The typical conventions in music videos are close ups of either the band or the main singer and fast paced editing. I used close ups of the main singer mainly in between the running scenes, this is because I felt that the running sequence was hard to determine how accurate the lip syncing is, so therefore I felt if I showed close ups of the main singer the audience can see that the singing was in sync. This fits in with the theory of Roy Shuker, who believed that close ups of actors singing directly into the camera give a connection between the singer and the audience, this is because the audience are able to see the facial expressions of the singer.
Another main convention is that in the chorus the scenes are often repeated. This therefore allowed me to follow the theory of Richard Dyer, which is that the audience see the main singer as an idol, because there is so many close ups of the main singer in my video. The close ups of the main singer are usually well lit with lights, however due to my filming location, I did not have access to a power supply so I had to rely on the natural light to light my actor.
It is common for the meaning of the song to reflect where the music video is shot. My music track is about quite negative aspects of life, so if I was sticking to the conventions I would film inside or outside with dull lighting. However I thought it was necessary for me to film outside with bright lighting because the song I used is about running away from problems. A music video which fits this convention is ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem which I analysed for my blog. ‘Lose Yourself’ is a very grimey and dull narrative so the scenes are both inside and out with very low key lighting.
Due to the fact that ‘The Kax’ are typically an indie band with three in the band I thought I had to stick to the three people in the band. This is typical of an indie band, (e.g. Blink 182), and through the music video we rarely see other actors. In my music video we see the three band members in the second shot, we then only see two other dancers throughout the whole of the music video. I did this because I wanted to stick to the conventions of music videos.
The mise-en scene used in my music video does conform to the typical conventions of costume. Usually within indie music videos we either see very serious costumes and rarely see costumes which are very different, and almost comedic. (e.g. Bombay Bicycle Club – Evening). In the music video I made I went for the comedic looking costume because I thought it looked different to the mainstream and popular indie videos, and the style fitted well with the music track.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
My website has conformed to typical forms and conventions from other indie bands. For example my website is influenced by the Kooks and the Arctic Monkeys. Their sites included tour dates along the right hand side of the webpage and music videos and music tracks available for the audience to view.
Looking at most websites based on artists, the layout of the websites are heavy reliant on boxes which break up the webpage into many segments. This therefore allows the audience to follow and read the website easier. So by seeing this layout style on other webpages I decided I would use it. I made the home page quite interactive, creating many hyperlinks for the viewers to click on too; I also uploaded the music video on to the main page so that the viewers could automatically see the work of me and ‘TheKax’
I chose a creamy colour background because I thought it looked most like an indie webpage with this colour. I then used a red logo for ‘The Kax’ which looked effective against the cream because there was a contrast. The webpage had two borders along the left and right hand side. The borders consisted of Polaroid images of the band. The images looked effective nex t to the cream background and suited the indie genre.
For the front cover of my digipack I used an image which I took when I was filming the music video. This therefore made a good link between the music video and the CD cover because the main band member is in the reindeer costume in both the CD and the music video. The Polaroid pictures worked well to link the two together because all the images are of the members of the band and helped me make a link through all of the three texts. The link between all three of the texts helped me conform to the theory of Richard Dyer. The three media texts allow the audience to idolise the band members, especially when images from the music video are on both the Digipack and the website.
On the inlay of the Digipack there the same Polaroid pictures which I used for the websites boarders this created a good link between the two. On the back of the Digipack I used an image of the main actor facing away from the camera lens and walking, I thought this was a good image to use because it portrayed a sense of ending which is suitable for the last cover of the Digipack. The image I used also was from the location of where I filmed which gave a good link between the two texts.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I received my feedback through my peers. I received feedback as people commented on my webpage and Digipack, which gave me both positive and negative points. I also showed my peers my music video to gain an insight into what they thought about my video.
I was praised for my Digipack, because they liked how simple the covers looked. I was praised mainly for my front cover of the Digipack, this is because my peers felt that the front cover was so simple, and the image of the main character also made the front cover look simplictic and eefective . They also praised the look the images had, before using the images for my Digipack I manipulated them to look more authentic, and drained the colour out of the images. The colours on the main character and the colours on the props were very vibrant for the front cover. I received feedback saying that the colours would have been too much if the background wasn’t as plain as it was.
I was pleased to gain only positive feedback for my CD cover as I spent a lot of time working on the images and the layout of the covers. I also spent a lot of time making Polaroid pictures, so I was pleased with the positive comments regarding the inlay.For my music video I was praised for the shots I used and from how I gained them. My peers thought that most of the content which was included in the video was entertaining and relevant for the style of song. They liked how I repeated scenes, making them faster which gave a good effect. I was also praised for how my main actor performed whilst singing. Whilst doing so he had to run towards the camera. My peers also liked the reverse tracking shot which they thought was very clever and helped follow the running sequence.
The negative feedback I received for my music video was that although the narrative was both entertaining and fitted with the music, it was still hard to follow what was going on. I also received feedback that the scene of the main character and the two dancers, the singer should be in-between he two dancers and not hiding behind them.
The feedback I received about my music video was helpful. From the negative feedback, I totally agree with what my peers said. I realised that the dancers should have been next to the main actor in the field, if I had more time I would have corrected this and filmed again. Although I had deadlines to meet and could not find the time to re shoot those certain shots. The feedback I received about the narrative was understandable, however I felt that the costume was already out there and different and didn’t see necessity to comply with Barthes’ narrative theory. Barthe’s theory was that all media videos can be categorised into five codes. The five codes are the action code, enigma code, semantic code, the referential code and the symbolic code. The costume would fit in with the semantic code as this code is about the style of the characters and what they are wearing and what they look like.
I also received good feedback for my website. My peers thought that my colour scheme was aesthetically pleasing; this is because they thought the colours were a contrast and helped the website standout to the viewer. They also liked the Polaroid images on the home page as it was bold and stood out. They thought the images were also a good link between the website and the digipack.
The negative feedback I received for my website was that the sizes of the pages differed slightly. This is true but I found it hard to correct the sizes, without starting again.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During my research stage I looked into the genres in the music industry, I did this by using www.wikipedia.com, Wikipedia provided me with a large amount of genres to research into, with detailed information. I also used www.youtube.co.uk to analyse other music videos, this was helpful to me as it gave a insight into what a music video contained, and the main conventions which were used.
For my planning I had to decide what genre I wanted to focus on, I used www.youtube.com to try and influence my decision; however the genres I that I would have liked to use were hard to receive permission to use a track of that genre. I visited www.unsigned.com to try and find a song which I would have liked to use for my music video; however I received no permission for the music I did use. I then later tried www.myspace.com to try and gain permission of signed artists to use their music tracks, this proved pointless as I received know emails back granting me permission. I then later found ‘The Kax’ on their Myspace account, and sent them email requesting permission.
During construction I used Sony Vegas Pro to edit my media work, throughout the editing stage I found it easier to use than the Adobe Premiere Pro software which I had previously used to construct my thriller video.
For the creation of my website I used Adobe Dreamweaver CS4. I found this software the best and most professional to make a website with. At first I found it hard to understand how the software worked and how to use it; however I soon realised how to use it. Sometimes I struggled with he software because of the layout style it wanted you to follow, the software clearly worked on boxes and liked you to follow their structure, however I didn’t always want to follow their structure.
The images I used for my website and digipack were taken from a Cannon G360, this camera was just a normal camera, which was convenient to me. The images I gained from the camera were good enough quality for me to use for my construction of my website and my digipack.
I filmed my music video using a Samsung MiniDV camcorder. The Samsung camcorder wasn’t the best quality camcorder I could use but it was the best I could get my hands on at the time of filming. If there was a HD camera available for me to use, it would have dramatically changed the overall quality of the music video. The camcorder was a MiniDV so it took a lot of time to capture my film onto a computer.
Instead of me uploading my music video straight up on to www.blogger.com I used my YouTube account to upload the video there. I did this because I believed it was more time efficient because Blogger is a slow process compared to YouTube. I also uploaded it YouTube because now days the music industry depended mainly on people listening to music and watching videos on the internet, on sites such as www.youtube.com, therefore I came to the decision that in the future YouTube is more accessible compared to blogger, and more music based I uploaded there.
