Evaluation

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

In order to ensure that my music video accurately demonstrated forms and conventions of music videos, I had to compare my final piece to an established theory. The theory I chose was Goodwin's Music Theory Analysis, which is taken from his 1992 book "Dancing in the Distraction Factory." In the book, Goodwin outlined six conventions that all music videos either conform to, or will consciously attempt to subvert. It was these six points to which I compared my music video.

Music videos demonstrates genre characteristics.

In order to do this in my music video, I first had to establish what the key genre characteristics of the blues/jazz pop music are. The typical features of a blues/jazz pop genre are:

• Emphasis on artist as a skilled musician - the primary instrument being the piano.
• Emphasis on a artist stylisation, making the artist more individual and intellectual.
• Heavy emphasis on narrative.
• Simple, but artistic special effects.

Once these genre characteristics had been established, I found it easier to apply them and ensure they were present in my music video. The first characteristic was shown continuously throughout the music video, with constant cutting back to the artist at the piano.

The second characteristic was shown by a recurring theme of mystery, playing on the narrative concept that the artist is in fact singing as a ghost. This idea I felt was best shown through the silhouetted profile shots of the artist that were repeated throughout the video. 

The third characteristic was demonstrated clearly in the idea of the relationship coming to an end, with the realisation in the video being that the artist had in fact died and is reflecting as a ghost. I showed the relationship most clearly through the use of the shot where the artist kisses his girlfriend on the head, and the fact that the singer was a ghost by the use of the fading out effect at the end. 

The fourth and final characteristic is crucial to any music video, but in this genre, the effects should be minimal, but highly artistic. These effects was demonstrated from two key special effects which were both easy to create - the first being the stop-motion sequence involving the two people-shaped salt shakers moving together then apart, and the second being the cross dissolve effect giving the illusion that the singer disappeared.

Overall, I felt that the entire piece demonstrated the characteristics of genre characteristics very clearly and did not subvert them, in order to reinforce and fit the genre of the song.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

I felt that the relationship between lyrics and visuals in a song such as When I'm Gone could not be literally taken from the lyrics, but rather from the themes and ideas generated from them. The key themes I felt which could be taken from the lyrics were the ideas of relationships, separation and loss.

The first theme of relationships was shown by the moment between the two characters in the video, and extended by the stop-motion sequence.

The second them of separation was also demonstrated by the stop-motion sequence when the two figures separate at the end, but also by the fact that neither character saw one another - the girlfriend was asleep whilst the singer was there and the singer had disappeared when she was woken by the falling glass.

The third and final theme of loss was demonstrated in two ways - the first one being through the fact that the singer is a ghost, showing he has had an ultimate sense of loss. The second was the use of alcohol, which is something that is associated with recovering from an sad, even depressing situation, which was emphasised by the tumbler's foregrounding in the shot, and by it the only thing in-focus on screen.

So, by representing at the themes generated by the lyrics of When I'm Gone, I was thus able to establish a relationship between the lyrics and visuals, and thus follow this principle of Goodwin's analysis. 

There is a relationship between music and visuals.

The music in When I'm Gone also relates heavily to the thematic ideas taken from the lyrics - the music creates a melancholic but reflective feeling which can easily be associated with the concepts of failure of relationship, separation and loss.

However, I felt it was necessary to reflect these ideas in the video in greater detail. I did this by making the video having a pale, cold colour scheme, such as greys and blue and by lowering the saturation of the colours, thus matching the melancholic feel of the music.

So through the use of colour and the saturation of the colour in the video, I was able to establish a relationship between the music and the visuals.

The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

This is an important aspect of a music video, since it looks at the need for a video to advertise not only the song but the artist as well. In order to to adhere to this convention, I used a large number of close-up shots of the artist, as well as using a blurring and silhouetting effect in these shots of the artist to establish motifs of mystery.

Overall, I feel I managed to conform to the principle that the artist should be the main focus of the video by focusing on both him in the narrative and in performance with close-up work, and created motifs of mystery by using silhouette and blurring effects.

There is frequently reference to notions of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

I felt this principle was perhaps more applicable to the mainstream pop genre, so I decided to conform to this much less strictly. In regards to notions of looking, I only used one instance of looking in a mirror, as a device to change the focus from the suit section to going back to the girlfriend. I chose not to conform to the principle of voyeuristic treatment of women, because I felt it would be inappropriate considering the song choice, both in terms of the genre and the themes of the piece, so I decided to keep the female figure in the video in normal, everyday clothing.

So, due to the fact that the piece was not in the genre of mainstream pop where this notion is more adhered to, I decided to subvert and challenge the ideas of notions of looking and voyeuristic treatment of women.

There is often inter-textual reference.

My music video challenges Goodwin's final principle by having no intentional inter-textual references. I chose to do this because I felt that for artist's first music video, the emphasis should be solely upon the artist, not on other work that has come before it, because promotion of the artist in their first major release is essential.

I also looked at Todorov's Narrative Theory, in which he lists five principles that all narratives will follow:

1. A state of equilibrium.
2. A disruption of the equilibrium.
3. A recognition of the disruption of the equilibrium.
4. An attempt to repair the disruption.
5. The equilibrium is restored.

I used this theory to shape my narrative, and thus the narrative follows the same rules:

1. The singer is alone.
2. The singer goes to find his partner sleeping.
3. He realises that it is time to go.
4. He gets ready to leave.
5. He disappears, showing the audience he was merely a ghost, and thus the girl is left alone.

Conclusion

Overall, I felt the music video I created used a large number of Goodwin's principles, but deliberately challenged the final two points on the basis that they did not fit the genre, or in order to make the artist the most important aspect of the video. However, in regards to Todorov's theory, I felt that it fulfilled the five principles, but due to the sad nature of the narrative itself, it was hard to for the end and the start to be called states of equilibrium, as the video's message showed unresolved relationship, therefore making equilibrium not fully possible.

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

The ancillary texts that I created to go with my music video were a digipak case and a magazine advert. The function of these texts are to not only promote the final product, but to promote the artists overall image and stylisation.

In order to combine the digipak and the music video, I used imagery from the music video itself for the front, back and inside covers of the digipak, which are all shown below with the digipak rather than doing a separate photo shoot for it. As a result, the digipak promotes the main product and thus combines very effectively, but it also is an extension of the artists style with the use of the black and white imagery on the front and back covers.

I also used imagery from the music video itself to effectively combine the main product and the second ancillary text which was the magazine advert. I felt the use of a powerful image as the main background image would really strengthen the link between the two products, and thus the effectiveness of advertising the artist and the album also, so I used the two figures from the stop-motion sequence.

In addition to both being effective as a combination with a final product, it is important that both the ancillary texts combined to support each other as pieces of advertising. In order to make each piece support each other, I continued the black-and-white photography and use the same simple, but bold font to establish a link between the poster and the digipak and advertise the main product simultaneously, and added the front cover to the poster with a drop shadow effect on the front cover in order to advertise the digipak and the artist as clearly as possible.

Conclusion

Overall, by using shots from the music video in both the digipak and poster, and by also establishing a stylistic link between the artist, the video and the two other pieces, I feel the ancillary fully combine and support the final piece as pieces of promotion and advertisement.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

In order to get appropriate audience feedback, I had to reconsider my original target audience for my artist Jason Kajdi. The target audience were people aged 21-40 years, both male and female - therefore I had to make sure my target audience would be entertained on a higher emotional level, and had to appeal to and not offend either genders.

In order to gain some audience feedback to evaluate my final piece and ancillary pieces by, I organised a small screening of some friends and family who ranged around my target audience and asked them to comment on my music video and ancillary texts as a combined package.

I decided to take the two most constructive examples, both of which are taken from people of different genders at different ages.

Comment #1 - Female, 21 years old

"I was really surprised how professional the video looked - the shot angles and effects involved were really effective, even if a little simple. The lip syncing was slightly off at one or two words, which sort of ruined the work of performance in the video, but that was the only thing that really threw me. The other pieces, the digipak and the poster looked really professional and made the artist's style choices clear.

Comment #2 - Male, 38 years old

"The style of the artist was my favourite thing about the video - the silhouetted effect and the ghost-like disappearance were great. Some of the shots, especially the low angle ones were brilliant, the focus effect worked really well. But I'm not sure I really got the narrative fully - I didn't understand why he was getting all dressed up if he's a ghost? Other than that, I thought it was really well thought out, and the magazine advert looked very professional."

Conclusion

When looking back at these two comments, three things jumped out at me as things that, if I had the chance to make the music video again, I would work on:

• Make sure all the lip syncing fitted the music properly.
• Ensure that the narrative in the story had a bit more depth - fully explain the situation/relationship between the two characters, why he was leaving in the first place etc.
• Ensure that the magazine advert looked more like an advert - the lack of retailing impact made the magazine advert look more like a poster.

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

Media technologies refers to a wide variety of technology - hardware, software, social networking etc. Throughout this process, I have used a great number of technologies, and I look at them in the order at which I used them from research to planning to construction to evaluation.

Blogger

Blogger has probably been the most important media technology I have used throughout the process, since it has been used to document research, planning and my evaluation. Blogger initially was challenging to use because I had previously used a different blogging website called Edublogs at AS level. However, over the entire process, I have found it easier and easier to use, because it has several key functions which have make it so useful:

• The ability to upload pictures to the website allow for my to show not only my finished ancillary texts, but the various stages and designs I went through and the other pieces of artwork and posters that I have researched into.
• Being able to embed videos from Youtube has been a crucial feature, because it means I can embed the videos which I have analysed genre characteristics onto the blog.
• The ability to create pages had made it easier for me to divide my work up into various sections and therefore making my work easier to see.

Youtube

Youtube has been a very important technology for me, for two key reasons - the first being the ability to access other music videos published online, making analysis of other videos much easier; the second being the ability to publish my own work, including my animatic and my final music video, allowing others to provide comments on my work.

Camera (Panasonic HDC-SD80)

The camera is the most important piece of equipment - without it, nothing can be filmed. The Panasonic camera - as well as being HD which gave optimal recording quality helping to make the video look as professionally filmed as possible - had the ability to pick a point of focus in the shot, which was crucial for certain instances in music video, such as the shot shown below with the tumbler, allowing the video to have more professional-looking shots.

Tripod (Miranda Titan 606)

The tripod is another essential piece of recording equipment, especially for my camera because it did not have an anti-shake function built in. The tripod allowed me to not only get still, professional looking shots, but the adjustable leg length and adjustable neck allowed me to create more interesting, dramatic angles, such as the one shown below from the mirror.

iMovie

I had used iMovie editing software before at AS level in order to cut my footage for my opening to a thriller, so I was fairly experienced in using this editing software. However, a music video demands more impressive shots and effects, so as the editing process went on, I discovered a number of simple functions that were built into iMovie in order to make certain shots more effective or to create special effects. 

The first effect I discovered was the Video Effect function. This basically allowed you to apply a simple, built-in video effect which could be applied to the footage. I was able to use the Hard Light effect to create the silhouette effect, because it enhanced the contrast between the light and shadow in the shot.

The second effect I created came from something I had previously had experience in - the Transitions function. The Transitions panel (shown below) allows you to put in a simple transition between shots, which I had used before with the Fade To Black function. However, by taking two separate clips, one with the artist in the the room and the other without, and by putting the Cross Dissolve transition in, I was able to create the illusion that the artist had disappeared, like a ghost fading away.

From these two simple functions, I was able to create two very simple, but very powerful effects that helped to lend the artistic feel to my music video that was required of the genre.

Adobe Photoshop

The final piece of software I used was Adobe Photoshop, which I used to create both the ancillary texts - the digipak and the poster. I had used this software before, so I was pretty proficient with it, and found it relatively simple to create my digipak and the poster. I was able to resize screen captures in order to fit my poster and digipak background without the images pixelation occurring, and able to able a simple Grayscale mode tin order to create the black and white images. Additionally, the Text function was simple and easy to use and allowed me to quickly add text to each item, with the many different ways to change the text e.g. embossing, bold, etc. Finally, and perhaps most usefully for the digipak, I was able to show and hide Layers, meaning I could create the digipak both with and without the template on it, shown below.

Conclusion

My understanding of all the media technologies I have used, both the software (iMovie and Photoshop), the hardware (Panasonic HDC-SD80 camera and Miranda Titan 606 tripod) and the social networking sites (Blogger and Youtube) has grown across this project, particularly in the case of Blogger and iMovie. At every stage, my ability to use media technologies quicker and more efficiently has grown, particularly in regard to the hardware used, and the ability to produce better effects and get more accurate feedback has grown.