Friday, 16 April 2010
Daniel's Similar Textual Analysis
‘Basket Case’ – ‘Green Day’
Green Day are a very popular band, but they’re also a controversial band because they continue alienating significant portions of their fan base. I have chosen to analyse this video because of the unusual techniques used in it and in which the way the lyrics correspond to the video, it relates to the ideas my group have produced for our music video featuring a local, unsigned band.
This Music video is set in a depthless world in which musicians lip-sync in simulated depictions of musical performance or act out the fragmented narrative elements referring to the lyrics. ‘Basket Case’ is a track from ‘Dookie’, the three times platinum and third album of American Pop Punk Rock band ‘Green Day’, which was released in 1994. The music the band produces seems to target an audience of males and females ages mainly from 11-18. Whether the band considered this whilst writing their music I do not know. Many of the songs written by Green Day are based on personal or group experiences that have occurred in their lives.
The song is about lead singer, Billie Joe Armstrong’s struggle with anxiety. It was written before the front man was diagnosed with a panic disorder as he was going crazy. The lyrics to ‘Basket Case’ tell the story of a man who is paranoid and after and, after meeting with a psychiatrist who tells him that his lack of sex is causing his stress, decides to go to a prostitute. However Doctor refuses to listen, as explained by the lyric. ‘He said my life’s a bore/so quit my whining, cause/it’s bringing him down.’
The video was shot in an actual mental institution called Agnew’s Development Center in Santa Clara County, California.
One of the first sights we see is of men in white outfits and a steel shutter door being closed behind him. Diegetic sound is included right up until the track starts. The whole video was originally shot in black and white and then later colourised, contributing to the unnatural, demented feel of the mise- en-scene. Visible in the first shot is a masked patient whose mask is the only thing that is of colour, making him look unusual and out of place. We see close ups of the music equipment being set up, and a white-suited guy presents a rather nervous and confused lead singer with a guitar. He abruptly comes out of character and begins the song.
The other band members are wheeled in. It is clear that they are all inmates, both by their slightly confused and abnormal behaviour and by the way people in white coats are directing them around. This especially apparent for the bassist, Dirnt. Close ups are used to show the lead singer’s eyes darting around nervously as he sings.
In the second verse, we see front man, Armstrong, standing against a white wall in a bathroom. A high-0angled camera shot makes him look small and insignificant, and yet his dark garments make him stand out. We see drummer, Tre Cool, being wheeled down a corridor in a wheel chair by a white coated man – with another patient similar to the one we see at the start in the background. It cuts back to Armstrong and then to Dirnt, who is looking bored, resting his head in his hands.
The video is somewhat concept driven as it relates strongly tot eh lyrics, but also part narrative as the lyrics do tell a story and the video does contribute to the understanding of the overall message that the song forwards. We see plenty of shots of different band members performing the song together. This is heavily performance driven as it is as though they are performing live, on stage, to an audience. Frequent cuts from different angles prevent the audience from losing interest. A brief cut to Dirnt staring out of a window perhaps in desperation, cuts back to him performing, and then a shot of Armstrong is obscured by a masked figure walking past the camera. A barrage of rapid cuts echoes the machine gun-like drum roll. Throughout the progression of the song, more and more patients appear in the living room. This suggests that more and more normal people are going crazy as well as them.
The drummer is wheeled to a counter where a woman wearing a lab coat provides him with some sort of medicine or drug. He grins as he swallows it. ‘Grasping to control.. .’ sings Armstrong as the camera pans around, showing various people behind him. The pan is slightly unsteady, as though performed with a handheld camera, contributing to the surreal nature of the video. The majority of cuts are all straight cuts. Overall, they are fairly quick paced cuts, yet still dynamic as the cuts are at different lengths to focus on different aspects and sections of the video.
There are a number of high angle camera shots of the lead singer featured as this strongly relates to the fact that he is paranoid, and is particularly effective when he rolls his eyes up anxiously.
Those mental patients in marks seem to be doing a number of strange things, creeping around, playing with exercise balls, and appearing extremely close up to the camera. They remain un-colourised except the masks themselves throughout the video, which makes them all look peculiar. The drugs we are shown close ups of lead to Drummer, Cool, and later Armstrong being surrounded by flying fishes and his own eyes which have been merged into the clip, post shoot. This suggests a hallucination being caused by the drugs seen previously, perhaps?
The video is full of bright colours which makes it seem simplistic and, at the same time, over the top. This contributes to the feelings of psychosis.
At the end of the video, the metal shutter is closed in front of the camera. This place is closed, and it seems Green Day are to remain inside. Through the shutter, we see the band stop playing and are then stationary.
In my opinions, it is clever portrayal of an anxiety disorder. Although it being slightly strange and disturbing for some, it articulates the message of the songs very well, right down to thinking you’re going insane and mixing up words in your head. And the line ‘Am I just paranoid, or am I just stoned?’ gives a good idea of how it feels to be in front man, Armstrong’s shoes.
Final Magazine Advert
The process of editing our initial magazine advert to produce our final piece, took a lot of time and our idea changed drastically. For one I had to change the font from Arial Bold to Chiller because when I received the group logo because it was hand drawn it did not match the plain and simple font. This font works well because it incorporates the theme of darkness and wickedness. We had to design a whole new rose image because the first one was a photograph and did not match the hand drawn logo, therefore we had to design a more artist rose to signify love but be able to match the rest of the advert. Furthermore an obvious change is from the plain white background to a black one with some light. This is because as a group we thought the white looked to plain and didn’t express the dark image we were going for. from the second draft to final version of the magazine advert I added the bands website, a convention of magazine adverts and added a web and white shadow of a spider to corroborate with the bands name. Overall I think our advert looks edgy yet elegant because of the rose design and font.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Daniel's Evaluation
In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media products predominantly use conventions of real music videos, CD/DVD digipaks and magazine advertisements. As the initial purpose of any music video is to be used as a marketing device to promote an artist/band. We decided on a performance/narrative structured video in order to publicise the band. Performance based videos are typically chosen for rock music videos (Firth 1988) an example being Rage Against The Machine's classic 'Killing in the name' (1992).
As the band we are promoting are under the broad 'rock' genre, our video offers 'rock' with a range of strong performance band close-ups with handheld camera movement. It offers a story as something less conventional. This also worked hand in hand with the band members as the whole concept of their music is a unique fusion of Reggae and Hardcore. This format also helped put the bands' message across. Straight away the video is separated from other rock band videos. Including a narrative is a good technique because it adds substance to the video. There is a story for the audience to follow. This means they may need to watch the video more then once to register everything on screen. Creating another dimension or setting to be familiar with.
Another essential convention of a music video is to create an association between the lyrics and the video - especially for one including a narrative (unless the intention is not to). Therefore, we based the narrative on domestic violence as is the theme of the song lyrics. We agreed that this is an advantage otherwise, it may become confusing for the audience and this way, it is more likely to be remembered because the visuals reinforcement the song and can paint a clearer picture in your mind. Our music video also can support Schwichtenberg's (1992) theory, which suggests that males dominate roles in music videos providing the action and women passively react. However because we film from the woman’s point of view, we show this in a bad light, in the form of abuse, which perhaps, in turn, challenges the standard conventions.
In terms of camera work, performance based videos for edgy rock bands usually have many different band close-ups, camera movement(handheld or crane) and also quick cuts to give the audience a sense of energy and being there in the live gig environment with the band. Narrative based videos have a range of shots to grasp the mood and message of a song. I think this media product follows these conventions in an attempt to look professional and to also put the intended message across on the bands' behalf.
The mise-en-scene has a big affect on the overall aesthetic of a music video. Our research on subject matter showed me how other music videos used alternative techniques to hint violence rather than showing it full-on as this would cause controversy. For example, in Ludacris and Mary J Blige’s hit 'Run away love' (2006), they include alcohol and drug abuse as factors that influence domestic violence. Therefore, in our music video, we used empty beer cans to convey the image of alcohol abuse. Furthermore, instead of showing actual physical violence, we used simple but effective techniques we picked up from other videos like using sillhouettes of the confrontation between the couple and bruises on the face of the female abusee. Other conventions we used, within the editing stages, were jump cuts from the narrative to the performance. This is typical of a performance/narrative music video. We used jump cuts throughout the video to keep the performance moving with the storyline and vice versa however I decided, as the editor, that it would make sense if there were quicker cuts in the choruses which are heavier and more energetic which contrasts with slightly laid back cuts for the cleaner, darker sounding verses, not only in order to make the video more dynamic, but to emphasise musical sections of the song, which overall affects how the audience react to the song.
A fair amount of research into digipaks and magazine advertisements (for albums or music DVDs) has given me an insight on the consistent conventions used for both adverts and digipaks. Magazine adverts tend to have a main image that corresponds with the digipak cover however, our ancillary texts don’t have the same visuals, but they both do have a relationship with the music video itself, which challenges the conventions of the ancillary texts. Apart from that, our magazine advert and digipak stick to the majority of conventions and continue the theme with the artists’ name and song in the largest font, a trademark logo and limited information.
The rear of the digipak case features common conventions like the track names and a bar code, the official 'dvd' logo and sometimes a warning about explicit lyrical content, which is up to the label, or in our case the band (as they are unsigned).
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The focus of our music video is domestic violence, for that reason we thought the magazine advert should relate to this in some way. We chose to make the central image a dead rose, because a red rose symbolises love and therefore a dead rose would be a fitting metaphor for love being dead. There were several issues when trying to create the magazine advert with the rose, because we found it difficult to make the photographed image of a dead rose blend in with the hand drawn logo for the band that looked more edgy and artistic. In the end we had to produce our own rose, by using a couple of different brushes chosen from a selection we downloaded for use with photoshop, we then used shadows to make it look darker in tone. We used a texture for the background, which we found gives more of a raw, gritty look, with a slight gradient which acts as a soft spotlight pointing towards the flower. The magazine advert does not use the same image as the digipak, because the digipak focuses more on promoting the band, then the theme of the song. There are different photographs of the band on the back cover, to familiarise them with the consumer. This can be seen as a downside and affect the combo of the ancillary texts as the consumer does not have one significant image to recognise the digipak by. Nonetheless, I think our music video could get away with use of different images, since the video is constructed with both performance and narrative. Photographs of the band are conventional in performance structured videos resulting in the blend of the two modes appearing compatible with that of the ancillary texts.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our target audience are males and females aged 16-20. We showed our video and print production to a sample of our target audience and asked them to comment on their likes and dislikes. We also put it all up on facebook to show receive some thorough feedback Overall, we received a very positive reply, the majority of people commented on how we cut between performance and narrative in the music video. A handful of people commented on their favourite parts and also on the jaunty camera techniques used for the performance closeups which added urgency. Many people also liked the design and colour scheme of the print production, particularly picking up on the logo and fonts used on both print products. After receiving such good feedback, we felt not to change much as myself and the group were always asking of peoples opinions through the production process. This led to constant idea development, to improve whilst producing.
In conclusion, I learnt more about what catches the eye of the audience, this helped me with choosing colour schemes and simplifying layouts, video sequences or designs in order to make them more big and bold.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the research and planning stages, we used the internet copious amounts in order to complete our research document, which then led to the planning stage and continued to be at our disposal throughout the planning stage for idea development or if we had any general queries. Two websites that helped me most were 'Google' and 'Youtube' and were both at our disposal. Google is by far the best search engine and comes up with billions of results relating to your search therefore, it was very flexible. Youtube helped me on having access to watching the majority of music videos that have been released into the media. This is part of secondary research. Its extremely helpful as you have the freedom to find what you intend for free! It helped a great deal for me during post-production, as the editor, it enabled me to find out more about software the college had available as I was a beginner with most of the programmes and had to adapt swiftly. Although our teacher handed out a manual for the 'Canon XM2 Digital Video Camera' we used for filming and one for 'Final Cut Pro'- the editing software we used for the bulk of our video, which both helped a great deal, I did a bit of research for myself about a few techniques and fundamentals used in editing and also asked a couple of professionals for any first hand advice. Finding out simple things for example at the start of editing, how to 'mark a significant beat on the timeline'. This made my life alot easier as I marked every significant beat in the entire track before I introduced any of the visual footage, which later locked onto each clip allowing me to cut to the beat without any worries. Being the drummer of the band and also writing the song, gave me an advantage on the editing side, as I knew the song very well and was able cut clips in time. After I had cut the whole video, I added a grade to the video to give it more of a professional look with 'Quicklooks', a plugin which works in harmony with 'Final Cut Pro' which allows you to edit the colour.
We were provided with the 'Canon XM2 Digital Video Camera' for filming. Digital cameras are of a very high quality and a high resolution, giving the picture better definition over an old film camera. This camera had a number of useful features which helped us in the filming process for example, optical zoom and white balance. The fact it was digital helped us essentially at the capturing and editing stages. If we had an analog, film camera, capturing would have taken a lot longer as it is on tape, and during editing stages, would have taken extremely long, especially if you cut a clip and then decide you need seconds of it back, then you are in a sticky situation.. However todays' computer software technology (Final Cut Pro) has saved everyone from the disappointment and is very straight forward and been reliable with our video.
For both the magazine advertisement and the digipak, we used 'Adobe Photoshop'. This package was very straight forward and user friendly. As it is an 'industry standard' package, it has a range of features. As I have learnt a little bit about the software in A level Photography, I managed to get to grips with the features available, in order to create the digipak dvd cover. I used a logo that I had drawn before-hand, scanned it, cleaned it up in photoshop boosting the hard lines, and filled inside the letters with solid colour for the logo to stand out. For the digipak cover we chose orange as it doesnt clash with any other colours on its background. We changed the colour of the logo for the magazine advert to a dark red, to match with the red rose. But still used the same hand drawn logo type face to be consistent.
Finally, I used Google Documents for most of my essays and reports. It is a fairly new free feature offered by google, qhich allows you to access documents online from anywhere in the world. I uploaded everything to a 'Blogger'. Blogger is a blogspot equivalent owned by Google and enables any individual to store information on a blog of their own. Blogger is unique to its rivals as it is fast and easy to organise the blog, however many posts or members you have on it. Facebook played a prominent role ont he post production side as it allowed us to put our finished products up on there to show our friends and contacts, to then receive criticisms from our peers and most importantly, target audience.
Since the start of this coursework brief up till now, I have learnt a great deal about a range of media technologies. Improving my understanding of it has made me realise how instrumental technology is in society and how it continues to advance a collosal amount every year.
Our media products predominantly use conventions of real music videos, CD/DVD digipaks and magazine advertisements. As the initial purpose of any music video is to be used as a marketing device to promote an artist/band. We decided on a performance/narrative structured video in order to publicise the band. Performance based videos are typically chosen for rock music videos (Firth 1988) an example being Rage Against The Machine's classic 'Killing in the name' (1992).
As the band we are promoting are under the broad 'rock' genre, our video offers 'rock' with a range of strong performance band close-ups with handheld camera movement. It offers a story as something less conventional. This also worked hand in hand with the band members as the whole concept of their music is a unique fusion of Reggae and Hardcore. This format also helped put the bands' message across. Straight away the video is separated from other rock band videos. Including a narrative is a good technique because it adds substance to the video. There is a story for the audience to follow. This means they may need to watch the video more then once to register everything on screen. Creating another dimension or setting to be familiar with.
Another essential convention of a music video is to create an association between the lyrics and the video - especially for one including a narrative (unless the intention is not to). Therefore, we based the narrative on domestic violence as is the theme of the song lyrics. We agreed that this is an advantage otherwise, it may become confusing for the audience and this way, it is more likely to be remembered because the visuals reinforcement the song and can paint a clearer picture in your mind. Our music video also can support Schwichtenberg's (1992) theory, which suggests that males dominate roles in music videos providing the action and women passively react. However because we film from the woman’s point of view, we show this in a bad light, in the form of abuse, which perhaps, in turn, challenges the standard conventions.
In terms of camera work, performance based videos for edgy rock bands usually have many different band close-ups, camera movement(handheld or crane) and also quick cuts to give the audience a sense of energy and being there in the live gig environment with the band. Narrative based videos have a range of shots to grasp the mood and message of a song. I think this media product follows these conventions in an attempt to look professional and to also put the intended message across on the bands' behalf.
The mise-en-scene has a big affect on the overall aesthetic of a music video. Our research on subject matter showed me how other music videos used alternative techniques to hint violence rather than showing it full-on as this would cause controversy. For example, in Ludacris and Mary J Blige’s hit 'Run away love' (2006), they include alcohol and drug abuse as factors that influence domestic violence. Therefore, in our music video, we used empty beer cans to convey the image of alcohol abuse. Furthermore, instead of showing actual physical violence, we used simple but effective techniques we picked up from other videos like using sillhouettes of the confrontation between the couple and bruises on the face of the female abusee. Other conventions we used, within the editing stages, were jump cuts from the narrative to the performance. This is typical of a performance/narrative music video. We used jump cuts throughout the video to keep the performance moving with the storyline and vice versa however I decided, as the editor, that it would make sense if there were quicker cuts in the choruses which are heavier and more energetic which contrasts with slightly laid back cuts for the cleaner, darker sounding verses, not only in order to make the video more dynamic, but to emphasise musical sections of the song, which overall affects how the audience react to the song.
A fair amount of research into digipaks and magazine advertisements (for albums or music DVDs) has given me an insight on the consistent conventions used for both adverts and digipaks. Magazine adverts tend to have a main image that corresponds with the digipak cover however, our ancillary texts don’t have the same visuals, but they both do have a relationship with the music video itself, which challenges the conventions of the ancillary texts. Apart from that, our magazine advert and digipak stick to the majority of conventions and continue the theme with the artists’ name and song in the largest font, a trademark logo and limited information.
The rear of the digipak case features common conventions like the track names and a bar code, the official 'dvd' logo and sometimes a warning about explicit lyrical content, which is up to the label, or in our case the band (as they are unsigned).
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The focus of our music video is domestic violence, for that reason we thought the magazine advert should relate to this in some way. We chose to make the central image a dead rose, because a red rose symbolises love and therefore a dead rose would be a fitting metaphor for love being dead. There were several issues when trying to create the magazine advert with the rose, because we found it difficult to make the photographed image of a dead rose blend in with the hand drawn logo for the band that looked more edgy and artistic. In the end we had to produce our own rose, by using a couple of different brushes chosen from a selection we downloaded for use with photoshop, we then used shadows to make it look darker in tone. We used a texture for the background, which we found gives more of a raw, gritty look, with a slight gradient which acts as a soft spotlight pointing towards the flower. The magazine advert does not use the same image as the digipak, because the digipak focuses more on promoting the band, then the theme of the song. There are different photographs of the band on the back cover, to familiarise them with the consumer. This can be seen as a downside and affect the combo of the ancillary texts as the consumer does not have one significant image to recognise the digipak by. Nonetheless, I think our music video could get away with use of different images, since the video is constructed with both performance and narrative. Photographs of the band are conventional in performance structured videos resulting in the blend of the two modes appearing compatible with that of the ancillary texts.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Our target audience are males and females aged 16-20. We showed our video and print production to a sample of our target audience and asked them to comment on their likes and dislikes. We also put it all up on facebook to show receive some thorough feedback Overall, we received a very positive reply, the majority of people commented on how we cut between performance and narrative in the music video. A handful of people commented on their favourite parts and also on the jaunty camera techniques used for the performance closeups which added urgency. Many people also liked the design and colour scheme of the print production, particularly picking up on the logo and fonts used on both print products. After receiving such good feedback, we felt not to change much as myself and the group were always asking of peoples opinions through the production process. This led to constant idea development, to improve whilst producing.
In conclusion, I learnt more about what catches the eye of the audience, this helped me with choosing colour schemes and simplifying layouts, video sequences or designs in order to make them more big and bold.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In the research and planning stages, we used the internet copious amounts in order to complete our research document, which then led to the planning stage and continued to be at our disposal throughout the planning stage for idea development or if we had any general queries. Two websites that helped me most were 'Google' and 'Youtube' and were both at our disposal. Google is by far the best search engine and comes up with billions of results relating to your search therefore, it was very flexible. Youtube helped me on having access to watching the majority of music videos that have been released into the media. This is part of secondary research. Its extremely helpful as you have the freedom to find what you intend for free! It helped a great deal for me during post-production, as the editor, it enabled me to find out more about software the college had available as I was a beginner with most of the programmes and had to adapt swiftly. Although our teacher handed out a manual for the 'Canon XM2 Digital Video Camera' we used for filming and one for 'Final Cut Pro'- the editing software we used for the bulk of our video, which both helped a great deal, I did a bit of research for myself about a few techniques and fundamentals used in editing and also asked a couple of professionals for any first hand advice. Finding out simple things for example at the start of editing, how to 'mark a significant beat on the timeline'. This made my life alot easier as I marked every significant beat in the entire track before I introduced any of the visual footage, which later locked onto each clip allowing me to cut to the beat without any worries. Being the drummer of the band and also writing the song, gave me an advantage on the editing side, as I knew the song very well and was able cut clips in time. After I had cut the whole video, I added a grade to the video to give it more of a professional look with 'Quicklooks', a plugin which works in harmony with 'Final Cut Pro' which allows you to edit the colour.
We were provided with the 'Canon XM2 Digital Video Camera' for filming. Digital cameras are of a very high quality and a high resolution, giving the picture better definition over an old film camera. This camera had a number of useful features which helped us in the filming process for example, optical zoom and white balance. The fact it was digital helped us essentially at the capturing and editing stages. If we had an analog, film camera, capturing would have taken a lot longer as it is on tape, and during editing stages, would have taken extremely long, especially if you cut a clip and then decide you need seconds of it back, then you are in a sticky situation.. However todays' computer software technology (Final Cut Pro) has saved everyone from the disappointment and is very straight forward and been reliable with our video.
For both the magazine advertisement and the digipak, we used 'Adobe Photoshop'. This package was very straight forward and user friendly. As it is an 'industry standard' package, it has a range of features. As I have learnt a little bit about the software in A level Photography, I managed to get to grips with the features available, in order to create the digipak dvd cover. I used a logo that I had drawn before-hand, scanned it, cleaned it up in photoshop boosting the hard lines, and filled inside the letters with solid colour for the logo to stand out. For the digipak cover we chose orange as it doesnt clash with any other colours on its background. We changed the colour of the logo for the magazine advert to a dark red, to match with the red rose. But still used the same hand drawn logo type face to be consistent.
Finally, I used Google Documents for most of my essays and reports. It is a fairly new free feature offered by google, qhich allows you to access documents online from anywhere in the world. I uploaded everything to a 'Blogger'. Blogger is a blogspot equivalent owned by Google and enables any individual to store information on a blog of their own. Blogger is unique to its rivals as it is fast and easy to organise the blog, however many posts or members you have on it. Facebook played a prominent role ont he post production side as it allowed us to put our finished products up on there to show our friends and contacts, to then receive criticisms from our peers and most importantly, target audience.
Since the start of this coursework brief up till now, I have learnt a great deal about a range of media technologies. Improving my understanding of it has made me realise how instrumental technology is in society and how it continues to advance a collosal amount every year.
Ameera's Evaluation
View more presentations from guest325142.
View more presentations from guest325142.
View more presentations from ameerat.
View more presentations from ameerat.
Gavin's Evaluation
In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Music videos can be characterised by three broad categories performance, narrative and concept driven. Our video is a combination of two styles, performance and narrative. For example blink 182 “Adam song” uses both a complex narrative and concept to engage their, challenging the normal conventions of rock videos. In our video we use such conventions, yet reach new standards of new rock videos. This way the audience can relate our music video to famous rock videos as it has aspects of new material out today. This is good because in some aspects it separates the band from other rock bands such as “Linkin Park”. A combination of performance and narrative is a good balance, as it shows footage of the band performing and their performance skills, also shows what the song is about by showing narrative clips.
To help the audience understand the song and video more, we created a relationship between the both. By the lyrics of the song, we were able to create a story which linked our song and human issues which some people could relate to. This helps the audience understand the song easier. In our case the issue was domestic violence, we learnt this through the song lyrics “she don’t sing no more, left on that kitchen floor, husband went through that door, he left her for that, fucking whore”. So we based our story on a couple where the relationship is dominated by the male by using abusive language and action. This resulted in the woman being depressed and eventually leaving the man.
Camera work and editing was very important in our media product as it was a way to capture our audience eye, also small minor details added to our finish product to make it different from others. Our performance clips created a live band performance feel, so people can see the quality of the band and their music. We wanted to create an edgy feel so we used many different angled shots and close ups to create a concert based relationship between the band and the audience. We used different lighting colours which created a bizarre effect. Our narrative clips used normal lighting because we didn’t want confuse the audience too much with the performance, we wanted both conventions to stand out. How ever we did use some effects which would surprise the audience, we were able to create an effect of making our lead singer seem like a ghost and having our female actress bee in the same room but not seeing the lead singer. Little effects like this created our end product. For example Eminem – Stan, this video is also about violence and abuse, this video created a dark and lonely effect, this was created by effects such as lightning, dark lighting and rain noises. Then at the en shot, with Eminem sitting by the window, every time the lightning stroke, a reflection of Stan appeared. We used a similar effect to portray a ghost effect.
Our media product also includes a digipack which includes a DVD of the music video, the DVD front cover and an magazine advert. By research we have gain knowledge of the conventions in album covers and magazine adverts. We wanted to present the DVD cover by focusing on the band, so we used images from a professional photo shoot to portray this. Our magazine advert was a little different however it still had a link to the band. By using dark and sharp colours were able to create an advert which was simple yet eye-catching effect.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Alongside of the music video, the Digi-Pak helps us portray a certain image of the band towards the public. The magazine advert is more focused on the band single “No More”. The song is about a couple with corruption in their relationship, which leads to domestic violence. We tried to show a dark but eye capturing affect. So we decided to use roses to portray this image. Rose can symbolise love, but a dead rose can symbolise dead love, this links to the relationship between the couple as the love between them is dead. We used very dark colours to create a lonely effect to show the emotions of the female.
The DVD cover was different from the magazine advert because we focused more on the band than the single. We used an image of the band which included all the members to show the audience who they are listening to. Also it has in bold letters “Tarantula” which is the band name. We used clear and straight forward methods to present the DVD cover because we didn’t want to create anything complex which would confuse the audience.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We surveyed a sample of our target audience aged 16-20 both male and female to gain insight into the positives of the video and also any criticism in order to improve the overall material before wider exposure. Asking peoples opinions in different parts of the production stage allowed the constant development of the project. One of our peers believed that a few more effects would have made the video look better and taking that into account we would have done so if we were to film again.
Our target audience’s feedback was generally very good. We received a good response from the production blending and also in good narration of the music video. People also expressed interest in the design and colour scheme of the print production.
From our audience feedback as a group we decided not to change as much as previously discussed due to the overall positive feedback. We did not learn very much from the feedback however it has played a great role in giving us an insight as to how to go about making video and ancillary texts.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Our main source of research was secondary research; the internet was used the most. Search engines came in hand when research was carried out. We used popular search engines such as Google. This gave us a wide arrange of information as it is the most used search engine in the world, however it had its downfalls, because Google was so popular, the search field was too big and caused confusion. Youtube was also a very helpful source, it allowed us to watch professional music videos and see how things are done in the industry. Youtube helped us analyse music videos and compare them to others. Youtube allowed us to stop, play and pause the clips which made it easier to analyse them.
We used the Canon XM2 Digital Video Camera for filming our music video. This camera had many features which were able to help us create a professional media product. The camera had 20x optical zoom and super low light performance.
We used Final Cut Pro to edit our product, this was a major advantage as the software was a new and updated software and we could easily adapt to the software’s features. Final Cut Pro was running on a highly generated Apple Macintosh which was only recently introduced to the college.
To create the digipack we used Adobe Photoshop. This allowed us to improve the quality of the images being presented to our audience. This also introduce new effects that were not commonly known to us to help create a better product overall. Photoshop gives a more professional approach to our product, for example our magazine advert was majorly influenced by features on Photoshop. We took an image of a rose from the internet, however it didn’t blend very well with the band name on the advert, so Photoshop helped us to create colour effects which made the advert easy to the eye.
To gain audience feedback we used Youtube and Facebook. Youtube was very useful as it is a popular online streaming site providing users with a platform to share media, allowing an audience of millions to view and also provide feedback on a video of any production scale. Facebook provided service to share the video amongst our friends and contacts. During our production stage were uploaded our documentation onto a blog. The blog allows the audience to see our production stages and view the types of information were receiving during our research process.
During the production stage of this project, I have learnt many things in the media industry and how thing are done professionally, also on the way I have picked up many skills which would help me in the near future.
Music videos can be characterised by three broad categories performance, narrative and concept driven. Our video is a combination of two styles, performance and narrative. For example blink 182 “Adam song” uses both a complex narrative and concept to engage their, challenging the normal conventions of rock videos. In our video we use such conventions, yet reach new standards of new rock videos. This way the audience can relate our music video to famous rock videos as it has aspects of new material out today. This is good because in some aspects it separates the band from other rock bands such as “Linkin Park”. A combination of performance and narrative is a good balance, as it shows footage of the band performing and their performance skills, also shows what the song is about by showing narrative clips.
To help the audience understand the song and video more, we created a relationship between the both. By the lyrics of the song, we were able to create a story which linked our song and human issues which some people could relate to. This helps the audience understand the song easier. In our case the issue was domestic violence, we learnt this through the song lyrics “she don’t sing no more, left on that kitchen floor, husband went through that door, he left her for that, fucking whore”. So we based our story on a couple where the relationship is dominated by the male by using abusive language and action. This resulted in the woman being depressed and eventually leaving the man.
Camera work and editing was very important in our media product as it was a way to capture our audience eye, also small minor details added to our finish product to make it different from others. Our performance clips created a live band performance feel, so people can see the quality of the band and their music. We wanted to create an edgy feel so we used many different angled shots and close ups to create a concert based relationship between the band and the audience. We used different lighting colours which created a bizarre effect. Our narrative clips used normal lighting because we didn’t want confuse the audience too much with the performance, we wanted both conventions to stand out. How ever we did use some effects which would surprise the audience, we were able to create an effect of making our lead singer seem like a ghost and having our female actress bee in the same room but not seeing the lead singer. Little effects like this created our end product. For example Eminem – Stan, this video is also about violence and abuse, this video created a dark and lonely effect, this was created by effects such as lightning, dark lighting and rain noises. Then at the en shot, with Eminem sitting by the window, every time the lightning stroke, a reflection of Stan appeared. We used a similar effect to portray a ghost effect.
Our media product also includes a digipack which includes a DVD of the music video, the DVD front cover and an magazine advert. By research we have gain knowledge of the conventions in album covers and magazine adverts. We wanted to present the DVD cover by focusing on the band, so we used images from a professional photo shoot to portray this. Our magazine advert was a little different however it still had a link to the band. By using dark and sharp colours were able to create an advert which was simple yet eye-catching effect.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Alongside of the music video, the Digi-Pak helps us portray a certain image of the band towards the public. The magazine advert is more focused on the band single “No More”. The song is about a couple with corruption in their relationship, which leads to domestic violence. We tried to show a dark but eye capturing affect. So we decided to use roses to portray this image. Rose can symbolise love, but a dead rose can symbolise dead love, this links to the relationship between the couple as the love between them is dead. We used very dark colours to create a lonely effect to show the emotions of the female.
The DVD cover was different from the magazine advert because we focused more on the band than the single. We used an image of the band which included all the members to show the audience who they are listening to. Also it has in bold letters “Tarantula” which is the band name. We used clear and straight forward methods to present the DVD cover because we didn’t want to create anything complex which would confuse the audience.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
We surveyed a sample of our target audience aged 16-20 both male and female to gain insight into the positives of the video and also any criticism in order to improve the overall material before wider exposure. Asking peoples opinions in different parts of the production stage allowed the constant development of the project. One of our peers believed that a few more effects would have made the video look better and taking that into account we would have done so if we were to film again.
Our target audience’s feedback was generally very good. We received a good response from the production blending and also in good narration of the music video. People also expressed interest in the design and colour scheme of the print production.
From our audience feedback as a group we decided not to change as much as previously discussed due to the overall positive feedback. We did not learn very much from the feedback however it has played a great role in giving us an insight as to how to go about making video and ancillary texts.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Our main source of research was secondary research; the internet was used the most. Search engines came in hand when research was carried out. We used popular search engines such as Google. This gave us a wide arrange of information as it is the most used search engine in the world, however it had its downfalls, because Google was so popular, the search field was too big and caused confusion. Youtube was also a very helpful source, it allowed us to watch professional music videos and see how things are done in the industry. Youtube helped us analyse music videos and compare them to others. Youtube allowed us to stop, play and pause the clips which made it easier to analyse them.
We used the Canon XM2 Digital Video Camera for filming our music video. This camera had many features which were able to help us create a professional media product. The camera had 20x optical zoom and super low light performance.
We used Final Cut Pro to edit our product, this was a major advantage as the software was a new and updated software and we could easily adapt to the software’s features. Final Cut Pro was running on a highly generated Apple Macintosh which was only recently introduced to the college.
To create the digipack we used Adobe Photoshop. This allowed us to improve the quality of the images being presented to our audience. This also introduce new effects that were not commonly known to us to help create a better product overall. Photoshop gives a more professional approach to our product, for example our magazine advert was majorly influenced by features on Photoshop. We took an image of a rose from the internet, however it didn’t blend very well with the band name on the advert, so Photoshop helped us to create colour effects which made the advert easy to the eye.
To gain audience feedback we used Youtube and Facebook. Youtube was very useful as it is a popular online streaming site providing users with a platform to share media, allowing an audience of millions to view and also provide feedback on a video of any production scale. Facebook provided service to share the video amongst our friends and contacts. During our production stage were uploaded our documentation onto a blog. The blog allows the audience to see our production stages and view the types of information were receiving during our research process.
During the production stage of this project, I have learnt many things in the media industry and how thing are done professionally, also on the way I have picked up many skills which would help me in the near future.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Copyright Clearance
14 Dukes Avenue
Wealdstone
Harrow
HA1 1XP
To Daniel Bond (member of Tarantula)
As we discussed, we are a group of students studying A2 Media Studies at Harrow Weald College. As part of our A-level cirriculum, we are making a music video and hope to use your song "No More". This would involve posting the video up on YouTube.We would like to request your permisson to use your band and music to produce a music video and digi-pak.
Kind Regards,
Ameera Tayabali
Producer
Ray Poole
Media Studies Tutor
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
