1. In what ways does your product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of the song we chose was folk rock/ indie, which gave us a wide range of possibilities for our music video, as the conventions were very open. The main convention was it could be artistic and very creative, but also we had to avoid mixing it with the genre conventions of pop music. We decided to emphasis the main convention by our main character in the narrative being a mime, which is a very profound and skillful art form. The use of the mime also spurred on further ideas for the ancillary products, which were also supposed to be creative and artistic, and also linked to our music video. We decided to emphasis the mime aspect of our music video and use the theme of the circus style posters. So, we made our magazine advert in the style of a Victorian circus advertisement with all the necessary information to sell our product.
We also used a lot of amplified lyrics and visuals to emphasis what our artist was singing about, to make it more understandable. The lyrics had a general narrative that showed us a failed love story, where a man spends a lot of time chasing after a girl, doing all the things she wants him to do, and being the person she wants him to be, and then not showing him any affection or interest. Our narrative amplifies this by showing a mime, chasing after a "normal" girl, and her completely ignoring him. Using the mime for this, instead of a normal person or using the artist, makes the video far more interesting for the viewer, because it makes it more unique and different.
One convention we could have used was that most folk rock songs used guitars, or showed the artist playing a guitar whilst singing, which makes the audience make a clearer link to what the genre is, as to attract the target audience. We could have also used nature to our advantage, because through watching other musics videos from this genre, we noted that most used forests or open farmland or fenland as their backdrop, and we only used this in half of our song. Our local area would have provided us an array of different natural locations, although then again, using half our set as a built up town area, and then switching to the natural side could have worked to our advantage as it meant it showed a clear distinction between the first part of the narrative, where the mime is chasing after this "normal" girl, and the second part, where the mime and the artist come together, and the artist solves the mimes problem.
2. How effective is your combination of you main products and ancillary texts?
Our music video and ancillary products, (a magazine advert and a digipak) have a very strong link, even though we didn't directly use images from our music video. We thought that it would be better if we used a strong theme that linked the two products with subtle reference to the music video, as if it is a complete package. We chose the theme of circus advertisements, but not modern times advertisement, but older, almost Victorian style. In the planning phase we found a film called "Les Enfants du Paradis" which we found had a really nice feel to it and this made us choose this style.I think that all our products work together as a nice little package and compliment each-other, due to this theme. If we had thought a little less out of the box, I don't think our products would have worked so well. One part of the image of the mime I really liked was the fact that mimes were were originally supposed to teach moral lessons and it links to our narrative in our music video.
Although we could have produced the ancillary texts a bit better, if we had used our time wisely, they would have been more effective. and also if we had emphasized a bit further or improved the use of the vignette and colour correction in our music video, they would have looked even more connected.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
The feedback we got from our audience was in general positive, they said our lip-syncing was of a high standard, which has taught me that the method of putting markers on our music track, to mark when the beginning of versus and choruses, worked well. Although they said our music video was to narrative heavy, so it would have been useful if we'd have filmed more scenes of the artist singing.
They also enjoyed our use of multiple locations because they found it made the video more varied and interesting, thus making it more watch-able.
I have also learnt that the audience likes it when the lyrics and visuals are strongly linked as it makes what the artist is saying more interesting and understandable.
From our Rough Cut, we had some feedback that told us our music video looked too bright and realistic and if we wanted the theme of the mime to work, we had to do something about it. So we went through final cut and darkened all the shots so that it had a slightly more moody feel to it, and also added a filter called a vignette and another one called noise, as to make it feel like its old footage. The mix of the old looking footage, and the modern clothing of the artist and girl, made the mime stand out in the shots more, because after adding these filters, the mime looked like he was black and white, in a colourful world, making him look odd and out of place.
On thing we learnt but couldn't change, was it was repeated several times to us that we needed to film more close up shots, or at least more varying shots, to make the music video more technically difficult, and to make the music video in general more interesting, because as I mentioned before, the audience like the varying locations, and if we had varying shot, it would have been even better.
Without the audience feedback, I don't think we would have noticed and our music video wouldn't be as good.
Also the feedback we got from our teacher was that she really liked the circus theme because it could be used across several different products, such as CDs and full size posters, so our choice of theme was very good, like the use of the cowboy hat used in a line of Madonna products, which successfully linked them all together.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research and planning, and evaluation stages?
In the construction of our music video we used HD hand-held cameras, which were easy to use and gave use the opportunity to film close up shots without the camera feeling overpowering over artist and mime.
When we were putting all our shots together we used Final Cut, which enabled us to stack our short up like a staircase, in different tracks, which made it easier to find good shots for a particular scene. Also we were able to lock our lip-syncing track, so that it wasn't accidentally moved, and we were able to make sure it stayed in sync with the music. Final Cut was also useful because it had lots of filters and colour correction, which meant we were able to adjust our footage, so it doesn't feel raw, and we also used a Vignette filter, to give our footage an older, worn feel.
Also we used photo-shop in the construction of our ancillary texts. This meant we were able to layer images and texts onto our products. We found two useful images of an old style poster and a ticket to the circus, and we were able to strip them down, to the basic outline using various different tools, such as a colour matcher, which meant we could find the exact colour that was already on the poster, and use it to paint over the original text, and a smudger tool, which meant we were able to blend colours together, so that it looked smoother. We also used an artistic paint brush filter to give the images on the posters a feel of being painted, like the old style circus posters. Although one thing that caused us alot of problems was not knowing this technology as well as we should, because it meant when things went wrong we were unable to sort them out quickly, and when finding the right filters and tools, it took longer, which meant we had less time to complete our tasks, and meant they were of a lower standard, for example, if we had know how to cut a picture of a person out without having to precisely draw around the outline, we wouldn't have lost so much time.
Having a blog was also very useful to us in the research and planning stage, and the evaluation stage, because it meant all our work was online so we could look at home, or in college, or blog articles where ever we were, if we suddenly found inspiration or found a good location etc. Using a blog also meant our work was neatly stored, and made it easier to link all our products together as we could get inspiration for work we'd previously done for the Music Video, such as the post about "Les Enfants du Paradis", inspiring us to use old circus posters as inspiration for our magazine advert and digipak.
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