2. Question 1.
When planning and creating our music video, for our girl band, called ‘Dragonfly’, we made sure that we would
use, develop and challenge the forms and conventions of a music video, as they are the most important rules to
follow when creating a music video, otherwise it would not work. Following the codes and conventions allows the
audience to become more familiar with the genre of the music and what the band are all about. For example, when
looking at the genre characteristics of a pop rock music video, we have made our music video to fit to the genre, as
we have shown a live performance of the song within our music video. We have defiantly used genre
characteristics when creating our music video, as for both choruses’ we have included all the band members on
stage, performing our song live, to an audience. We included the performance element into the video, as we
wanted to portray that the band play and write their music and make them more believable and there target
audience can relate to them through the lyrics. Our music video and image was inspired by a variety of different
bands, such as Warpaint, Paramore, and Haim. These are all girl bands, which all have an edgy and boho sheek look
to them. The benefit of researching into these bands is that we got a knowledge of how they have been
represented and the image they portray, which defiantly gave us ideas on our genre and image that we wanted for
our girl band, which is be believable to our target audience.
Also, we have used a sense of narrative through out our music video, which is mostly within the verses. Although it
isn’t a typical flowing narrative story, as we have made it as a montage of different shots of the band in a
documentary style. We have included a variety of different shots, which include the band at their home, writing
and playing the song, with the other shots just showing us as friends and having a lot of natural shots of us having
a laugh, which will help us relate to the audience, that we are a normal girl band and do have fun. The narrative
part of our music video is partly Cameo, as we have included the band members in the narrative yet we don’t
perform in these parts.
In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
3. …
The editing progress is one of the crucial parts when creating a music video. The reason for this is because the shots
have to be precise and selected. Also, lip syncing is one of the main conventions of a music video, so the lip syncing
defiantly has to be edited correctly, so that it looks believable to the audience that they are actually singing the song
at the exact time the song is playing. For our music video, me and charlotte were in charge of all of the editing and it
was very time consuming as the song for our music video has a very fast paste and needs a lot of short shots. The
longest shot in our music video is about 8 seconds long; all of the shots are around 3 seconds long. Taking
inconsideration of how many shots we used, I feel that we did a successful job on the editing, as we spent majority
of our time editing every day, as well as doing our Digi packs and posters.
We also used parallel editing, where we fit some specific shots to match what is said in the lyrics of the music. When
creating our music video, we made sure that we followed the Andrew Goodwin theory, as within our music video we
have included the use of several close ups. The benefit we got out of using close ups, was that it promotes the band
and familiarises their faces to the audience, which was one of the requirements of the project. We also used slow
motion within our music video, which we found was very effective, especially at the beginning of our music video,
where we are intruded, walking down the road. This created an effect of us looking edgy and quite cool. We used a
DSLR camera for this part of the video, as we found it was the most effective and gave us the best quality for what
we wanted. Also, for the performance piece we manage to use the broadcast camera for the performance piece,
which was very beneficial, as it gave us great quality and worked so well with getting smooth close up shots of us on
stage and a variety of mid shots, long shots and high/low angle shots.
Mise-en-scene is very important in our music video, as we have a very obvious performance piece running through
out, and it is important that we included all the props that were appropriate and that followed the genre of the song.
So, we made sure that it was clear that we included all of the performance equipment, instruments, stage and
lighting. This made it look more believable that we were genuinely performing on a stage. We made sure that we
included spotlights, which were directed onto each one of us. Yet, we had to make the shot lighter than we originally
wanted, so that when we edited it, we could make the change the contrast and darken it.
4. …
When looking at the costume of the band, we had to make sure it fitted to the genre of the band, the
image they want to portray and suited what they are representing in the video. We all wore casual
clothes, yet they were all quite quirky and had an edgy look to it. We also all wore red lipstick, which
stood out a lot in the music video, giving us a sense of being girly and genuine. The locations of our
music video, was one of the hardest parts when filming, as we had to change our location for the
narrative part 2-3 times. We ended up choosing one of our houses to film in. The reason for this is
because we decided on making it documentary, so it had to be natural shots and look realistic. This
included us in the bedroom, kitchen, and hallway and in our car. We did this so that we would appeal
to our audience, portraying ourselves as a genuine group of friends and looking believable. For our
performance piece, we used the drama room in our school, as it has a lot of space for us to work in
and required us with lighting equipment and a stage for us to work on.
5. Question 2.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
The main product of our project was to create a music video, and the second being to create ancillary texts, which were a Digi-pack and a
Music video poster. When creating both, we had to make sure that it was well thought about, as its purpose is to promote the band, which in
our case was a girl pop rock band called ‘Dragonfly’. The combination of our digi-packs and posters and with the main product is very
important, as it has to fit with the standard of the music video and promote the artist, as well as looking professional.
When creating my Digi pack for the band, I used the software, Photoshop. Whilst filming the shots for our music video, we planned and
delivered a photo-shoot of the band, where we produced a lot of photo’s that we could work with in a later stage, in this case, our Digi pack
and poster. The photographs that we used are all in the outdoors, where some of them are directed, where we are posing towards the
camera, where as the others are natural shots of us being together. This already shows the relation of the photos and the music video. As
with the music video we have based the narrative on documentary, and have carried on the look of the band being genuine and having fun
together through out the video and portraying them onto our Digi packs and posters, carrying on the naturalistic look. When it came to
editing the photos and forming them into the style of a Digi pack, I made sure that I thought carefully about how I edited the photos. I have
made some of the photos, bright, highly contrasted, vibrant and creative. The reason for this is because throughout the music video, there is
a constant natural lighting, with the occasional black and white shots that appear. So with the photos on the digi pack, I have included some
high contrasted black and white photos, which work very effectively and the rest are very up beat and colourful, which matches our image as
a band.
The styling of the band is familiarised in both the music video and ancillary texts, as we have made sure the band are in different clothing, yet
all have the same casual, edgy look. We made sure that we were all dressed appropriate to the image that we want to portray to the
audience, as this is what they will see when buying the Digi pack and posters, they will want it to all match up when wanting the music video.
This creates a signature look to the band, which will lead to easy promotion of the band. In one of the photos that I included on my Digi pack,
was of three scarfs hanging from a tree. The reason for this is because through out both the music video and photographs for the Digi pack
and poster, we have all either worn a scarf on body or hang it some where near to us. So I wanted to hang the scarfs on the tree, as there are
a lot of trees that appear in the digi pack, so it would all make sense. I edited the scarfs in Photoshop, so that they are all in the colour and the
background is in black and white. The reason for this is so that the scarfs represent us, as standing out from the crowd, being fun and
energetic and the black and white represented the edginess to us and us being rock. The selling point of our music video and ancillary texts
was to promote the band as being fun, energetic, genuine and exciting. I feel that both the music video and ancillary texts portray this nicely
in a sense where we feel that we would appeal to our target audience perfectly.
6.
7. Question 3.
What have you leant from your Audience Feedback?
Audience feedback is one of the most important things to consider when even beginning to think of the idea of a music video,
because when looking back at our pitch and first screening of our music video, I learnt a lot about how important the audience is,
because we realised a lot of our ideas wouldn’t work, as the locations and image of the band didn’t fit with the genre of the band
and the image that we were trying to portray. So from getting this feedback, we had to re think about what the band were trying
to represent and changed our whole idea of what our music video was going to consist of. This was so helpful for us as we would
have carried on and created a music video that would not relate to anyone, which meant that the artists wouldn’t be promoted
effectively and would not be successful. From getting audience feedback, it gives you a clear image of which the target audience
is for our band, which means that we can add more things to the music video, which would appeal to the age group. When
looking at the audience feedback of our music video, I have realised that you have to be careful that you don’t make your music
video into a short film. When taking this into consideration, I made sure that we included a lot of fast paced shots and random
shots, which would keep the audience interested and excited.
We used different types of audience feedback, such as, using social networking, where we posted the first draft of our music
video and politely asked our friends and family to comment on it with their thoughts and opinions on how they feel we have
done. Over all, we got a lot of positive feedback, where a lot of people commented on the how the editing worked really well
with the pace of the song, that the band as a whole are very believable, due to the quality of lip syncing and performance based,
and that we used a range of interesting shots. We were very happy with the feedback that we got from our friends and family.
To put the video onto the social network site, we had to convert it onto YouTube, where it got over 60 views, which means that a
lot of people have been watching, or music video.
We also created small questionnaire to give out to our target audience; which is 15-25 year olds. We included a sheet of different
fonts that we wanted to use on our Digi packs and logo, and asked people we know to fill out these sheet to pick which one they
feel goes best with the image of our band.
8.
9. Question 4.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning
and evaluation stages?
When looking at the research and planning stages, YouTube was one of the main aspects I used when researching
into different bands of our genre. By watching previous music videos from different artists, it gave us a sense of
how they created the video and why they did. It helped us collect ideas and inspiration from the videos of that
particular genre. Especially with us, we looked at a few girl bands that fit our genre perfectly, as were able to look
at how they presented themselves, by looking at their clothing and styling, which helped us a lot when creating
our image for the band. We also looked at band websites, which were very helpful to us as we could see how they
were presented through the images, and photographs, which helped us a lot when it came to creating our digi
packs and posters. Using my blog throughout the process of creating our music video, has been very useful, as it
has helped me keep up to date with what needs to be done and what I have done, enabling me to create journal
posts each week to show the process of what we are doing.
When thinking about the technology side to the process, there was a lot of technologies that were used
throughout. Final Cut Pro and Photoshop were the main programmes that were used for creating/editing the
video and to make the Digi packs and posters. As I did a lot of the editing, I had to teach myself and get help on
how to fully use Final Cut Pro, but from being on it for a long period of time, it all came naturally and was able to
do all sorts of things with the shots that I had. This included, adding effects to the shots, cutting and lengthen
them, adding text, changing the colour etc. This was very helpful in the sense of creating a visually appealing and
exciting music video. Its also the same with Photoshop, as I needed help to begin with on how to use the
programme correctly, but ended up creating the whole of my digi pack on my own whilst using the software. Not
only did we create our music video in final cut pro, we used it to create our animatic video for our storyboard,
which was useful to us.
10. The main technology that we were able to use when filming our music video was the Sony HXR
Broadcasting camera, which enabled us to get high quality shots of the performance pieces in
our music video. This was very useful as it allowed us to film a variety of different, nice flowing
quality shots for our music video. For all of the other footage that was filmed, we used a DSLR
camera with a tripod, which also was very effective and good quality for our video, as we used
this for the documentary style, and were able to hold this ourselves, which created a hand held
camera effect, which is what we wanted.
Overall I feel that there was a lot of useful technology that was used though out the creation
of our music video, and were all used effectively, especially in consideration of our genre and
were all used to fit to the conventions of a music video.
