Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Monday, 16 April 2012
Evaluation:
My production work takes the form of a music video, with the genre of music being Pop/piano rock. Pop music is considered to appeal to a wide mainstream audience whilst piano rock could be considered as appealing to a much more niche market which makes the two genres quite a contrast and also quite unconventional. Mainstream audiences usually appeal to the masses and are produced purely on a commercial basis, whereas niche audiences enjoy music that is usually provided by smaller, minor labels and is less well known. This is similar to the original artist Christina Perri as she is unconventional in appearance when considering those who would usually be found in the pop music genre. Although pretty, the original artist has dark hair and tattoos and does not dress in conventional way. She is different from similar artists in the genre which I liked as it sets her apart from others and is a characteristic that I chose to develop my music video around and also when deciding on things such as the mise en scene. When considering the location and cast list I decided that I would break the conventions of usual pop videos and place my artist in a woodland area with no apparent narrative and no other cast members. Usually, pop videos are shot with more than one cast member or actor, and with emotional songs like Jar of Hearts there is a love interest or in this case an antagonist to whom the song is directed. By placing my artist alone in a woodland area I wanted to show how destitute and alone the lyrics portray them as being but also the sense of separation from the person causing them pain. I liked the idea of having nature as a theme that ran through my music video. This theme can also be seen in the close up shots of the flowers which I chose to include as a connotation of romance, of something growing and perhaps even something ending. Flowers are usually given in a romantic context, and with the use of the shots of petals I also wanted to include the ’they love me, they love me not’ sense of picking petals off of the flower. I also chose to dress my artist in modern clothing that perhaps wouldn’t be seen in mainstream videos but would appeal to my target audience of 15-24 year olds who would probably have an interest in such fashion and also the make up and hair used is quite individual and modern, not unlike the original artist herself.
Although the use of both genres Pop and piano rock are not commonly used, I believe that my product follows the codes and conventions of music videos, dig packs and magazine advertisements. As the artist is the main focus of the texts I chose to use frequent close-ups and extreme close-ups in my music video as music videos are not only used as a way of displaying a song but as a promotional tool for the artist themselves. The form of my music video is performance, and I chose to eclectically borrow from the original video which is common as all music videos are post modern. I chose to replicate some of the conventions shown in the original video, such as shooting it in black and white which could almost be a pathetic fallacy of how the artist is feeling. The black and white is meant to represent all the colour going out of someone’s life because of an event that’s happened, almost as if there’s no joy and no life left and is unconventional of the pop genre. The black and white theme is followed through both my digipack and magazine advertisement which provides continuity and ties all three products together. Continuity is also provided by the use of the same original font used on both ancillary texts which is quite simple but individualistic.
The original video contains a dance sequence which I chose not to include as I think it’s a frequently used convention of most pop videos and I wanted mine to be slightly different. By using other cast members I wouldn’t have achieved a sense of loneliness that I wanted my video to exude.
For audience feedback before and during my production of my text I created a online poll on my blog that asked the audience their age, sex and favourite music genre in order to find my audience demographic. I found that most of my audience were females between the ages of 15-20 and only 27% of my overall audience preferred the pop music genre. The genre with the highest overall percentage was R’n’B which I would say was slightly more popular in today’s culture that pop music although both genres are interlinked with artists such as Rihanna blurring the lines between both. Also I my blog I made numerous posts about my chosen genre and it’s conventions, making sure I followed most of them when shooting my music video and also researching what went in to the music video itself, not just the song but the cuts and transitions. I noticed that most videos use editing that follows the beat or tempo of the song, so as my song was quite slow and thoughtful I knew I had to include quite slow transitions from one shot to the next. If my chosen song was faster I would have chosen to use fast, sharp cuts using numerous shots that perhaps only lasted a few seconds each.
During pre-production I annotated the lyrics of Jar of hearts in order to find other connotations in the lyrics themselves and to get an idea do the mood and tone that my music video would take. I then scanned this onto a computer and uploaded it onto the web based blogging site named Blogger along with initial ideas for my music video. I then began to design a storyboard which I then took pictures of using a still camera and uploaded them onto Adobe Premier Pro CS3 in order to make an animatic to get a feel of what my text would look like along with the soundtrack itself. I found this easy and simple to use and gave a much better result than if I had used a programme such as Windows Movie Maker which I personally think gives a less professional effect. During this creative process I found that some of the shots I had designed were perhaps not right or wouldn’t work with my chosen song, so I chose to repeat some of the shots during the chorus and throughout some of the instrumentals. I again uploaded this to Blogger along with more in depth information about my artist and song, such as details as to who was watching the song Jar of Hearts on the music streaming website Youtube which is who my video would likely appeal to.
When placing my ancillary texts in a social context I placed my album cover on a screen shot of Youtube as this is where it would more than likely be watched and listened to. I also placed my album cover onto a picture of an Ipod as it would more than likely be downloaded from sites such as Itunes rather than actual CD distributors such as HMV due to digitalisation. I did this using the programme Adobe Photoshop.
By using Blogger I was able to keep track of all my posts and it also made it near impossible to lose it or accidentally delete it as it would in a personal file or perhaps a paper copy which could be easily misplaced or thrown away.
My pre-production of my media texts also included some research into the artist herself, using the website Wikipedia which describes itself as the ‘free encyclopaedia’ and also the search engine Google. Although commonly thought of as being unreliable, Wikipedia allowed me to find out about Christina Perri’s career, her music genre and the label she’s signed to. I found that she’s signed to Atlantic records which is a subsidiary of Warner Music Group which is different to what I originally thought. As this artist is an individual in both appearance and sound I thought she’d be signed to a much smaller, perhaps ‘Indie’ label, but it does show that what would be considered as niche can now appeal to a much wider audience and companies are having to expand their repertoire in order to cater for the many different tastes created by a society that has access to music streaming sites such as Spotify and Youtube. I used the streaming website Youtube in order to watch the Jar of hearts video so that I could identify some of the conventions used and then emulate them. I also used Youtube when analysing other music videos of a similar genre and was then able to insert the videos onto my blog along with the analysis’.
By using Google images I was able to compare my digipack with the original and also find the track list to the album Lovestrong which I needed in order to make my product more professional and realistic.
Before creating my ancillary texts I also included a draft constructed on Photoshop which I then saved as a jpg and uploaded onto my blog, which gave me a rough idea of how the layout for the text would be.
The production of my music video entailed the use of a video camera and a small DV tape which I used to capture the numerous shots needed . At first, the camera was difficult to use and was difficult to keep steady when moving the camera to capture a pan of the location or when zooming in from a long shot to a close up shot at a steady pace. Once I had a reasonably good experience when using the different features of the camera it was brilliant to use, and I followed my storyboard and shooting script that I had created previously in order to get the right shot with the right lyric as the artist had to sing in time with the music. The only thing that I disliked about this process was my ideas didn’t always translate into what I was capturing. I was constantly re-shooting shots that once on the editing suite didn’t look right or didn’t fit in with the song itself and I think it’s because I had no previous experience in shooting a music video before and you expect an immediate professional look to your video but it’s difficult to achieve that. I also had difficulty in getting my artist to perform in such a way that the emotion from the lyrics was portrayed on the screen. In the end I think she did a good job considering she had no previous acting experience but if I was to start this project again I would probably enquire about professional actors or those who perhaps take drama or performing arts at college.
Once I had my shots I began to piece together my video using Adobe Premier Pro CS3 and once I had got the timing right I began to experiment with different effects and transitions. I had already planned on having my video in black and white as it gave a romantic feel so I then chose quite a slow, artistic transition called ‘cross dissolve’ throughout my music video. I lengthened these transitions in order for it to fit into the timing of the song and in the end I was quite proud of what I’d achieved.
Using an Olympus camera I then began work on my digipack and magazine advertisement; two items from the brief that I thought I could do reasonably well. I took shots of my artist, using mainly close ups and medium close ups so that the audience would easily recognise her when reading the magazine or browsing albums in a CD retailer. For my digipack I chose a medium close up shot of my artist, with a blank wall behind her. My artist looks quite different with big curly hair and would therefore attract attention. I also followed the black and white theme, using Adobe Photoshop to apply the grey scale affect to the picture and to also crop it into the correct size using the crop tool. Then, using the text website www.interactimage.com I chose a quite simple font as the original Jar of Hearts album Love strong used simple font in order to not distract the consumers attention from the artist themselves. I then saved the font as a jpg and uploaded it into Photoshop, using the lasso tool to cut round the edges and remove all the unneeded white stuff from around the outside.
I believe my knowledge and skills on Photoshop has improved and there is a noticeable difference between my portfolio last year in which I had to create a music magazine and this years production work. I think I can achieve a more professional look as I know more of the features included in this programme such as auto contrast and also the use of the blur tool which I used when constructing my digipack and magazine advertisement.
I believe that the production of all three texts was reasonably successful although in hindsight I would have been more organised and given myself more time in order for them to be as good as they possibly could be. My magazine advertisement is perhaps the weakest aspect of my production work as it doesn’t tie in with the other texts as well as I’d hoped.
Although the use of both genres Pop and piano rock are not commonly used, I believe that my product follows the codes and conventions of music videos, dig packs and magazine advertisements. As the artist is the main focus of the texts I chose to use frequent close-ups and extreme close-ups in my music video as music videos are not only used as a way of displaying a song but as a promotional tool for the artist themselves. The form of my music video is performance, and I chose to eclectically borrow from the original video which is common as all music videos are post modern. I chose to replicate some of the conventions shown in the original video, such as shooting it in black and white which could almost be a pathetic fallacy of how the artist is feeling. The black and white is meant to represent all the colour going out of someone’s life because of an event that’s happened, almost as if there’s no joy and no life left and is unconventional of the pop genre. The black and white theme is followed through both my digipack and magazine advertisement which provides continuity and ties all three products together. Continuity is also provided by the use of the same original font used on both ancillary texts which is quite simple but individualistic.
The original video contains a dance sequence which I chose not to include as I think it’s a frequently used convention of most pop videos and I wanted mine to be slightly different. By using other cast members I wouldn’t have achieved a sense of loneliness that I wanted my video to exude.
For audience feedback before and during my production of my text I created a online poll on my blog that asked the audience their age, sex and favourite music genre in order to find my audience demographic. I found that most of my audience were females between the ages of 15-20 and only 27% of my overall audience preferred the pop music genre. The genre with the highest overall percentage was R’n’B which I would say was slightly more popular in today’s culture that pop music although both genres are interlinked with artists such as Rihanna blurring the lines between both. Also I my blog I made numerous posts about my chosen genre and it’s conventions, making sure I followed most of them when shooting my music video and also researching what went in to the music video itself, not just the song but the cuts and transitions. I noticed that most videos use editing that follows the beat or tempo of the song, so as my song was quite slow and thoughtful I knew I had to include quite slow transitions from one shot to the next. If my chosen song was faster I would have chosen to use fast, sharp cuts using numerous shots that perhaps only lasted a few seconds each.
During pre-production I annotated the lyrics of Jar of hearts in order to find other connotations in the lyrics themselves and to get an idea do the mood and tone that my music video would take. I then scanned this onto a computer and uploaded it onto the web based blogging site named Blogger along with initial ideas for my music video. I then began to design a storyboard which I then took pictures of using a still camera and uploaded them onto Adobe Premier Pro CS3 in order to make an animatic to get a feel of what my text would look like along with the soundtrack itself. I found this easy and simple to use and gave a much better result than if I had used a programme such as Windows Movie Maker which I personally think gives a less professional effect. During this creative process I found that some of the shots I had designed were perhaps not right or wouldn’t work with my chosen song, so I chose to repeat some of the shots during the chorus and throughout some of the instrumentals. I again uploaded this to Blogger along with more in depth information about my artist and song, such as details as to who was watching the song Jar of Hearts on the music streaming website Youtube which is who my video would likely appeal to.
When placing my ancillary texts in a social context I placed my album cover on a screen shot of Youtube as this is where it would more than likely be watched and listened to. I also placed my album cover onto a picture of an Ipod as it would more than likely be downloaded from sites such as Itunes rather than actual CD distributors such as HMV due to digitalisation. I did this using the programme Adobe Photoshop.
By using Blogger I was able to keep track of all my posts and it also made it near impossible to lose it or accidentally delete it as it would in a personal file or perhaps a paper copy which could be easily misplaced or thrown away.
My pre-production of my media texts also included some research into the artist herself, using the website Wikipedia which describes itself as the ‘free encyclopaedia’ and also the search engine Google. Although commonly thought of as being unreliable, Wikipedia allowed me to find out about Christina Perri’s career, her music genre and the label she’s signed to. I found that she’s signed to Atlantic records which is a subsidiary of Warner Music Group which is different to what I originally thought. As this artist is an individual in both appearance and sound I thought she’d be signed to a much smaller, perhaps ‘Indie’ label, but it does show that what would be considered as niche can now appeal to a much wider audience and companies are having to expand their repertoire in order to cater for the many different tastes created by a society that has access to music streaming sites such as Spotify and Youtube. I used the streaming website Youtube in order to watch the Jar of hearts video so that I could identify some of the conventions used and then emulate them. I also used Youtube when analysing other music videos of a similar genre and was then able to insert the videos onto my blog along with the analysis’.
By using Google images I was able to compare my digipack with the original and also find the track list to the album Lovestrong which I needed in order to make my product more professional and realistic.
Before creating my ancillary texts I also included a draft constructed on Photoshop which I then saved as a jpg and uploaded onto my blog, which gave me a rough idea of how the layout for the text would be.
The production of my music video entailed the use of a video camera and a small DV tape which I used to capture the numerous shots needed . At first, the camera was difficult to use and was difficult to keep steady when moving the camera to capture a pan of the location or when zooming in from a long shot to a close up shot at a steady pace. Once I had a reasonably good experience when using the different features of the camera it was brilliant to use, and I followed my storyboard and shooting script that I had created previously in order to get the right shot with the right lyric as the artist had to sing in time with the music. The only thing that I disliked about this process was my ideas didn’t always translate into what I was capturing. I was constantly re-shooting shots that once on the editing suite didn’t look right or didn’t fit in with the song itself and I think it’s because I had no previous experience in shooting a music video before and you expect an immediate professional look to your video but it’s difficult to achieve that. I also had difficulty in getting my artist to perform in such a way that the emotion from the lyrics was portrayed on the screen. In the end I think she did a good job considering she had no previous acting experience but if I was to start this project again I would probably enquire about professional actors or those who perhaps take drama or performing arts at college.
Once I had my shots I began to piece together my video using Adobe Premier Pro CS3 and once I had got the timing right I began to experiment with different effects and transitions. I had already planned on having my video in black and white as it gave a romantic feel so I then chose quite a slow, artistic transition called ‘cross dissolve’ throughout my music video. I lengthened these transitions in order for it to fit into the timing of the song and in the end I was quite proud of what I’d achieved.
Using an Olympus camera I then began work on my digipack and magazine advertisement; two items from the brief that I thought I could do reasonably well. I took shots of my artist, using mainly close ups and medium close ups so that the audience would easily recognise her when reading the magazine or browsing albums in a CD retailer. For my digipack I chose a medium close up shot of my artist, with a blank wall behind her. My artist looks quite different with big curly hair and would therefore attract attention. I also followed the black and white theme, using Adobe Photoshop to apply the grey scale affect to the picture and to also crop it into the correct size using the crop tool. Then, using the text website www.interactimage.com I chose a quite simple font as the original Jar of Hearts album Love strong used simple font in order to not distract the consumers attention from the artist themselves. I then saved the font as a jpg and uploaded it into Photoshop, using the lasso tool to cut round the edges and remove all the unneeded white stuff from around the outside.
I believe my knowledge and skills on Photoshop has improved and there is a noticeable difference between my portfolio last year in which I had to create a music magazine and this years production work. I think I can achieve a more professional look as I know more of the features included in this programme such as auto contrast and also the use of the blur tool which I used when constructing my digipack and magazine advertisement.
I believe that the production of all three texts was reasonably successful although in hindsight I would have been more organised and given myself more time in order for them to be as good as they possibly could be. My magazine advertisement is perhaps the weakest aspect of my production work as it doesn’t tie in with the other texts as well as I’d hoped.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)