Question One
In
what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
The music video I chose to recreate is
specific to the Pop Rock genre. I chose to recreate the song cops and robbers
by ‘The Hoosiers’ as I believed that this type of music would have worked well
with the storyboard plan I had set out within my research. Due to the song
being upbeat I had decided to match the tempo of the song with a more
performance based video (over other types such as narrative, abstract or
animation) as this challenged the conventions of the pop rock genre as these
are usually more narrative based, and the fact that I used a female performer
instead of making appearances of the band within the video. I had used influences
from different aspects of the pop rock genre within my original storyboard plan
with such influences such as, She Will Be Loved – Maroon 5 and I’m Yours –
Jason Mraz as these both used a narrative and performance structure.
Codes
and conventions are used as a way of constructing a media text; these codes and
convention can either be technical or symbolic. The differences between the two
are that; technical includes aspects such as how the technology is used to
create the text, and also how the use of camera, editing and sound influences
the text itself with features such as different camera angles, different shots,
the pace and style of editing, and the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound.
Whereas
symbolic is focused more upon the meaning past what the video is obviously
displaying, this can be portrayed through the use of different facial
expressions, symbolic codes and conventions also use the mise-en-scene of the
video to send some messages to the audience to discover what the video is
attempting to represent.
There
are different types of styles of music videos, these styles are: performance,
narrative, animation, mixture and cameo. All of these styles are used to show
the differences that are meant to be portrayed in the video compared to other
videos, for example you may use narrative for one genre and performance for
another. Performance style videos are when the video is based around the band
or artist, narrative is when the video tells a story, animation is done
digitally or stop frame, mixture is both performance and narrative together and
cameo is when the band or artist is in the narrative but doesn’t perform in the
video.
The
use of the camera will depend on the type of music video, for example if the
video was a performance video you may see more close ups and extreme close ups
to capture the artists/bands faces for promotional purposes and the lips,
guitar strings, drums being banged as this shows the performance of the video.
There will also be the use of shots such as crane shots, low/high angle shots,
long and extreme long shots, establishing shots to show the location of the
video, pans/tilts and tracking shots. All of these will sent messages to the
audience and may give clues to the genre of the video such as the establishing
shot as if the location was in a flashy mansion with lots of girls and cars,
this would give the conventions of an R&B/rap genre.
There
are many different editing techniques used in music videos but editing is
mainly used to make the video look believable and make it flow. Most people
will use jump cuts from one shot to another to keep the continuity. The footage
will often match the music as this continues with the fluidity of the video.
Depending on what style and genre the music video is, it may add in some split
screen effects and CGI.
The
sound of the video will include choosing diegetic sounds and changes in levels
of sound; this can also make the video more believable.
The
mise-en-scene can vary depending on the genre and style of the music videos;
they would focus on certain costumes/outfits, props such as performance
equipment, the location and the different facial expressions that the
band/artists use.
Pop
rock is a music genre, which mixes a catchy pop style, and light lyrics in its
(typically) guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term,
ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop
music. Scholars have noted that pop and rock are usually depicted as opposites;
the detractors of pop often deride it as a slick, commercial product, less
authentic than rock music.
Pop rock
has been described as an "upbeat variety of rock music represented by
artists such as Elton John, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Chicago, and Peter
Frampton. "In contrast, music reviewer George Starostin defines it as a
subgenre of pop music that uses catchy pop songs that are mostly guitar-based.
Starostin argues that most of what is traditionally called 'power pop' falls
into the pop rock subgenre. He claims that the lyrical content of pop rock is
"normally secondary to the music."
Barry
Keith Grant stated in 1995 that all genres have sub-genres, which means that
these categories are more divided into more specific sections, which allows the
audience to identify the differences and to become familiar with different
styles of each of their characteristics. This applies to my video as my genre
is a merge between two huge genres (pop and rock), this means that my video
must contain characteristics of both types of genre.
Although,
Steve Neale also argued in 1995 that 'genres are not systems but are processes
of systemisation', which means that they are dynamic and evolve over time. This
means that what makes a certain genre has changed over time, in my videos case
it shows the differences between the stereotypes that are associated with
this genre and in general.
Firstly, when learning about the genre in
my research through videos and written documents I noticed that the use of
close-ups and mid shots was the more dominate shots for this genre. This
therefore influenced me to dominate my video and ancillary texts with similar
shots as seen throughout my products. The reason for this is so that the
audience could see the performance aspects of the video more intimately, which
allows the audience to become more drawn to the video and feel closer to the
music and performance themselves.
Another convention I used which I believe
was vital to apply to the products was the mise-en-scene of the costume of the
performance, this allows the audience to recognise and interpret the little
narrative I had within the video to their own understanding, and although this
was not my original plan, as I did have a second performer to play I vital role
within the narrative, I had to change many aspects within the video, which I
will further explain within the development section.
The costume is also another aspect of the conventions used in other pop rock videos; my influence was from within the video Goodbye Mr. A by ‘The Hoosiers’ as in this video they dress to match the theme of the song, which is of superheroes in this case.
The costume is also another aspect of the conventions used in other pop rock videos; my influence was from within the video Goodbye Mr. A by ‘The Hoosiers’ as in this video they dress to match the theme of the song, which is of superheroes in this case.
The use of diegetic sound
at the beginning of the video, with the asynchronous whistling, and the
synchronous and asynchronous sound of footsteps, again, stuck to the
conventions and showed a beginning to the narrative structure of the video.
I used a narrative and
performance based video, which is conventional to the genre I am targeting,
this means that the video should be more likely to understand and enjoy the
video as a whole, although, the consistency of the narrative structure is not
as strong as first planned due to the casting issues I experienced in the build
up to me shooting the final product. The narrative is simple which is
conventional, it consists of the escape of the criminal at the beginning (as
previously shown), and then having a carefree time outside of prison, this is
shown by the fact that there are no policemen chasing her down, the video then
finishes with the criminal winking to the camera, this is to signify the fact
that she has not learned her lesson, which reinforces the message I was trying
to deliver in reference to the social idea I was pitching to the audience.
I have also used narrative structure with
reference to the video within my digipak and advert as these are partial
reflections and insights to the story being portrayed on-screen, the narrative
on my digipak begins with the chase which is to indicate how the criminal ended
up in jail, the next image is two drawn elements chasing each other, this is to
highlight the wacky element within the performance and products as a whole as
this is conventional to the genre and audience, my influence behind the drawn
elements was from the rotoscoping method used in the video to the song ‘Take On
Me’ by ‘A-ha’, although these were a synthpop band they used elements that are
conventional to the pop rock genre such as the use of band performance, use of
both rock and pop elements etc. The next image is then of the criminal caught
(after the chase) and the image on the back is of the criminal holding the open
handcuffs, symbolising that she had escaped (which is where the video starts. I
thought this was conventional as this kept the entire campaign of the products
continuous, as the advert was an adapted image of the cover of the digipak to
create familiarisation between the products to the audience.
The use of the design I have created also
sticks to the conventions of the genre as it is creating a fun vibe that
targets the audience of that genre specifically, with such bands like ‘The
Hoosiers’ and ‘Maroon 5’ both having animated cases on their albums such as
Maroon 5’s albums ‘Songs About Jane’ and ‘Overexposed’, which were influences
for the creation for my digipak product, the aspects I used was mainly to do
with the way in which the lighting on Overexposed allows the CD to really stand
out and the use of the image of the women alongside a rather simple background
on Songs About Jane allows the cover to straight away sent out the message and
the theme of the album.
Throughout the creation of my final
products I had to change and develop many aspects of my work such as the video
and the digipak. The video was originally casted for two roles (a cop and a
robber) but from issues with casting times and the availability of my ‘cop’
part, I had to recreate a meaning for the video which was rather similar to the
original meaning but it had to be portrayed in a different manor due to only
having one element of the themed song. Originally the story was supposed to
follow the conventions of a typical pop rock song until the end where the
performer would lose the battle within the video, which would have challenged
the codes and conventions of the genre. So I decided that without my second
cast member, I could use this to my advantage to allow me to put a spin on the
conventions of the genre and allow the performer to win as a robber and portray
a negative image within society, as the police wasn’t even trying to do the
right thing. So in this sense my aim was developed from following the
conventions of the performers winning (for example in ‘Goodbye Mr. A’ and the
original video to ‘Cops and Robbers’ both by The Hoosiers) until the end the
video before breaking conventions of the genre and letting the performer lose,
to having the performer win as a negative character to depict a negative
outlook of the authorities within society ‘which again was influenced by the
narrative to ‘Goodbye Mr. A’.
Other developments I made within my overall products are with regards to my ancillary texts, specifically, my digipak. For my digipak I had a general idea in what I wanted to achieve in terms of interlinking it with my advert and video in terms or marketing techniques such as using the cover of the digipak as the main image on the magazine advert and creating a joint narrative between the digipak and the video as explained previously. I used many developments for my digipak that used and challenged different aspects of the pop rock genre. For example, I used drawn, basic ICT, Google found images and a self taken image versions in order to find a conventional way of designing the digipak but still keeping to my idea of interlinking the products very closely and effectively as a overall media campaign.
One development that I did not end up using
was, the use of still images to make a short montage throughout the song, I was
originally going to use this method in order to break the convention of having
still images to break up the beat of the song when the instrumental parts were
playing but I decided against it as I did not think it would be best for the
video.
At the start of the project I planned to
challenge the conventions of this genre with different aspects within each
product. Within the video I planned to use a girl to be the performer to a song
by a male band as I wanted to challenge the genre conventions that mean the
band usually perform themselves and at the same time challenge the social view
that men are usually depicted as criminals, and further past that, that if a
female is going to be a criminal, she does not have to be big or have black
hair etc. as the performer is small and blonde. I believe this works well for
the video and the campaign as a whole as this still follows key conventions but
still separates itself from artists that do use different performers or actors
as this challenges the depiction of stereotypical gender roles.
Another aspect of the performance area I
challenged was that I had no use of instruments within the video, which is
usually conventional to this genre, but this again will be reflected as I had
no appearance of the band and strictly stuck to a single performance with a
slight narrative that stretched across the entire campaign.
I did not use much narrative structure
within my video itself, which as stated breaks convention. The reason for this
is because I believe that the single performance aspect had to be strong and
focused upon since I was not using a performer relative to the band and one
that was being used to break different conventions and social views. I believe
that this aspect worked well within the video as it allowed the audience to be
interested in the difference the full campaign has to offer as well as just
some of the key conventional points.
I also challenged conventions within the
magazine advert as I used the image of the cover of the album it was promoting
and that I also used the performer in the video to advertise the band instead
of the band themselves. I believe that this was a smart choice as this allows
the narrative to be continuous throughout the full overall product and will be
easily remembered as the performer will be eye-catching as people will have
seen her within the other products.
Question Two
How
effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Possibly the biggest and most important shared aspect my different products share is the upbeat and fun design of the products, which most of my target audience and even some outside of my target audience seemed to enjoy as shown within my audience feedback techniques such as my poll and my face to face interviews. This was an important aspect as this also follows the conventions of the genre although I took a different approach to achieving the goal through non-conventional ways as my video was mainly performance based without the actual band appearing in the video (although the audience mostly liked this aspect and enjoyed the performance aspects). I believe that I made this shared element very effective throughout my combination as I also made the ancillary texts have a conventional ‘wackiness’ as well as the video through the use of my Photoshop skills, as I used the blur and sharpen tools to create a main focus on the image by using the blur tool around the image and then exposing the image itself to heavy sharpening which created a colourful and pixelated image, which I believe was very effective in making the products stand out and add additional market value through the packaging design of the digipak and advert.
This specific shared
element helps the overall brand image and allows the audience to easily
identify the products themselves as they have an individual aspect through the
design of the products themselves such as the colour aspects of the ancillary
texts. The use of yellow for the front cover of the digipak case and the advert
itself helps the brand show continuity as the audience will remember the design
of either of the images, plus the colour yellow is conventional to the theme of
cops and robber as yellow connotes the meaning of caution, which, as stated, is
relevant to the theme of the song.
Question Three
What
have you learned from your audience feedback?
For my audience
feedback I decided to use two methods:
- Video face-to-face interviews
- Online poll
The reason I
chose not to use a written interview method is because it takes longer and does
not provide me with the same level of qualitative data as a face-to-face video
interview and the online poll allows me to receive my quantitative data, which
when combined with my video makes the process of a written interview or survey,
obsolete.
Within my
audience feedback I interviewed both male and female aspects of my target
audience (16 -20) as well as a male outside my target audience (40+) in order
to create a feel of what the broad views and contrasts would be between the two
audiences. The results show that both girls within my target audience really
enjoyed the video as a whole, especially liking the performance aspect as they
thought that this was key to the video, this taught me that you can break
conventional activity within the genre as long as it is replaced by quality
footage/idea, such as a strong performance base with a good performer that can
convey an attitude through the video forms. All but one-person thought the
video fell within the pop genre as most thought the tempo was quick and the
dancing was within synch to the music itself. The male person interviewed
within my feedback was very critical of the video aspects, such as, the pace,
the narrative structure, the casting, the use of props, editing error (Coke
Cola can) etc. Although this was very undermining of the video itself, it
allowed me to see some aspects of the video, which could have been improved or
changed in order to fit into my main target audience as my poll suggested as
three times more male people voted on my blog. Through trying to understand the
deeper meanings of why he did not like the different aspects of the video. The
narrative structure I believe was effective in portraying my message and ideas
but was not as finely tuned as the performance aspects, which must have come
across during the video as he states ‘it is just a robber dancing’. Another
reason that could have come from the narrative is because he could have perhaps
been bias since it was his casting that was narrowed down during the initial
filming, this can also be backed up as he mentions ‘he thinks there should have
been a copper’ (that was originally has part) and when he says his favorite
aspect of the video was himself as Simon and how it reminds him of the
production method I could have used before changing the story and meaning of
the overall product. This being said I had to develop his role into Simon, as I
did not have enough footage or the appropriate standard of copper uniform
within the small amount of footage he was originally in.
I did manage to
find someone from outside my target audience that enjoyed the overall video as
he enjoyed the ‘simplistic’ values it upheld being the strong performance base
I tried to work from. But he picked up on something that was a worry of mine
from when shooting the video as we both felt that their was not enough shots
within the video to add much variance, this is again backed up by my second interview
as she also picked up on the repetitiveness of the shots and she suggested that
she would use more narrative in these spaces by having more a chase between the
cops and robbers. This would of then gone against my message, but this seemed
to be the more popular aspect desired by the target audience although my first
interview really enjoyed the feature of my performer and stated ‘it was really
upbeat’, ‘funny’ and ‘kept the audience engaged’, which was a big feature I was
trying to create, although this may come from some aspects that she too is a
media student and realises some different ways that I used in order to achieve
my socially challenging view/message.
Question Four
How
did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?
Throughout the creation of my products, my
research, planning and development stages, I used several different programs
and new media technologies that allowed me to use, create, research, modify,
and develop different pieces of work as well as my ideas.
Another technology I had used in order to
display my work was YouTube; this
allowed me to upload my final pieces of work as well as my interviews for
audience feedback. This again allowed me to easily access my work and allows
for a huge audience to watch, comment or like my videos.
I used an IPhone 5 camera to first
video my face-to-face interviews as I thought that this would help me save time
in uploading them to my blog but I experienced problems, as the videos would
not transfer onto the computer, so I decided not to waste time so I used a Olympus SP-720OUZ Camera with a video
feature to record the recordings from the phone instead of reshooting the
interviews. I also used the Olympus
SP-720OUZ Camera to take the photographs of my original cast, costumes, possible
locations, and my storyboard etc. in order to be able to easily upload them to
a computer and onto my blog account under the correct title.
In order to create the
storyboard into an animation, I used the Windows
Movie Maker programme as this allowed my to combine my Photoshop CS5.5 skills in order to crop each of my drawn pictures
into a flowing animation displaying my original plan for the video in an
attractive style.
I had never used the Windows Movie Maker
programme before so this took me some time to learn the process in which to
work the system and match the timeline and synch each of the pictures to the
song, which was adapted from an MP3 file.
The biggest task that I had to face was
learning to use the Non-Linear Editing
Suite and the Adobe Premierpro CS4 system,
as this was the main component towards creating my music video. Within the time
I had on the editing suite, I learned to use features such as importing the
music, synching elements of the videos to so the music, cutting shots with the
razor tool, using the rate stretch tool to slow the feature down
over a period of time, to fade the shots and music, how to zoom
in and out by selecting key parts of the shot and setting a pace for the
zooming to work at etc.
I also learned to mix and contrast the different colours within the shots although I did not use this element as I thought it was conventional to my genre, I did not believe it would suit the video itself.