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

There was many different aspects of media technologies used in the research, planning, evaluation and constuction od the music video.

Research


There where five different technologies that i used in the research part of the music video:-

• downloads
• youtube
• internet
• google
• facebook
• myspace

I downloaded the music we was going to use for the music video after the band gave us the permission and sent us the song.





I when on both Myspace and Facebook too look for the band, The 99's, to get a bit of background information into the group and find out what the general public feel about the group.








The Internet was used a lot in research part of the music video. I used it to look at websites, not only to research about music video's, but also to find the song that i want to use. the Internet is very closely linked with google because it is the search engine i used in order to find the websites i needed and carry out my research.





I done some background research into group that i was using, i found the music video that the band made for there song and put it on my blog.

Planning

There was a number of different media technologies used in the planning side. Things like:-

• animatics
• google maps (locations)
• downloads music
• ipod (listen to music)

These where all used in order to make planning process more effective and sucessful.

Constuction

There where many different media technologies used in order to create our music video:-

• video camera
• Imacs
• Imovie (for editing)
• digital camera
• bluetooth (sending photos to Imacs)

Evaluation

There where differnet media technologies used in this section:-

• online surveys
• facebook (show off finished piece and get feedback)
• youtub (feedback)

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

In a previous post I showed the audience feedback from putting it on facebook. We also put it on YouTube, so we could gain a wide rand of feedback, and if the feed back came from people that didn't know us it may be more critical and will help us understand how good our music video came out. Unfortunately no one commented on the video, this limited our audience feedback.





On my Facebook I put comment in my status, which contained the website you could find my online survey. I feel if i put it on Facebook it would be more likely people would complete it.



The link to my online survey is:-http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.surveymonkey.com%2Fs%2FJZ2DDPX&h=125d0e4e16c59fa9842364537b6b462d


20 people completed the online survey.

The questions where :-

1). Are you male or female?

2). How old are you?

3). On a scale of one to ten what would you rate my video (one being the lowest).

4). What was the best parts of the music video?

5). What type of music do you normally listen to?

6). Would you buy the song?

7). What was your overall reaction to the video

8). any other questions.

all the audience feedback was positive, unfortunately I didn't get a lot therefore i wouldn't compare, but I did receive comments on Facebook which I have put on here. I feel this adds up for the lack of response from other people.


Overall:-
From all my audience feedback i have noticed that every one loved the music video and really enjoyed watching it. From this i feel that the music video was very successful and the overall effect I was trying to get across was successful. I am very pleased with the feedback.#

I did want to use wordle, which is a program where you put your audience feedback in and it picks out all the most used words. You can use colour and it arranges the words in a pretty way. Unfortunately my computer would not allow me to do it.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The overall effect of the three products, the digitpak, the magazine advert and the music video, was extremely good. All the audience feed back showed that they felt the over all effect was really good, and all of them together really added something.

All the products together worked really well on there own as individual pieces, but works equally as well as a whole piece.

There is a theme through out the whole of the three pieces that shows a funny happy atmosphere. I wanted to create this through out the three and this is why they are designed the way the where. I feel this way would work better than making them differently because this would give the audience a different idea of the overall piece.

It is important to have a theme thought out because if it was a real music video, advert and digipak to go together because this is how they are make in the music industry in order target the audience that is wanted.

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

There are mainly conventions that a music video must contain.
In order to make my music video a music video I had to include certain thing.
The conventions i used where:-




There where a few aspects of my video that challenged the general conventions becuase i didnt use the following:-

-exotic locations
-glamour


My film shows more realism, this is not normally a conventions of a music video. Music videos or normally ecaspism and not really realism.

A music video that uses both exotic locations and creates a very glamous life style is Wham!'s "Club Tropicana".


This shows the men dancing around in the sun meeting this two women. My video has no connection to this video because mine is as i have said before very must toward the realisim side.

Another video that fits in with the conventions and doesnt go against them would be Iyaz's "Replay"



This video is set on a beach, there was no way i would be able to getaccess to a beach that was this sunny and the weather be like this in the UK.

I dont feel a video would have worked with the type of music that we have choosen to do. Also own budget was very small, there would be know what that we would have been able to create a video like this with the budget and weather we have in the UK.

Realisic music videos are being made more these days. This is due to the type of songs and people that are making it. This types of videos are being made for the younger generations.

One video that shows this is Chiddy Bang's "The opposite of adults"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M67wXlyfpfU this is the link to the video on YouTube.

In terms of theory......

I will now evaluate my video in terms of the theory we have learnt:-

• Laura Mulvey
• Propp
• Todorov
• Levi-Stauss
• Abstract
• Effects Model
• Uses and Gratifications
• Reception theory
• suture

I will choose a few and try to apply it to my music video.

Laura Mulvey

As i have stated before Laura Mulveys theory is about how we live in a patriarchal society and in film women are seen as objects of erotic desire. i feel that to a certain extent this is seen in my music video. i feel there is only one scene where this is present:-

This shows the girl, Stacey, as a object of erotic desire. As Laura Mulvey says films are constructed in the male gaze, meaning that it is from a males point of view. By the way the scene is shot we can see it is a point of view shot form the male on stage. The way she is smiling and looking "girly" with her body language makes her an object of erotic desire for the man.

There are no other examples of this in my video, because it is only at the end that it is show the boy has been singing to the girl in the video. Other than that scene it is about having frun with friends and dancing about.

Propp

My music video does not fit in with Propps theory that there are 8 different character types in films. The way the video has been constructed in a very modern way, and there are only a handful of people who star in the video.

I could argue it follows the characters slightly because we could say the main person in the video, the boy who sings, is the hero because he moves the story along and the girl at the end could be classed as the princess, but there are no other characters. The other people who star in the video just dance around and have fun, they don't really have much involvement in the story line. Another reason would be the main story line is not brought out until the very end of the music video.

Todorov

I dont feel that my music video fits in with Todorov's theory. His theory is about how there is normallity, then somthing distupts this, a resolution is completed then a new equilibrum is created. i dontfeel there is any distubtion to the equilibrum. the video is about a boy singing about the girl. if anything the video is left on a cliff hanger becuase we dont know what will happen next after it is revealed that the boy is singing to the girl. eith this theory there would have to have been a new equilibrum created before it ended.

analysis of finished video

Camera work:-

I completed all the camera work because Chris was the star of the piece. I tried to show of my skills of creating different effects using the camera. I tried to mix up the camera angles and try to use as many angles and shots as possible, well the ones that would work ands that would fit in with the budget. There was one part of the video where Chris is playing guitar. I shot the same part of him playing guitar from lots of different angles and done very fast editing in order to create a fast pace that would fit in with the music. I got very positive feedback form all the camerawork. I feel the camera work is the most important part of the film, this is the part where you show off all your skills that you have learnt from media lesson.

Lighting:-

Due to our piece being set mainly outside the lighting was natural. This meant it fit in with our very low budget and all the lighting was free. This was a problem some times due to lack of light or rain which stop us filming. When we filmed inside i tried to come up with different ways of creating a light source. In one part of the video i came up with the idea to use the projector as a light source. This created enough light to see all Chris features but hide the fact the setting was in a classroom. I felt this really worked because it showed we tried to think of other ideas and be creative.

Mise-en-scene:-

Editing:-

I didn't want to use lots of editing in my film. I used the basic editing and transitions like dissolve. I done this for a reason. I wanted to create a more realised music video's, therefore offer transitions wouldn't not work. I felt that using "fancy" editing would not show of my skills and ideas that i have. I wanted to be able to use the camera angles and shots to shot off the ideas rather than cover up the piece with lots of transition. Most of the editing where jump-cuts but where softened with transitions to make it work.
I was pretty lucky with editing because i often guessed how much i wanted to cut off and it often fitted in with the section i wanted it. I feel this is because of the amount of practice I had not just with this piece of work but with last years thriller. The editing took the mot amount of time, and often i was edit as i went along so i would complete a section of filming then edit it all. I felt this is the best ways i work. I found it much easier to work on my own and do the editing because I was very fussy with the work I do and want it to look as good as I imagined it in my head.

Colour:-

Colour played a very big part in the music video. I tried to included as much colour in the film as possible. This is because the whole music video is happy and bright. The colours used would have o be bright in order to match the rest of the aspects. Most of the film was set outside where there is lots of colour. I wanted to include as much flowers and trees in there because they give off a lot of colour and creates a mood of happiness. I also got Chris and the other people who stared in the music video to wear bright colours in order to add to the happiness and excitement. This also meant he would always be picked up on camera. Colour also show a change in mood. In the start of the music video the boy is feeling a bit grim and upset. We not only changed to colour of the filming to black and white but we also got Chris to wear dark clothes to show is mood, bu this all changes as the music video moves on.

who done what

Ideas

When it came with coming up with ideas we worked together, but most of my ideas where taken. I feel this is because i speak up more and Chris did share ideas, or get involved in this part as much as I did. Also the type of ideas i come up with are very different and fit in with the type of video and music we wanted/used. For example this part:-

This is the type of ideas that works really well with this music. the colour really adds effect and the editing is fasted, just how a music video should be. I decided to add this to the music video because it fits in with the fun atmosphere that surrounds the song.

Camera work

The camera work was always created at random, and at the time of the filming. I planned where I wanted to film and what I wanted to portray but I wanted to choose at the location where I would film. I completed all the filing part of the film, this was because Chris was the lip singer, but I also felt it would be better if i done that side of the video. I choose almost all the places to film.

Editing

I completed most of the editing part of the music video in my free lessons, media lessons and after school times. I took control of this because I came up with most of the ideas and the filming therefore I knew the way I wanted the video. Chris did try sometimes to do the editing, but because he didn't know the way I had filmed it and the way that I had planned the video I had to take over because it would take more time.

I decided to take more of a back seat with the digipak and the magazine advert because i feel i have done a lot of the work and Chris should have a chance to get his grades.

our video

I put our video on both facebook and YouTube.
Here is the link to the facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=22565716101#!/video/video.php?v=485102010416

Also here are some of the comments that was posted about the video. :-

• "wow it is so goo so put it on YouTube it is so indie i love it i have watched it about 20 times now"
• "ahahaha i love this"
• "the changes benches bit is pure genius"
• "aw this is so good well done"
• "wow this is actually really good"
• "the song gets annoying but the video is amazing"
• "love it, love it, LOVE IT"
• ""oh i love it, i loved Katie's pimp walk"
• wow love the video , always knew Chris had talent"

There was many more, and lots of people just press the button to say they liked it.

Not many of my friends done media studies, this means that you wouldn't give back media type fed back to do with the camera angles etc, but all the comments where positive and people seemed to like it.

Interviewing

This video contains interviews about our music videos, there are some serious and messing about one. I guess this just shows who we are :).

Evaluation time :)

Todorov

Todorov, a Bulgarian theorist, who came up with his own narrative theory.

He suggests that the narrative is based on the way a story is set out, and is always set out in a certain way.

1. equilibrium- this is when the story is "normal", everyone is carrying out normal tasks, for example a family eating breakfast all together.


2. disruption- this is when something happens to cause enigmas (problems)


3. resolution- all the enigmas get sorted out


4. new equilibrium- this is different from the previous equilibrium because of the changes caused by the disruption

Levi- Strauss and Binary Oppositions

Claude Levi-Strauss is a french theorist that came up with a theory that said that a structure of narrative was a dependence on binary oppositions. This is a conflict between two qualities or terms, they form a basis of narratives. For example:-

young <-----> old

male <-----> female

Gender- narratives can be organised through binary oppositions of gender stereotypes.

The diagram below shows the gender stereotypes:-

There are also other binary oppositions, there is a list below of the different ones:-

in a lesson our teacher showed us two examples of binary oppositions, here they are:-

Propp

Vladimair Propp was a Russian theorist that came up with a theory about how there are always 8 key character roles in every story. This was after studying folk songs.

The 8 key character roles are:-

1. The Hero (protagonist, has agency meaning that they move the story on).
2. The Villain (antagonist).
3. The Donor (the provider, gives the hero a magic item).
4. The Helper (helps the protagonist).
5. The Father (father figure, has more wisdom).
6. The Dispatcher (sends the protagonist on a mission).
7. The Princess (doesn't have agency).
8. The False Hero (think he is one the hero's side but isn't).

narrative

We have just started to learn about different narratives.

Narrative means the story or the plot. This is the way the story is organised.

There are three different Elements of narratives. These are:-

1. time (period it covers)
2. closure (everything gets tied up)
3. enigma (the problems)

There is a type of narrative that is called "classical Hollywood narrative", which its name suggets, is used in classic hollywood films. These types of films have certain elements too. these are:-

1. linear (in order)
2. few, if any, sub plots
3. tendency towards closure

finished digipak

The digipak is finally finished and here it is:-

i will put all the pictures of the individual photos on here so they will be clearer.