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

Youtube was a heavy influence for me during the research and planning of my products. Through Youtube I could gain knowledge from previous ballad/ acoustic music videos such as "Love You More" by JLS and "If You're Not The One" by Daniel Bendingfield to discover some of the common conventions and what I could then add and portray in my production to make it suite well into the genre of music. Unlike last year for my AS coursework, in which was kept in a book, this year I have used Blogger to show my work. By doing this it has helped me portray my research in what I believe to be a much more effective way, by being able to post Youtube videos and take stills from videos, I can portray what i'm talking about much more powerfully and make statements more clear.

 The construction of my work was carried out on a Sony Handycam, not that most advanced camera but fulfilled in filming what I needed to shoot very well and helped me immensely in creating a good quality video. Once filmed, I uploaded my work to an Apple Mac, I decided to use the programme iMovie as I used the programme well last year in my AS coursework, however this was a down fall as programmes such as Final Cut Pro show more advanced skill and development. However I felt for such a simplistic video that it didn't need major editing and a more simple programme could be used, iMovie provided all the tools i needed and I believe I still ended up with a good product.

I produced my ancilary texts on a programme called Picnik, as an amatuer it was really easy to use, it allowed me to add effects such as CrossProcess to make a more professional looking product, that I feel could look like a product you would see in the shops. It allowed me also to use the hand like font I wanted to create a simple look, in which I might not of been able to access in other programmes. It helped me make the imagery look more "summer" like, which is what I wanted for the feel of the artist and to create this sense of being relaxed. It was in this programme I added the management company logo, the programme merged photos together really quick and effortlessly, to create a product that look really realisitic.
Because I didn't have much time to gain feedback, I did in quick attempt interview fellow pupils, however I have since uploaded my video to YouTube and from this gained many positive feedback. This has again allowed me and my audience to emphasis what features they like about the product and what can be improved.
Overall all these technologies provided a strong, effective outcome and I believe made all my products look as realistic and professional as possible and really helped me create this "calm" feeling that I thought I was going to struggle to portray.

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

I think the combination of my main product and my ancillary texts is very effective and work really well along side each other. In one way or another they all link together in the sense of creating very mellow imagery, to relate to the acoustic sounding song and the artists genre. All my products contain the same imagery of the outdoors, something we associate with peacefulness and being calm, which I wanted to correlate with the sound of the music. I wanted all my products to illustrate a personal touch, in that the audience felt this artist was singing almost one on one with them. Through my media video this was done by close up shots, showing the artists emotion, to correspond with this on my ancilary products I used a hand like font to almost emphasis that the artist had written it herself, making it more of a personal connection to the audience and the artist. The setting for my ancilary products was a back garden, to again emphasis that this music should want to make the audience feel at home almost. Also, it would appear unusual for the artists to be in a studio photoshoot as it simply doesn't correlate with her style and production. In contrast this is done in my video by being in a park, again a location people associate with getting away and being calm.
My CD advert contains the same shot as the front cover of my digipak, to give the audience knowledge of what to look for when they go out to buy the product, it also again relates to the artists simplisity, so I did not want to use many poses of her.

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

I did alot of analysis and research into slow/ ballad/ acoustic type videos to try and gain the best knowledge I could of what to expect from such a product. Just like many real music products, the video contains the simple convention of an artist miming, sitting in specific poses, or in movement e.g. walking around, to convey the normlessness of the video and that audiences can identify that the video is in some ways a stereotypical styled video.

I did have the idea of making more of a narrative to the video, however I have noticed through my research many more real media products are beginning to create videos that to do simply tell a story and contain more individual shots of the artist performing the song. I briefly made a short narrative through the use of a wide shot of a plane, and long shots of a person fading away. Giving some indication to the audience that the artist is singing about losing someone and to correlate with the lyrics of the video that "love might bring us back together" and emphasises the artists wish for that person to return.

I have challenged the conventions of real media products slightly, in that I believe for a song of this tempo and the heavy use of a acoustic guitar throughout, that people would essentially expect the artist to be playing an instrument in such a video. Many acoustic videos do contain these sorts of shots to make the audience feel they are simply watching that artist sing in person, however I wanted to create more of a personal feeling that the artist is simply on her own, trying to cope with situation of losing someone and therefore felt using a guitar was a little innapropriate.
The video has a very relaxed setting, in a park to illustrate the genre of the music, the soft sounding guitar moulds nicely with the park setting. I have noticed that many media products tend to relate the setting to sound. From this understanding, I knew it would be innapropriate to feature this song in a location such as a theme park or a stadium. The actions and pase of the artists movement all are in time with the music which again uses conventions of real media products. I emphasised this further by created four quick cuts in which a quick drum beat plays, with each strike of each drum beat the artists moves from different positions on a set of stairs. Again, I have noticed many real media products tend to now use quicker cuts to make the video become parralel with the sound of the music.

My ancilary texts used many conventions of real media products, my CD advert like many real adverts used just one single shot, in most cases a long shot of the artist. In contrast with the digipak it used the same image as the front cover, which many artists do to promote an album or product or to emphasis a release date. My advert contained all the conventions of a common CD advert, in that it contained the date of release, artists name, featured or most popular tracks and the fact that it is the artists debut album. However I challenged the conventions by not adding a professional quote, in which I have seen to be quite popular in real media products. To fit in with the "simple" feel of the artist and their genre I felt the advert would be too overpacked with writing and would lose it's relaxed influence.
My digipak takes on this feel also, with shots of trees and landscapes not just to make the feel mellow, but to also correlate the imagery back to my music video. Just like many digipak covers, the cover simply contains the artist posing, in which I have made mine look into the distance. Which again is a common convention of a digipak cover, it contains the album name and artist and the back contains album tracks, a bar code and the production company logo. All of these conventions are used throughout real media products and therefore had to be included.
Overall I feel i have conformed to the conventions and changed them slightly in some cases, with only the intention of creating a different sense of the artist in that she creates relaxed music, that should make you feel at ease which i have seen alot of real artists e.g. Norah Jones and Jack Johnson do in their products. I wanted to put across clearly that this artist is not a full on "pop" artist and therefore some real media conventions needed to be taken away to create a more simpleness to the artist and their work.

Evaluation - what have you learned from your audience feedback?

Throughout the process of making my product, I thought it was essential that I recieved feedback from the audience to gain knowledge of what the expected from my genre of music and whether my music video ideas related to the feel of the music, with their feedback it would help me mould my work into an all round better video that people would expect from such a mellow sounding piece of music. Firstly, to gain people's ideas on their thoughts for the music video, I used direct interviews, in which I played the music to them. From this I gained some ideas and feedback of what the audience would commonly associate and want to see from a musical video for the song. A few of my comments were..

• Lots of close up shots to show emotion
• Singer possibly playing a guitar to emphasis the acoustic sound
• A relaxed location, a beach, a park or a home.
• A love story, to focus on some of the mentioned lyrics in the song. 

After gaining this knowledge of the audiences feedback, I tried to bring some of these elements together to create a product that appealed to my audience more. Initially I had thought the song would fit into a ballad convention, in which the artist made many arm movements (hand clenching, hand pointing etc) however through the feedback I recieved, it seems these types of conventions for my video and the style of music, simply did not fit together. The audience reaction really helped me make a decision on not using this all together.
After making my product, I went about asking my fellow media pupils for some comments on the finished piece, alot of feedback was positive, alot of people mentioned that the feel of the video correlated well with the song itself, created a almost laidback vibe about it. People commented on my use of editing and that they liked a specific part of the video in which I used really quick cuts to be insync with the quick drum beat of the song, by moving the artist in different positions on the steps.
However, the were some negative comments about the video, personally I believe these were correct about the video and would definitly help me if i was to make another product to make it even better. I had carelessly let my finger appear in the corner of one shot of my video, to quote one of my feedbackers "it made the video look less realistic". Also for one shot the miming does appear to be slightly out of sync, these comments I completely agree with and were poor mistakes on my part.
Unfortunately I did not recieve any feedback for my ancilary texts, as they were created in a format that cannot be uploaded to facebook to recieve any comments, however I created them with ideas that I had recieved from the video in that it should appear "mellow" and "relaxed", therefore I posed the artist by a tree, in which I thought would be a strong way of keeping the artwork in relation to the video.

Final CD Poster

Final Digipak

 Front/ Back Cover

Inside Covers

Final Piece - Music Video

CD Advert Analysis

CD Adverts in magazines are a great way for artists to promote their musical work to audiences outside of a artists fan base or their stereotypical musical listener. Magazines are also bought my thousands of everyday readers who may not necessarily watch and artists music videos or performances on television. Through this format it is a great way to capture the eye of more readers and overall more buyers of the artists work. I decided to look at Gwen Stefani's "Love, Angel, Music, Baby" advert. Clearly, and most commonly the image takes up a large proportion of the advert, this becomes the first attraction to the advert when first coming across it. Like most common magazine adverts, the image is that of the same as the cd album cover, purposely done to promote the album itself and also gives audiences indication of what to look for when searching for the album in the shops, if they wish to do so. Gwen's name is in a large gold font, correlating with the theme of the album and also that of her first music video from the album which was "Alice In Wonderland" theme, the gold font looks "queen" like, representing a character from that film and also conveying Gwen to be a "queen" like figure herself. The advert contains featured and the most well known tracks on the album, again to attract muscial listeners who possibly are only up to date with chart tracks and therefore will only have indication of Gwen's best selling hits. It also promotes Gwen Stefani's website, clearly this advert is trying to promote Gwen and her music as much as it possible can. I will use most of these conventions, as i think they are really eye catching and the key features to attract wide audiences. 

Digipak Analysis

 

As my genre is pop ballads, I need to look at digipak features of a pop artist, to see if the artwork of the artists also reflects the mood of their music and whether it holds key features of cd covers. I have looked at the digipak work of Take That's - Beautiful World. Through looking at the front cover, a very common factor as with all other digipak's shows the artist on the front cover, also the band's name and the title of the album. In my opinion, I think the posture of the band seen in a walking like motion can arguably reflect the sound of the band. The music is uptempo but mellow in the same sense, arguing it is like the pace of walking. However the band break the convention of a regular pop band cover, in that it hasn't been taken in a studio and isnt of the band huddled together and posing. The text for the album title "Beautiful World" has been created in a different font from the band name, arguing the band are trying to portray the sense of "beautifulness" and the whole content of the album it's based on. 

Through looking at the back of the digipak, we can see a running colour pattern, the use of sandy, yellow colours again common for pop covers, an album will have an occuring theme that will be seen on all sides of the digipak. The left hand side picture is of skies and a sign post, again possibly relating back to the theme of a Beautiful World. The titles of the album tracks are features another common convention of digipaks, the audience needs indication of what the album contains obviously, if not the band may lose sales from lack of interested. Underneath the texts reads "contains videos such as Patience, Shine and Rule The World" some of Take That's biggest hits. It is solely there for audience purpose, for people who may of only particularly heard these hits and the cover is helping draw their attention. The band's record label symbol and details of writers and producers is also mentioned, as it must do by law and again is a must have convention of digipaks. 

The inside of the digipak, again has the occuring theme of sandy colours, with the cd's themselves running along with the theme. This digipak however contains two cd's, more commonly we would see a single cd in the middle of the digipak, however this digipak also had video content on a second cd. Again a picture of the band is contained for more public interest possibly and more imagery for fans to look at. Overall we can see digipak's just like CD singles and album, contains a running theme either connecting to album name or a general theme selected by managment or the band themeselves for that album in particular. I will need to keep this in mind for my digipak and make sure I portray a clear meaning that my artist is of pop genre.

Initial Ideas

After undergoing research into what common conventions music videos have, i have now decided to solely focus on making a pop ballad video. The main convention I noticed was the use of a narrative running through the video, most regularly of a break-up, a rendevous or some twist or turn in a relationship. Not only is the narrative there for pure entertainment purposes, but it also helps the audience gain knowledge and true meaning to behind the lyrics and possible why the song was wrote in the first place. It is also a initial reaction from the audience also that they expect ballad videos to contain all sorts of content associated to love, hate and reconciliation. The narrative commonly always contains a state of equiliberium, a time of happiness for the couple or who the singer is singing about, before a disequiliberium occurs and disrupts the relationship. Ballad videos can vary in whether the narrative will end with a positive or negative ending, again relating back to lyrical content.

The song I focused on for my coursework is Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust, orginally a dance records in the late 1990's. However through looking at youtube I discovered a slow acoustic version, which suites well for my genre I have researched. Although the song does not contain many lyrics and may seem like a difficulty for me to make a storyline to, I have found it relatively easy to create a plot through the basic lyrics "I feel like music sounds better with you, love might bring us both together" . 

From this I have created a narrative, very typically expected in ballad videos. My idea is to start with long shots, possibly of landscapes, close up shots, the use slow motion of the singer walking. To create the feel of the song and create the sense of lonliness that has brought the singer to this point. I will then use flashbacks of the disequilberium, which I initially will use as an affair to how the pair departed. Throughout the video whilst cutting back to shots of the singer, just like ballad videos will keep a running narrative to how the stroy resolves itself and how I plan at the end of the video, relating back to the lyrics will bring the couple back together. I think it will portray the genre correctly and in the right sense and will furfill the purpose of creating knowledge for the audience to understand the narrative fully.

Conventions Of Music Videos

Genre is represented in the video for If Your Not the One - Daniel Beddingfield by the use of many close up shots throughout the video, it portrays the artists emotion and is a common factor of many ballad videos.

 Slow motion is also heavely used throughout, this is used to make the video look in sync with the tempo of the song which is a main convention of romantic videos. Most shots throughout the video also purely focus on Daniel behind a black screen or some thunder and lightning, this is again to convey his emotion and relate to the sad lyrics. Daniel's gestures such as arm grabbing and thist clenching are also a convention of ballad videos in which Daniel Beddingfield does frequently throughout.

Audience - In JLS - Love You More video despite being a ballad video and containing many conventions of the genre, I would argue the video focuses more solely on audience. JLS are a highly popular band with many female fans, through using many close up shots of the band conveying their romantic side, it gives the audience watching a chance to possibly imagine themselves with the band.

On a more general scale, the audience through ballads need to understand and relate to the singers emotion of talking about personal issues. Through long shots of JLS on the beach using common gestures such as thist clenching, eyes shut and singing directly at the camera, the audience gain knowledge that they are passionate about what they are singing.

Unlike most common love songs, this video does not contain a partner as such that relates to the lyrics this again could relate back to the fact JLS are a highly popular band and showing female companions in the video could make their fan base jealous.



Narrative - The narrative commonly in romantic videos focuses on the basis of the lyrics. The mis-en-scene frequently relates to a running story that contains flashbacks of postitive times and negative to relate back to the content of the lyrics being described, the narrative frequently uses shots of the artist alone to relate to their emotion at the present time also.

 In Neyo's So Sick video he sings about his disgust of still missing a girl, through using close up shots and mid shots of the couple smiling and having fun it relates back to the lyrics of being "sick". Also to convey the RnB genre Ne-Yo looks sophisticated wearing classy clothes and jewlellery.