Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Here are six examples of how we have used real media texts to influence and inspire us in our own work. We wanted to create a typical 'Pop' music video therefore we used many techniques which we have seen within existing, professional work. As you can see the main artists videos that have influence our work are; Pixie Lott, The Black Eyed Peas and of course, our chosen artist, Jordin Sparks. We were particularly inspired by the original video for the song we chose as it also gave a clear narrative and followed the lyrics in the song, visually. Overall we believe that we have given a successful representation of the song and the genre that we chose.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

As part of our coursework we had to produce a number of products, we wanted to ensure that each product showed clear similarity so it was certain to audience what we were trying to represent. Throughout our video it is clear that there is a dominant female character, we wanted to ensure this in our print work also. We did this by focusing specifically on the character alone, experimenting with a range of clothing and make up for each individual image, this allowed us to represent and portray the personality of the character. As a group we feel our ancillary tasks compliment our main product very well as they reflect clearly what the song is about, with the use of print we were able to clearly represent the switch in character personality and create this specific post feminist role model we were aiming for. The use of video helped us to tell the story and represent the issues and difficulties the character is faced with, and how she manages to turn it around to gain her own way.

The print work alone is a strong representation of the genre of the music video, the background of the images is mainly dark, but covered with a spread of deep pink colour, the focal point of the images being the female character is a lot brighter and takes of the majority of the image. Along with various effects from photoshop and specific lighting we were able to represent a sense of glamour and pop.

The song is about relationships, promiscuity and lust for the opposite sex we were able to represent this through minor effects and symbolic details, such as the use of deep pink lipstick to represent a sense of love or lust within the character and the use of large false eye lashes covering most of the face, this give the subject a blank expression but creates this sense of a threat and power from within the subjects face. Overall we think all three aspects of our project have worked well in creating a successful outcome.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

er our rough cut, we got some of our peers to comment on how they thought our video looked so far. Most of the comments where positive so we were happy to carry on editing as we had been. Laura however pointed out that the lighting at the beginning of our video was poor as it was shot at night time, to justify this we did aim for our video to look dark and grungy to contrast with later shots in the video at the party. Also with the night settings and the train station as our location the audience automatically can see the story starting and setting a narrative, as the girls are all dressed up and look ready to party. The shadows that are created within the settings I believe give a mysterious aura around the characters.

Many people commented on how our video ended, saying that it was their favourite section to the 3 minute video. We tried to follow the stereotypical film within a video which was a treat we found when researching and planning. The comical and humorous ending to the video left the audience with a feel good, girl power type feeling and tied up loose ends in the narrative.

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

When constructing our coursework we used various types of programs to help us. The main programs that we used we Adobe Premiere and Photoshop.

<----- Using Premiere

We used Premiere for the basic construction and editing of the music video. We also took advantage of this equipment to take our video a step further, using the effects tools to create our effects in our video coursework.

Here are a couple of examples;

We also used photoshop to create our print work for our coursework. (CD advertisement poster and digipack) We used many different techniques with the program and used it to its full potential.

Photoshoot Two

After completing our first photoshoot successfully we then began to plan and put together some ideas for our second photoshoot.

The mise en scene for the this photoshoot was significantly important as this was the best way to represent the right character to our audience.
The contrast between the two shoots shows a switch from a very confident, glamorous female character to a very personal and secretive character. The choice of clothing for the shoot allowed us to create a very sexual yet powerful dominant female. The focal point of the image is quite clearly the face and with the use of deep pink lipstick against the light tones of her face, we were able created a sense of innocence yet a hint of lust and anger at the same time, again portraying this shift and change in the character. We added the use of a top hat along with a broach and feathers to still portray a sense of glamour and fame within the character, the use of a darker eye shadow almost meant the character was hiding behind something, unable to face up to the camera, this again represents promiscuity and secrecy.

This is one of the selected images from our second photoshoot that we used in our album covers.

Music posters research

Here are a few examples of different posters that we looked at when we were creating the advertisement poster for our music CD. We have commented on each one stating what we thought were good and bad points.

This is a great advert. As Gwen Stefani is a famous, popular and a well established artist, she can afford to risk having the smaller image of the album she is advertising in the bottom corner. The advert will still sell hundreds of thousands of copies as the main attraction of the advert (the image of Gwen) will draw fans in and interest them enough to read the advert and buy the album.

We like this design because it is simple and straight to the point. It immediately tells you what its advertising, who it is, and gives a taste of what sort of genre of music it is through this font and picture.

These adverts have no dates for the release of the album or any indication of where the album can be purchased from. Britney Spears is that well-known and established that it probably won’t make much of a difference that this information is not include on the advert because she knows she will sell millions of copies anyway.

This advert for Madonna’s album ‘Sorry’ applies the same method as the album ‘Love Angel Music Baby’ by Gwen Stefani. The colours used look professional as they have stuck to a basic colour pallet of pinks and purples, very feminine. The layout works but in my opinion could be a lot stronger.

Props

Here are some images of various props that we used within out music video.

Working With Photoshop

Once we had finished both photoshoots and as a group narrowed down a spread of several images to use for our work, we then started to experiment with various effects to enhance and progress our work further.

With the aid of Adobe Photoshop CS4 we were able to access a vast range of effects and techniques that could be practiced on our images. The main characted in our piece is portrayed as a very young and glamorous character, but as seen in the video there are other sides to her, with the use of such effects we were able to represent both personalities.

Theoriginal images were quite dull with selective ligthing throughout so we decided to add a specific colour to each album cover. We used a deep pink for each cover linking similarly to Red the colour of love and lust, this was chosen to portray the more devious and envious side of the character.

Once we had selected a spread of images to use for our album covers, i then began to add the effects and techniques that would enhance the quality of our work alot further.

Here is an example of one of our best images, we can see the light used is very selective and focuses on the subject very well.
But there is quite alot of negative dark areas, this draws away the attention of the character and drains out the image.
With the aid of various brush and pen tools i was able to create trails around the subject, as seen below, i then used a simple stroke technique to create a white blur around the trails. Following this i added an outter glow effect with the selective colouring, again being deep pink, i then experimented with the size and shape of the glow to create a successful glow and light trail.

Along with other similar techniques i progressed this effect numerously throughout the vast majority of our images, this is something we felt as a group really helped capture the image and look we were hoping to create.

Before we used the song we had chosen, we only thought it polite to try and contact the artist of the track, Jordin Sparks. We decided the easiest and quickest way to do so would be to post a comment on some sort of online blog or official fan site e.g Myspace music, twitter etc. We decided to go with Facebook.

Here is the message which we sent.




' Hey, my name is Daniel and I am from Winstanley College in Wigan. For our A-level media coursework, I along side 2 other class mates have to create a music video.
We have chosen to do the music video to your song ‘SOS’ (let the music play).

I hope that you will be alright with us using this song as we wanted to create a fun, upbeat, song and dance video.

Thanks : ) '

Inspiration

When watching and researching music videos, we were inspired from a range of artists and their videos but mainly from the the same genre of ‘R&B’ and Popular music. We often said that we would love to do sections and key shots of our own video in the style of other successful and popular videos.

Here are a few key shots/frames which have inspired us from other music videos.

This is the rough cut of the first minute to our music video.



Here are some suggestions and feedback from other students who watched our work.

Good points: Its looks like a professional music video, there a clear beginnings of a narrative, good locations and costumes, an impressive use of effects in the video, very good continuity editing.

Bad points: Some of the timings for shots are not long enough (it would help the audience understand the story more if shots were held on screen for longer).

Areas of change: Shot timings, crack on with the editing because at the moment there is not much to watch, include more close ups (of the singers face) to widen the variety and range of shots.

One student was critical of the lighting in the shots on the train station. The dim, low lighted location was intentional as we wanted the narrative to be as clear as possible. The story takes place late evening, and we decided to use this location as the lighting evidently indicates this. Receiving feedback from fellow students (people the age range our video is aimed at) was really useful as it has given us things to change and even things to cut out completely in order to develop our project further.

Photoshoot one

After looking into various album covers and artist research we had a general idea on what kind of theme/look we were hoping to create.

As we were using Jordin Sparks as our song choice, we thought looking at her album work was the best place to start, from this we could grasp a basic idea of mise on scene. This would help us in every aspect of print as we can set a way forward in our work.

We're hoping to represent a various spread of qualities and aspects of our subjects personality, but at the same time sticking to our choice of genre. As a group we felt the cover for Jordin sparks album was very relevant both to her own work and ours, as this represented everything we were looking for. The subject is the focal point of the image and is shown dressed in dark yet sparkly clothing this presents the glamorous side of the character, along with the use of gold colouring in the background presenting a sense of wealth and fame. The way the text is portrayed with the use of a sort of arching shape behind the subject really pushes forward the text in a sort of three dimensional aspect. The clothing and the colour is suited well to her personality type, as we can see from her face she is quite confident and cocky about herself, grabbing the seem of her jackect and smirking causally.

This is one of many images from our first shoot, i feel we were able to present this confident forward character we saw in the work of Jordin sparks with the use of clothing, colour and lighting. We are planning to do another photoshoot to present another aspect of the character a contrasting switch from this cocky confident person to a more personal side.

Digipack Research

Along with our music promo, we have to create a digipack. Before this we've researched a wide range of album covers over a different spread of music genres.



Our initial ideas for the digipack are a good range of images that present an "edgy pop" look. We're thinking of doing a simplistic image that has a main focal point, this being the subject/popstar, then overlaying this with possible various effects and eye catching typography.

Initial Ideas

Danielle Gregory, Daniel Lacey and Dominic Yates


After our initial research and ideas, we have decided on a brief to use. Our task is to produce a promotion package for the relase of an album, to include a music promo video, a digipack consisting of a cd package and a magazine advertisement.

We first decided to research and look into different genres and aspects of music promo's that we could use, we had a look at numerous examples on youtube that we were interested in working with.

Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling



This video caught our eye, as it matches up with the criteria and ideas we have been discussing, it shows a great build up in the video for example the characters preparing for the party and making there way there, this is something that we feel could work really well for the genre of video we are thinking of. An abstract range of various lighting, props and effects are shown throughout at a party this is something we have thought about for our video.

Lady Gaga - Just Dance



Again this video shows great use of a party scene, but carries with it this very "edgy pop" genre we are looking for. The video consists of many simple but yet abstract close ups that we could create quite easily and affectively in our work.

Pixie Lott - Boys and Girls



Like many other videos we thought our work should show some form or dancing or choreography, this video shows a great example of a group dance routine, and other various shots such as the establishing shot syncing character movement with the music. We aim to do something similar when regarding dancing and character movement.

After much research and discussion we decided on a song, we have chosen Jordin Sparks - SOS to use for our music promo.

Although we least favor this video to the others we have researched we are still considering various ideas from the video for our own work. The story behind the video represents a complicated relationship problem between 2 girls and a boy, this can be followed quite easily through the lyrics and footage.

Whats up girlfriend
Somethings goin on
You got a look about you
Tell me what's wrong
(Is that your) boyfriend?
Handsome with that girl on the floor
We gotta dance now
Time to show our weapons of choice

(BRIDGE)
(S-S-S-S-)S.O.S
Is All I Need to send
Just A Little Text
I'm Calling All The Girls
(F-F-F-F-)F.Y.I
You Know its not the end
Don't take it lying down
No crying now it's your world

(CHORUS)
Let The Music Play
You Wont Get Away
Just Get the Groove
And then he'll come back to you again
(Let it Play!)
Let the music play
He wont get away
This groove he cant ignore
He wont leave you anymore
(Let it Play!)

S.O.S
(S-S-S-S-)S.O.S
S.O.S

That crazy chick
Don't know who she's messin' with
Look in her eyes
She's mentally undressing him
(Now Listen) girlfriend
Lets step back right now
Better get your hands off
(Yeah) 'Cos we' about to get down

(BRIDGE 2)
(S-S-S-S-)S.O.S
I'm calling out again
Just a little text
And you're surrounded by your girls
(F-F-F-F-)F.Y.I know how its gonna end
Wont take it lying down
No crying now it's your world

(CHORUS)
Let The Music Play
You Wont Get Away
Just Get the Groove
Jordin Sparks S.o.s lyrics found on http://www.directlyrics.com/jordin-sparks-sos-lyrics.html
And then he'll come back to you again
(Let it Play!)
Let the music play
He wont get away
This groove he cant ignore
He wont leave you anymore

Let The Music Play
You Wont Get Away
Just Get the Groove (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
And then he'll come back to you again
(Let it Play!)
Let the music play
He wont get away
This groove he cant ignore (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
He wont leave you anymore
(Let it Play!)

Get it on, no one stands a chance
Can't get enough and when we start to dance
Come with me now
Gonna shake it down (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
Just blow it up
Gonna hit the ground
(Hit the ground!)
Get it on no one stands a chance
Can't get enough (Ohwoah)
And when we start to dance
Come with me now
Gonna shake it down (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
Just blow it up
Gonna hit the ground
(Hit the ground!)

(CHORUS)
Let The Music Play
You Wont Get Away
Just Get the Groove (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
And then he'll come back to you again (he'll come back to you ohwoah)
Let the music play
He wont get away (get away)
This groove he cant ignore (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
He wont leave you anymore
(Let it Play!)
Let The Music Play
You Wont Get Away (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
Just Get the Groove
And then he'll come back to you again
(Let it Play!)
Let the music play
He wont get away (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
This groove he cant ignore
He wont leave you anymore
(Let it Play!)
Let The Music Play
You Wont Get Away (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
Just Get the Groove
And then he'll come back to you again
(No No No)
Let the music play
He wont get away (S-S-S-S-S.O.S)
This groove he cant ignore
He wont leave you anymore
(Let it Play!)

A2 Group 04

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