Email to DCAS showing them our music video

Today we emailed DCAS studios to show them our final music video (that features their recording studio), and also to thank them again for letting us use their facilities.

Media Evaluation Question 4 – How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Slideshow I have created in response to evaluation question 4

Evaluation Q4 - Mind map of media technologies used

Evaluation Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

For this question we worked as a group. We decided to create a news report in order to answer the question.

Evaluation question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?



• In our music video, the colour blue is featured predominantly. Therefore, when creating our ancillary products we attempted to create continuity with this theme by also using blue colours.

As the wall is blue in the performance section, we decided to continue this on the key features of the website; the writing and the photograph.


We added this continuity in an attempt to help the audience establish a relationship between the two products. This is important because it helps the audience identify features of the band. It is also an effective marketing strategy as the audience can easily identify the bands CD in shops and online.


A key aspect in our music video was the focus on the female character. Therefore, we decided that it would be important to keep this focus a main aspect of the CD cover.

We believe this was important because it would allow an audience to easily identify the band from the video if they had seen the CD cover, or for them to identify the CD cover if they had seen the music video.

However, as the girls face is not seen in the CD cover, the continuity may not be as effective to a  passive audience. We chose to do this because we felt that it fit in better with the genre of the band (Indie/Indie Pop), where the focus is usually not on the artists.

 

 We attempted to converge the ancillary products with the music video by using the same/similar, locations. We have done this because we wanted there to be a clear link between all three products to make it easier for the audience to identify the artist and their products.

We also used the same colour scheme for the CD cover and website. There is a turquoise colour which features on both, as well as the grey background

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By converging features of all three products we begin to create a brand image. This is effective because an audience are then able to recognise the band from key features, for example, photographs, the logo, colours and font. As explained by McQuail's uses and gratification theory, an audience will use these product's for a number of different reasons; to gain a sense of identification, for entertainment, to reinforces their beliefs etc. Therefore, by creating a brand image, an audience that are trying to find a sense of identification will be able to take ideas from the music video and the ancillary products and relate to them. The continuity will also add to the reinforcement of the beliefs that they may gain, for example, how to dress and act. 

Below is a prezi that we have also created in response to this evaluation question

By Misha and Molly

Evaluation Question 1 - PART 2: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Here is the second part to Evaluation Question 1 that I have completed using the website Mixbook

| Start your own Photo Books | Create custom Christmas Cards


http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/misha-evaluation-question-1-10444391?vk=mK4wXkUjgU

Evaluation Question 1 - PART 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Analysing my music video with reference to Goodwin's theory of 'Genre conventions of the music video'


1) Different genres of music demonstrate their own music video conventions
Music videos feature/are encoded with different conventions according to which genre the music video/song belongs to. Our music video for She Moves In Her Own Way is of the Indie/Indie Pop genre. In a previous research post I concluded that most Indie music videos use the following music video conventions...

• Dim low lit locations
• Locations with a mysterious feel to them
• Performance scenes
• Narrative
• Low colour saturation - this gives the video it's 'vintage' feel
• Emphasis on the band/artists Indie style - skinny jeans, baggy tee, messy hair
• Certain behaviour such as smoking, drinking alcohol and sex
• Not too serious, often scenes with the band/artist acting silly, e.g. - comical dancing

Our music video has used some of these conventions, however the video also challenges some of these conventions. We have challenged the convention of using low lit locations; we wanted to use brighter locations/light as we felt this would fit better with the upbeat, light-hearted nature of the song.

It could be argued that we have used mysterious locations (the shots filmed in the woods) as the narrative sections show the two characters alone in the middle of the countryside with no one else around; however I personally do not think the location is 'mysterious'.

We have used the convention of combining performance with narrative; we have used a 50/50 split of shots in the recording studio (the band recording/performing the song) and shots of the couple enjoying a day in the countryside.

(performance/narrative)

Another convention of Indie music videos is using a low colour saturation - we chose to use this convention. We added an effect on Adobe Premiere Pro to make the video colours look warmer. However we only did this slightly as the genre of our music video is Indie Pop (not just Indie), therefore we didn't want to make it look too Indie, as the Pop element of the song is just as important. Therefore we chose to use natural colours/colour saturation so that the music video can be easily placed into both the Pop genre, the Indie genre and of course the Indie Pop genre.

Emphasis on the bands style - we tried to use this convention by paying a lot of attention to what our actors wore. We briefed them before filming and told them to wear skinny jeans with either a shirt, polo shirt, jacket/denim jacket. As well as this we picked our actors while thinking about who would look best in an Indie Pop band. We wanted the band members to look a certain way as real Indie band members have similar looks/style.

We have not used the convention of featuring behaviours like smoking/drinking alcohol. This wouldn't have fit well with the song as the song is about the lead singers new love interest.

Finally we have used the convention of featuring comical scenes. In the music video we show the couple dancing around near a lake, as well as this the band are seen messing around in the recording studio. We chose to use this convention as the light-hearted nature of the song fits well with this.

2) There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals 
My music video both uses and challenges this part of the theory.
The song is called She Moves In Her Own Way and I personally think the lyrics are about the lead singers new girlfriend/love interest, and he is singing about his new relationship while also reminiscing about his old relationship (that wasn't a good one!).
The chorus of the song is - Well oh oh, oh I love her because she moves in her own way. Well oh oh, oh she came to my show just to hear about my day.
In the music video on the end chorus, the lead singer of the band is seen serenading his girlfriend in the recording studio; here there is a clear relationship between the lyrics and visuals because he is singing the song (that's about her) to her - Uses this part of the theory

However, the music video predominantly challenges the theory. Music videos often have a clear relationship between the lyrics and visuals as it makes the video easier to follow. Our music video challenges this idea by not using specific shots/mise en scene that matches directly to the lyrics. Instead we decided to keep it simple by making the narrative shots of the lead singer and his new girlfriend having fun on a day out in the countryside. The versus' of the song concentrate more on his ex-girlfriend rather than his current girlfriend; as he is comparing his new relationship to his old one and has realised that he loves his new girlfriend because she is very different to his previous one. However, our music video does not feature his old love interest so we have challenged the theory - we wanted the music video to be about one girl (not two) so that the audience didn't get confused by a complicated storyline, so for nearly all of the song there is not a direct relationship between the lyrics and visuals. - Challenges this part of the theory

3) There is a relationship between music and visuals
She Moves In Her Own Way is a light hearted upbeat song, therefore me and my group wanted the music video to reflect the song by also being light hearted with an upbeat pace.
The music video contains both performance shots (in the recording studio) and narrative shots (outside with his girlfriend). The narrative is very loose as it's not an actual story, it's short snippets of the couple out in the countryside one day. Me and my group decided to use a loose storyline (rather than a complicated one) as we felt that it would reflect the song better and be easier/more enjoyable for the audience to watch. At first my group decided the idea for the video would be a story about his previous bad relationship and his new better relationship, but after more planning we realised that the idea was too complex for the nature of the song, and we were wary that the audience might not understand the concept properly. With this in mind we changed the idea to focus on just one relationship, and I feel like this is much more effective as it makes the music video nicer to watch.
The song has an upbeat pace to it and we have edited many of the shots to change on the beat. However we haven't stuck to this rhythm of editing throughout the whole song as other shots are longer and do not cut to the next shot on the beat, We decided to do this as we wanted to mix it up so that the music video was more interesting for the viewer to watch; additionally we wanted the audience to feel drawn in to watching the relationship we were showing and so longer shots helped us to do this successfully - we know this because of audience feedback. When we were asking our audience questions about the music video many people told us that they thought the relationship was cute, and others asked if they were a real couple.


4) Many close ups of the artist to emphasise the image of the start
My music video features many close ups of the lead singer in the band. In an Indie music video there doesn't tend to be many close ups of the artist, this is because Indie bands/artists (in comparison to Pop artists) tend to focus solely on the music they produce without trying to sell themselves as a 'star'. This is different to Pop artists as the majority of pop stars try to sell/market themselves as much as they try to sell their music (this results in Pop music videos featuring many close up shots of the artist). However, The Kooks are in the Indie Pop genre so I wouldn't say that we have completely challenged this part of the theory as the band have a small element of Pop in their music.
We wanted to include many close up shots of the artist as we felt it was relevant to the song lyrics - he is singing about his own new relationship; therefore the close up shots help to establish to the audience that the lead singer has written this song (his own song) with his new girlfriend in mind.

Many Indie (Indie Pop) bands write their own songs so by including close ups of Dom we have tried to encode the music video with the message that the lead singer/band have written their own original song. As well as close ups of the lead singer and band members we have included close ups on the instruments that are being played; again this highlights to the audience that the band are in the Indie/Indie Pop genre as they are playing their own instruments while recording the song.

5) Frequent reference to the notion of looking, and voyeuristic treatment of the female body
This idea does not apply to my music video and in some ways it challenges it. I think that 'the notion of looking' in music videos tends to make the video look slightly fake and exaggerated - and for the genre of the song I didn't feel like it was appropriate to use shots of the artist/band looking for no reason. We wanted the music video to look real and very natural, like the band were just recording their song (performance) and like Izzy and Dom were having a nice day out (narrative). Therefore we deliberately didn't include shots of the artist looking as it would have detracted from the simple/natural feel of our music video.

Additionally there is no voyeuristic treatment of the female body in the music video. We wanted the female character to be viewed as being sweet and innocent, as this ties in well with the 'young love' storyline. Therefore this wouldn't of been appropriate.


6) There are often intertextual references to films/other music videos etc
We wanted to use an intertextual reference within our music video, and after thinking of a few ideas we decided to use a reference to the film Titanic. We have recreated the famous scene in which Jack and Rose are stood at the front of the boat and Rose is 'flying'.

 

Although the shot is very short I feel like it adds a small bit of humour to the video, in which the audience will find humourous if they have seen the film. Many of the people we have showed the music video to have picked up on the intertextual reference and said that they find it amusing.

Goodwin's theory also states that music videos are either performance, narrative or concept based; our music video is a mix of performance and narrative. We decided to use a mix of the two so that the video was more varied, and thus more interesting for the viewer to watch. In the early stages of planning we had the idea to make the music video completely performance based, however we came to the decision that this would limit us as we weren't able to find many locations that were suitable for performance based shots.
Some of our audience might interpret the idea of our music video differently, and they may think that it is only narrative based - the performance shots of the band are in a recording studio, so this could be interpreted as being a 'story' of the band recording their song rather than an actual performance. This links to Halls 'Reception Theory'; the theory states that the audience play an active role in reading texts/products, and that each individual has the ability to interpret the same text/product differently.