Friday 10 February 2012
In what ways do your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of a real media product.
Our task was to produce a promotional music video to an unsigned artist/band, a CD Digipack to accompany the song and also a magazine advert to promote the track. The song we have chosen is “Wherever” by Inflowential an American Hip-Hop group.
- A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.
The purpose of our Media Production:
Music Video - To accompany and promote the song, as well as to increase sales of the track.
CD Digipack - To attract the target audience into purchasing the single.
Magazine Advert - To promote the track awareness to target market as well as publicise to release of the track.
There are a variety of different conventions used in music promos, but they depend on factors such as the genre as certain elements you see in R&B music videos will vary to Metal music videos. This is why we had to be cautious when picking and Hip-Hop/ R&B track due to many elements being difficult to present without being to cheesy or unconventional.
Before we started to plan for our Media Production we had to identify direct links in the lyrics that we could use in our production as a common element of music videos have sections where the lyrics relate into the music video. We had deconstructed the lyrics to help us identify what section of the lyrics we could use in the performance that had a relevance to the music video.
There has been a range of professional productions that have influenced our promo, and numerous elements used in these production that have inspired us with certain shots, locations and costumes.
Rizzle Kicks – Down With the Trumpets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ip8OsExLJs
This music promo from Rizzle Kicks has influenced us from numerous shots used; constant use of mid shots and close up shots are used to show the artist singing relating to the theory of Andrew Godwin.” Relationships are built between these in the video, and the close-ups of the artists give them the representation and publicity they require”. The choice of location also had an influence on our production as many music videos of this genre are in city locations or in urban areas. This influenced us to chose a location in a busy town centre and streets with graffiti and a urban feel to them the make sure the video wasn’t located in a rural area affecting the vibe. The constant use of shots lasting up to 5 seconds to keep the audience entertained was also something we considered when editing our production. We didn’t want the shots to drag on for too long so we made sure each shot was under 10 seconds. In the video we see the protagonist carrying a ‘boom box’ to present the element of old school Hip-Hop into their video which inspired us to also incorporate something similar in our video. The clothing used is casual street wear which we decided to copy as it fitted into the vibe of out track. We felt conventional Hip-Hop clothing such as designer labels and heavy jewellery wouldn’t flow well with our production as the song is very chilled out and not a typical Hip-Hop song that has constant reference to wealth and having a wild lifestyle.
Kanye West ft. T-Pain – Good Life - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEKEjpTzB0Q
The elements that have influenced us in this music video are the direct links with the lyrics and the video. In the song Kanye West refers to various American cities and then in the background we see these cities appear. This inspired us in our decision to use ‘Green Screen’ as we could not shot numerous iconic locations around the UK
Throughout the video the main shot types are mid shots and long shots when there is a big Mise-en-scene. This also influenced our decision to revolve our shot types around these two shots but to add various effects such as the ones used in Kanye West’s music video. The effects work so well due to the picture being in greyscale but the effects being used are bright colours. This is something that has influenced us as it helps to contrast the text from the background.
In the majority of music videos of the Hip-Hop genre there are common links between the lyrics of the song and the video in the narrative parts of the video. So before planning the music video possible links had to be identified, so this conventional links between the lyrics and video could be made. You can see how we deconstructed the lyrics of our track “Wherever” to benefit us when planning the narrative scenes for our video. This relates to Andrew Godwin’s theory of relating the lyrics to the music video.
- A relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics.- A relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music.
- Genre-related style and iconography present.
- Multiple close-ups of the main artist or vocalist
When creating our Digipack we where inspired by media that influenced on certain elements we decided to use on our Digipack. We made sure we used common elements used on normal Digipack but we wanted it to relate to the genre of our track so we researched into other Digipack from other similar artists.
These two Digipack influenced our decision in making our album covers very basic but adding effects to them using Photoshop. We were influenced by the idea of using a simple street or building then adding effects as it was very simple but worked well in contrasting the colours from the background. The two album covers are very different as one is from the Hip-Hop genre and the other is from Alternative/Rock band.
This Magazine advert from Vibe Magazine has influenced our decision to use a plain white background with a font colour of red as it contrasts well making the text stand out. This will appeal to our audience as it is eye catching. The use of a simple font also had an influence on our decision as its clear and very visual also helping the text to stand out.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary texts?
This is the final version of our Digipack which contains common conventions’ of a Digipack of the Hip-Hop genre - Band/Artist logo, the Title of album, Barcode and Track listings. We have gone for a theme of street art which is used throughout all of our three pieces enabling the audience to be able to easily identify that this a part of the bands release of the song creating a band image. The Digipack contained elements such as… which the audience felt worked well. We used a simple background of a street with graffiti then used Adobe Photoshop to add effects which our audience felt was simple yet effective.
The combination of all three of our ancillary tasks are effective and compliment each other as they all use the street art theme, so they work well to promote the band. The most effort was put into the Music promo as it was time consuming to film, edit and add effects. Although the most effort was put into the Music promo all three products work well and do their intended job of being a promotional package for an album release. Due to using the same theme throughout all three texts this enables our target audience to associate the three texts together.
To promote the band’s album release of these materials would need to be exhibited by our target audience and this could be efficiently done using traditional media as well as new media. The traditional methods would be using a music channel of similar genre, a magazine advert and a Digipack which can be purchased in a record store or online. The main two channels suitable to promote our music video would be 4Muic & MTV due to promoting songs of similar genre. 4Music is available on Free view, Sky & Virgin Media so this would target a large audience promoting our track to a large audience. The music channel 4Music doesn’t cater for specific genres although MTV Base specifically promotes R&B and Hip- Hop tracks so this channel will be more specific and be aimed at our target audience.
When publishing our Magazine Advert we felt to publish it with Vibe Magazine as it’s specifically a Hip-Hop magazine so our target audience are more likely to become aware of the band and track. New Media such as the internet is used to promote music videos and it would heighten the audience and be more widely available as websites such as Facebook, YouTube and iTunes which offer services that are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at the user’s leisure which allows a more convenient approach.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When constructing our Media Productions the feedback from our audience feedback was beneficial as it helped us when it came to producing our media piece. The information helped us to meet and full fill the needs of our target audience. We used different forms of audience feedback such as questionnaires, video interviews using ‘PhotoBooth’ and social network sites ‘Facebook & YouTube’ to gain feedback. Facebook and YouTube were the two most successful methods of gaining feedback as it could be completed at the convenience of the audience unlike the interviews using PhotoBooth. Facebook was also ideal as a large proportion of our Friends on the social network site where also our target audience as they fitted into the age category.
The questionnaire helped us gain information surrounding our Music video; this helped us to gain what the audience felt would be most fitting in terms of location, costume and effects. It also helped us to identify what our target audience would be for our media production. This not only helped us to gain information but meet the consumer needs in terms of what they felt made a good music video.
Age: 0-12 13-18 19-24 25+
Gender: Male Female
Favourite Genre: Hip-hop R&B Pop Rock Dance D&B Metal Alternative Other
What do you feel makes a good music video? Performance Narrative Both
What location would you pick to film a music video? Rural Urban Stage Club Other:
How do you purchase your music? ITunes HMV Video2mp3 Other:
What is your favourite music channel? 4Music MTV Viva Kerrang Scuzz Starz Other:
How often do you listen to music a day? Less than an hour 1Hour 2Hour 3Hours 4Hours 5hours
What do you feel makes a good music video?
What is your favourite Music video? Why?
These pie charts helped us to establish the target age group and gender; a fitting location; whether or not our production should contain narrative; performance or both; and how our audience purchase their music. This has helped us to plan our music video as we can now identify what our target audience wants to see in our music video.
Final research had to be undertaken so we could obtain the audience’s response on the completed music video, this enabled us to learn whether we thoroughly researched around what the audience needs were. A method we used to find out the audience’s response to our completed music video was to post it on YouTube and ask for any feedback, where we received comments about the music video. As well as the comments we received on YouTube there was also 7 likes.
When using YouTube to conduct Final Research we encountered problems such as not being able to use the website at school due to it being blocked by an administrators account. This restricted us from obtaining feedback from our fellow students at school so we missed out on getting vital information about our production. This could have affected the amount of comments and likes we received on our production which will result in less feedback to help us improve our production as well as we potentially could.
To gain my feedback we posted the video onto a social network website to help us gather more information as the 3 comments on YouTube weren’t detailed enough.
We posted our media production on the social network site Facebook and asked for feedback after watching the video as we had already created a questionnaire and needed more final research. The benefits of using Facebook were that the majority of friends we had on the social network site were also the age group that fitted our target audience. From this Audience Feedback we can identify that the audience felt it was slightly out of sync and the typography was out of frame in some places. This feedback has helped us to improve our video by correcting these errors in timing.
Thursday 9 February 2012
Throughout the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages we used media technology for numerous methods. When we came to picking an artist/band for a media production we used www.unsigned.com to prevent us from breaking any copyright restrictions we would come across whilst using signed artists. This website enabled us to search for artists of our particular genre, read about background information concerning the bands history and then contract the band when it came to producing our media production to the one of the bands tracks.
Inflowential’s presence on the web has allowed us to research into the band and contact the band to gain permission to use their material. The band have pages on various social network sites and there presence on these sites shows they are making use of new technology in todays world. New technology has allowed us to find a suitable unsigned band; research the bands background information and then contact the band to gain permission to use their track. The new technology which has allowed us to do this is Unsigned, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
Video Cameras - We used Sonny handheld video cameras to film the music video, then we used the cameras memory card put it into the iMac to import the footage.
When it came to editing I developed my skills as certain aspects such as lip syncing and timing the music with the right verse.
When searching for an artist under the R&B/ Hip-Hop genre we came across an American Hip-Hop group called ‘Inflowential’. The information on unsigned.com allowed us to research the bands tracks by using www.youtube.com to listen to various tracks the band has produced. We then used social network sites such as www.facebook.com and www.myspace.com to find out information regarding the band such as how they came together. There were various ways of contacting the band in regards of asking for permission to use their song – Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. To present a more professional approach we decided to email the band with the email address provided on unsigned.com.
YouTube is another new technology which enabled us to research in the Hip-Hop genre and look at similar bands. By watching these videos we can identify common conventions used in these videos and hopefully we can take inspiration from these elements. By watching music videos by artist such as Rizzle Kicks, Ed Sheeran, Kanye West and other Hip-Hop artists we can look at the camera work, mise-en-scene, editing and representation of the band then incorporate these elements into our production.
Music Videos that have inspired us:
Rizzle Kicks – Down With the Trumpets
Ed Sheeran – You Need Me, I Don’t Need You
Kanye West – Good Life
As well as taking inspiration from professional music videos created by signed artists we decided to look at past media students work who produced music promos for Inflowential. ‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXMfkbJYm9w’ this video by students from London was an example of a video that A2 students had to produce. After watching their production I was able to analyse their video then criticise on areas of their production. This helped me to make sure I didn’t make the same mistakes when it came to producing our music promo. Without YouTube I would be unable to identify these poor areas in this production or be influenced by professional music videos and use there elements in our production.
Other Technology used:
Camera - We used the same Sonny video camera as a camera to take still images of various locations for our ancillary task of producing a Digipack and Magazine advert.
iMac - We used the iMac to edit the footage for a music promo
Software - We used a variety of different software types such as iMovie and Final Cut Express to edit the footage we had and then add effects. We used Adobe Photoshop 2011 to add effects to the pictures for our ancillary tasks.
The Internet - We used the internet to research music promos using the sites www.youtube.com and www.vimeo.com. We also used various online editing websites such as www.picnick.com and www.dafont to find suitable texts to use for our ancillary texts. We also used a wide range of social network sites for our audience feedback www.facebook.com and www.youtube.com this helped us to gain peoples views and opinions of our target audience.
When it came to filming our media production we have progressed from the previous year and from our preliminary task. We learned how to use more effective camera shots which would get everything in the shot and would what angle would look effective. We also had the Golden Mean and the Rule of Thirds to consider when filming.
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