Charlotte Brown A2 Coursework Blog

Thursday 7 March 2013

Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I believe that the purpose of a music video is to represent the style of a particular artist, as well as allowing them to communicate the lyrics of the song through a visual performance for the audience. When looking specifically at the pop genre, I found it common for the videos to feature the artist themselves performing the song to camera, with a parallel narrative happening throughout the video, often literally depicting the lyrics being sung. I decided to challenge this convention as I featured only one performance based setting; however I employed the use of props and costume to bring the narrative aspects of my video into the performance so my artist is literally singing about things that are happening around her. It is clear that my artist is aware of the setting she is in as the black and white photos that I hung from the trees fly around her as she sings to the cameras, reflecting the idea that my artist is trying to escape her past and memories that she has of her previous relationship. My artist is frequently depicted directly addressing the audience through eye contact with the camera in the majority of my shots, breaking the fourth wall and connecting with the viewer. Furthermore, I developed Andrew Goodwin’s theory of visual relations as the visuals that I am providing for my audience illustrate particular lyrics in my song. Also I intended to keep the narrative of my music video fairly vague in order to allow my audience to develop their own idea of what the message of the video is. I believe that, in doing this, I am allowing my audience endless boundaries, without restricting them to one particular portrayal of the song, thus making my video adopt the ideas put forward in reception theory.

My video can also be linked to Todorov's theory of equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium, where my artist is placed in her surroundings (equilibrium), is left to reflect upon her good memories before having to let them go (disequilibrium), before finally letting go as she realises that she should’ve made the decision to end her relationship ages ago (new equilibrium). Additionally, I can link my music video to some of the concepts explored in the theory of postmodernism as I have dressed my artist to somewhat mimic the character of Miss Havisham. However, this character role has been reversed as it is my artist that has made the decision to not go through with her wedding. I would describe this form of reference as pastiché because I have utilised the original story and recreated it in a way that celebrates its iconic recognisability.

Overall, I feel that my music video challenges and subverts many of the key conventions and theories associated with the production of music videos. This is mainly down to the fact that most videos of the pop genre include parallel scenes of performance and narrative based footage. I wanted my video to be simplistic with a loose narrative structure. Even though I feel that there is a beginning, middle and end to my video, I have left it up to the audience to piece together their own idea of what the meaning of the video is. However, an obvious convention of music videos is to provide an aesthetically pleasing production that allows the audience to ‘escape’ they’re lives and participate in the artists. I have ensured that this is possible by using eye contact between my artist and the camera throughout the video alongside the woodland setting, which brings the audience outside with the artist. The lack of identity with my location allows the audience to imagine themselves wherever they want to be, leaving no boundaries.

When creating my digipak and magazine advert, I looked into applying the conventions that I have become familiar with as a consumer. For example, my magazine advert includes access to the twitter page and website of my artist, as social networking and technology have become a crucial way for artists to gain success virally. Moreover, when looking at similar, real life media products to my own, I found that there is normally a certain level of cohesion between them. I have emulated this convention by using images that I took on the set of my music video on the inside pages of my digipak and on my magazine advert. I believe that this will also help me to promote the themes of love and nostalgia that I feel accompanies my artist’s image. The image that I chose for my magazine advert also emphasises the idea that my artist is innocent and pure and this can lead her to be portrayed as a role model for the younger members of my target audience. I wanted the iconography of my artist to be very independent, ‘clean’ and I feel that this is often common in female pop artists, for example Taylor Swift. I also wanted to explore the theme of nostalgia through the iconography of my artist and I did so by incorporating the black and white photos into all the products that I created.

Tuesday 5 March 2013

Evaluation Question 2

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

When identifying the roles and purposes of my video, I wanted my video to assist in the audience’s ability to escape their own lives and become a part of my artists. I believe that the cohesion between the song lyrics and the visuals that I am providing for the audience will make it easier for this purpose to be fulfilled, as there is a clear narrative to the video that the audience can identify with as a love story. Perhaps the frequent use of eye contact that has been employed within the shots I have chosen will give the video the appearance that it is being presented to the audience rather than them choosing to watch it. I wanted the narrative of the video to appear fairytale-esque and I have highlighted this nostalgia by featuring black and white pictures hanging from the trees in the misé-en-scene of the video. I believe that the theme of nostalgia will also aid the audience’s escapism and thus, allow me to fulfil the role that I want my video to play. Additionally, an obvious purpose of my video is to entertain the audience and I believe that the woodland setting that I utilized creates a look that is aesthetically pleasing as well as ‘bringing the outside in’. I assume that audience members looking to access the video would do so inside and the fact that I have included shots of the outdoors, trees, leaves and the sky also allows them to ‘escape’ to the setting of my video. All of these factors I feel create a greater sense of enjoyment for my audience and assist in the escapism that I was hoping to provide them.

I think it was important to create a unified theme for both my video and ancillary tasks to follow and the theme that I believe is most evident in my work is love, although I also feel that a sense of nostalgia is present across the products. This is mainly down to the fact that the song I have chosen is a love song, though the song is more about overcoming heartbreak and being independent following the end of a relationship. My artist is depicted in a wedding dress throughout the entirety of the video and the magazine advert that I have created and she is accompanied with black and white photos hanging from a tree behind her. These props emphasise the nostalgic theme as my artist is pictured reflecting on her past and what she thought was a happy time. I believe that it will be easy for the audience to identify with my artist and I have tried to depict her as a strong inspirational role model for the female target audience to aspire to replicate.

The house style of my products also reflects my themes of nostalgia and love as I have chosen colours and fonts that I felt best represented these themes. I have gone for a very formal font that has the appearance of being handwritten, I believe that this illustrates the idea that the products are personal to each member of the audience and appear to be part of a ‘story’, written or put together by my artist. I have also chosen the colour red to accompany the otherwise black and white colour scheme. Red has obvious connotations of love and passion, whereas black and white photos add to the idea of reflection, past and nostalgia. Overall, I can say that I believe my main product and ancillary tasks fulfil their role and purposes for the audience and work together to effectively highlight my chosen themes.

Monday 4 March 2013

Evaluation Question 3

The audience that I have attempted to attract for my music video and the ancillary tasks that I have created, are females aged between 15-25. This is because the storyline and themes that run through my music video are about love and relationships and I think that by the age of 15, girls are likely to have experienced a 'crush' or a relationship. I think that the concept is more fitting to a female audience because the story is being told from the point of view of a female and is biased towards their feelings. The lyrics are about overcoming heartbreak and I think that a female audience is likely to find this very inspiring and will feel as if they can relate to the artist through personal experience. As the song I have chosen is of the pop genre, my artist is expected to have mainstream success and likability. Therefore I feel that the psychographics of my audience is 'mainstream' and I think that they are likely to be very conscious of the type of music that is topping the charts as well as keeping up with trends.

I feel that it is essential to collect audience feedback. As I proceeded through the construction phases of my work, I was keen to turn to members of my target audience for constructive points on what I was doing successfully and what I could be improving on. Additionally, I found the process of gathering audience feedback to be very helpful as I was able to learn exactly what my audience wanted from the products that I was creating.

One example of audience feedback that I recorded was during the production of my magazine advert. I had previously created a first draft on PowerPoint to give me a brief idea of the layout that I was going to follow, before starting to produce a second draft on Photoshop. After completing the second draft, I wasn’t completely happy with the final design so I turned to members of my target audience for points to improve it. I received comments including requests for a section to accommodate upcoming tour dates along with feedback regarding the reliability of the publications that I had chosen to review the digipak, such as Heat. One member of my target audience mentioned that Heat is known for being a gossip magazine and thus an unreliable source and recommended that I chose a more sophisticated publication such as The Guardian.

Throughout the entire stages of planning construction that I went through, I would try to accumulate as much audience feedback as possible. Even if this was just calling a member of my audience over to review what I had done or suggest and alterations that could be made, I found the process very helpful as I was able to ensure that the products that I was creating were complying with the needs and standards that my audience had. I made note of some of the alterations that were suggested to me in posts on my blog. An example of an alteration that I made, was making all of the sides of my digipak black and white after I was told by a member of my audience that, overall the deign didn't have much cohesion. Furthermore, after completing the production of all three of my products, I chose two members of my target audience to review them for me. I recorded their responses using a Dictaphone and placed this recording, alongside images and videos of my products on a Premier file, which I then turned into a video. Overall, I was pleased with the final comments that I received and I was happy to see that the improvements that I had made were a success with my target audience. I feel that collecting audience feedback also allowed my products to look more professional however I should have also considering holding a focus group in which members of my target audience could watch my music video and review it as this is a stage often employed in a variety of industries.

Sunday 3 March 2013

Evaluation Question 4

From planning and researching at the initial stages of producing my music video and ancillary tasks, through to shooting and producing the finished products, I have used a large variety of media technologies to assist my work. The first thing I did when considering my A2 Media production was create a blog using blogger.com. Using Blogger allowed me to track and log details of my progress and ideas throughout the course. I found this to be an efficient way to keep all of work together in an easily accessible way. Using labels, I split my blog into sections such as ‘Planning’ and Research’ and ‘Construction’; this allowed me to access certain parts of my coursework quickly on one page. I found that using a blog throughout the progression of my coursework was beneficial in many ways, for example being able to view other people’s blogs for ideas and inspiration.

Before I could begin to produce my music video or subsidiary tasks, I had to research into the range of equipment and softwares that were available to me alongside looking at similar products to those that I would be creating. I did this by using internet servers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer to gather information on possible equipment and images of existing digipaks and magazine adverts. I then used programmes such as Prezi and PowerPoint to display my analysis. Additionally, I utilized Blogger to research work from previous A2 students and I created a video using Windows Movie Maker to analysis these for inspiration for my own work.

In terms of planning, I first created a mood board for my music video. I collected a variety of images from the internet that I felt best illustrated the themes, colours and moods that I was trying to enhance within my products before copying these on to a PowerPoint document. I then had to use Scribd in order to convert the document into one that I could embed on to my blog. Another aspect of my planning was creating drafts, for which I drew out initial sketches onto paper before using my Epson scanner to save them onto my computer and post them to my blog. Additionally, I had to scan in my storyboards and images which I used for my animatic. I created my animatic on Windows Movie Maker, a slideshow of all my storyboard images, edited in time with my chosen song. Finally, I used PowerPoint to create a basic first draft of my magazine advert. I copied the image that I has chosen to the document and used the text box and shape tools to put together a brief initial layout for the design.

The construction phase of my products was where I feel that I was most reliant on technology. First of all, I held a small photo shoot in order to take the images that I wanted to use on my digipak front cover. I used a Canon DSLR for my photo shoot because I was able to attach the camera to two large flashes in order to improve the image quality and make the photos look brighter and more professional. I was also able to edit these images further using tools on Adobe Photoshop such as changing the contrast and colour intensity. I filmed my entire music video on a Nikon D3200 outdoors as this allowed me to film for a long period of time and use the zoom to take abstract shots with shallow and deep focuses. I also used the Nikon camera to take a variety of images on location to use in my digipak and on my magazine advert. Once I had shot my music video, I used a card reader to export the clips onto my home drive, where I could then import them to premier. The editing software that I used to edit my music video was Adobe Premier and this allowed me to cut down each clip to the length that I needed. I could also add effects and transitions to the shots such as fades which I used at the end of my video to fade to black.

In terms of my digipak and magazine advert, I created these solely on Photoshop and I was able to apply certain layers to make my images black and white or give them a ‘vintage’ effect. I used the shape tool on my magazine advert to create a button, before using the lasso tool to cut out certain parts of the outside of the shape to make it look worn and ripped. I then used the burn tool around the edges of the shape to make it look 3D and old. I used the text tool to add text to my products and added effects including drop shadows to make the text look as though it stood out on the page. I also used the drop shadow effect in one of the inside pages of my digipak to make it appear as though there is a pull-out booklet in a pocket. I had to change the opacity of certain shapes in the inner pages of my digipak to create the look of a CD. I also chose to download a bush from Brusheezy to place across the bottom of my magazine advert and the back page of my digipak.

Lastly, I was able to use a variety of technology to present my work during my evaluations. I began with using InDesign to create a double page spread in which I answered the first evaluation question before using Issuu to convert it to a PDF so that I could embed it on to my blog. I answered question two with a short video that I created in Premier accompanied with a recording of me reading the transcript using a Dictaphone. I produced question 3 on PowerPoint and then placed the document on a Scribd file to embed on my blog before completing question 4 using Prezi. Additionally, I feel that another evaluative stage was gathering audience feedback for which I also created a video to display the feedback that I received, regarding the three final products that I produced.