In what ways does
your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
The
codes and conventions for indie rock tends to be portrayed through the style of
clothing. This heartbreak song was hard to portray the genre, but we tried our
best through the clothing. We used several different locations and this
includes a park, restaurant, the couples house, the music studio and various
roads where there are plenty of close ups of the artist. In other songs similar
to ours that I had done my research on, I noticed that a lot of the clothing
tends to be either simple, or very bright and colourful. The point in the music
video is to get across to the audience the sorrow and pain that the artist is
suffering, and I think we achieved this by showing close-ups of the artist, and
showing the emotion. I decided to use a tripod during our filming and this is
because it is a serious video. If the video was jerky and moving about, it will
look less professional. Another thing I decided to use whilst editing was to
use a mixture of slow motion and black and white shots within the video. I
think that this adds more emotion to the music video, and it makes it more
emotional and works well with what we shot.
Just
like a typical heartbreak indie song, we had our story line and it was clear
from the start. The storyline is about a happy couple together and shows all
the happy moments between them. Then ‘Chanele’ sees that her boyfriend has been
texting other girls, and this is where it all goes wrong, and at this point in
the song, it goes very dramatic, and shows everything going wrong. I then made
all the shots slower, more close-ups of the face to show her upset, depressed
and lonely.
We
had used inter-textual references of the original song. The parts we used were
the original song and a similar theme. The storyline itself was different, as
were the locations, but it ran the same theme of a couple being happy then sad,
then reminiscing and last pain.
How effective is
the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I think that the
ancillary texts work well with our music video. I decided that when making the
posters and digipak, I would keep the thematics, branding designs and
representations consistant across all products.
When drawing up my idea,
I had an outline of what I wanted, but producing the ideas-
onto paper, which is harder than people think. I was constantly trying to
change it to make it look a bit better. I decided to keep the same fonts
throughout aswell. The font I decided to use, took a while, because I wanted to
get the right font. The reason for choosing that font is because it is cracked
a little, and that represents heartbreak, which ties into the theme of our
song.
The digipak was a hard
process and I learned a lot more tools on Photoshop. I believe this has
developed my abilities, and helped me make a better digipak.
On the digipak, and
poster, we both have a picture of the artist Chanele on it, this is because we
need to get the artist out there and get her style out there. We need to make
sure the artist is recognisable and has her own fashion sense. It is important
to get the artists image out and get her into the music industry well, because
if the whole music campaign flops, it will be bad for the artist.
I decided to keep the
background the same through the different forms of media and have ‘torn’
slightly faded in the background. This means the audience will be draw to it
when studying the media, and it will be fixed into their head. The main reason
for making a digipak and poster is so that people will remember it next time
they go out, and will want to buy it and I believe that my one will do that to
people.
Audience
Feedback
This is
the feedback that I have got from my friends and I am happy with the comments
back. It is obvious that they really enjoyed it, and this makes me happy
because it shows the effort that I have put in has paid off. The general census is that they thought that
my music video stuck to the codes and conventions and wasn’t cheesy. I have learned that if you put your mind to
something, you can achieve it. I thought it was going to be harder, and I was a
bit distant at first, but when I put the effort in, I can achieve what I want,
and I think this shows in the music video. I believe that my friends and family
really enjoyed it and I think what we have done worked really well. The whole
process from planning to production was very valuable, every little bit of
preparation helped.
How did you use
media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
The forms
of technology is used to create my music video was a flip camera and final cut
pro on the IMacs. The technology used was very easy and simple to use. I remembered
when I made my title sequence from last year and used my knowledge from then,
and have now improved my skills. I think I have achieved a lot with my editing
skills.
Research and Planning
The
research and planning of my final piece was all completed on blogger.com. It is
an online diary more than anything, which lets you keep an online log of what
you have done. It is an online blog that if you keep tidy, it is easy to find
your way around the website and find previous pieces of work, which is beneficial
for revising. It is also useful for saving links, which you have been using for
your research.
I had
also used websites such as YouTube and Wikipedia to further my knowledge into
theorists, genres, clothes, and codes and conventions to help progress my work.
The
software and technology I used for the production side of my music video were:
· Final cut pro
· Mpeg stream clip
· Photoshop
· Flip camera
The
technology I used, I have had previous use of, so it enabled me to further my
knowledge in the different areas. The process I had to do from beginning to end
was as follows:
1. Mind map of ideas
2. Storyboards
3. Photo animatic (this helped us
gage our timings of each shot)
4. Music video
Evaluation
After the
music video was created, I had uploaded my final copy to YouTube and handed it
into my teacher. I then decided to get feedback through other forms of media,
and use social networking websites. The websites I decided to use was Facebook
and twitter, aswell as asking for comments on the YouTube page.
As a
whole, I think my knowledge of editing and production has progressed this year,
and I am proud of my final product. The feedback I have received was nothing
less than fantastic and it is a great sense of achievement to be able to share
it with everyone, and then to get such great feedback was a bonus.
