OUR FINISHED MUSIC VIDEO!!! :)

Previous Student's Work - Evaluation

I found this particular student's evaluation answer extremely ineffective because although she is in fact answering every question, she is lacking detail and a variation of shots. The clip itself is very short and throughout each question she repeats the same layout. Other than the initial background music which is one soundtrack played through the whole clip, she hasn't recorded her own voice or shown any great amount of effort in producing her evaluation. Having said this, she does use a very professional styled background, and should she have included other images as well as this, I think the evaluation would have been much more effective. She answers that she has used YouTube to analyse and research, yet she fails to discuss why she has chosen this method in comparison to other research resources available. Overall I think this is a marginally poor evaluation.

Our Magazine Album Advert

Our CD Cover

Update

Having edited a first draft of our music video, our teacher reviewed it and gave us feedback. This was mainly about aspects of the video we needed to alter and suggestions as to what we could add to make the finished product more effective. For example, she didn't particularly like the shot of the woman dancing whilst shopping due to the fact that she had her back turned to the camera and because it was not obvious where the source of music would be in her setting. As well as this, Miss Hill suggested we replace the shot of two sixth formers ballroom dancing. This was because she thought it looked too staged, unlike the other shots in which the dancers looked natural. Apart from this, there were no other shots that we were advised to completely remove from our film.
Miss also suggested that in the shot of Katie driving home at the end, we could use split screen to make people appear on the screen around Katie. She advised us to do this because it would show our Final Cut skills and demonstrate that we could use a range of technical skills.
Overall, although we were happy with the film ourselves, we are going to make the changes our teacher suggested in order to get a higher grade.

By Megan and Holly

My Finished Digipack

Update

To kickstart our evaluation, we each decided to answer one evaluatory question. We took into consideration every element of research and planning that went into our music video and what decisions we made that reflected the music industry as it stands. We have given in our first draft of the music video, ancillary texts and evaluation and have received feedback from our media teacher. Overall, we feel the evaluation has been a success with all of our questions not needing altering other than question 1 by Katie. Having said this, if we all work together to fix the errors in the question we are sure that we will make it as effective as the other questions. The feedback for the ancillary text was even more successful because there were merely a few minor alterations to be made such as:
-making the text bolder
-add more conventional aspects to the magazine advert

we are extremely pleased with all of the help we have received and we will now be working extremely hard to make the changes needed!

By Holly and Megan.

CD Cover Analysis

What I found particularly appealing about this CD cover is that it isn't much but it says lots. The CD cover suits its purpose, which is to promote the artist Jesse J. The image is very striking, with the use black and white which connote good and bad, perhaps suggesting that she has 2 sides to her personality. Also, the way she is positioned in the frame, in the centre with the focal point her face and all other parts (hands) leading the eye towards her face which forces you to look at her dramatic style. Her facial expression is also very interesting because it says that she is fierce and fiesty and doesn't care what people think about her, tying in nicely with her album title "who you are". Also, the addition of the colour gold adds a sense of class and importance as well as glamour. This is also very effective because it suggests that she as a singer she holds all these qualities and therefore tries to get people to buy her album with the assumption that it is good. Lastly, the fact that she is in front of a bright white background suggests that she stands out as a singer, therefore appealing to people who like something different. This also leaves you with nothing to focus on but her face.

By analysing this CD cover, it has made me realise how much you can get from something so simple and how many underlying meanings there are in the smallest things. When we produce our own CD cover, I think we will have to think very carefully about the tiniest details which make the most impact.

Ancillary

This is my website to go with our music video!

http://www.wix.com/katiebenha7/rrsmomw#!

Update

In recent weeks, we have been focussing purely on our ancillary tasks and our evaluation. As our deadline is this friday, we have been working hard on our evaluation as the ancillaries are pretty much done! The evaluation is taking a long time because we have decided to fill every available moment with pictures and videos to illustrate what we are saying, as opposed to just having talking heads which can be very boring to watch. Considering that we are aiming for a 20minute long evaluation, it takes hours and hours! As for our music video, it needs some work before the final deadline as our teacher has suggested that it needs some changes to improve its clarity. Overall, I think we are using our time wisely and should finish for the deadline.

Evaluation Analysis

To help me to understand the sorts of points that need to be covered in an evaluation and for inspiration, I have looked at a previous groups evaluation from last year...

After watching this, I can see that talking into the camera makes a very basic evaluation and I think this is something we will make sure we avoid in our own video, because there is nothing to look at and all you have to rely on is what you hear! I think what they have said is quite good, if not a bit repetitive, because they have given a lot of points and examples but thats exactly where they should have used pictures or stills from their films to prove what they are saying. I liked what they said about using Youtube as a way of getting audience feedback, that is something I think we would also find useful, but there isn't much time to upload the film and get the feedback as we haven't even finished it yet, but that is also something I would have liked to have done. From listening to what she said, I have had a look at wix.com and have changed my mind from doing a advert to doing a website I think, so that has been useful for me. The main problem with this video though, is that it is just waaaaay too short, they are meant to be 20mins ish long and its only four which suggests that they ran out of time, which would also explain the 'talking into the camera' to get it done. Overall, I don't think there is really enough there to be able to look at it closely although I have taken some things from this to help me with our evaluation in that they have modelled some of the points we are expected to make.

Magazine album advert

I have chosen to discuss the promotional magazine advert of Plan B's album 'The Defamation of Strickland Banks'. This is because I feel it is a very effective advert due to the image of the artist himself holding an old-fashioned microphone, the colour matching the dull greyish shade he is coloured with. This draws our attention to the focal point of the image - the typography. The words 'Plan B' are capitalised and coloured in a bold red, followed by 'The multi-platinum album of the year'. The fact that we are so drawn to the text helps us to initiate the success of the album, enticing us to want to purchase said product ourselves. The smaller image on the bottom of the advert shows us what the album looks like which further helps promote it as we can recognise it for potential purchase. The initial mood and genre of the album is portrayed through the artist's facial expression on the cover of the album. Plan B is recognised for telling his life through his lyrics, and the visual interpretation of his face matches this and hints at the music offered to the buyer. 

Magazine Advert Analysis

     This magazine advert is promoting Rihanna's 2009 album 'Rated R'. The overall image clearly presents her change in image as an artist and her music's change in style. In contrast to her previous album advertisements, this image creates a dark, angry and sinister tone. The advert gives an implication of the genre of music on the 'Rated R' album. Through the use of predominant black and white colouring and the gothic image of the artist, the audience can assume that hip hop, rock or dubstep may be key music genres on the album.

     The close up image of Rihanna dominates the advert, suggesting promotion of her image is just as, if not more important than the promotion of the music. As she is staring directly at the camera (and therefore the audience) a degree of relatibility is created. However, at the same time she is depicted with her hand covering half of her face, which creates a sense of mystery and suspiscious nature to the artist (reflective of the music). Rihanna's style comes across as quite gothic and rocky in the image, as she has dark and heavy make up and extensive jewellery. This reflects the dark tone of the whole album, which is important for a magazine advert to do. As well as this, people already fans of Rihanna can relate to the signature 'R' in the background of the image, which shows whilst her style has changed, her identity as an artist remains.

     The song titles 'Russian Roulette' and 'Hard' in bold red font captures the audience's attention as the colour contrasts to the black and white. This influences the audience to go and download or listen to these singles in particular, as they effectively represent the album.

     Overall, this magazine album advert directly targets its audience, by being extremely representational of the music, something I want to emulate in my own advert.

      

    

Magazine Advert Analysis

The image of Gwen Stefani is the focal point of the text, with her being the main subject the eye is drawn to. This is important because she is essentially what the text is advertising and therefore the audience need to establish that straight away. Her facial expression conveys the impression that she is relaxed, maybe even that her work is effortless, all boosting her appeal as a star, as the audience can assume that she really does live up to their 'ideals'. Likewise, her costume creates the impression that she is wealthy and sophisticated, which infers that her music is so good that it has made her that rich. The costume is also made to look very royal, with the crown and the throne, all implying she is one of a kind, that she is the queen of music. This also plays on the common dream of young girls, to be a princess, further appealing to her younger audience.

It is very common to have the star dominating the frame in any kind of music promotion because, as mentioned by Strinati, 'Style over Substance' is a common technique, even when the the star has both qualities.

In terms of the typography, there is a very elaborate looking gold font which again, suggests wealth and sophistication, carrying on the thematic elements in the picture. Her name dominates the text, again reinforcing Strinati's concept but also implying that Gwen Stefani is a household name, that if you hadn't already guessed by looking at the picture, there she is again. The finite details of the promotion are included beneath the name, even though they are equally important in promoting the music. This could be due to the fact that if people have already become interested by just looking at the image, then they can decide for themselves if they want to follow up and find out more. However, this isn't forced upon the audience, the information is there if they want it, yet what is being advertised needs to be addressed first and foremost.

Lastly, the details included are vital in bringing in the money in the best way possible. By linking the advertisement to a similarly themed copy of the album cover, the audience will know straight away which songs are being promoted. Likewise, the release date information and the website address allows fans to take the next step in following the artist.

Overall, I think this advert is very effective but does have some faults. Although its boldness promotes the appeal of the artist and gives a positive portrayal of Gwen Stefani, I think it is too busy, and it is unclear as to what to look for. For my own magazine advert, I think I will follow up on the use of image being the most important, but I will probably make it simpler which I find is most effective.

Progress...

In the past few weeks we have been doing a lot of filming! As our film is very concept based, we could only plan so much of it, which we have used in the beginning of our film. We wanted to maximise our ability to get lots of different people, so we had to go out and film in different locations.

In the christmas holidays me and holly went to Walsham because it has lots of different little businesses which we thought may be useful in getting different faces and different situations. We aimed to film at the hairdressers, the butchers, the building site and catch any other people we thought could be of any use to us. Unfortunately, we were pretty unsuccessful because it was a cold day before christmas and everyone was inside so we couldn't find many people at all, let alone those we wanted. In the end we asked a postman, but he was too busy posting christmas cards, but then we managed to get a shot of a builder shaking his bum. Also, we tried to get a builder dancing whilst driving his dumper truck but holly pressed record and I hadn't realised and overwrote it by accident. That was all we got that day, which was dissappointing for us but atleast we got something!

Most recently, we planned a trip to Norwich because we knew there would be loads of people around that we could ask to dance for us. I think we were a bit ambitious with this, as we assumed a lot more people would be up for it than there actually were. We aimed for about 60 faces and ended up with less than 20. However, the shots we have got are of good quality. Throughout the day we had to keep changing our tactic because we realised that passers by were less likely to let us film them than people who were working, as they couldn't escape us! A lot of our filming from Norwich was spontaneous, which is good because we worked with what we had got rather than going with a set plan which might of restricted us. This was proven when we tried to film a group of boys dancing in the glass lift and they went in the wrong one, so we didn't get the shot we wanted and then were asked to leave the mall by the boss person because it was against the rules. Overall though, this was a very productive day and we are pleased with our shots.

Aside from these, we have also filmed a friend dancing in the shower, something that took a long time to film but we have only used 5 seconds of it, and various other odd bits of filming.

We are currently in the editing process, working towards the deadline, and will film any pick-up shots if need be.

Iconic Music Video

Robert Palmer- Addicted To Love

This video was iconic and popular in the 80's due to its use of provocatively dressed and made up women 'playing' the song's accompanying instruments. The women have identical looks which suggests they are objectified, rather than individuals. Furthermore, the singer, Robert Palmer is in the foreground, emphasising the 'power' he has over them. This video presents the idea of a 'male gaze' whereby the audience (predominantly men) will watch the text due to the appealing nature of the objectified women. However the video was also appealing to women, as they could aspire to be like the females in the band at the same time as admiring the singer.
The music video is performance based, and relies heavily on a long shot of Robert Palmer with the female 'musicians' in the background, which was quite unconventional of music videos at this time (which usually featured a variety of shots, locations and people).
The fact that this video style has been copied since its release suggests it was iconic and memorable. An example of this was a Pepsi advert featuring Britney Spears.
Overall, this music video was extremely different to others during the 80's, as it focussed on a performance based video, one setting and the 'male gaze'.

Analysis of a music video.

The video I have chosen is called 'We Found Love' by Rihanna and Calvin Harris. I picked this particular music video because I think it demonstrates an effective visual match on lyrics. The video is narrative-based and reflects the couple's 'hopelessly' in love nature through the use of drugs and partying, hinting that they are a metaphoric drug to one another. It uses the 'male gaze' on the artist and includes her in very scantily-clad clothing. This is very suggestive, much like her lyrics, and matches the boldness of the song. 
The pills also prove a very insightful inclusion in the song as they help exhibit their downfall, starting with them in the bath looking regretful and then onto the story of how they ended up there. The scene near the end shows them in this particular shot and helps the viewer interpret that they'll always stay this way.
Another positive for the video is the speech at the start which leads us into the 'story'. With a scouse accent, it could represent Manchester rave culture.
The only negative I can conjure of this video is it's almost too explicit nature. The tattoo of 'Mine' on Rihanna is very suggestive that women can be seen as objects for men. 

Iconic Music Video

This music video from 1999 is iconic due to its lesbian kissing sequences, something very unusual for a 90's pop video. The video highlights the divide between society and homosexuality, and this is made evident when there is a literal barrier between the people and the girls, in the form of a fence which resembles one from a concentration camp. Also, the people are looking grim faced and somewhat surprised by what they see, which again reiterates the fact that homosexuality was and still is sometimes frowned on, particularly when in public display. Costume plays an important part in this video because it emphasises how exposed the girls are as they are getting soaking wet in the rain, whilst the people looking in are wrapped up in raincoats and holding umbrellas. The rain could be symbolic of the release of kept in emotions, which TATU are embracing whilst the people are sheilding themselves from it. At the end of the video, the girls walk off hand in hand into the sunset, a typical ending to a conventional love story. Whilst they do so, the people are still left watching and holding their umbrellas with dark colour filters of grey and black, this all suggests that it is better to be individual than part of a crowd.