Evaluation part2
- 1. That genres are complex and diverse in terms of music video style and iconography. The genre of my chosen song is hip hop/rap. The normal style and iconography of the artist who sung the song I’m doing (Eminem), is usually heavily featured in his own video, often playing more than one character. Certain lyrics in certain songs impact who he dresses as. For example in the real video to “Just Lose it” he dresses as Michael Jackson and acts out embarrassing parts of his life on purpose. Its an extremely controversial method of becoming popular but it works well so I adopted this technique as well. Obviously it couldn’t be as vulgar because much of it is done in public whereas Eminem had studios in which to shoot his sequences. But I still managed to cover the conventions of the genre with lots of close ups, cuts, and changes of scenery and clothing (Mise en Scene) It is a relatively simple method of shooting a short video so re-creating most of it in my own way was easier than predicted. The only problems that I ran into was making it look as expensive or purposeful as a real video because they can control lighting, sound, and use better effects both on the computer and whilst shooting. Even though I managed to get an expensive car in the shoot which really impacted how much I took notice of the genre, I still thought I could have changed clothing a few more times even though there was three occasions where I did this.
- 2. That record companies will demand a lot of close-ups of the main artist/vocalist This particular part of Goodwin's theory does apply in my opinion to every single music video. If you don’t have at least a medium close up of the main artists face in a video that shoots “real life” then it doesn’t portray them. So as you would expect, I have many close ups of the main vocalists and many camera angles of which he is shown. Its repetition therefore ensures that the people In order to promote the artist, both in the video and the products, I have used his face many times over to show that his presence is key and important. Additionally, I have used the artists face on my poster. If it was to be used in real life, my poster would be slightly unconventional because much of my research showed that there was no correlation between the amount of posters I chose and how many had their faces on the front, for the audience to see. So arguably, the products don’t need to be an obvious portrayal of the artist but the video must.
- 3. That there are likely to be inter-textual references to other forms of media within the music video. There is a lot of reference to other forms of media in my video, from clothing to cars, to furniture. Conventionally in the media world (especially with music videos) Branding is often a part removed from videos because obviously its an incentive to buy the products and this puts competition at a disadvantage and it also breaches some laws. However recently, branding on some TV stations is allowed but only a selected few. Even radio stations are not allowed for example to say “What they had for dinner from a certain fast food chain”. However, because my music video isn't to be widely released to the general public and its not being used for profitable purposes I am allowed to show them. In my video I show Addidas clothing (relevant to my actor because that is the way this particular genre of people dress). I also show an expensive car (Aston Martin) because it is a common feature of rap artists to show off how much money they have or how highly associated with exotic, rare cars. However there is a clear link between them meaning that they have inter-textual references which fit their purpose. My Video Kanye West Ft. Jay-Z - Otis
- 4. Andrew Goodwin's theory for music videos Overall, I have found that my video follows conventions of other music videos in accordance to Goodwin's theory. Especially for its genre, apart from the part where stills are used. However this is only due to my actor being unable to say the words at the right moments and not because I chose to do it this way. So for reasons such as and that a lot of it isn't “taken seriously“, it could be seen as unconventional.
- 5. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products? Visually, my video suggests no evidence that it belongs the ancillary products I created. It has no specific colour scheme (video) unless I made the video a pinky colour all the way through at the editing stage but this would have ruined the video completely. In my video, I have changed it from its original recording colours to a slightly saturated orange/ more hyper realistic, defined shot in most of the normal daylight parts. This is because it looked washed out in parts so it looks more professional and aesthetically pleasing. I think if I were to redo something on my products or some of my products themselves I think I would change the poster. The layout itself was good as I had taken inspiration from researched posters and added such entities as QR codes. But I think I would animate pictures or make reference to another form of media on the poster to make it look legitimate.
- 6. What have you learned from your audience feedback? My feedback from my audience was important. It meant I could make changes to potential problems with products I couldn’t see past. Seen as it was typically teenagers and older who I would be aiming this at I asked my peers to look at the drafts of my designs for the products and they gave me feedback (positive and negative) on what I should change. Progression Between all the products, the one I got most feedback from was the CD cover. As mentioned earlier this is because it was slightly different from the other products of the CD. I ended up with seven drafts. Additionally it was because I couldn’t decide how to finish the design. The issue I got second most feedback on was the colour of the product. Most thought having a vibrant colour such as that was a risk but over time they saw that It worked because they saw the researched albums and as long as the layout was correct, then within reason “Vulgar” colour could be included and still look good. And also the pattern on the front cover meant I was forever changing how many there were and their position.
- 7. How did you use media technology in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages? Construction I constructed the majority of my products on macromedia fireworks because it was the best program to use considering other programs like Photoshop would be a bit too complex although I would have been able to use it well anyway. I did use it once or twice so I could alter the images I got from the internet. And for the video I used the iMovie software on the Mac because when I shot my footage it was in HD so I would have had to convert it all to work on a PC which would have taken a long time. However the Mac works with that type of video file (.MOV) so I only used that. The software isn't as complex as the pinnacle software on the PC because the software is newer but it still did all the things I needed it to.
- 8. How did you use media technology in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages? Research For my research I mostly used video sites such as Youtube, Vimeo, iTunes and yahoo music for my music. In addition to this to find images of album covers I used Wikipedia and Google. I found the sites really easy to use however I ran into a few complications when researching in school because the filtering system sometimes removed lyrics pages, albums and videos due to the nature of the web page they were located on. I did however manage to overcome the problem by doing some research at home or searching through a lot more pages.
- 9. How did you use media technology in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages? Planning Media technology I used to plan my project was such sites as slideshare. I began my project by drawing a storyboard out. Then to get this onto my blog I uploaded the photos online by using PowerPoint, putting each photo on slide by slide and then uploading it and copying the embed code onto blogger. Also i used the font site blogger and got five fonts and discussed with my peers which is the best to use considering my target audience. I then downloaded them and installed them on the computer to use as many times as I needed on my products.