Music video and ancillary text evaluation

My Product conforms to most of the conventions of real media products abiding my Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music videos. This is shown in my products in my ancillary texts as well as my final Music Video. Andrew Goodwin’s theory states that in a generic music video there will be a clear link between the lyrics and visuals. I used this within my music video such as in one shot the lyrics say “lest’ you find my strangling fingers wrapped around tight” I used a shot in which the character is shown grabbing the female character by her neck in a way which I represented as a mixture of abusive behaviour with lust as he pulls into her.

It is again shown within the narrative of the music video itself. The Male character (my artist) is shown singing the lyrics as part of the narrative itself. I used the lyrics to show the males half of an argument. This is because the story is shown almost backwards from his point of view as he brings himself through his past to discover where he went wrong in this relationship. I wanted to focus on the males story because he is my artist and I believed that the visuals and the lyrics would fit in better if the story follows his search for retribution in himself rather than the female character’s story as a victim of the Suggested violence.

One way I do not believe my video conforms to Real products is by not physically sexualising neither the women nor the men. This was done deliberately to help the audience to pay attention to the narrative. I want them to understand these characters on an emotional level and if I were to have sexualized either of these characters (excluding the sexual tension shown between the two characters within the narrative) this would not have been possible to achieve. I did not want to conform to Laura Mulvey's 'Male Gaze' theory that states that the camera is from a males point of view. This is why women are heavily sexualised in film, I did not want to conform with this as i believed it would hinder the audiences focus from the narrative itself. I also connote towards violence between the two characters with sexual tension this is similar to Eminem and Rhianna's video for 'Love the way you lie'   Another Convention of my music video that conforms to real products is in my performance shots. My artist 'Lee Frank' is a singer/guitarist Therefore I show this within my video as a character this is popular within all genre's of music such as Adam Lavine from Maroon 5 would play the main character in the narratives of their music videos. This is also a way of enabling the audience to identify with your solo male artist and see he is a talented singer/songwriter and performer while not being a part of the pop culture manufactured artist. 

I believe that the combination of my main and ancillary texts capture the Impression I wanted to produce for my artist. When thinking of the interpretations of the genre I believe the musicians profile needed to be emotionally driven. The mixture of this between powerful shots, my emotional narrative behind the break up of my artist’s relationship with the ancillary texts such as my Digipak and my poster both have my character being represented as emotionally wrecked or mental instability this is what I aimed to achieve within my ancillary and main texts.

As a part of my A2 Film Studies course we have been learning about postmodernism as the idea of intertextuality within the film 'Fight Club'. I wanted to include a reference to my understanding of this concept, so towards the end of my music video Lee's face becomes distorted and out of focus, to show his emotional confusion or 'breakdown'. I took inspiration for this shot from Finchers 'Fight Club'  which he had pastiched from a famous film 'Apocalypse Now' where Marlon Brando's character descends into utter madness.

As you can see in my Digipak I have used a mixture of dark and light lighting this is a representation of my characters painful and dark past with the enlightenment behind exploring the mistakes he made and looking for retribution for this. This is also apparent in my video and is why I had shown the narrative about his past in black and white while the performance shots contained a lot of dark lighting. This combined with bright lighting in some of the narrative that contains this disgust in his actions and pain this has caused him as he realises his mistakes. This is again shown in my poster even with a bright orange filter exposing the lighting along with the bright “energy” around him that represents his enlightenment. However even in this Photo the artist is shown half in darkness this is once again to represent the darkness in his past what he attempting to get over.

            

Throughout making both of my ancillary texts and my main Production I spent a lot of time speaking to members of my target audience. I would be asking for their opinion on what they would expect to see in an artist like this. This led to most of my creative decisions being made. From the appearance of my artist to the way I represented the narrative of my video. After producing my ancillary and main products I presented them to my focus group and they all agreed that this is what they would have expected to see from an artist of this genre. These choices I made due to their feedback seemed to work well within the combination of my texts.

Throughout my Texts I used a lot of different technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of the creation of my artist. I was originally using software on computers to note down my planning (props needed, locations etc.), my shooting script, designing my storyboards. These were useful as at anytime I could add, re-draft and edit things to any of these stages in my planning.

When filming and doing my photo shoots I used a Nikon DSLR Digital camera, which filmed in up to 1080p. I used this as I could adjust the settings such as, aperture, focus etc. with this I also used extra lighting equipment such as LED panels and a LED camera mount. I also used both Strobe and Continues lighting during my photo shoots I used these to capture the appropriate lighting for the representation I was attempting to get across.

I also used many software on computers for my editing and Post production additions. I used Final Cut Express to edit my video as it is a useful non-linear editing software that enabled me to use effects such as colour corrector and many more to get the representation I was attempting to capture within my video. For my Post-production I used Live type to add my titles and writing onto my ancillary texts. I used Photoshop to edit my ancillary texts. As it also enables me to edit the still images in a way, which captures the representation, I was attempting to achieve within my video. So throughout every step of the process of creating this artist to the evaluation staged of my production I have used several technologies’ that have enabled me to capture the image I wanted for these texts.

Planning + Time sheet

While planning I had many ideas on which way I wanted the story to go before finally deciding on which one I wanted. I made 3-4 different storyboards, mind maps, shooting scripts etc. here is an example of two of my storyboards. These are also posted on a separate post’s with a brief comment describing and explaining them.

  

I made a small time sheet in which me any help such as extra camera crew/lighting and the actors I needed were all free. Due to our work schedules this was mostly three days a week usually either Thursday’s or Tuesday’s from the 18th of December to the 3rd of February. A loose schedule we would also film whenever else we were free. My Actors were chosen as; Me as the main actor as I knew exactly when I was free and from past experiences I knew I needed someone reliable to be my main actor/artist. Mellissa Templeman I chose her as my actress as I also knew that she would be reliable as an actress and had similar free time to me. She also studied drama In her time at school so I could trust her to be sensible and understand what was needed of her at a professional level.

i also created a time sheet which we closely followed unless we could not continue on that date because of unforeseen circumstances. 

Research into target audience

My research into a target audience was mainly from a focus group in which I presented my ideas to my teacher, classmates and some friends of mine. However due to the niche target audience of this genre this was hard to find. I gave them a questionnaire to fill out and played the music back to them. I then also had a sheet prepared in which they would examine my blog and my progress as a secondary source for my target audience and as feedback on the work I had been doing. This has helped me get a clear view on my target audience on 18-25 year olds and mostly students. Most of the people who enjoyed the music and enjoyed the genre were more indie and hipster. This gave me a clear view on my target audience. My core audience was more male then female however a mixture of both enjoyed the music this could just be due to the people . I know from my research that my audience to also be fans of artist’s such as: Frank Turner and Mumford and sons I found this because they are similar artists and I found this from my questionnaire as well.

Social media would be a very important thing for my artist as he has that niche target audience his cd’s are not likely to be sold in shops such as hmv and so it would be more likely to be advertised on social media websites and be available for download on Bandcamp or ITunes. And physical copies would be available for purchase in Music shops that specialise on niche music as well as available for order online.

Research into Digipak's and posters for my ancillary text's

Digipak

I concentrated my researched of Digipaks from the artist “Kings of Leon – Only by the Night” This Digipak gave me the idea on the Picture of my artist where I have merged two photo’s of his face into one with different backgrounds and different lighting. This has been used to show how his mind is split in two a lighter side and a darker side. Showing his mental instability.

Digipak’s use similar conventions such as: a link to the genre and a link to the artist and album itself. Due to my folk/pop genre I needed a natural feel to my Digipak this is why I introduced the front cover, which I believe, captured the genre of music very well. Along with the use of the close/mid-shots of my artist off frame however focusing on him I attempted to achieve a sense of his emotional damage along with his ‘wild’ mental state. 

Poster

I went for a different approach on the poster and instead used a poster from a American-Korean rap artist “dumbfounded” because of the representation it uses with the overlaying images showing the artist as faded. I liked this idea, as it is similar to the representation I want from my artist. To show he is missing something in him and how much it’s affected him.

  

This is my Final Poster in comparison to the Poster I acquired my inspiration from you can clearly see where I have adapted on this idea making it my own. I used images of fire or what I wanted to represent an Energy flow around the character. This was used as a way to show the power he has acquired with his own retribution. I then introduced this with this picture of my artist half in shadow and half in light as a way to show the audience that he has a dark side. This is a reference to the narrative behind my music video.

research and planning into similar products.

Media Reflective analysis

Research and planning:

I have studied two similar music videos to my own the first was “One republic – Secrets” I used Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music videos as a guideline to analyse and interpret the techniques and the conventions of the text the conventions Andrew Goodwin’s theory follows are;

A link between the lyrics and visuals: there is an unclear link between the lyrics and visuals however what I can connote from the video is that the lyrics are describing the emotions he is expressing following the break up from a serious relationship.

Music and Visuals: the Performance based visuals are of the band performing alone in a big empty room, which I believe, fits very well with the powerful music of both the string orchestra instruments and again with the very slow paced music video in which two characters are presented they both look as if they are searching for something (Which influenced my music video partially).

Demands of the record label: throughout the video there is a lot of close-ups on the lead singer as he is considered to be attractive this will attract a higher female audience.

Treatment of the Female body: The female character is covered up most of the time however she is still very attractive and so the camera is shown tilting up her body.

Intertextual references:  throughout the video there is only one clear Intertextual reference, which is a close up of, beats headphones.

 I am looking at the lighting in the Performance based Shots as they were bright as well as the camera angles and shots that empowered the artist’s. This lighting was used for the underlying story of my character using bright lighting to show the retribution he has found and is now paying for the decisions he made in the past.

I also analysed the music video for “Brand New – Sic Transit Gloria” however the genre of music is quite different from the song I chose however the lyrics are about a narrative of running away from your problems, the confrontation and the breakdown of the characters emotions all being represented by different things happen in the narrative. I used this video as a guideline on how I wanted to interpret my own story. The use of dark lighting throughout the video also gave me inspiration on some of the performance-based shots in my video.

The conventions in my music video: As my artist is not presented as popular and has a much more niche audience I did not completely follow all of these conventions however I did conform to some of these.

Lyrics and visuals: I had a clear link between the lyrics and the visuals such as In the narrative scenes in which my artist is shown singing as communication between him and the female character.

Music and visuals: The genre of music is very natural as it mainly uses acoustic instruments this is why I used the shots of my artist playing in a natural environment. Due to the slow passed music I believe that I would have to have slow paced transitions.

Due to the fact my artist has a niche audience and the way I wanted to represent him as an artist within his genre I did not want to conform with the other three conventions that Andrew Goodwin’s theory states; Demands of the record label, the treatment of the female body and Intertextual references (excluding the biblical references throughout the lyrics).

Completed Digipak and music video

I have finished my final Digipak and Music video and shall be uploading both to my blog as soon as possible.

this is My final product for my Digipak. I believe it captures the hopelessness and natural element i attempted to also capture in the video, I was going for a representation of the characters emotions.

I will be uploading the video to this post once I upload it to an external website as it wont upload directly to my blog.

I am still trying to find a way to directly upload the video to the blog however I have uploaded a link to my video on the website vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/93493627

this is my final piece that I have had to upload onto a external website and embedded the video into my blog.

I had a lot of Inspiration for different shots in my music video. one of which is inspired from two films. apocalypse now and fight club. this shot shows my artist singing. two shots one in focus one out of focus fading between the two shots.

Shot from my video in which the fading between the distorted, unfocused shot and the in focus dark shot. I used this as a indirect representation for his emotional and mental instability. similar two that of both the films.

Shot from Fight Club in which Tyler talk Directly to the camera as it shakes showing the audience thew mental instability of his character. A very postmodern technique used in the film and the cause of my inspiration for this shot as i have been studying this film for my Film Studies exam.

Creating a Digipak and poster

Research into similar products:

For my research into a similar product i have chosen to use "kins of leon - only by the night" because i find the merged photo of the band with an eagle to be very interesting i want to use a similar technique but with as my own.  

This is the image I am discussing. I am interested in the idea of the two or ore photos edited together with a clear line defining them as two images i am also interested in the underlying image of an eagle underneath the band members. however I am 

Creating my digipak:

I have started creating my Digipak for my artist. I am experimenting with different photos i have taken during the two shoots I have done however I have a lot more ideas for more photo shoots. I shall be uploading my progress to this post.

I am currently working on my digipak, this is only a concept as I am still needing to do more work on this.

The editing process for my digipak is coming along.

I will post my final Digipak on another post with my final video.

Research into similar products: Poster

The poster i have chosen to look at is one from an American-Korean rapper named Dumbfoundead. however his music is very different to that of my artist i like the idea of the poster. 

what interests me about this poster is the overlaying images that have been merged by changing the opacity of the images themselves.

I used this technique in my own poster as you can see here. however i used it in my own way to almost picture. This is the design i chose for my poster. it is a picture i took whilst i was doing my photo shoot and the other is a photo i took of fire when i was having a bonfire.