There are many different techniques that I have used throughout my media product that use forms of conventions from real media products. For example, most contemporary pop songs like the song I have used have storylines of love and heartbreak within their promotional music video. The typical conventions include recurrent shots of the artist miming their song and shots following the storyline of the music video. I followed this convention by having both miming shots and storyline shots throughout my video and all in different locations to create diversity yet continuity throughout the video. The pace of the editing, lighting and a clear narrative is also an important convention used as it expresses the emotion connected to the video. For my video, the pace of editing was slow during the beginning and middle sections of my video. I felt that the slow pace of the video was suitable for the song and the slowness matched well with the sad storyline and followed conventions of other music videos like mine e.g. Because of you by Kelly Clarkson.
With the lighting I decided to develop this convention rather than follow it. Through my research I found that most music video’s of the same musical genre use lighting to express the emotion of the storyline. With love and heartbreak storylines I found that lighting was dark to show sadness e.g. Broken Arrow by Pixie Lott shows a darkness when her ex-love who she misses is shown throughout the video. To develop the convention of lighting further, I decided to make the colouring and lighting brighter on the shots when my character was with her love to show the happiness that she feels when she is with him.
Then later on in my video there are shots that show my character alone. When editing I darkened the colouring and lighting to show her emotions of sadness and loss which contrast from video such as Broken Arrow.
In my video the storyline is based on the main protagonist which is a convention of most music videos that have a storyline to them. I have also used intertextuality in my video as my understanding of Todorov’s theory is used within the storyline along with Freytag’s pyramid theory. This can be seen as the storyline starts of cal, then builds up at the end to its climax. This is important as it shows how the protagonist is shown emotionally being happy to sad as the death of her love is revealed.
Looking at the final cut of my video it is clear how much the lighting does play a big part through my music video when expressing emotions and moods. It also helps the narrative of the story and without it the storyline could not be clear to the audience.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
With my music video I also put together a digi pak including a CD cover and promotional poster to append with the music video. I think that my digi pak links in well with the music video as both stay within the same musical genre. I think the reason that they match so well is due the colours, fonts and location of photos used for the CD cover and poster. Without careful research, planning and referencing back to the footage I had gather for the video, the digi-pak could not have been as effective and wouldn’t have matched well with the video. This would also be seen a false advertising as the CD and Poster wouldn’t be doing its job as a promotion for the video and the song. I had to plan the layout, font, colours and images carefully in order to attract the correct target audience. The images I chose for the digi pack were all contrasting as some where taken in the woods and some on the beach however both locations match with the video as the same locations are featured within it.
I played around with the images for the front and back cover and came to the conclusion that the beach shot was better on the back and the woods shot was better on the front as the woods shot contrasted and fitted better with the name of the album ‘October’ along with the autumn leaves in the image. I felt these images were in their suitable places and gave the product its signature. I also chose a bold and unusual font for the title of the album both on the CD cover and poster so that it would be a recognisable image for the audience who could then associate the title with the product easily. When putting together the products it showed me how important my planning was to then draw in the correct audience and to have both media products contrast yet combine well together.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Looking back at my audience feedback it has shown me how important that planning and research is for such a product. Once I had done a brainstorm of ideas and notes, I put up a poll on my blog to see that what ideas I had, were the most popular. I then put questions on the poll to help decide on locations and storylines for the video and other ideas for the digi pak. Once I had chosen the song, the votes from my polls really helped me with the planning as to what my target audience would be and what my chosen target audience would be looking for. It also helped me when making the products as I could then refer back to what they had voted for and what would be most successful through the progress of putting everything together. While editing the products I asked people to look at my work so far to see if they would change anything or do anything differently. This helped me as I could then change things that my audience didn’t like in order to make it more successful. Once the product was finish I asked a few people who fitted within my target audience range, to watch the video and look and the digi pak and tell me honestly what they thought. They were very pleased with my products and most commented on the twist at the end of the video saying that it was very clever. From my audience feedback I have learnt that outside opinion is very important when creating media products as it can make the product even more successful and I gave me a different angle of viewing and editing my products.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
When making my video and digi pak I used media technologies in many different ways. When editing my music video I used one of the more important technologies of Premiere Pro, a programme that I had never used before but was quickly able to learn how to use due to my knowledge from using windows movie maker for various other projects. This programme helped me with editing the footage I had gathered and making it into a music video. The next most important technology that I used within making my media products was the internet. The internet played a big part when researching and planning my video and digi pak as I was able to search other videos through Google and watch them online through websites such as YouTube. With this great advantage I was then able to analyse lighting, editing and camera angles in the videos and use them for ideas and inspiration for my own. The internet was also important as it has enabled me to use blogger to post my planning and research and to show my target audience the progress that I have made with my media products.
Photoshop also played a big part, especially when putting together my digi pak. From using Photoshop previously with another media project I could use my knowledge to create a good digi pak and in a quicker time than previous projects I also felt that, once I looked at my final products on Photoshop that my skills had improved. For the digi pak I also used a digital camera to take the photos that would be shown on the front and back cover. I used a digital video camera to capture the footage that I would need for my video.
