album cover. I got a few but I think I am going to take some more because they were a bit out of focus and I want some with pink or purple eyeshadow instead of blue.

Filming

Today we filmed the performance parts of our video. We used the projector to put pictures in the background. At first we did not know if this would work because we thought the light would hide Michaela's face. However some of the images looked really effective. We used colours like pinks and purples to represent the Pop genre. We also used the photography room for a plain black background so that we have different locations and still shots. We used the cloth in the picture below which is the same background we used for our opening shots because we think this will be a good transition.
I think the make up is really good it turned out how we wanted it to look. We used the blue to match the dress and we used the diamonds which is good as it will represent the band name- Crystal Rox. We now want to change the outfit and use different coloured eyeshadow for the next shots so we have Michaela in different outfits to make it more interesting for the audience. The colours we want are pinks and purples again to represent the Pop genre.

Digipak Presentation

Digpaks

Meeting- 02/02/11

Today we had a meeting to finalise our shots and to make sure we had what we wanted. We are also going to film around my house to make sure we have everything because we have to refilm some shots that we were not happy with.

Digipak Ideas

Katy Perry's digipak contains images of her inside so I think this is what I am going to do for my digipak but instead use different images of Michaela as she is our artist. This will be conveying to Pop genre as most Pop genre digipaks use images of the artist. She is also wearing a unique outfit so if I am going to use this idea I might have to find something that stands out for Michaela to wear so that it is not too boring. However I might not use this idea, but instead go with the theme of crystals which is in the artist's name and use different images. For example, I could use an image of a heart (to go with the theme of the song) and it could have crystals on it or even pouring out of it like a broken heart. However I am not sure how I will show this.

I particularly like this image with someone fixing the pieces of the heart together. I think this is good because it reflects some of the lyrics in the song as it looks like a puzzle and in the song there is a lyric of 'my missing puzzle piece'. So I think this could be quite an effective image to use.

Possible Album Cover Idea

I quite like the idea of having Michaela on the front cover with as a close up of her face and to incorporate the artist's name 'Crystal Rox' I was going to make her eyes almost crystallized. I was hoping I could use photo shop for this but I'm unsure of whether this will work or not. I also

do not want this to look scary like the image below of the girl, it could look odd which is an effect I do not want.

All of the pictures above are the effect I want to try to achieve but I am still unsure of how I am going to do this and will have to try it.

I quite like this picture because of the colour which could represent Pop and the swirly patterns could represent 'Crystal Rox' as some parts look like crystals. This is what I would like to try with Michaela's eyes but I don't know if it will be possible to do yet.

Album Name

I used the song name generator to try and think of an album name to put on my digipak cover. I used the common word 'love' in the title because I think this represents the music genre as well as the storyline. Below are the list of names it came up with:

Love Is Everywhere

New Wave Love

Love Campaign

The Beauty Of Love

Love Will Hang Us All Out To Dry

Love Isn't A Crime... Yet

Foreign Love

Love Vixens

Love With A Twist Of Lemon

Missiles Of Love


I think some of these names will represent the storyline of the music video quite well because our video contains a twist ending so 'Love with a Twist of Lemon' could represent the twist in our storyline, however I still need to decide which one I am going to use.

Opening Shots

Our opening to the video is going to be lots of different photos of a couple from a wedding album. The photos are in black and white with a pink background and they are going to be placed down onto the background with the first seventeen beats of the song:

Change of Narrative

We have decided to change our narrative due to the male actor that we needed for it, not turning up. So because of this we have made some adjustments to our narrative which is now about a transvestite getting ready to meet his girlfriend. We are going to keep this a surprise until the end, so to achieve this we need to show extreme close ups of the male putting on make up and getting dressed. We might do shots of the back of him too. He is going to be in a relationship with a girl even though he still dresses up as a girl. We thought this would be good to reflect the fact that people should not judge relationships.

For the performance part of the video we are going to have Michaela lip syncing in a dress with a white background. Then to contrast this we might have her dressed in jeans and a baggy jumper with a black background. This is because we want to hint our narrative to the audience so by having her dressed more girly for one bit and then dressed down and looking more like a boy in the next bit, this will hint to the audience what is going on, even if the audience does not get it. We also want to include the boy's transformation to a girl by showing him walking towards the camera and gradually changing. This will be done with editing which is similar to the Tia Maria advert below:

Generic Conventions

Generic conventions of an album cover

View more documents from rachael swan.

I found this presentation on the website below which gives a definition of generic conventions of album covers:
http://www.slideshare.net/rswan04/generic-conventions-of-an-album-cover

Katy Perry's album cover for Teenage Dream is what you would call a typical Pop genre cover as it has bright, bold colours. Like the presentation above says; it also has a picture of the artist (Katy Perry) which indicates the fact that she is probably well known so her audience would want to pick it up straight away. She has blue/purple hair which again makes her and her music genre stand out.

In the background there are different colours merged together but these are not too bold in order to make Katy Perry stand out from the background. She is looking up at the album name which looks as if it is a sign of a bar or club as it is lit up. Her name is then underneath near her photo and it is in bubble writing, which has a glossy and shiny effect. Like the presentation above has indicated, there are similar colours used throughout. The artist's name is similar to the colour of her lips, again like the presentation above has indicated, which could suggest that most pop artist's use this effect in order to make a connection with their genre.

I think the audience of this album cover would be mainly a female audience as the colours used such as: pinks, purples, blues are all girly colours. The album name, 'Teenage Dream' could also suggest that the audience would specifically be aimed at teenagers. Her audience would probably like this cover as it is girly and the artist stands out so they can easily identify it.

Digipak Research

Digipak-style cases grew in popularity among record labels and recording artists in the early 2000s. The video below shows how big a digipak can be and how many sides it can have, also what can be included in a digipak.

As shown above the digipak had a booklet included and a side that opened into a poster of the band.
4 panel 1 CD Digipak. Tray on right. 5.53" X 0.25" X 5": This is the size of the template above. I am still unsure of how many sides I want our digipak to be.

Digipak Research

A digipack is a CD or DVD case composed of a polystyrene or polyethylene CD tray glued inside a cardboard cover. They are considered environmentally friendly compared to plastic jewel or even slim jewel cases. Any cardboard based CD-ROM/DVD case is referred to as a digipack.
I think our digipak should be bold and colourful like the one above as it reflects our music genre. The one above has the name of the artist, plus a small photo of the artist in black and white which is a contrast to the bold colours in the background in order to make the artist stand out. The artist's name is a bigger font than the album name so it doesn't really stand out. I think this is a good idea as I like the name that we have for our band so I think it will look good in bold, big font.