Thursday 11 February 2016

Question four - Evaluation

Question three - Evaluation

Question three

For question three I have created a video on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OigU4wlbZ-Q&feature=youtu.be



Question two - Evaluation

Question one - Evaluation

Question one

A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music video recordings. My brief was to create a music video with the genre and song of my choice. I carried out much research to make a decision into this from previous artists who have produced successful songs. For my media product I have created a 3-5 minute music video and two ancillaries which include a digipak and individual magazine advert. I was placed into a group with three other class mates, which meant team work. Our first discussion within class time, included choosing a genre  for my music video. We analysed many music videos and discussed what we felt worked well and what didn't from each genre. After much analysis I chose the genre of soul, which is very popular within the music industry and is easy to appeal to an audience. I found many conventions within the soul genre, which were easily recognisable. After choosing which genre I was going to use, this meant my research could be conducted into what types of conventions are used within soul music videos. My research conducted consisted of analysing music videos. I analysed Paloma Faith's music video Picking up the pieces. This music video shows Paloma to be wearing pale make-up and red lipstick, which is what i have been inspired from and added to my own music video. The pale make-up works in contrast to how the artist is feeling when singing specific lyrics towards the audience. The red lipstick portrays Paloma's passion and heart break as she sings about her ex boyfriend. Conventions such as black and white filters, surrounded locations, the colour red and place make-up on a female artists face are regularly seen within the soul genre industry. These conventions allow the audience to easily recognise the song is from the soul genre. The soul genre holds a variety of songs, female artists and male. But we decided to use Amy within our group, which meant choosing a female artist song. The artist Adele, inspired me to use one of her songs as she produces strong messages and meanings to her target audience. Not just her song Hometown Glory, but all of her songs for example: Chasing pavements and Make me feel my love are both songs about her past, and her passion towards the subject she is singing about. This is the type of message i wanted to send to my artist, of how the message is easy to understand and very clear. The song I have chosen for my music video is Hometown Glory by the soul artist, Adele. Within my own music video creation, included black and white filter over scenes which were reflecting on the past, which shows her past happiness with friends and family as the artist now lives in London, feeling sad, uncomfortable and unhappy within herself. As well as the colour red as a recurring theme which the audience could see on the artists lips throughout the performance scenes of my music video, and some narrative which include the scenes from London. This represents her strong emotions of passion and anger throughout the different stages shown of her life, and how things have changed. I also found it conventional to allow the artist to wear black throughout the whole music video, as it portrays her dark feelings and emotions, depression and un-happiness, meaning the audience can understand this reoccurring connotation easily and understand the way she is feeling, meaning an easy relationship can be created between the audience and artist. Seeing as my song Hometown Glory is written by the artist, Adele, I also looked at conventions from her own song which I found after analysis that she used the location of London in certain places throughout her music video. From discussion with my group, we also decided that we was going to include the location of London, as I felt it was a recognisable location in Adele's music video and worked well to catch the audiences eye. I included the London scenes In the narrative based parts to show where my artist is living now, and how she is un-happy within her lifestyle. If I wasn't to include conventions from my own genre in my own music video then my target audience of 16-30 year olds would not be able to see straight away what genre the song is from and why specific elements have been included to portray the artist in this way. The codes and conventions of the soul music genre are easy to see once you know them, so my artists target audience liking the genre of soul means they can understand what connotations are being expressed through colours e.g. black and white and red. My research into Amy Winehouse's music video - Back to Black. I was inspired by this music video as a black and white filter was used the whole way throughout and i as the audience was able to understand how Amy Winehouse was feeling the whole way through. She was expressing her sadness and heartbreak from her previous boyfriend. I was therefore inspired to use this within my own music video as this editing technique is able to reflect on the past. My finished music video does develop the genre of soul. All three of my products include various amounts of connotations and conventions. I have used a black and white filter specifically in all three ( music video, digipak and magazine advert ) to show a clear correlation between the three, showing to my target audience that the same emotions are being expressed throughout and that the audience can understand this by listening to the album and seeing both ancillaries. My artists target audience will be able to create a relationship easily with my artist, as they can understand how she is feeling through several connotations and conventions of the soul genre, as we conventionally see sadness and depression portrayed. All 3 of my products linking together also shows the artists success and fame towards the audience and how she has become very successful by promoting her music video to her target audience. All the products I have used are effective towards the target audience and are easily relatable. My finished digipak and individual magazine advert show a strong link between the two. Both include a black and white filter, showing they link together and portray feelings of sadness and depression towards the target audience. Both ancillaries develop the conventions of the soul genre. The black and white filter is portrayed in all 3 of my products showing the clear theme to the audience repeatedly of insecurity, venerability and sadness. Research into artists before my creation begun really helped me to gain new ideas and inspirations to add into my own music video. This also helped me to follow conventions of the soul genre.


Sunday 10 January 2016

Rough Cut - Miss Miller

Rough Cut

Introduction
A rough cut is essential to carry out so me and my group can receive feedback from peers and teachers about improvements that need to be made before the final production. Audience feedback is helpful within a rough cut as it allows comments to be made on positive and negative things. Both negative and positive comments help with improvements as we can learn from mistakes and improve them over time and know exactly what we as a group did wrong. 
To receive audience feedback me and my group posted our rough cut video on youtube, which allows any member of the public to like or comment. I also shared my video on Facebook which meant my family and friends could watch and also comment on what they feel worked well and what didn't. Sharing towards different people meant not only my artists target audience could produce feedback, but a wider audience who might not enjoy music from the soul genre so much, but still understand what should and shouldn't work. We also screened the production to my media class, which allowed them all to watch it in full and ask any questions at the end they needed too. Also giving feedback at the end from the class as a whole, so they could debate there thoughts and ideas. I also completed a similar feedback strategy which meant groups from within my class and not came round and watched my groups rough cut on the computer. This had a positive side in comparison to the screening of production as the viewers could give more personal feedback just to me and my group instead of saying it in front of the whole class. Also watching it on a closer screen meant they could look at the more intricate detail within the rough cut. Before creating my rough cut i completed a questionnaire for my research to help me and my group know what to include. Research before-hand helps me an my group to know what the audience enjoy seeing within a soul music video, as well as the artist. Adele is the artist to our song and she holds a lot of conventional features within her personal look which we tried to recreate within my own artist Amy. Having a questionnaire for my audience before the first creation of the rough cut meant my audience feedback afterwards would be just as helpful as i can understand whether the audience liked what i included from what they said. Having four different feedback techniques helped me to understand the negative and positive sides to my rough cut, and how and what i can do to create it to the highest standard possible. 

Main
If my rough cut was to go into the music industry then i would receive feedback from a much larger audience. Within the music industry you are able to reach a wider audience for feedback, as within the music industry you become more well known due to the high publicity. Within a music industry if its something the audience want to see then this will mean a high profit will be made, and the music industry will pay a lot of money to produce the music video to a high standard after the improvements made from the rough cut. Without producing a rough cut, i would not be able to receive feedback, and without this, the music video would not reach the highest standard possible. If my music video was to be put into the music industry then this would really benefit me and the work put into it. The publicity rate would be much higher and i would not only be reaching my target audience, but also a global one too.
For my rough cut it was published on Youtube, and this meant i received positive feedback and comments to improve. I have included screenshots below of four comments that were posted on my misc video which include both positive feedback and improvements that could be made to help with the final production and keeping it to a high standard.


I am going to take on board the comments from Youtube and make the improvements explained, as after re-watching my music video i can see why these comments have been said. The first comment explains that there is a good use of transitions between each scenes. This was one of the first things me and my group made sure happened when starting the editing, as we wanted to show a smooth editing pattern throughout, also to add to the slow effect of the song, affecting the mood and emotions being set. The second comment included a lot of detail about the editing techniques being a positive, and how they work well too portray the artists memories and emotions. Although, one improvement that was mentioned was adding more scenes to express a clearer narrative and story line. This was one thing that i as an individual within my group noticed after publishing on Youtube. I felt that the narrative didn't quite make sense, and scenes from her friendship group could be added to show a clearer structure and this way it would be easier for the audience to understand and not have to ask, as this was a frequent question asked within  the screening of production. The last comment from Alfie also mentioned the same improvement relating to the narrative being unclear - both of these comments have helped me see a different perspective and start changing the way the narrative is structured as i would like it to be easy to understand and understood by a wider audience rather than just my target audience of 16-30 year olds. 
Another constructive comment that i received was from the first comment on Youtube, where Danny explained we need more angles and scenes within the performance element of the music video. The performance element to my music video was meant o be included a lot more and not as minimal with the scenes as it is now; this is due to when constructing to the music video me and my group found that the narrative scenes held the story line and showed more of a structure. From this feedback I would like to include more performance scenes as now from a different perspective I have seen that more performance scenes of Amy performing do need to be included so the audience can see her singing the song and expressing her emotions. The screenshots above show 4 comments on the music video from YouTube as well as a comment on Facebook. I shared the video on Facebook to receive a different perspective on things and to reach a wider and target audience, as well as allowing my family and friends too see. This comment was from a friend of the artists who stated that she found the music video elegant and didn't find it boring. This type of feedback is constructive and helps as she has no influence within  media or the music industry and was her first time viewing it. Social media has been a huge help and the video has many likes and views showing its popular and could receive a high success rate.

Conclusion
As an overall improvement I will try to include all the suggestions made to ensure my music video reaches the highest grade as well as standard. Other peoples comments and views allows me too see a different perspective, and not just from myself as I have crated the video and seen it in the making a lot of times. From these constructive comments we have come together as a group and discussed the fact that we are going to meet within the next week and re-film some scenes to add more of a clearer picture to the video which will help the audience to understand the narrative clearer. As well as within these scenes of friendship, I am going to include a black and white filter which will portray the past, and how Amy the artist is reflecting on her memories when she was happy, and concluding to the fact she isn't happy in this moment of life, and is more saddened and depressed.
I feel that creating a rough cut and sharing it with many different audiences has allowed me to see improvements that can be made, and also gives my audience a sneak preview of the music video and what a high standard it can reach.