In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My music video both follows and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. Firstly, I believe I challenged forms and conventions by making my video short without and clear beginning, middle and end. I undertook a survey, finding out that the majority of people I asked preferred music videos to have a narrative, I went against this research and decided for my video to not have a narrative. The genre of music I chose to be included in my music video is a post-dubstep style of music, which is a very futuristic style that often noticeably encompasses elements of ambient music. As the style of music is very abstract I decided to make my music video very abstract. This goes against the research I carried out, finding that the majority of people I asked to fill out a questionnaire preferred conventional music videos. I also challenged forms and conventions by shooting the entire video on a slr stills camera appose to and video camera. I used the effect of stop motion, which is rarely used in mainstream music videos. Although at first my video does not have any clear conventions, there are many that I have taken from existing products with a similar genre to mine. Some may be clear to the eye however some are slightly more hidden with in the text so that it is fairly challenging as well as entertaining.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I think the combination of my main product and ancillary text work together very well. Along with my main product of a music video I produced and website and a CD cover. All 3 products linked together using similar photography, focusing of continuity. The chosen font was used on both of the texts to relate the two to each other, keep a running theme and to allow the audience to associate the artist with this particular font and become part of their identity. Simplicity is also a running theme on both texts as minimal text is used. To keep continently between my website and my CD cover, the opening page of my website features the same image that my CD cover features. I believe this is easily recognisable for the audience and adds an identity to the artist.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
After showing a un-edited clip to a small focus group, I receive feedback on what they felt were good and what they felt wasn’t so good and what points I could improve. I receive information that the group liked the genre and style of the video but weren’t so keen on the stop motion, shuddery effect. The other main critical point was the fact that the video had no narrative to it. I already knew from undertaking a questionnaire that the majority preferred a story based music video but I chose to make a concept video. From undertaking a questionnaire I found out what type music video people in my class enjoyed to view.
How did you use media technologies in the construction, research planning and evaluation stages?
In order to research for my music video, CD cover and Website, I relied on the Internet a lot.
I used YouTube to find videos of existing music videos to analyse and the search engine Google to find album covers and music websites. I also used the website vimeo, to find inspiration watching videos. I also used vimeo to communicate with the director of the golden silvers video please venus, which my own music video was heavily influenced by. I also used the Internet to learn camera techniques and effects such as stop motion.
The first step of constructing my music video was to shoot all the footage, to do this I used I Nikon d50 slr camera. Next I transferred the still images onto the apple Mac via a USB lead. I imported these stills into imovie. imovie was the piece of software I used to edit these stills to make them into a video. During the shooting stage of the video, to show the person I was shooting an idea of what I wanted to achieve, I showed him an example of a video using stop motion on my iphone.
During the evaluation stage I posted a clip of my video on my facebook page to gain valuable feedback and a wide response.
| Date | Task | Report |
| 22nd September | Begin research | I began research, watching lots of music videos on www.youtube.com |
| 29th September | Continue research | I continued watching lots of music videos. |
| 13th October | Start planning and research | I watched lots of music, casting ideas for my own music video. |
| 20th October | Continue Planning | continued what i was doing last week, sourcing music video ideas. |
| 3rd November | To create a questionnaire | I created a music video related questionnaire and managed to hand it out to everyone in the class. |
| 17th November | Gather questionnaire results and continue research | I gathered and recorded questionnaire results onto a graph |
| 8th December | Start to plan my own music video | Didn’t manage to do much planning on my own video, but undertook extensive research into music videos |
| 15th December | start to plan my own music video | I started to plan my own video, looking into and researching certain ideas |
| 12th January | Learn about stop motion animation | I researched and learnt how stop motion worked |
| 19th January | To undertake a stop motion test | Undertook a brief stop motion test, playing with the cameras settings and sutterspeeds |
| 26th January | plan out music video with storyboards | planned out video include locations and shots |
| 9th February | Finalise music video plan | chose music, location and planning to shoot the video in next couple of days |
| 11th February | shoot music video | Shot music video. |
| 23rd February | upload footage to mac. | Uploaded footage to mac and undertook a brief edit. |
| 1st March | Begin editing footage and start work on ancillary text. | edited music video and started CD cover. |
| 7th march | continue editing | progress on music video, website and CD cover |
Tom Harvey … Short snippet of my music video
During my research on ‘stop motion’ anitmation I came across this video, which was very useful http://www.ehow.com/video_4956862_digital-camera-stop-motion.html
Plans For Ancillary Text
Website
I am planning to create a website, using photos i have already taken during shooting my music video. This will include videos, photos, information about the artist
Poster
For the poster I am planning to again use photos from my music video giving all three texts a direct link.
For Part of my research I contacted the creator of The Golden Silvers Video which I have based my video on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0IyCgXfDLs
"Hey James... Glad to help if I can, hmmm, where to start.... We basically started with stop motion because it was the best option available to us without having to shell out loads of money. I am photographer, so had the necessary equipment (a digital SLR), and understood the process, but hadn't done a lot of stop motion. just the odd experiment here and there. Gwil (the singer from GS) liked what we had done previously and wanted to try and use it to make a music video. He explained the song, and we came up with a premise for the video. We roped in our friend Colin, who had worked on the artwork for the album, and got him to add some of his graphics to the piece. After planning it out, and shooting the first sequence in london, we edited it up, added some graphics, and had a look to see if we were on the right track. it all looked pretty good, so about a week later we headed down to Brighton for the day with the band, and a few friends, and just went about getting the rest of the shots we needed. Once we had everything, Gabriel and I edited up the photos and strung them together to the song. Once that was complete, we gave the original jpeg's to Colin to illustrate over, and slotted them back into the proper sequence... and that was about it. Other than planning out the shots, the only preparation we do is making sure we have a spare battery, and a spare memory card. You will do multiple takes, different angles, and take A LOT of pics! Half of which you won't end up using. We are far from professional level film makers so we use bare bones stuff, basically what we can afford and/or carry. So it was my camera, 2 lenses, 2 batteries, 2 memory cards, natural light, and a bunch of guys willing to stand on a windy beach and mouth the words to a song at half speed. My best tip... Lip-synching and matching things up in editing is the toughest bit, if you can avoid it, then do. It can be a nightmare. Anyways, hope that helps. If I can answer anything else, then fire away. Thanks for watching. GT"
http://blogs.thegrangeschool.net/05dyerj/files/2011/03/quest-graphs3.pdf
This is the results from the questionnaire I undertook.
