- Jasmine Gill - A2 Media Studies Blog -

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

For my music video I decided upon the song “Another day” By a dubstep, electronic band called “Modestep”. They were originally from London, and formed in 2010, and released their debut album in February 2011 called Evolution Theory. Generally Modestep is known for its dubstep, electronic style of music however their music also has elements of hard rock and drum & bass, giving them quite a unique musical style. I chose this band because I personally really enjoy listening to the music that the band creates, and I think the way they create the music is very clever, the way they use different sounds, bass lines etc to form catchy music. When watching the Music Video that Modestep chose to put alongside their song “Another Day” I really understood the storyline and liked the way they had decided to portray the storyline and the messages that they were trying to put across. Like many dubstep songs there are limited vocals however this style of music differs to others because the music videos with Dubstep songs are normally mostly performance or abstract, you can sometimes see snippets of the band performing in the music video which gives it a more grungy “live-music” feel whilst there is normally no lip-sync required with the song and the artists in their video because the song is almost just seen as a diegetic sound in the background of the action that is happening at that point in time, which is a convention I once again followed through within my own music video.

The mise-en scene that I used for my music video was exactly how I had pictured it when I first chose the song and my brief. I decided upon a couple of locations. The first one would be at my friends house, who was also the main artist in the music video, so it made sense that It would be located at her house because her room is typical of a teenage girls room and her house created the right kind of environment that I wanted In my music video. We also had to find somewhere that would be easy to get to and film which was another reason why her house fit the criteria and ultimately why I chose her house to film some of my music video. The next location that I had originally decided to film at was Hessle Foreshore, me and the artist in my music video organised to meet up for a shooting session at Foreshore and we had a walk round, took some pictures and had a look around the large forest that can be seen there. I did do a considerable amount of filming there however I realised it was an impractical place to film because it was difficult to get there and I also wanted to potentially use shots of gravestones which obviously weren’t at Hessle Foreshore. I had a think about it and decided to view another potential shooting location for the forest scene, I looked at the cemetery on Spring Bank, I saw that there was a forest-like area which was attached to the cemetery, and decided that as well as it being an easier location to get to, it was also better and suited my music video more. I thought that the forest was quite closed in and compressed which I thought could represent my artists feelings, of how alone she felt. Another issue about filming at Foreshore was the fact that it was a very busy place, and there were lots of families and children wandering around, this made it very difficult to film because it had to look like she was alone in the forest which wouldn’t be as effective if you saw another person walk straight through the shot, I did discover that it was just too busy a place to film no matter what times we went there to film. I Realised that in the cemetery, it was a very quiet closed-off place, which was exactly what I wanted because in the forest scene I wanted to convey the idea that she was feeling isolated and alone, and the imagery of her walking through a dark forest on her own would convey this perfectly. Pregnancy is an issue which is rife in today’s society, especially teen pregnancy, so the idea of her discovering this huge issue and then seeing her deal with it is something that most people within my target audience would relate to, because my Music Video is aimed at people within the ages of about 14-19 and this is also the age range where there is the highest pregnancy rates. Because of this idea it would link to Stuart Hall’s theory in the sense that the audience would belong to dominant audience, because they will most likely relate to and agree with the messages created by the producer, which in this case is me. For my artists clothing I decided that I would keep it very simple. I decided that she would wear a simple baggy dark blue jumper and that she would also wear a long dark blue parka coat and black skinny jeans and boots.

This type of clothing itself portrays the idea of rock/dubstep alternative culture because if we look at people such as Skrillex, Paramore, etc. they all stick to this similar type of clothing which emphasises the genre of music that they belong to. Since my artist is wearing this indie/grungy style of clothing, with the dark coloured boots/skinny jeans and dark blue bagggy top, it communicates to the audience that she has almost given up on life, given up on everything because she has discovered she is pregnant and feels that she has no one to turn to, to help and support her. The rock/indie style of clothing is considered to be quite a laidback style, with no real effort put into it, in the same sense, I have put her in this clothing because it will communicate how exhausted and tired she is, because she feels that she is alone and stressed with the situation she is now trapped in, even the colours communicate their own messages, the use of dark colours, all have connotations of darkness, depression and even loneliness, which clearly express her emotions almost directly. There are scenes within the music video where the shot is in black and white and I have also used effects on the editing programme to invert the image in the scene, these all communicate the way that she is confused and doesn’t really know what to do. I did also look at other different outfits however through personal preference I did decided upon this outfit.
I did look at other artists who have a similair style and this helped to influence the type of clothing that I decided to choose.

Again if we look to the left here we can see that Haley williams and Avril Lavigne are wearing dark coloured shirts, and black skinny jeans, a style which is evidently a style being repeated throughout alternative clothing.

I did look at this other outfit which did also fit the genre of music. The black band teeshirt along with the skinny jeans and of course the long dark blue parka also communicate the rock/electro genre and also the emotional state of mind that she is throughout the music video, however I was still happy with the chosen outfit.

For the cinematography of the music video that I created I only used a tripod for a couple of the scenes. This was just because I believe that with the alternative being handheld, the shaky camera actually communicated my artist’s difficult situation and the way that she is unsure about everything, and it shows the fear and uncertainty that she is experiencing, now she has discovered that she is pregnant. We can see example of this in many emotional and meaningful music videos such as "Ruffneck- Skrillex". The Skrillex music video is almost about showing how even the happiest people in the world can have these inner struggles with themselves, whether its drugs, depression or any issues to do with oneself. If we look at 00.52 and onwards we see the fast zooms/closeups and the shaky cinematography which shows us how unsure and unstable the character is feeling, I tried to use these conventions in my own music video because I wanted to again represent the way that there is some kind of unstability in her life.

In this music video by Paramore, we see that in the music video, it is extremely shaky and clearly no tripod or something similair has been used to steady the camera. I think that this gives it a very live-music feel and gives it quite an alternative gritty feel, which I wanted to communciate and portray within my own music video, by keeping the tripod for only certain times within my music video, where a tripod was actually needed.

In terms of types of shots I decided the one that I would use would mostly be close-up shots and medium shots. I used this because firstly as I have discovered when looking at other rock/dubstep music videos that this is a strong convention used to communicate the huge emotions experienced by the talent in the music video, which are again seen in music videos like Paramore - ignorance above. In the same way my music video had an extremely emotional storyline, and I thought the only way that the audience could truly relate with the artist was to see close up shots of her expressions which in turn would communicate her feelings and emotions thus meaning that the audience would also experience some of these feelings to, almost taking the audience on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. We see examples of this in Katy Perry - Unconditionally. Here this is emotional in the way that it is a love song, of a woman confessing her love for someone and signing about how much this person means to them, again as used in my music video there are close up shots of Katy Perry's face and the facial expressions that she makes which essentially allows us as the audience to understand how much she means the words that she is singing.

However dubstep and electronic music differs to rock music in the way that they portray emotions and feelings through a storyline. In Dubstep and electro music when the emotions reach a climax the conventions are normally to use editing effects such as fast flashing lights or even the action within the music video speeding up. I decided to use conventions from both the rock and electro genre and decided upon using close up shots to portray how alone and scared the artist in my music video feels but also have used sped up action and flashing colours to portray the heightened sense of fear and anticipation. An example of this would be right at the beginning of my music video when she looks at her pregnancy test to realise she is pregnant, I use a zoom to emphasize her shock when she realises that the test shows positive and then I have used the editing programme "FinalCut" on which I edited my music video to make the pregnancy test flash, getting faster and faster replicating how fast her heart is beating and as already mentioned to show the audience the climax of her emotions.

In relation to the editing, the main editing technique I used throughout the music video was jump cuts. Originally the shots were slow, however after looking at my audience feedback I realised that speeding up the shots and scenes within the music video would allow it to actually fit in with the song and narrative of my music video, I found once I had sped up the action and added in jump cuts it improved the whole music video and gave it all an overall more professional finish. I remained consistent with the use of jump cuts throughout the music video, this was to keep the audience interested so they didn’t get bored and also as touched upon already, so that the music video would fit in with the beat of the song. The idea of the jump cuts also to some extent replicates the lyrics “Tomorrow is another day” these lyrics represent the idea that life is a continuous cycle that just goes round and round, it communicates the idea of having a routine, in the same way the jump cuts of the artist waking up and walking etc. within the music video show that it’s just the same routine for her every day, and nothing ever seems to change showing how she has given up and just wishes something else good and different would happen in her life, it shows that she is exhausted of it all happening over and over again. As already mentioned I have used fast edits which communicate the way that that everything is confusing her and making her feel scared and exhausted. The fast edits sped up the action and combined with the flashes of light and the black and white shots it overwhelms the audience, almost shocking them with the speed at which the action is happening again portraying her emotions as being crazy. The use of the black and white effect was simply to show how upset she is, and how she feels that the whole pregnancy situation would affect her life, It represents the way the colour has left her life, almost like she feels the hope has left her life, whilst the use of the “inverted x-ray” effect shows how her life has changed because the way that these colours are unrealistic and fake reflects the way that she feels that her own life is “fake” and no longer her own. Again the idea of Black and white is conventional when considering music videos because if we look at music videos such as "All of me- John Legend" again this is another meaningful, sad love song, however we see the use of the black and white effect which essentially communciates his feelings, as though he feels his life is colourless and empty without the person he loves, the idea of black and white also has an automatic atosphere of sadness which we as the audience will subcinciously experience to a certain extent, so again in the same sense in my music video the use of the black and white, will portray the emotions being experienced by the artist in my music video and the fact that she feels so sad and upset because she has a child and has no idea what to do because she feels she has no support or help.

For props I used the pregnancy stick, but very few other props apart from this. The purpose of this was to keep it very simplistic, this was to again show that she is a simple person who doesn’t want everything in the world, she just wants to be happy and would do anything for some support or help but in the same way she doesnt know how to ask for help and so without realising it, pushes people away.

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

When planning and creating the ancillary texts, the first thing I obviously needed to do was designate a day to do a photo-shoot with my artist, and the person who was going to be the main star within my music video. Me and the model in my music video sat down and discussed different locations where we could take pictures, a couple of these places included the models house, the cemetery where we did a majority of the filming and of course foreshore where we were originally going to film the forest scene, however while we were at the models house we realised that her back garden would be the perfect place to do the photo-shoot. I didn’t want a location which looked too “fresh” or “new” I wanted to give it quite an alternative feel, so I decided that we would use her back garden gate and she would lean against it as you can see on the left. I would then edit this image on Photoshop to give it the right kind of dub step “electro” feel that I want, I later achieved this by applying an “inverted colour” effect onto the image and the model. I used the “magnetic lasso” tool to cut out the image of the model so that I could put on my own alternate backgrounds because I didn’t want to use the same background for all my different individual ancillary texts, despite this I still remained consistent with the use of colours etc. For the fonts that I used within my product, I decided once more as conventional in a package, to use the same or similar fonts and colours throughout, this would again ensure that it looked professional and also would ensure that the audience could clearly see some sort of link between the different products. I looked at a couple of crazier fonts that I had found but eventually decided to stick to a more simple font, I did this because I didn’t want anything drawing attention away from the artists themselves. In some ways here I decided to go against convention. In most dub step albums/music they decided to use quite “in-your-face” font’s which are all intricate, jagged and quite unique, however I did have my own reasons as already explained for going against this genre convention.

My main theme throughout was the symbol of the lightning strike this was something I believe did fit in with the conventions of Dubstep/electro/rock music, because the jagged, sharp shapes almost replicate this type of music, it could even in some ways represent the beat of the music, the way that the sounds differ in pitch and speed and goes up and down quite quickly, links to the jagged shapes of the lightning strikes, this was another reason why I decided to keep the font quite basic, I still wanted to keep it looking quite simple, because if I used too many different effects it would look cluttered and unappealing, whilst keeping it simple would mean it remained aesthetic and professional. When considering this I continued to try and follow conventions of this genre and looked at album covers such as Skrillex and Knife party. Again as mentioned if we look at the two album covers for these two hugely popular dubstep/electro albums we see that the colours are bright and eyeatching and the shapes and forms on the album cover are sharp and intricate, which I have once more tried to replicate with my own album cover.

If we look at my own album cover and back cover I have just like the skrillex and knife party album cover tried to stick to bright shocking colours and have used the lightning strike shapes to create the same shocking effect that the massive sharp shapes create on the two proffesional albums create above. Originally when actually making my album front cover I had a plain black background and the image of the artist was slightly edited but wasn’t in inverted colours. I learned through my audience feedback that it just looked too plain, and very “pop album-like” which obviously wasn’t portraying my genre correctly, I wanted my CD album to look bright and eye-catching, hence the use of editing and the inverted colours. I decided that I wanted to keep her wearing the same outfit throughout the music video and the digipak because I believe the long blue parka and the dark coloured clothing connotes the idea of rock/electro/alternative music, which again is something I intended to communicate to the audience.

When creating my magazine advert I decided upon once more keeping the colours basic and continuing the theme I had already established within my products, of using the lightning strikes. I used an image of the front cover of my cd album cover, to place on my magazine advert, to again establish a link with the digipak, and the magazine advert, realism was created through the way that I decided to provide a website address for fans to access the artist whilst I used Facebook, Twitter and other different logos to make it look more realistic, since nowadays most things are done through social networking and web 2.0. When looking at my actual digipak, I decided to create one with 6 panels which would include an album front cover, album back cover, 2 CD cases, and two plain images. I decided that I would stick to the same colour theme and of course use the same fonts throughout the digipak, so that the magazine advert and the digipak linked together and looked like part of the same product, which again promotes the artists because it shows the poster and cd album evidently belong to her.

For the two CD cases I once more edited them on Photoshop. I wanted to continue the same theme that had been apparent within my cd album front cover and the poster, so I used the same fonts, colours and similar images. To do this I used the crop tool on Photoshop to cut out my artists from the image of the gate that she had been stood against I then decided to use this as the CD design, and once more inverted the cut out image of the wooden gate, thus creating a very grungy and unique effect. I then did the same thing with my second CD however I decided to do the opposite thing and give the wooden effect to the actual cd case rather than the CD making the whole design fit together and once more look professional, doing this in my opinion made the whole digipak look more realistic.

I also needed to create a “spine” to the digipak. Again I wanted to use the symbolic image of the lightning strike and like on the front cover of the album I put the words “heartbroken” in deep red letters, communicating the idea of love which is touched upon in the album, especially when considering the storyline of the music video where she finds she is pregnant, which of course is a deep issue which is close to the character in the music video’s heart, it also has negative connotations of pain, insanity and madness, which are some of the emotions that she experiences throughout the music video.

When deciding upon the design for the two cover pictures within the digipak, I wanted to portray the idea that it is a very emotional album with a deeper meaning that needs to be explored by the audience. I used images of the model looking very distressed and upset and I blurred the images by overlapping the images together making it look very confusing to look at, because in the same way this will portray how confused the model/artist feels when she is going through the things that she experiences.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

My audience feedback has helped me greatly, it has allowed me to grow and expand from my original music video draft, and has allowed me to understand and get know my audience better thus meaning my product and my music video will be more successful. The first thing I asked within my audience feedback was the whether the person filling out my survey was between the ages of 14-19. I asked 20 people to fill out this survey and all 20 of them said that they were between the ages of 14 and 19. I asked this question because 14-19 year olds are the people that I am aiming my music video at, so there is no point asking someone above or below this age about their opinions on the music video because the whole point of the survey is to learn about how to please my target audience. I next asked the people filling out my survey whether the music video fits the genre of the music and whether the storyline and action appeared as though it fitted the genre of the music and music video. The responses I got were all again primarily positive and I believe that all the people who watched my music video felt that the storyline and the way I had edited the music video allowed it to fit in with the genre. I am quite pleased with this because the storyline I chose for my music video was essentially about teenage pregnancy, this isn’t a conventional storyline for such an alternative music style however, through my editing and the different lighting and effects that I used I managed to fit everything together. When I asked people about my ancillary texts I got critical feedback just as I had asked. I did this because I knew the first couple of drafts weren’t quite correct however I wasn’t really sure how I was going to improve this so I decided to once more turn to my target audience – the people who would be purchasing my products to ask about what they liked and disliked about my digipak/poster etc. When I first created the poster it looked quite basic and it didn’t really portray the genre that it needed to portray, as well as this it didn’t really provide any links between the poster and the actual album cover apart from the fact that the that there was an image of the album, it also didn’t look particularly realistic, however after talking to some of my target audience I realised that what I needed to do was add some logos from popular social networking sites where most artists are presented on such as Facebook, Twitter, plus a few others and also continue the use of the symbolic lightning strikes that are used throughout all the products. From this I made the background white to brighten it up slightly and then after this I put some lightning strike shapes in the background which again carried the same theme throughout my products, keeping it consistent and professional. As well as this I really liked the thought of putting Facebook and Twitter logos on my poster since my target audience is teenagers between the ages of 14-19 and social media such as Twitter and Facebook is most popular in this age range, meaning that more people will be aware that they can access this artists through their social media and also of course that they can buy the products through this, this all again acts as promotion and advertisement of the artist. In some ways it can be considered as globalisation because introducing the artist to people through social media means people can share, “like” comment and talk about the artist, therefore spreading awareness of the artist’s work meaning that it can reach a wider potential audience and since social media is used all around the world it means there is a huge potential for a huge fan base for the artist and their music. Another important thing to remember is that fact that since I made my music video available on YouTube, I have essentially made it available top stream on tablets, phones, computers etc, meaning it can reach a huge variety of people no matter what types of technology they are using to view the media text.

http://prezi.com/vjdvcwblcslu/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

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

I used many different media technologies throughout when carrying out this project. The first and probably one of the most important pieces of technology that I used was of course Blogger.com, I used this to actually present the work that I have completed throughout the past year. On Blogger anyone, as long as they have my blog address will be able to view my work, and even comment on it if they wish.

Another important piece of technology is of course Photoshop CS6. I used this for many of the things involved in this media brief. Through Photoshop I was able to create a professional looking digipak and of course also a magazine advert, and of course this programme enabled me to edit all my images etc.

I used a college Sony camera through which I was able to upload all my images and footage onto the computer through the use of a memory card, Once all my footage and images was on the computer I edited quite a few of the images I had taken on Photoshop and inverted the colour so it better fit my music video and the whole theme for my ancillary texts. A Sony Handycam was also used earlier on when I was first carrying out audience research and I did a focus group with a couple of people from my target audience, through the audience research I got to grips with what exactly they wanted from a music video, which I then reflected in my own music video. I also used an editing programme on the college I-macs called “Final-cut” through this I imported my camera footage onto the editing programme through which I added effects such as “X-ray”, “negative”, “invert” and “black and white” which effectively portrayed the rollercoaster of emotions that were explored throughout the music video. I also was able to add transitions such as “fade” and “flashes”, and of course I could shorten, speed up or slow down particular clips and scenes within my music video, thus creating the final product. When I had finished creating my music video, I shared this as a “Master file” on “Final-cut” and this made my music video into a “Quicktime movie” which I then uploaded to Youtube along with my first draft that I had created for my music video, I believe Youtube is effective because it allows people to access and view my videos and if they wish they can express their opinions of it through the form of comments and likes and dislikes. I also used basic Microsoft programmes such as “Word”, “Powerpoint” and “Excel”. I used word to type up important information and to remember which scenes within my music video happened when, PowerPoint was used when I created my different mood boards, based on costume and makeup looks etc and I also used it to create presentations on different things where I needed to. In general I did create most of my presentations through the online site “Prezi” this programme allows the user to create professional and creative looking presentations which can be presented however you wish, since you can choose from a variety of templates, fonts, colours, etc.