1) In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products
In the beginning processes of choosing a song we aimed to pick a song that would aid us in developing a style that we could make an interesting band, video and ancillary tasks for. After sieving through plenty of genres and songs we landed upon Muse – House of the Rising Sun to build various productions around, we chose this as the genre of alternative rock doesn’t pigeon hole use to what we can create as the spectrum of the genre is very large. Also the band is well known and modern and all the things we want our productions to feel like but the song isn’t particularity well known as it’s a cover, this meant there wouldn’t be any unwanted Intertextuality or messages sent with the song that we didn’t create ourselves. We felt the song is a good choice as its lyrics are ambiguous and mean different things to different people and we linked them well with the message we wanted to send and the idea of the video. Like many music video directors like Michelle Gondrywe decided upon an idea before anything as a video with no message becomes like Theodore Adorno’s theory of easy listening where popular music is ‘easy listening’ as it means nothing (like modern party pop songs, made to make money and nothing else) This firmly in mind we aimed our video to comment on how music corporations have too much power and force unique artists to change how/who they are to become commercially successful, and the increasing use of illegal downloading of music takes away any money smaller indie and alternative artists would make – thus they have to turn to selling out in order to survive as artists. This strong message our band uses is similar to what people again appreciate in the music industry, songs and artist that mean something amongst the sea of auto tuned pointless pop acts. This challenges conventions of some real media products, as already mentioned a lot of music nowadays is ‘Rebecca Black’ type music – auto tuned meaningless pop. So a new fresh edgy feel with real social messages backing it would go against the modern music scene, but as we have taken our inspiration from artists like Muse, Biffy Clyro, and The Foo Fighters; well established meaningful bands that are still successful today we have used and developed their techniques and added them to our own. With our video we filmed inside our friend’s house, his house is quite old and original scary looking cellar underground. This cellar is shown to be underneath the church (a large establishment) and this represents another large establishment – the record company – holding the band underground. The real authentic set is something we really wanted to have, as technology goes by more videos are being filled with CGI and special effects. The authenticity of the set shines through especially through the abstract/narrative bits with me (the shaven headed topless figure) the darkness and dusty stone floors needed very little changed once uploaded to final cut express. This breaks conventions of music videos nowadays as there are very few videos with real sets that haven’t been made especially for that video, but ironically the final outcome looks so much more professional and impressive and unique if it wasn’t made especially for the video. In terms of the names of our album and band, we put a lot of thought and there was a lot of debate over both. We decided to go with the band name ‘Victim Of The Cause’ we wanted it to be ambiguous and for the audience to draw from it what they want individually but it goes really well with the song choice for the video with lyrics are about someone warning about someone about their actions will lead to. This follows trends of most alternative rock bands like Biffy Clyro – this is very unique and ambiguous and could mean all manner of things but in fact is ‘Cliffy Byro’ with the letters at the beginning switched round – and that was a jokey name for a Cliff Richard pen one band member one had. One way in which our video challenges conventions of real media products is its used of all three types of music video; performance, abstract and narrative, all of equal importance. Most rock videos are pretty much all performance and maybe have a little narrative that sends the message of the song along the band. Although are video follows this with the large majority being performance there is abstract segments with a pale ghostly figure seemingly taking part in a ritual or being tortured or whatever the audience choose to think. This doesn’t break any conventions but the abstracts parts aren’t just to shock and surprise the audience In a Brechtian way; they develop the narrative as the video of the video. With the figure being low in levels and only on screen for the tiniest time but as the video goes on the shots with me change I am higher and standing up and actually leaving this place where I’m being kept down. Showing through listening and appreciating ‘Victim of the Cause’ music you too can stand up against these big music corporations. Through research we found the odd use of abstract to also be the narrative quite against the conventions of usual alternative rock videos, as most don’t use all through intertwined. With our Digipak we aimed to make this look as realistic as possible, as this if it was a real media product would be attract the audience to buying the music in its physical form, as we would be a new band we need to create a connections between audience and band members straight away, we couldn’t afford to have an ambiguous odd image on the front cover as were not established enough. We instead decided to have a shot of our full band picture standing and sitting on the stairs included in our video. This follows trends of most new artist to include their band members to create the audience band member, but to make it more our genre we added an effect where it removes some light from the picture taking away eyes and casts shadows on the faces of the band. This links with our video and creates a dark rockfish feel just with a front cover, Jack the lead singer is also holding a guitar almost leaning on it, and it looks like a weapon, again creating that confrontational rock feel. One way in which our video goes against real media products is the absence of a drummer; originally we were incredibly worried about this as towards the end of the video the tempo and mood of the video rises quite substantially, and a drummer would look good drumming tempo rhythmically to this. There are a few reasons why there isn’t a drum kit or drummer, firstly the drummer in a band keeps the rhythm and beat and keeps the rest of instruments in check. One purpose of our video was to show the lack of being kept in check so we didn’t want a drummer doing this. Also with the feeling of the video a fast, light orientated electric, a drummer wouldn’t have fitted this. Also there was a slight issue with space in the cellar we were filming in, with space for the two cameras – handheld and stillcam – we decided it was in our best interests overall to not include drums. Another way our video goes against conventions of video is the breaking of the 180 degree rule, this keeps the erratic feel of the video and makes it more rocky. Rock performance videos sometimes break the 180 degree as the performers are often seen performing in different places and different angles from shot to shot, following with this convention we used real media products to base ours around.
2) How effective is the combination of your, media products and ancillary tasks?
Obviously the ancillary tasks stemmed from the music video production and we always had them in mind whilst planning and directing. Although the video was made first, if we were to release our song and video and create a real band (which were trying to create the feeling we were) the ancillary tasks would be released first. We chose to make a Digipak, a six panelled cardboard (often special limited edition) version of an album, and advertising poster advertising the Digipak. As all these are directly linked with each other as they all advertise each other and the band itself, it was very important they followed the same motif or theme so the audience instantly connect each production with each other. The video itself is very hectic and movement based which was pretty much the main focus of the shoots of ours. This obviously couldn’t be transferred as easily onto still images so tried to keep similar themes running through out which complement each other. Onerecurring metaphoric device throughout our video is the use of fog/smoke, as this represents the release of our message as the amount of fog will gradually increase. However also more literally, it can depict the smokescreen music corporations use to mask the fact they are keeping smaller, indie and alternative bands down. We included smoke on our Digipak to accompany the list of songs included on the album, creating the same message and pointing out that the theme runs throughout the album not just that single. A prominent part of our video is the abstract parts of the video with me with a shaven head and dressed only in rags, round my waist. We tried in editing and in the various shoots to try make me look as ghostly as possible, by surrounding me by jars with candles in them and making me look paler than I am. This bold pale figure represents someone who’s identity has been stolen away from them (much like in the holocaust the Jew’s has their head shaved in order to remove identity) this image has also been transferred onto the Digipak behind where the C.D would be. However we have for our Digipak the C.D slotting into a pouch or resting in two slim compartments. This is to remind the audience of our message as they remove the music to listen to and also to mentally link the Digipak and the video together. Our song only has three verses so there is lots of instrumental in the song, and this is in the video a lot also with varied performance shots interspersed with narrative. The electric guitar played by the lead singer Jack is concentrated on the most as this is the instrument played most in the song. We feared the contrast between the masses of visuals of instruments compared to the majority not so in the Digipak so we included two pictures that are based around the guitar and Jack playing the guitar. As the Digipak opens the image to the left is the image of the lone guitar is shown leaning against an illuminated pole in a dark cellar, this is the same cellar as the video. The guitar represents the small musician against the big dark room, but the only light (thanks to editing on Microsoft) comes from the guitar and central beam showing them resistance the darkness and fighting against the music corporation. We wanted the light to shine through in this picture but no be too bright compared to the rest of the Digipak or the video or the poster, but the brightness stands out just enough to be noticeable and send a message. We were careful to stay true to our genre with the fairly dark colour scheme running through all the media products we created, Muse themselves often wear black or very dark clothing in their videos or on stage. In our video there is a lot of lasers and interesting lighting, we included this to make our video – which was mainly performance, seem more interesting and realistic like a real on stage performance. The lasers weren’t included to send messages as such but to enhance the visual experience of the audience; we made sure during the abstract/narrative parts we didn’t use them as that would have detracted from the message and point. When it came to the Digipak we thought about making the front cover Jack playing the guitar silhouetted which was a shot we had planned in the video. In the end the shot didn’t have a place in the final editing stages as its bright dance like visuals didn’t fit in with the rest of the video. We came to a similar conclusion about the front cover as the front cover of an album is the first thing you see and ultimately what attracts you to it. Also the bright red and green lights created a dance, electro which was going against the genre. However we wanted to include a performance shot in the Digipak to match and effectively combine the video and Digipak. For this we didn’t have very powerful lasers on Jack while he ‘rocked out’ to the track while we took 4 or 5 pictures. We chose the best picture out all of them, darkened it to match the tone of the rest of the images. This also reduced the brightness of the lasers which were on Jack while he played, ultimately we created a blurry performance shot with portrays and captures the passion the lead guitarist and singer would have for his music. This is the first image you see after opening the Digipak, we put it here as its not got heavy messages attached to it the audience can just enjoy the picture and almost listen to the song from it as well. In our music video before the song gets going we introduce the audience to each band member individually showing of their instrumental talents. As with most albums from new artists which we are we included a shot of the band members together to link the audience with the people their listening to, this ended up being our front cover as to introduce the audience straight away to the people there listening to – Just like in the beginning of the video. Our poster advertising the album/Digipak is essentially the same as the front cover of the Digipak, the band standing together. We were originally going use a shot of the three standing against a wall and looking at the camera, instead though they are standing/sitting on steps leading into a basement. This fits in with the name of the album ‘The Descent’ this also fits with our message and idea of song also, falling under the control of big music corporations. They combine well together as they remind the audience of one another creating a stronger bond between audience and band. They are both very similar to the look of the video as there facial features are semi blurred out by the effect we have added on Microsoft Word, this links with the idea of if bands continue to fall further under the control of big corporations bands will essentially not have an identity as they will all sound and act and be the same. Sometimes simple things make have the biggest effect when it comes to linking products together, on all three products we have included the same colour and type of font, although this seems obvious it helps link the products as the way we have written ‘Victim of the Cause’ would become a trademark and so would the font. So wherever anyone would see it they would think of that product but also other products, so through Intertextuality and semiotics of a certain font you can cross media advertise your artist.
3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?
In order to see what was good and bad about our video we interviewed a few people in school to see what they thought about it. Our questions included:What do you think of the Mise en Scene?
. What genre would you say it is?
. What do you dislike?
This gave us generally pretty good feedback as well as the feedback we’ve had unrecorded from friends and acquaintances we have shown in study period, lunch and break times. We mostly asked males to watch our video as that was mostly our intended audience doing a grungy dark video. The feedback was that they enjoyed video and they were surprised by the level it was at compared to other amateur videos they had seen. We also asked friends also doing media to watch it to pick holes in things, Harry Steel mentioned the breaking of 180 degree which was odd but he also said quickly after it doesn’t really matter to him as a viewer as it keeps the videos ‘mental feel’ in his words. Although this technically is a problem which if we were to do again would remedy slightly in some parts, the genre and song needed the look we gave it.Kyle Richards, another person doing media picked up a shadow that’s cast over Jack the lead singer as the tempo of the song begins to rise. We hadn’t seen this before and we remembered that we had trouble with people getting in the way of the light from the various light sources in the cellar whether it is strobes, lasers or phone torches – which were used for darker shots. We planned where the lights and cameras were going to be situated but not all the crew, if we were do this again we would brief the various crew members about where they can stand and move before shooting to avoid things like this. One comment we got quite often is about the lasers we included, people weren’t expecting to see lasers in an amateur video but were also surprised at how good it looked. Although we got pretty much all positive feedback for the lasers that seemed the main focus of people watching, this wasn’t our aim to distract from the rest of the video. If I were to do another video I would include more obvious narrative so the need for entertainment from gimmicks like lasers and smokes would be lessened. The narrative was also mentioned by a few people, to some it was slightly unclear what the point was, this came as bad news as it was quite integral to our video however we had planned it to be semi abstract so had allowed for this. People didn’t dwell on it and had reassured us that it didn’t really take away from the video, as if you were watching a good video at home you wouldn’t necessarily get everything just enjoy it. Overall I’m very proud of the feedback from the audience as it was mainly good and pretty much everyone got the genre correct, the things that were negative and which I would change if I did it again I was already expecting to be said so didn’t upset me much.
Example of advertising video whilst trying to get it onto facebook:
4) How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stage?
After the thriller task in AS level media we knew we were going to do some things differently as this would make our lives easier and create a better overall production. Before the thriller we just thought of how a shot would look in our head and just went on that. This time around we went on to the internet and got pictures to follow (as featured on the blog) this was incredibly useful because we knew how far we could go with shots or the story before it became incoherent to our plan. This enabled to stay true to our original plan and more importantly stay true to the song and genre. We decided to use social networking sites to help us construct our video, we created a face group page (as seen on blog) in which we added all the people that we had either starring or helping out in the background of the shoots, this helped us keep tabs on everybody to have a smooth efficient operation so we could concentrate fully on the video. This is an example of cross media convergence the combination of two types of media, another is we uploaded the video onto face book and advertised it on face book and twitter in order to get some audience feedback and just for personal interest to see what people outside media circles think of it as a normal music video. We decided this would be useful as we have seen previous years put their videos on face book and have gotten fairly varied feedback which is good as we can know what not do next time around if we were to do it again, so it was also a form of research. Another form of research was to look on YouTube at A2 music videos, and try work out what they got from using the criteria provided at the beginning of the course, and then comparing it to the mark that the description of the video said, which was very often included. This allowed us to see how different genres of music video are made and in general which ones get the best marks. We didn’t see many alternative rock videos that got high marks, we originally planned to go with what seemed to get the best marks but we could see little easy things that we could do to enhance videos greatly so this helped with the choice of our genre and making it the standard it is. With our ancillary tasks we took pictures, with these pictures we wanted to look just right with editing, we achieved this with new media technologies working together. Firstly we edited the shot with the camera itself to suit the genre, then we uploaded them on the computer next to the computer with
An image of the facebook group used in the production of the video:
Examples of comments from YouTube videos we watched:
‘I liked it, but I felt that it was a very literal interpretation. More depth would be cool, but it’s still a wonderfully crafted piece’ – Posted by MizzzSpazzz
This showed us that with songs that have things in the lyrics that can be easily made literal people don’t like them to be too literal they would like to think for themselves.
I think it needs better lighting, remember lighting is key – posted by Noobkiller224
YouTube comments on videos were really useful as this gave us a flavour of what we could achieve with the resources we had while making sure little things said by viewers such as about the lighting were kept looking good.
Posted By Dominic Lattimer
Posted By Dominic Lattimer
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