Directors commentary

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

What have you learned from your audience feedback? on Prezi

One negative we had was that the digipak didn’t fit as the video of was really cheeky but our digipak was to formal. This was the only negative we got from our focus group which I believe makes it a very successful project, this point has been argued either way though when asking others about it.

I don’t feel we would change how we worked the only real thing we need to change if we were redoing this project is making the digipak more “Laddish” instead of making it fairly formal as we have done this time.

The comments we got from our focus group have taught me that we need to speak to our audience more often as we didn’t really gauge that they wanted a more laddish style digipak compared to the one already created. This is believe is the only thing that I really learnt and that’s to speak more to the audience.

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

The products that we have created I belive has a certain “house” style which gives off a very urban image our digipak and our advert share the same photo and our music videos uses similar styles of shots.This is a really important thing to remember when designing media products as they need to all be similar so people will see your advert and digipak and be able to out the two together. One of the problems when designing the digipak is that at one point all the panels looked like they came from different digipaks. I believe this important as well to have all of the panels look similar but not the same.

We have created a brand identity in our media products by keeping the same mise-en-scene, I believe this is a very important way of creating this identity another way is by keeping similar camera angles and use similar effects, I feel if you change round to many of the images/effects it just looks like a complete mess.

I believe the digipak will sell the song very easily due to some really strong pictures and camera angles especially with some of the in and out of focus shots. I feel that the image on the third panel has some really cool and imaginative effects which is original which will help. With all this said though I believe that the strongest image is on the front cover with a near empty background just the rivers and the trees, the lighting from the street light has connotations of pureness and the background being dark gives off connotations of depression which I feel shows a very strong contrast.

The advert pictures and the front cover of the digipak is exactly the same so I believe it will help sell for the same reasons. I also believe the typography which we have used is really cool which may help to sell our media product.

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

When we were creating our music video we had to find out what the general conventions of music videos are all very similar they usually involve fast cuts, which will never last more than 5-10 seconds per shot. The videos either try to follow the songs imagery or the story portrayed by the lyrics, this depends on type of my music video being shot whether it's a concept video, narrative or performance. The style of music video we were going for was a narrative style so we had many close ups of our character which fits into the generic conventions of this style of video. We broke the conventions of this style as we have our main actor singing which isn’t normal as there is usually a separate person singing the lyrics if they are being sung at all. We chose to do this for many reasons the first of these being we felt that it fitted in the style of the video and we wanted to show the progression of what our main protagonist was going through falling in love with this girl.

Digipak conventions similarly to music video conventions generally tend to differ depending on what the genre of the song is. With this said though every digipak has a few universal things for example all digipaks have between 4-6 panels of information/pictures on them, they will all feature the name of the band and have a song list, they will also feature there record producers logo and have information in small print to do with copy right. Most digipaks generally use very bright vivid colours to make the item stand out on the shelf with the colour scheme linking into the meaning of the lyrics with reds tending to either link to anger or love and black to symbolize death and depression. With our digipak we didn’t0 follow the majority of the general stylistic conventions to appeal to our target audience as we used dark colours even though the main song on the album is about the singer loving this girl. This is really the only conventions we didn’t follow and we followed everything else, we even featured all of the copyright laws on the back of the last panel.

When designing the Advert we looked into the conventions and these are near enough the same as the digipaks with the edition of a few things, these being that they usually feature the artists website, a quote from a website or a review from a magazine in our case we chose Q Magazine, and places where the album would be sold (we chose Amazon and HMV). We included these to make the advert look more realistic which we think has worked.

Our media products conventions which we have followed I don’t think will attract people our products it will more likely be the conventions that we didn’t follow for example the colours. The only conventions we have followed that will enhance our product will be how powerful some of the shots are and what the picture on the front cover symbolizes a lonely man which will offer escapism.

A2 Media Studies: Advanced Production: Music Video

A2 Media Studies: Advanced Production: Post Production Focus Group

A2 Media Studies: Advanced Production: Post Production Focus Group: Here is our final focus group. Feedback told us that we have created a really effective music video and digipak that effectively sells Sam ...

Last Day of our Music Video

Throughout our time editing we managed to cut the song length down by using the radio version instead of the album edition, lost a member of our group and had many problems with our computer but now we’ve made it. Just before writing this we thought we had deleted our whole video and footage until we realised we had selected the wrong “sequence”. 

Radial Analysis

Kebab Shop - Take Two

We went to a local kebab shop by school to re-film it which at the time looked really good and we came back to school on the same day and filmed one of our mates Tommy holding back sam in an alley. Some of the shots we got of this looked absolutely amazing. 

Filming in Kingston

Our group went to Kingston with the SLR a video camera and a tripod. We aimed to fill up the remaining shots needed minus the redoing of the kebab shop scene. We wanted to get the hustle and bustle of the shops and the river. We got a couple of really cool shots and got the front cover of our digipak of Sam standing underneath a streetlight.

Editing grove park and kebab shop

Today we are planning on editing all of the footage we have got from Grove Park, Brighton and the Kebab Shop. As I first thought the footage we got from the kebab shot was close enough to useless and doesn’t fit into our video at all. With this said the stop frame photos look really good and feel it will make our video better.

Our Digipak Advert

Digipack

Filming in Grove Park and Kebab shop

Today we went to a local park, Grove Park, we took a SLR camera so we could get some shots for our digipak and we can focus pull in our video. We are also planning to use a lot of stop motion in our music video. In this area we are going to try and so the childlike state of both of the characters and give off a distinct personality. We also aimed to film the parts of the song which are set in the kebab shop, where he’s looking to get chips and drink.

When we were in the park we mainly wanted to film around the swings as these are generally a Childs favourite place in the park. We filmed a lot of really cool shots and got a lot of really effective stop motion shots as well as possible shots for our digipak.

The next stop this day was the trip to the kebab shop which I honestly thought wasn’t really that great there were horrible continuity errors and our main character had to go off to work so we didn’t have a lot of tie to film 

Effects of Brighton

When we were editing our video we decided to add colour correction to the part where Sam is sitting on the beach to make the sun look brighter than it was anyway. We also created the first ending to our film where Sam is spinning round and then falls over,

Editing the footage of Brighton

As I said last time I spoke to you the shot with Sam drinking and the bottom of the glass shot is looking really good and I still reckon it will be the best shot of our video. We had a couple of problems when editing with setting up the files and using the wrong template. The shots we got on the pier I feel are also really powerful due to the lighting.

Filming in Brighton

Today we went to Brighton to film the majority of our music video we went to get shots of our main character (Sam and Lucy). We got shots of them standing on the pier and shots from inside a pub that we found. I feel that in this filming session we got one of the best shots that we will have for our video and that’s the bottom of the glass shot when he’s “Downing Pints”

Representation of people in media

In our music video the the song fit but you know we want to represent the two main people as crazy young people going on a trip to Brighton and the night getting worse and worse for the lead singer. To our target audience being young people aged between 13-30 which would be from class E to C1.


This video is made to have a fun time with the audience to remind them or make them looking forward to the age where you go to bright and go to all of the pubs and clubs. Our video will use a lot of shots from being inside pubs, by the pier and in a park. Like i said the majority of this video is going to feature our guy progressing through the day getting more drunk and drunk as the night goes on.


Our video mainly targets students and not really sort of ethnical groups, it is both targeted to male and female

Mumford and Sons - The Cave

The song "The Cave" by Mumford and Sons features the band riding around on motorbikes singing there song after they have given there instrument to four people who seem to be part of a marching band playing on a beach. The Acoustic style of the guitar suits the beach as acoustic instruments a conventionally very relaxing as a beach is. The style of this video is very folk like and you can tell this as the video doesn't feature much technology apart form the motorbikes. The four band members are in suits 3 white 1 black this doesn't make a huge amount of sense as you would expect to see the the band member in the black suit to be the lead singer which he isn't.

The very start of the video when they hand there instruments to the four members of the marching band they speak in a foreign language which I assume is Spanish. Not many music videos feature subtitles which you could say makes this music video break role. This video is a performance video as the majority of the video is either the marching band playing or the band members singing there song while driving.

A lot of the clips in this video have been slowed which can be used to create an effect of calmness as everything is slowing down around the characters. This is a very common effect to be used in music videos and it look very good and clean in this one. This video doesn't feature anything that could like to Laura Mulveys male Gaze theory but could be connected to the Goodwin theory as the lyrics and visuals seem to be linked. The song is about a journey and they are travelling round on there motorbikes and return back to the starting point at the end.

Research into Digipak adverts

Digipaks are effectively packaging for CDs and there adverts like most most adverts for items come in many different media forms, two of these are electronic and static. Digipaks are the most modern kind of packaging which is now used to store CDs and the advertising is very effective for them.

Electronic Advertising

The video posted above is an advert from the Music company Ministry of Sound called Chilled Acoustic. This company offers a wide range of music but are most famous for there dance music. The advert shown here features a digipak promotion at the and is one of just many in the new world. In this video the main focus is the ministry of sounds famous logo being destroyed in a glass cube with music from the album being played over the top. At the very end of the advert we see the front cover of what the finalised digipak will be. The colour scheme of the advert is very chilled out with the main colour being purple with blue tints, the reasons for the "chilled" colour theme are because of the album name "Chilled Acoustic" one of the very last parts of the advert shows you where to purchase the album from.

The majority of people purchase there music on-line through websites like Itunes and Amazon music. There are many places in which you can find other types of media like Newspapers, Tv and Billboards and the internet.

Static Advertising

Static advertising as the name suggests is an advert like show above from the album Day & Age by the Killers from seeing the other styles of Killers albums you can see that it has kept in style of the other album covers. The design of the picture in mosaic with a "dark" background if you could call it that. The colours are very calming purples and whites and this will draw in the audience as these are very bright vibrant colours. These colours are also very similar to the style of music that the Killers play being alternative rock.

Analysis of two digipaks

The digipak for Katy Perrys "Teenage Dream" on this digipak a few things stand out at first sight. The first of these being Katty Perry lying naked on a bed of clouds. This is an example of Laura Mulveys male gaze theory as this will attract men and will help make the product sell. The second thing you will notice is that the actual CD itself is designed like a donut (on the left) and the other looks like the top of one of those swirly lolipops you get at fairs. These may be used to represent Katty Perrys "Sweet Side" The colours being pink wil attract younger people which her music is aimed at. The red on the cover could be used to show Lust, Sudductiveness or passion. Overall the general design likes in nicely to her music video California Gurlz and people may by the digipak just because they recognise and have shared knowledge.





This digipak is by Britney Spears called Femme Fatale.

The digipak has a fairly simple colour scheme which mainly uses blacks and dark colours. The simplicity of the pack is shown by one of the panels containing a picture Britney spears, this also keeps within the theme of her clothing being black. The panel on the right contains the initials of the album and on the left Britneys initials. This pack is ulinke most otgher packs of this genre and is very similar. The covers contridict the theme inside as the colours and lights are used completely different. The front conver of this digipak has a picture of Britney looking into the camera which ties into Laura Mulveys male gaze theory. This will apeal to the male audience and they may buy it for the sex appeal. Wheras to the women they buy it for the fashoin sense as this is what gets them to buy it. Britney, with this digipak is trying to gain a wider audicence as Britneys main genre is pop and the stlye of the digipak is trying to gain an older audience.

Goodwins Theory

Goodwins Theory on Prezi

Crew List, Prop List on Prezi

Research into Music Videos on Prezi

Generic Conventions of a Music Video

Generic conventions of music videos are all very similar they usually involve fast cuts which will never last more then 5-10 seconds per shot. The videos either try to follow the songs imagery or the story portrayed by the lyrics, this depends on type of my music video being shot whether it's a concept video, narrative or performance. With in these three different types of music video you will find different conventions. For example in performance videos the the convention is to see the band performing the song live or in a music studio. Concept videos don't have many conventions apart from being outside the box. Narrative videos use actors instead of the band members and follow the lyrics with longer cuts then concept videos.

Editing

The music video "The Hardest Button to Button" is very famous for the insane amount of cuts and amazing new ideas on how to edit music videos. The video utilizes pixilation animation to create the effect of dozens of drum kits and guitar amplifiers multiplying to the rhythm of the song.


This is the white stripes The Hardest button to button video

Laura Mulvey

According to Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory the video would take the perspective of the man over the woman, so the audience would see the situation through the eyes of a man. She also believes that women are always depicted as either a 'virgin’ or ‘whore’ type character. The main female character in this video falls directly into this type of theory.The whole style of this video is based in what seems to be a burlesque house which will attract the attention of some viewers. Another music video which shows this type of theory is Katty Perry's California Girls video.

This will definitely apply to our music video because the song is clearly from the perspective of a man who is looking at a woman. it is very unlikely that there would be any perspective of the woman shown in the video. It is probable that women in the video will be represented as the ‘whore’ character.

50 Cents "Candy Shop" is another music video which shows the Male Gaze theory really clearly. its shot from the prospective of this "pimp" he has all of these really flash cars and is in a house full of women which are looking at him with passion and lust. The video shows women wearing small little skirts and the camera is all over the parts of the body which interest men to try and sell sex.

The video to countdown by Beyonce really fits into the Laura Mulvey male gaze theory with Beyonce wearing next to nothing in some shots and the revealing camera angles. The majority of the dancers in the video are female which is trying to make Beyonce spread her market out and get more men to buy her CD's and to women she is seen as a Fashion goddess.

Lyrics of our music video

Excuse me girl
I know it's a bit embarrassing but
I just noticed some tan lines
On your shirt

See I reckon you're about an 8 or a 9,
Maybe even 9 and a half in four beers time.
That blue top shop top you've got on IS nice,
Bit too much fake tan though - but yeah you score high.

But there's just one little thing that really really,
Really really annoying me about you you see,
Yeah yeah like I said you are really fit
But my gosh don't you just know it

I'm not trying to pull you
Even though I would like to
I think you are really fit
You're fit But my gosh don't you know it

So when I looked at you standing there with your hoard,
I was waiting in the queue looking at the board
Wondering whether to have a Burger or chips
Or what the shrapnel in my back pocket could afford
When I noticed out the corner of my eye
Looking toward my direction
Your eyes locked onto my course
I couldn't concentrate on what I wanted to order,
Which cost me my place in the queue I waited for YEAH

I'm not trying to pull you
Even though I would like to
I think you are really fit
You're fit but my gosh don't you know it

Whoa! Leave it out
Are you smoking crack or something?
Leave it Out
Mike just leave it just leave it
We cannot have that behaviour in this establishment
S'not worth it mike, just leave it
Don't Touch Me, S'not Worth It
Don't Touch Me, D, Look I'm Alright
Don't Touch me

For a while there I was thinking - yeah but what if?
Picturing myself pulling with bare white hot wit
Snaring you as you were standing there opposite
Whether or not you knew it I swear you didn't tick
And when that bloke in the white behind us lot queuing
Was clocking onto you too yeah I had to admit
That yeah yeah you are fit,
And yeah I do want it,
But I stop sharking for a minute to get chips and drinks

I'm not trying to pull you
Even though I would like to
I think you are really fit
You're fit But my gosh don't you know it

Now, I bashed my head hard earlier choosing a brew.
But I am digressing slightly so I'll continue.
I didn't want to bowl over all geezer and rude,
Not rude like good but just rude like uncouth,
You girls think you can just flirt and it comes to you,
But let me tell you, see, yes, yes, but you are really rude,
And rude as in good, I knew this as you stood and queued,
But I just did not want to give the satisfaction to you!

I'm not trying to pull you
Even though I would like to
I think you are really fit
You're fit But my gosh don't you know it

Oy, just as you started to make your big advance

With the milkshake and that little donut in hand
I was like nah, I can't, even though you look grand
But you look sharp there smiling hard suggesting and
Gleaming away with your hearty hearty looking tan
But I admit the next bit was spanner to my plan
You walked towards my path but just brushed right past
And into the arms of that fucking white shirted man

I'm not trying to pull you
Even though I would like to
I think you are really fit
You're fit But my gosh don't you know it

What do I give a fuck.. I've got a girlfirend anyway
(whoa, we've all had a drink mate)
We're all a bit drunk, yeah we've had a few fair play
I got this stella I bombed from that last café
This nights not even begun, yes yes oh yay

I did fancy you a bit though yeah I must say
I would rather I hadn't mugged myself on display
But this is just another case of female stopping play
On otherwise a total result of a holiday

I'm not trying to pull you
Even though I would like to
I think you are really fit
You're fit But my gosh don't you know it

[outro]
Ha ha huh huh huh
You're fit but you know it
You're fit but you know it
You're fit but you know it
I think I'm going to fall over
I think I'm going to fall
Fucking hell

Here is the official video which The Streets produced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPbNMLwmxYk&feature=player_embedded

Goodwin's Theory

Goodwin's theory is based on 8 main principles, the first of these being links between the lyrics and visuals which you see mainly min narrative style films. The second being links between the music and visuals. Genre characteristics which for example means if this is a metal video it will have black and red, this is just one example. Intertextual reference, this could be for example the reference to Tin Man in the video for Parklife. Objectifying women, an example for this is California girls by Katy Perry. Voyeurism, this means that other people are looking at the artist or an insight into the artists life. Demands of the record label, and finally the three different types of music video performance, narrative and concept.

Research into Music Videos

Music videos are short pieces of video integrated with a song to sell an artist’s image and are generally used for either promotional or artistic purposes. The music videos are made usually by recording the band playing the song and overdubbing the studio version or by lip synching.

One of the biggest companies which show music videos is Vevo which is how most videos are viewed on YouTube. Mtv where quick to snap onto the fact that music videos where important, during the 1980s mtv based the channel totally on music videos

Blur – Parklife Analysis

The music video to the song Parklife is mainly performance based but also features many narrative elements as well. The lead singer of Blur (Damon Albarn) and actor Phil Daniels are travelling around London trying to sell Windows. This video has some intertextuality linking to Tin Men which is about a door to door salesman. The Verses in this song are all spoken which links to a narrative style video as they travel from door to door. The video is also synched up with the song for example the cideo cuts when major drum beats occur. The majority of the video are close ups of the band which links to a performance based video. You can see in the video that they are all dressed to represent the genre of Brit Pop. Another piece of intertextuality is the reference to the Beatles album “Abbey Road” where the band walk single file over a zebra crossing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIEsmGzo2UE&ob=av3e

The Foo Fighters – The Pretender analysis

This video is a performance based video, this is because the whole of the video (with the exception of the riot police) the camera is focused on the band. The video appears to be shot in a big warehouse with a white floor and a big red screen behind the band. The red screen has connotations with anger which is what I believe the song is about as it sends a very strong political message.

The video starts off with the front man coming onto the stage with a very long shot as the light of the warehouse start to switch on in time with the guitar. The camera at the starts focuses on this ominous black line which doesn’t mean anything at this point of the video and the camera cuts back to where the other members of the band take the instruments and start playing.

From this point on the editing and camera use a lot of jump cuts, zooms, pans and close up to the front man. The camera also keeps showing the black line and a single member of the riot police stands just behind it and is eventually joined by over 40 members who charge at the band in slow motion when the songs goes quiet at the bridge.

When the song hits the final chorus the big red screen I was talking about at the start of the song erupts and throws the police off guard. The song slowly starts to sound angrier and angrier which could try to represent the fight between the police and the band. As the song ends you can tell the police where defeated and the lead singer falls to the floor

Location Ideas

When we go to brighton to film we want to create a dream like state which is why we choose a pier. We want to have a great deal of our shots to have the pier either behind or some of the rides on the pier.

We want to have another of the main settings to be a pub we are thinking about using a pub from one of our friend family members as this seems to fit with the style of genre and what the lyrics seem to be saying to us. We want our main character to be having a few beers as this is what happens when on a night out.

Types of Music Video

There are three main types of music video Performance based video, narrative Based Videos and Concept Videos.

Performance videos are videos which show the band playing and only feature the band. These are very good videos if you are under a tight budget and you usually see these types of videos in older bands such as Queen, this is just one example of many I could have chosen, the video linked below is Don’t Stop Me Know by Queen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM

Narrative based videos are used to tell a story which generally involves actors and the underlying lyrics fit with what’s being seen. Generally songs with these sorts of music videos will be in films and have links to the films. A video which is a narrative based video could be Parklife by Blur which is linked below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIEsmGzo2UE&ob=av3e

Concept videos I believe are the most interesting out of the different types of videos. Concept videos are generally really weird and bizarre and are usually edited together with a set style or or filmed in a certain way. The closet video I believe which links truly to this is a song by Tool call Stinkfist which is linked below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07pLGIgyfjw

Target audience for “Fit but you know it” by the Streets

The target audience for our music video for Fit but you know it will D – E class people and will generally come from working class backgrounds. The main reasons for this is because the lead singer and the main musical writer for the streets is Mark Skinner, A young adult from this type of background. The video will also target young males this is because the song is about a young attractive women, this effectively takes out the older generation and females from our audience. The lyrical content of the song also targets a younger more “hip” audience with words such as “fit”.

The song also tries to be funny which may interest people who also listen to hip-hop and listen to the urban culture. The sound of the music also sounds like a similar style to early Brit Pop like Blur.

This video will be created to entertain the public, this is because of the way the lyrics are written. The song was created to be fun to play at a gig which is why we have chosen to make the video fun.

Intertextuality

Definition: the whole network of relations, conventions, and expectations by which the text is defined; the relationship between texts. Intertextuality in a nutshell is shaping texts by other texts. You usually see this in the forms of reference to other texts or other pieces of media. The word “Intertextuality” was created by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966 and has changed many times. Examples of Intertextuality are generally associated with more post modern texts but what the device does in not new at all, there are quotes in the new testament which quotes the old testament, this is probably the oldest form of Intertextuality.

Intertextuality is also used a lot in Robbie Williams song “Let me entertain you” where the video pays homage by referencing old school rocks bands Ozzy Osborne from “Black Sabbath” and “Ozzy Osborne” and Kiss. The way he references Ozzy is by at the video pretending to bite the head off of a dove. Osborne bit the heads off of bats at the concerts he would play at. The way he references Kiss is through the Mise-en-scene. The outfit that Robbie where is the exact same style as the band members from kiss wore.

The long version of the music video Paparazzi by Lady Gaga shows really good Intertextuality throughout of the piece. One reference is straight at the start of the video which is a Hitchcock Vertigo reference. We see Gaga descending into a spiral, free falling through the entire earth.

My influence for the video which we will be creating is by paying homage to the urban UK or other successful grime artists.

Questionnaire

What is your favourite Genre of Music?


Alt Rock Pop RnB Dubstep Rap Metal Indie Other


Do you watch a lot of Music Videos?


Yes No


Where do you watch Music Videos?


Internet T.V


What’s your favourite Music Video?


………………………………………………………………………………


Why?


………………………………………………………………………………


What makes a good Music Video?


Colours Acting Metaphors Live Videos Story

Story Boards

Copyright Permission Letter

Below, is the letter we sent to the copyright holder of the song we wish to use for our music video. As we did not heard back from them, we assumed we were able to use their song.

Dear Copyright Holder,

We are an A-Level group of media students attending Carshalton Boys Sports College. I am writing to request your permission to use the song “Fit But You Know It” by “The Streets”.

If we gain your consent, it will be used for educational purposes, by creating a music video to play alongside the track. We will also be creating a digipak and advert to promote the song. The only people who will be viewing our work, would be fellow students, our teachers, and the exam moderators.

We look forward to hearing from you,

Regards,

Tom Whelan

Jack Morris

Jack Hargreave

Charlie Holt