Our Music Video

You can find all our group research and planning on our group blog:
http://georgeyandjo.blogspot.co.uk/

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Activity 1 on Prezi

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 2: How effective is the main product and the ancillary texts?

Main Product:
Our main product, we feel is very successful in showing the typical conventions of an indie genre music video. With the characters representing the target audience of 15-25 year old males and the overall video itself reflecting what the audience wanted through the answers to our questionnaire, we feel that the video is effective in targeting its audience.
The video also reflects the theme of being able to turn your life around, no matter how bad it is getting. This is a reflection of the lyrics and after the Groundhog day reference, the video shows a repetition of the opening sequence, however it is clear that he, the main character, has changed his ways as he walks closer to the school, reflecting his new emphasis on his education. Also, he turns away the offer of beer and chooses the girl instead, showing that he has understood his priorities and now respects others. This theme can be understood by the audience, however it may take a few viewings to fully understand this, and this makes them want to watch the video multiple times, a convention of most music videos.
There are a few changes I would make to our video though. Especially the green screen sequence. As we did not know how to set up the equipment and what it was all for, we were quite oblivious as to how important certain aspects were. We did not use any lights when filming the sequence and this was a major fault as it made the shadows much more prominent, leaving a green glow in the sequence, that after many hours and different attempts at changing, I could not get rid of it. We did not have time to re film our sequence and so incidentally we had to use the original footage. I feel that this reduces the professionality of our video and makes it look a lot more amateur. The green glow triggered us to adapt our video and make it slightly more humorous. This lead to skipping down the corridor, being thrown out of a lesson and also changing the background of the green screen to create a slightly more humorous, light hearted video. Although this change was not intended, it is quite successful and makes the audience enjoy the video. While our peers were assessing it, they commented on the humour and said it added to the overall video and therefore, it was a success.
Overall, our video was quite effective in some ways as it clearly targeted our audience through the setting, attitudes and clothing, but the green screen sequence was not as effective as we had initially hoped, and this was due to our lack of knowledge on the green screen equipment.

Ancillary Products:


Magazine Advert:

This magazine advert, reflects the true conventions of typical and professional magazine adverts used within the music industry. Advertising the name of the band, what the album looks like and informing the audience of where they can buy the song. The advert also reflects the theme of the album and video itself, and although the audience will not understand this until they have seen the video, gives them an insight into what genre the music is. This can be shown through the clothing, which we decided would be a good way for the band to be recognised, through the banana t-shirt. 

This product is effective because it gives all the information that the audience need, the only thing they have left to do is listen to the song and watch the video itself. It is simple, reflecting the genre and shows the way that the band are represented, showing a youthful age and clothing relating to the indie genre. 

Digipack: 

Our digipack, like the magazine advert, again emphasises the theme of having no identity and also clearly shows how the band want to be represented by the banana on the t-shirt. The colours used throughout clearly show what the band want to be remembered by, but also reflect the simplicity of the indie genre.

1. This is the album cover itself. It shows silhouettes of George, reflecting the 'No Identity' title of the album and emphasises that the character in the video, did not know who he was or where he was heading at the beginning. We decided to black out George to create this silhouette effect as it would help the audience understand the theme of the album and this proves to be very effective. and showing the silhouette against the real picture of George provides an excellent juxta-position. The white background reflects the idea of a fresh, new beginning, again emphasising the theme and so overall, this cover shows the themes very effectively although the audience would have to know a lot about the product to understand its intended meaning.

2. This picture would be used on the inside left of the CD as this is typically where bands and artists leave a message for their fans. In order to not make the entire CD about the artist, we decided to include a simple picture of the banana that would be associated with the band as this is the specific brand of clothing that our character wears and reflects the clothes that our target audience in reality would wear. The font is simple, yet shows an edgy side to the band which could reflect the rebellious side that the character holds at the beginning of our video.

3. This shot would be placed behind the CD and so would not be the main focus. However, the shape of the face would emphasise and complement the shape of the CD and would therefore prove effective when placed behind the CD. As a way of relating the advert to the digipack, we used this photo in both and so the audience will be able to recognise the band. Having blurred out his face in iPhoto, this shows to be effective as it conveys the 'No Identity' theme once again.

4. The back of the CD complies with the conventions of many indie CD's and simply shows the name of the tracks. Like several CD's we analysed such as the Wombats, Kate Nash and Ellie Goulding, the back of the CD conveyed the information in a simplistic way and did not show any over editing, or any images at all in the case of Nash and Goulding. We emphasised this by using the same 'Ashcan' font we used for the album cover which reflects an edgy but fun side of the band. This shows to be effective as it informs the audience of the essential information they need to know in a simplistic, sophisticated yet stylish way.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 3: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Using wordle I created this image showing some of the comments and feedback we received from asking our peers to asses our video:

Rough cut: The feedback from our rough cut informed us that we needed to work on our editing and the transitions between each shot. The colours also needed to look sharper and a wider variety of shot types was needed also with different angles. The school shots also tended to dominate even though it was not clear that it was school. As it is an upbeat, slightly humorous song, some graphics or captions could emphasise this.

However, our peers also said who there were some nice shots of George and Luke coming in to school. The effects and transitions used when George is getting dressed at the beginning was very effective and it was an upbeat song choice. They also liked how the humour used helped to uplift the mood of the song. The good continuity and transitions made sense along with there being good lighting and camerawork.

After taking on board the comments made by our peers about our rough cut, we changed the order of our film and tried to include a differing variety of shot types and distances. After showing our peers the final product they said how the shots were steady and well framed. The colours were appropriate as well as effective editing adding to the humour of the video. The settings were well chosen and appropriate throughout. There was also a clever use of narrative that encouraged the audience to watch it again.

However, the main criticism was the green glow that appears around the characters when using the green screen. After slaving away for hours trying every combination of options, they were the best results I could achieve. We unfortunately did not have time to re-film this sequence and try and fix the green glow. With this being the major downfall of the video there was no other real criticisms of the other aspects of the video.

Digipack: The CD cover proved to reflect the indie genre with the fashion choices, emphasising those that our target audience would chose. The silhouettes provide a clear link to the album name, which many said sounded very professional and realistic. The font provides a youthful, fun but slightly edgy look, which could enhance the video itself. There was an accurate and imaginative use of language and register and the illustration and text had been creatively and appropriately integrated. The colours and image exploitation had been selected appropriately and reflected the characteristics of the genre. Also there was a simple use of editing as the images were not too over edited, which followed the conventions of the indie genre.

Magazine Advert: The magazine advert proved to convey enough information for the audience want to know more about the band and also appeals to the correct audience with the mention of Twitter and the BBM barcode. The image clearly related to the theme and also made our peers want to find out more about who the character on the magazine actually was. Showing where they were able to buy the album from complies with a convention of most magazine adverts and our peers said that the representation which the advert showed was very clear and had an obvious link to the album title. 

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Evaluation Activity 4 on Prezi

Florence and the Machine on Prezi

Music Video Timeline

Unsuccessful Band- The Silent Sundays

The Silent Sundys are a Sheffield based band that were formed in 2006. They took a while to find a comfortable line up and so were not a steady band, meaning that the audience for the band could not get attached to anyone in case they got replaced. The music they make includes fast rhythms and strong rhythmic drumming, excluding quite a vast majority of the public, however their genre of music varies from punk rock to indie and therefore they do appeal to a wide group of people.
They have produced a 10 track studio album and have a successful myspace page. However, in order to succeed and gain more publicity they should showcase their band on open mic nights and produce posters to be shown around Sheffield and then attempt to broaden their horizons by targetting other cities, including London, and eventually after a lot of hard work they may become a very successful indie band.

Record Labels

The most popular, and well known record labels are, Mercury, Island, Hollywood, Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner Music. Most of these record companies own a collection of smaller record labels.

Universal: This is made up of Island Def Jam, Polydor and Mercury. Artists such as Bon Jovi, Blink 182, Eminem, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, U2 and Snow Patrol. Their back catalogue also consists of Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana and Buddy Holly.

Record labels are responsible for an eclectic mix of music and artists.

Advantages: Big budget, pubilicty and services, music can be showcased in other areas (this shows the power that they have over the whole media industry)

Disadvantages: They are controlled by a bigger company, no freedom for artists

Johnny Cash vs Nine Inch Nails

The song 'Hurt' has been interpretated in two very different ways.

Johnny Cash gave his video of 'Hurt' a more emotional meaning. It is a very personal video and reflects over the mistakes in his life. As it was made months before Cash's death, he is shown in a very frail and delicate state in the clips that he is performing the song. Therefore, the genre of this video is performance and narrative, which is shown by the clips from the past.

The clips of his life give the idea that he is apologising for the actions he has done in the past. This then creates a link between the lyrics and the visuals, one of Goodwin's rules. This point is emphasised when the song says "Everyone I know goes away in the end" and the video shows a picture of his mother who has passed away. This makes the video emotional and poigniant, along with the idea that this is his last song.

Towards the end, the editing speeds up, signifying that the end of the song is near, along with the end of his music career and his life. As the music fades, the visuals continue and the camera shows Cash bow his head and close the piano lid. This creates a dramatic atmosphere and ending to his career. Although the song and video itself have a depressing feel, Cash could be trying to end his career and potentially his life on a high.

On the other hand, Nine Inch Nails interpreted the song in a very different way. They were the original writers of the song and, in their video, they seem to focus more on the performance based aspect of music videos, compared to Cash's hybrid of performance and spectacle. 

Ellie Goulding

For our homework, we had to research into the successes of an artist within our genre, which for me is indie. I chose to study Ellie Goulding because I am a fan of her style of music and she has been extremely successful, especially seeing as she has only been in the public eye since 2009. So why is she so successful?

In 2010, Goulding became only the second artist to top both the BBC's annual Sound of... poll, and win the Critics' Choice Award at the BRIT Awards in the same year, following Adele's win of both in 2008.

After signing to Polydor Records, her debut album 'Lights' went on to place at number one on the UK Albums Chart and sold over 620,000 copies.

Before the release of her debut studio album, Goulding won the BBC Sound of 2010 poll, which showcases the critics, broadcasters and music industry insiders' top choices for rising stars and artists for the coming year.

Ellie's cover of Elton John's "Your Song" became her highest-charting single to date, reaching number two.

Goulding has been nominated for many awards such as 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards and 2010 Virgin Media Awards. She has also recently won the 2011 Glamour Magazine Award for Newcomer of the Year. Goulding has proved to be a huge success with not only the general public, but also the people within the music industry itself.

Goodwin's Rules:

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics

(e.g. stage performance in rock video, dance routine in hip hop)

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

(the words are interpreted visually either through a narrative, or figuratively through signs and symbols)

3. There is a relationship between music and visuals

(the editing of the visuals is closely linked to the rhythms of the music)

4. 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)

5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, mirrors etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

6. There is often intertextual reference

(to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc)

Spectacle or Concept

A video that relies on clever imagery, performance, content, effects or references to cultural intertextuality to reach an audience are videos that use spectacle or concept.

Who Do You Think You Are- Spice Girls

This video revolves around people and the band are predominant. Each of their individual personalities are perceived through costume. The video is performance based and contains lots of dancing. The band are lip synching throughout. The video demonstrates genre characteristics due to the dancing in a pop video, this is one of Goodwin's rules which classifies a music video.

Narrative

Music videos that take a narrative approach are designed in a story format, often interspersed with footage of the musical group/performer.

Sorry's Not Good Enough-McFly

A good example of a narrative music video is Sorry's Not Good Enough by McFly. The song is about a break up and the video itself follows the story of the girl breaking up with the boy, who is played by a member of the band. Mixed in with the narrative storyline is the performance element from the band. They are shown performing at the restaurant where the characters are at. There is a clear relationship between the lyrics and visuals which is another of Goodwin's rules.

Intertextuality

Music videos that 'borrow' or subvert cultural products already in existence will appeal to audiences 'knowingness'

We Are Golden- Mika

In this music video, Mika is the only character and is seen dancing around his typical teenage bedroom. Goodwin's rule, having a relationship between music and visuals, applies to this video as the clips and different transactions move to the same beat as the soundtrack. This video is mainly performance based and there are several references to cultural intertextuality when Mika himself dances in a similar way to Michael Jackson, this move is easily recognisable and reaches to a different audience than the actual track itself does.

Analysing a music video

Say You Don't Want It by One Night Only

The genre of this song is indie rock which can also be perceived through the costumes worn by the band members. The setting of the video is New York, which is revealed straight away due to the various fast pace shots of the city that match the beat of the song, this shows a close relationship between the music and the visuals. Before the narrative storyline is revealed, shots of the band playing on a roof are shown. This reveals who is in the band, who are the stars, along with well-known actress Emma Watson, of this video.

Following those shots is a sequence showing the back streets of New York and the people in it. Then the narrative storyline begins. It is a love story which has similar features to the Disney film, 'The Lady and the Tramp'. The full meaning of the story is not realised until the end when it is revealed that the two characters are both dogs. Then the story begins to add up, for example, when they have a pretzel thrown at them and when he is chased out of the shop.

The video itself uses a wide range of shots such as establishing shots and medium close ups. Most of the cuts are straight cuts and there is not much of a relationship between the music and visuals. There are close ups of the artist who plays a predominant character within the video. He lip sings during the shots of the band playing on the roof but not during the narrative shots. The video uses a sort of misty effect in order to not make the colour so bold.

Goodbye AS. Hello A2

Now that we have finished our AS media, we are starting the A2 course, which means we are studying... Music Videos