Evaluation question 2
- 1. 2) How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? During this past year, I have designed and made the three products specified in the brief, these being the moving image production (music video in my case) and the two ancillary tasks (magazine advert and digipak). The music video is my main product that I needed to put together for a specific song which is called “Dinosaur” by duet AKMU (Akdong Musician). Dinosaur was also to be the title track for the album that I was promoting on the magazine advert and the digipak. My music video, in accordance to Andrew Goodwin’s theory based on the distinct styles of music videos, is a narrative and illustrated one that follows a circular storyline. The scenes on the screen correspond with what the lyrics of the song are but the character’s end where they started, in a circular fashion. I chose to go against the convention of K-Pop music videos in the sense that they mostly all follow a performance style music video (with artists dancing and singing to appeal to the audience as these invoke a feeling of the audience seeing a live performance of the artists). I made this decision as I wanted the meaning of the song to be at the center of attention which also gave me the opportunity to apply the theme of representation in regards to family to my music video. Thus, having the sequence follow a narrative style made it relatively easy to portray the importance of family and values such as love and responsibility. The story is about the relationship between two siblings, one being the older sister (played by Parisa Yakinya) and the little brother (played by Idean Yakinya) as they do normal every-day activities with one another (e.g. playing with toys). The video was mainly filmed in an apartment and outside garden (for the snowing scenes) as this provided the realistic nature of the narrative that was needed to further establish the theme of family. Both characters are played by young actors which makes my music video follow a ‘cute concept’ that appeals to the primary target audience – teenagers and young adults of both genders, as the actors are of a similar age range to the audience which will allow them to relate with what they see on screen. My music video is successful in appealing to a wider audience beyond the primary one as the youthfulness will invoke a sense of nostalgia and invite the older audience (perhaps parents of the primary audience) to reminisce about their youth and what they did with their siblings/family. All in all, the whole family can connect with the music video, making my music video successful at
- 2. achieving its purpose of selling the meaning of the song it is representing. The song, Dinosaur describes the personal experience of the artists who use the dinosaur as a metaphor to talk about a debt collector who ruined their home when they were younger. Although I have not followed the original story behind the song, from having analysed the lyrics during the planning stages, I noticed that the song’s undertones were about protecting their family and how they care for one another, which I applied to my music video by having the older sister look out for the little brother. To further solidify the connection between the audience and characters portrayed, I used various mid-shots and close-ups whilst filming as these enabled me to capture the facial expressions of the actors in a way that provided the intimacy needed that would interest the audience to share their link. This also relates to the genres associated with my chosen song – the song is of a Folk genre and therefore, it seemed appropriate to both create a narrative style music video and use mid-shots and close-ups that keeps the audience in tune and connected with the events taking place in the music video. In addition, use of mid-shots and other shots (such as long shots) provided enough variation to my video that added an interesting visual aspect, ensuring the audience continue watching the whole video as to pausing or skipping. My music video has a unified look that I accomplished through the use of mise-en-scene. The locations I filmed in (apartment and garden) consisted of neutral tones like white, beige and other earthy tones whilst the artist mise-en-scene varied with the actors wearing matching denim clothing, pajama’s, etc. By having this contrast effect it prevents the video from becoming overly distracting and chaotic as the lack of colour from the locations are present in the different outfits the actors are wearing. This balance in colour creates a more unified look as the main subject of the video (two characters) are the primary things the audience will take notice in with the simplicity of the locations helping enhance the primary focus of the video. The indoor shots are vastly different to the outdoor ones in respect to the drastic conditions they are in. For example, the scenes filmed outside in the garden were at a time that was snowing and this extreme weather condition adds depth to the music video as the audience get to witness the characters in opposing settings. Like
- 3. I have previously mentioned, I was aiming for my music video to highlight the meaning and underlying themes implied in the song in terms of encoding the value of family for the audience to decode and take as a preferred reading. I intended for my music video to contain scenes that would make it memorable and for people to easily recognise it due to music videos essentially being a promotional tool for artists and record labels. The video I was to create needed to showcase the talent of the artist as a song-writer due to the lyrics holding a deep meaning to them. It had to invoke a reaction from the audience and overall, I believe my music video effectively did this as it is a video that everyone can relate to in some way. The video following a circular storyline meant that there was no actual plot as the character’s end where they started. My music video is composed of the same scenes used at different stages of the song as by having the characters go in a circle, the audience are more likely to relate to the video in terms of the activities the characters are seen doing rather than sharing the exact story of the characters. It is probable that the true story behind the song will not be one that everyone can relate to, thus I believed my music video would have a bigger impact on the audience if I did not follow a precise and clear story. To demonstrate the underlying themes of family, love and responsibility I relied on the portrayals of the two characters. For example, it is expected for the older sibling to help and take care of the younger one so I had to ensure the people I used in my music video had a big enough age gap where the audience could tell who is who. The older sister, Parisa, is seen constantly looking at the little brother which evidently refer to her character acknowledging that she has the responsibility of looking out for her little brother. Parisa sees that the brother is afraid of something (dinosaur) and throughout the video is seen doing things that will help him overcome his fear. For instance, in one scene, the brother brings a drawing of a scary dinosaur and Parisa modifies the drawing to turn it into a friendly dinosaur who is smiling. Throughout the video, the expression of smiling and laughing are always present which cause the brother to also feel the
- 4. same way, hence, by having the dinosaur also be a smiling figure shows that it is not something to be afraid of but something that is the same to them. In addition, there are objects that relate to the image of a dinosaur – i.e. the green glass of water and the green light. These are inanimate objects that represent what the sister is trying to show to the brother. They may seem strange and unusual (green water not actually being a real thing) can also be things that makes one be in awe due to their pleasing aesthetics and beauty. In a similar manner, the dinosaur can be viewed as a dangerous and ‘weird’ thing but they are just another aspect of nature like the characters are. Overall, I believe that my main production task has certainly served its purpose of constructing a firm connection with the audience through the illustrative nature of the video. Since the lyrics and meaning of the song were of great importance (the song was praised for its meaningful lyrics), following a narrative that depicts what the lyrics are was essential in ensuring the audience will understand what message I was trying to convey. In this sense, I feel that the final product made it clear who the audience is and thus, as a promotional tool succeeds in fulfilling its role of invoking a reaction and highlighting the undeniable talent of the artist. I also created magazine adverts as part of one of my two required ancillary tasks. The aim of the magazine advert was to promote the release of the new album of the artist of my chosen song (this being AKMU). I believed that a unified look would better fit the standards of the real music industry and thus my magazine adverts and digipak have a similar house style. I actually created two versions of my magazine advert to conform to one of the key conventions of the K-Pop music industry. The promotion of any artist is vital in determining how successful the artist is to become with the K-Pop industry in particular paying very close attention to the promotional products they release. The magazine adverts both have the same format with the only thing differentiating them being the image used for each one. I created one advert for both of the artists – one features an image of the little brother and the other of the sister. The images used are the same ones that are featured on the credits page of my digipak to follow the unified
- 5. theme I was aiming for. The one of the brother is a portrait mid-shot taken at an eye-line level with the brother looking away from the camera and to the side. The one of the sister is a landscape close-up of her face and once again, she is not looking at the camera and has her eyes closed. I chose to have pictures where neither are directly looking at the camera as the youthfulness and innocence of both people are further highlighted by having them seem distracted by something else, similar to how the nature of children is. Both images are similar to one another as they were taken in the same location and under the same source of lighting – I took the images inside a bedroom with blue fairy lights being the only source of lighting which gave the images a blue/green hue to them. This bonded the two versions of the magazine adverts further as they follow the same colour theme. The images put emphasis on the theme of family in the sense that the people in them are young and due to being real siblings, resemble each other in some way. The bedroom was the perfect location to take the pictures as it added to the realistic element of the concept I was going for. As the images had bright colours in them, I chose to use similar colours for the text and background of the adverts (these being yellow and blue) yet I decreased the opacity of both so the advert did not appear to harsh for the eyes. The images have been placed in the center which shows that they are the most important feature of the advert with the text varying in size depending on what was most important (i.e. the name of the album and name of artist were the two biggest pieces of text). The name of the album is “fine” and the images used for the adverts both connote the same emotion in the fact that both the sister and brother are smiling and essentially appearing to seem okay and of course fine. I used three different fonts for the adverts to make the distinction between each piece of text visibly clear – I used the font “Nettizen” for the album name, “Basic font title” for the name of the artist and “Dolce Vita” for the remaining text (e.g. date, time, etc.). All text is in capital typography to establish the unified look and make it easy for the audience to read. These two actors are used in all three of my products as the song features a male and female vocalists (who are actually siblings) and they are similar to who the audience of my music video are. Once again, the audience will relate with the artists as the images used show the actors doing normal things that anyone can do. This is especially important when considering the fan base of K-Pop music. K-Pop
- 6. fans are known to be the most devoted and thus it was essential for me to produce products that ensured the fans would feel connected with their favourite artist and understand what the artist is trying to say through their music. Personally I believe that my two magazine adverts are successful products as its visual aesthetic from having used vibrant colours and bold fonts help serve their purpose of attracting the audience’s eyes and spread the word of the release of the new album. Having created two versions further adds to the anticipation of fans as they will be able to see new products being released during the promotional stages of new albums. I followed the codes and conventions of magazine adverts by having the information of dates and time mentioned and a house colour theme. My final ancillary task was a digipak that was to hold the CD of the new album and promote it through its visual appearance. The purpose of my digipak was to give an insight of what the concept of the album (especially the title track’s music video) was. The concept/theme I was aiming for was the representation of family and thus I chose to use a combination of pictures of both actors. A digipak is supposed to attract the eyes of the audience and so I decided that following the conventions of K-Pop would increase the chances of my product being spotted by people. I used the same album name for the digipak “fine” with an image of Parisa on the front cover. The image was once again taken in the bedroom but Parisa is wearing fashion aviator style glasses and has her hair styled differently (hair in two plaits) to what it is like in the magazine advert image. The blue fairy lights were used here too but I had the Cannon 550D on a different setting (close up) which used the flash when I took the picture. The flash made the image turn out differently in comparison to what the magazine advert images looked like – the blue colour from the lights covered all of the image rather than highlighting certain features of her face or adding blue/green hues to it. The digipak follows a similar format to the magazine adverts as I used the blue background as a border for the image that was placed in the centre. The image is not a full
- 7. bleed one as I thought by adding a border, it made the products more unique and follow up with the convention of using vibrant colours in K-Pop. This time around, the actor is looking directly at the camera which shows a different side to her that the fans would enjoy seeing – the combination of having her look at the camera vs not looking at the camera in the ancillary tasks links back to how she is portrayed in the music video. Most scenes show her being completely focused on her little brother, but during the second verse, she is directly looking at the camera whilst posing in her outfit. In the K-Pop music industry, it is common for artists to change their concepts all the time, and I followed this convention by showing different sides to Parisa in the ancillary tasks – one as being innocence and pure and the other as confident. The name of the album is positioned at the bottom of the front cover with the same font used in the adverts (“Nettizen”) which resembles brush strokes. I chose this font as it connotes to the nature of children in their sense of creativity and love for arts and crafts as an activity. It also adds different interpretations of the album name “fine”. The word fine is the term used to describe feeling satisfactory or being very well yet in our society when one asks the question “how are you?” people often reply with “I’m fine, thanks” regardless of whether they truly do. Someone saying they are fine can also hint to them not being fine and the imperfection of the lettered brush strokes links to how the word fine has lost its true meaning and people use it as a cover up. The font of the artist name (AKMU) is the same as the one (“Basic title font”) used in the magazine adverts to carry on the unified look. The front page overall is rather simple and has very little going on which shows that the artists are well known and established musicians who already have a fan base and do not need to rely on having several features added to attract an audience. The images used for the credits page are like I have already mentioned, the same ones used for the magazine advert as this way the audience will get an insight to what they should expect out of the digipak and what sort of concept the album is. There is a border that goes alongside both middle pages which makes it look neat and put together, tying in the different kinds of borders that I have used throughout all my products. There is a small paragraph that lists all the people who should be credited for making the album (lyricist, executive producer, etc.) and another for
- 8. people the artists want to thank. This is a convention for K-Pop music albums and help represent the artists in a positive light by showing that they are humble and greatful for everyone, including their fans for the love that they have received. The back page of the digipak includes the track list of the album beside an extreme close-up image of the little brother’s eyes while wearing Harry Potter style glasses. The image placed on the right hand side and has been rotated 90 degrees clockwise so that it resembles the spine of a book. The names of the songs have been numbered and aligned to the right so that it correlates with the image used. Once again, I used the same font (“Dolce Vita”) for the text on the back page with the name of the artist placed at the top similar to how it is on the front cover. The alignment of the text with the image makes the back cover symmetrical which gives it a more unified look that the audience would find visually pleasing. Finally, there is the inclusion of other conventions of digipaks like the barcode placed on the left hand side, a copyrights statement, the record label logo and website. In general, I feel that my digipak was another successful ancillary task as its use of vibrant colours will definitely capture the attention of the audience and promote the brand of the artist. Having analysed existing digipaks (both K-Pop and normal Pop) I was able to pick out the conventions that guaranteed the audience would like and appreciate. In conclusion, all three of my products have a connection with one another, both subtly and obvious connections (e.g. use of borders vs location of images) that help them achieve the unified look that equates to each product being successful in serving its purpose of appealing to my target audience (teenagers and young adults who fit in the C1, C2, D1 social grades). The theme of youth, family and responsibility have been applied through the use of location and artist mise- en-scene as well the type of camera shots I used for the music video and ancillary tasks. There is a neutral balance of colour in all three, with the ancillary tasks being almost identical so that the audience can easily recognise and make a subconscious link between the two.