ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END

“One good thing about music is when it hits, you feel no pain.”

Bob Marley

This quote is very true in most circumstances and defiantly links to the experience we had with our pop video, although making a music video can be very stressful and daunting this was not the experience we had with ours. It took us seven months to fully create the pop video, from the initial idea to the final edit and publishing. Although the whole process took a while we enjoyed every minuet of it. There where times where things did not go the way we wanted such as the filming we did with the band. Our original plan was to have the band cut into shots of the girl in the cage and when the beat picked up the shots became short and fast, but when it came to filming we were very unprepared and many of our band members did not know how to play the instruments that were necessary to the song so we had to cut them out, this later became an issue as our song did not portray a clear narrative. If we had the chance to film it all again we would probably be more organized in choosing our band members and our time management as we ran out of studio time to get all the vital shots. As well as our pop video we also created a digi pack and a magazine advert for the song. This was another enjoyable part of creating the video as it gave us the chance to be creative and it also gave our pop video a more professional element to it. All in all I really enjoyed making the pop video and there has been a drastic improvement in my work since my AS level thriller and I have really enjoyed the experience and have gained a small understanding of what it might be like to work in the music video industry, hard work yet extremely enjoyable with the final outcome.

DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY- AUDIO RECORDING

The aim of the director's commentary was to help the audience grasp a better understanding of what we were trying to achieve in the pop video. We explained why we chose to edit it in the style that we did with the slow motion shots in contrast the fast cutting ones, we also referred to why we edited it in the out of focus and blurred way we did as it was almost reflecting her state of mind, unclear and blurred. The Mise en scene played a big part in the video and we described the shots, angles, track and pans that we used in order to create a better understanding of what we were trying to achieve using these.

We also discussed the close ups and intimate shots that made you feel as though you were inside her thoughts and engaged in the video. We hoped to have given the audience a clearer idea of how the video can be interpreted differently, by having three of us discuss different areas of the video we hoped that this would reflect the different interpretations of the video. We discussed Keith Negus and his conventions and why we chose to imitate or subvert the few that we used and how, by subverting a few of them this gave the artist the 'edgy' and different image that we were trying to achieve and it helped to establish her brand more.

TASK 3. AUDIENCE. WHAT I LEARNT FROM MY AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

Having collected a variety of feedback for our pop video and ancillary products from members of the target audience, and from other audience demographics - via You Tube, a focus group and questionnaire, and other sources, I looked to answer this question.

Jictar can be applied to the pop video in terms of its target audience and the audience that the pop video may reach. Jictar is broken down into terms of class, education, and employment, and often interest, it is grouped into A,B,C,D,E an example of a person who would fit into category 'A' would be someone who was a high paid doctor or lawyer who had attended education until A levels and then very likely gone on to study further education at top universities. Whereas a member of the E category would be a person who has had little or no education and is often unemployed. The categories that the target audience for the pop video fall under are, B,C,D as this pop video can be interrupted on many different levels. a person in category B may get the underlying message that the pop video is trying to convey about women being suppressed or trapped in society. Whereas a member of the C category may see the message of the song as a girl who is hiding something and is contemplating moral dilemmas between right and wrong. The age of the target audience is between the age of 16 to 25 and mostly a female audience as it raises issues relating to women. The interests of a member of our target audience would be perhaps reading as it is an intellectual thing that relates to the big issues that are raised in the song about women in today's society. The type of people in the target audience would be ones of a calm nature as the song does not have any graphic violence in it, although some violent is implied through he lyrics and the falling feathers.

There have been many different responses to this video depending on the viewers interests and up bringing as it can be seen from so many different angles, but most the responses that the video got when on you tube were all good. The video has had 456 views and has been commented on by a number of people, some of these comments include :

"who ever made this video is amazing,"
dkeofhazard

"This is really cool "
caz2435
"beautiful shots throughout, the slow motion really created an atmosphere and mood. "
challli5
"Love the contrast between the fast cutting up beat bits and the slow motion!"
paroilda316

To find out what response people had to the pop video we organised a focus group of 2 boys ages 17, 2 boys aged 18 and 2 girls aged 17 to see what their immediate response was to the video. There was an obviouse initial response from the video as girls seemed to get more from the story than the boys did as the song is mainly aimed at women. We created a questionnaire for them to answer with open ended questions these were,

1. Did you enjoy it?
2. What did you get from the video?
3. what message did you get from the video?
4. what persona for out artist did we establish?
5. Did you identify with the character, if so how?
6. Did you feel a personal relationship with the character, if so how?
7. Were you informed by the video, if so, in what way?
8. Did you get the idea of women being ill treated in society?
9. What did you think of the video not having a narrative?
10. Ways it could be improved, could we have done anything differently?

the overall response to the video was that people got the idea that a girl was trapped in a cage and wanting to get out, the cage may represent society. An idea that also seemed to come across the viewers was that the girl in the video was beginning to rebel against society and fight to get out of the situation she was trapped in. A few of the viewers also thought that the girl was asking them for help as she often reached out from the cage implying reaching out for help. This also adds to the Blumler and Katz theory of personal relationships, as most of the viewers wrote that they wanted to help her, the eye contact with the camera and the close ups on her face also help to enforce the idea of being intimate or personal with the lead singer. When asked what they thought about the fact that the video did not have a narrative, Julian, a 17 year old fun loving guy said, "I thought that a narrative was not necessary as it gave more time to pay attention to the artistic side of the video." Phoebe a 17 year old laid back, indi style girl, said " I really got it, although there was no narrative it gave me the freedom to really feel apart of it as i felt so intimate with the singer when she looked at me."

When asking peers and teachers what they thought about the pop video it was very interesting to see the different interpretations between the age gap. James, a middle aged teacher who is head of the media department said, " the panning shots created the illusion that the cage was swigging and this really added a something unique to the video." But when asking peers what they thought, most of them commented on the contrast between the slow motion and fast cutting and the effect that this had on them, Layla, a 18 year old photography student commented on the use of beautiful shots and the close intimate shots let you into the video and gave the impression that you were inside the lead singers head and thoughts.

According to Start Hall the video encodes a preferred message which the audience decodes and this effects their end interpretation and depends on who the observer is as each person has a different interpretation of the video depending on the dominant reading, the negotiated reading and the oppositional reading.

TASK 2. A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION TO EXPLORE HOW EFFECTIVE THE COMBINATION OF MY MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TEXTS ARE?

Blog task 2 exhibbandjdjd

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The answer to this task has four parts.

The firts is to apply the ideas of Richard Dyer and stardom to see what elements we need to put in to establish our singer as a star in the making. The second is the ideas of pop music theorist Carlsson who argues that pop stars are either comerical exhibitionists or telivised bards or electronic shamen. Our singer is the middle one of these.

Thirdly we looked at the idas of Levi Strauss and his idea of universal myths. Our video shows a song concerned with the position of women in socioty, and identity, which are both universal myths. The fourth and last thing is synergy, where we tried to create a pop video that worked with the digi pack and the magazine advert to sell our singer and her song and her brand.

MAGAZINE ADVERT

The magazine advert features the cage as it is a signature part to the video and is featured on the front of the album cover, it shows the connection to the band and the advert. The writing is very simple and to the point. Having our main singer in a hot point attracts attention. Most of the poster is dark but having our lead singer wearing white immediately draws your eye towards the poster and your eye is the lead round and to the singer from the tour dates that create vertical and horizontal lines down the page. The red writing saying, ‘book now’ also draws your eye toward the poster and as it is on a hot point it is one of the first things that you notice and that catches your eye.

DIGI PACK

Our Digi pack was created to be very simple but have a lot of symbolism and underpinning meaning. We added smoke to add to the ethereal feel of our song and set the atmosphere of the type of singer that she is. It is a very simple and plain front cover as we wanted it to have mystery and not give too much away. The cage is empty and surrounded by nothing as this makes it look very lonely which is a theme that is echoed throughout the video. The title of the band is also in very simple lettering as it again creates a sense of mysteriousness as it then makes it difficult for the audience to see what kind of band they might be and it leaves them eager to find out. The lighting is also low and it creates shadows around the cage, reinforcing a sense of mystetry and the feeling of entrapment.





The Inside of our album cover is a lot more stylised with intricate detail in comparison to our two outer covers. The lyrics are printed to the song of our music video all along the inside. Our main singer is also featured as she then gives the song a bigger selling point, she looks very vulnerable yet simple and this gives off the idea that she is very relatable to and not threatening. Her face also appears in the bottom left hand corner in a very faded and out of focus form which also echoes the diffused glow that we used in our pop video. The inside is more detailed yet it is very clear much like our other two covers. Her face is on the two hot points of the rule of thirds stressing her importance to the band. And the lines of the lyrics lead your eye across the page. The colours of the layout are also quite muted and monochromatic so as to enforce the simple feel of the album cover, they also do not distract your eye and it creates a very un-chaotic out come even with all the detail of the lyrics and music.




The back cover is very similar to the front cover as it is simple and has the empty cage on it which gives the idea of emptiness or loneliness which is what a lot of our video portrays. The names of the songs on the album are also featured which gives the viewers more insight into the band and what their style is. The record label is featured with the title on the hot points to enforce their important ness and the layout is simple so as not to distract from the main image. The lighting is very dark and the cover is 30% black and it in forces the ideas that something is being hidden, and this is what most the song is about, secrets and underlying things which are not said.

BLOG TASK ONE . IN WHAT WAYS DO YOUR MEDIA PRODUCTS USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

Two videos that have many of the similar conventions and ideas as mine do are Pink’s video, ‘please don’t leave me’ and Priscilla Ahn's video ‘Dream’. These both have very non naturalistic elements to them and have a very dream like quality to them. They each create their own world and play on the psyche of the audience, much like our video does. They all follow the convention to disregard realism. Both the videos, ‘please don’t leave me’ and ‘dream’ have subverted many ordinary conventions, like cutting a few seconds after the beat and keep the camera on an obscure angle creating a unique pop video. Another convention these video's follow much like our video is the Repetition of reoccurring thematic elements and generically specific iconography throughout the video. Both of these video's also have specific lighting that creates mood and atmosphere much like ours does. We also used after effects to create a diffused glow to add to the mystical atmosphere of our video, as the other two video's do to.

For our pop video we researched and analysed the major conventions of a pop video in order to gain more knowledge on pop video conventions we researched Keith Negus pop video conventions which are.
-The explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s “image” (aesthetic/generic/ideological) as a specific product with a brand identity, ready for mass consumption
-The featuring of the artist (almost without exception)
-A wide and extensive use of shot types, camera angles and movement
-Repetition of reoccurring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (one key element often being dominant and providing the skeletal structure for the promo)
-A possible narrative structure
-A possible performance element
-The flexibility to disregard Realism!
-Shots cut tightly to the beat of the track
-Use of special effects (lighting, animation, CGIs, in-camera effects)
-A carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track
-High impact instantly! (Don’t forget that competition for airplay on the main music channel outlets is intense)
Each of these began to influence our pop video in some way. We also followed Barthes theory of Plasir where we looked to imitate conventions in order to give the audience expected pleasure. We also began to subvert conventions in order to give jouissance, which as Barthes explains is the unexpected for the audience, and when the two are together they create the perfect balance in a pop video.

We also explored variouse pop videos by bands and singer who had ethereal songs or images similar to our band. These included Beyonce's 'Halo', the early Bjork videos and 'Yellow Submarine' and variouse other Beatles short films that go with their psychedelic songs.

The message in our song can be portrayed in many different ways. It can be seen as a video all about guilt and secrets as the lyrics clearly state in the song, the cage also may be seen as what is caging her in, her seacrets. She is unable to escape or break free from them, they are caging her in. The bird cage may also be seen as an extended metaphor of the girl’s psyche, as she does not sing for the first part of the song it gives the impression that it may all be going on inside her head. It lets the audience into her thoughts. It has many different interpretations. The cage may also be seen as the society that we live in, which she has been trapped or caged in by and she is trying to break free from. The cage also gives us the idea that she is constantly being observed by someone or something as people will watch an animal in a cage.The image and brand of singer has a sense of mystery and a dreamlike quality to it. Our singer seems lost or struggling and this gives off a very vulnerable feel to her although she is trying to break out toward the end, it also begins to create an air of frustration and strength to her. The ethereal atmosphere that surrounds her creates the mood of our singer and what the reset of the song may entail. The opening shot of our video is an abnormal one which subverts many conventions, this immediately shows us what type of singer she is. It is also a high angled shot and so we are introduced to her from an angle that makes her look inferior, again, making her look vulnerable, her clothes and her appearance also make her look rather innocent and this adds a certain attraction to her and the song.


Negus’s conventions are easily displayed throughout our video in many different ways. We either imatate or subvert them but never ignore them. His convention to have ‘The flexibility to disregard Realism’ is what most of our video is surrounded by as it has a very dreamlike and non naturalistic quality to it.
This image portrays that convention as not only is our lead singer in a giant bird cage but the fact that she is not singing gives us the idea that the images are all being played out in her head and we are almost part of her imagination. When the feathers begin to fall it also asks the question whether it is an act of naturalism, if she has killed the bird and its feathers are falling or if they are all in her imagination. Each one of these shots disregards realism.





The opening shot subverts many of Negus’s conventions as it gives the audience the unexpected because often a video will start by establishing the band or singer in a powerful way and let the audience know what is still to come for the rest of the pop video. But this image subverts the expected, as it begins with high angled shot which makes her look vulnerable. She is also on a spinning swing which could also be used as a metaphor for her life, it is spinning out of control and she is unable to stop it, or gain control of it.



Our Digi pack was created to be very simple but have a lot of symbolism and underpinning meaning.We added smoke to add to the ethereal feel of our song and set the atmosphere of the type of singer that she is. It is a very simple and plain front cover as we wanted it to have mystery and not give too much away. The cage is empty and surrounded by nothing as this makes it look very lonely which is a theme that is echoed throughout the video. The title of the band is also in very simple lettering as it again creates a sense of mysteriousness as it then makes it difficult for the audience to see what kind of band they might be. The digi pack, like the magazine advert, follows the rule of thirds by having the key words on the first hot point and the mysetery of the empty swing on the fourth hot point. We also use the idea of black and white connoting art to build up the idea of ouor singer as an artist not just a pop star.

TASK 4: A DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY ON HOW I USED NEW MEDIA THECHNOLOGY IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES

Throughout each stage in the shooting of our pop video, from research and development to distribution and evaluation we have used many different forms of new media technology or digital technology.
We use digital technology because it has at least three times better and clearer quality than analogue technology. The sound is 100 times better and the picture is 50 times better and it has the ability to pick up fine detail and is also a lot faster, cheaper and easier to use. When using analogue technology it is not only more complicated to use but it takes up a lot of your filming time as you need to re adjust the lighting to perfection each time something changes in a scene or shot, this can take a long time and waste precious filming time. But if you use new media technology even if the lighting is not perfect throughout filming, you would be able to adjust the lights during the editing using after effects or other editing formats. A whole film can now be saved using new media technology. It also really helped us on our shoot day as with the camera we were using we were able to re watch a lot of our footage throughout filming which helped us to see what shots we still needed and what was working and what still needed to be done.

Digital technology is New Media Technology, where the technology is based on digital storage and communication of data, using Binary 0 and 1 code to compress the data into tiny packets. The media theorist Negroponte argues that digital technology gives greater speed and ease of production, better quality and huge amounts more of storage space for data in a small piece of equipment.

We used new media technology when doing our research and development by using the internet to research the music industry, our locations, our target audience and the other competition that we were up against. All this helped us to understand what other products were out there and how we could better our video and what market it needed to fit into.
Digital technology played a big part in the planning of our pop video too, as we used it to make our electronic storyboards which were a very key part in the planning of our video, as it then enabled us to see what the possible outcome of our video might be. We also used a digital camera to do our camera tests and this helped us cast our video and see who would work well on camera, fit the part well and be a good advertisement for our video.

The construction or the shoot of our video was made a lot easier by the new media technology we used like the camera which was a JCV500 HD camera. This gave us really high quality in our film and made the whole process faster and easier it also had a high ration which then gave us better visual quality. New media technology also made green/blue screen possible for us. We were then given the opportunity to use but we eventually decided not to film on green screen as our time in the studio was limited and we did not want to rush the rest of the filming.
In the post production of our film new media technology made ‘Adobe after affects’ possible for us which became very necessary and helped us to complete our video in order to get the best outcome.

Without the use of internet we would also be unable to show people our video as there would be no other way publishing or accessing it. With digital technology we were able to make a digi pack in order to promote our band and publicise the song and set up various other forms of advertising using the internet. This is why new media technology is so important to the distribution and evaluation of our video. It lets the public view our video and we are also able to advertise it through various sites on the internet. Such as youtube which is world widely accessed so it immediately gives out video the opportunity to be viewed by the public. We also published our video on Facebook which is a site that has more than 500 million active users, so our video will easily be viewed on the site by people all over the world. These sites also give us the opportunity to get feedback on our video so we can constantly better it.