task 1In what ways do your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions or real media products?

In our music video we used direct address, which is a media technique that brings the audience closer to their fan as it creates a personal bond between the star and their audience. Through the star looking into the camera a relationship is formed with the viewer as they believe the star is singing directly towards them. In our music video we used our star to sing into the camera, which then makes his audience feel closer towards him. Below is an example how we used direct address and how another extremely famous artist used it, who is also a male singer.

Direct address

Conspicuous lighting

In our music video we used lighting to portray the mood our actor was in and to create an overall feel of oppressiveness. In beyonces video “single ladies” the lighting cuts from dark to light which is what our music video does. In our music video we used lighting to portray the mood our actor was in and to create an overall feel of oppressiveness A change from light to dark lighting is exemplified below. in our video we used both black and white aswell as coulour we got this idea from looking at various music videos such as beyonces work, below are examples taken from my music video and beyonces.



Inter cutting In our music video we used inter cutting to reveal the different thoughts and emotions running through our actors mind, however we did not use it so vigorously as in jayz s music video , moreover jay zs producers had enough time to go from place to place in New York and get different shots of different locations. However we looked at this music video and loved the quick jump cuts from shot shot, therefore we were influenced by jayzs work. the intercutting creates drama and tension thus making our music video more divers and intersting, keeping our audience on edge.



Significant shots of bands attractiveness
We chose an attractive young man to be our lead singer, as it will attract various types of audience, for an example young teenage girls or gay men or even older woman, as our singer has sexual magnetism and sex appeal! These shots below are examples taken from one of the most successful and famous stars today, we ensured that we had taken attractive shots of our singer through his natural youth and sexy edge this was not hard, moreover the lighting was key in ensuring we had significant shots of our singers attractiveness. As you can see below significant shots of attractiveness are exemplified in rihanas video, two attractive and sexy shots are taken of her, we were influenced by her style and took various attractive shots to increase our target audience which are also exhibited below.









Visually stylish
.

Our music video is has taken a gothic and dramatic visually stylish approach which contrasts a more mainstream approach to visually stylish music videos. I have taken two shots from rhianas video 2only girl in the world” to reveal how we also use visually stylish shots however through a different genre, Our lead singer was shot with a guitar over his shoulder with the sunlight reflecting off him and his head was shot from the side, this emphasises his attractiveness and style, moreover it breaks away from the typical western country ideals of not being stylish, however our music video has a modern edge and in order to reveal this we used visually stylish shots.







Rhythmatic montage

We have in a way gone against the ideas of rhythmatic montage we have cut on the beat in some areas of our music video but much of the time we have edited our video completely off beat, this was to emphasise the theme of destruction and instability. Moreover the random quick jump cuts create an exciting and suspenseful atmosphere for our target audiences as our music video is made to be unpredictable and a deep emotional metaphor that many people can relate to. Below are examples from my music video on how we have gone against the rules of rhythmatic montage.

Task two - how effective is the combination of your main ancillary texts?

The combination of our main product and ancillary texts have proved to be rather effective. With reference to Richard dyer’s theory of star image we have demonstrated how elements of the star image are sold through our creative choices in our pop video, digi pack cover and poster. In particular I have looked at how the three products have worked together to sell the artist and where there may be some contradictions in the images created.

A star image is constructed from a range of materials as Richard dyer points out “a star is an image, not a real person”, Dyer has written extensively about the role of stars in film, TV and music, he furthers the ideas of stars being created to sell an therefore go against realism when he says “stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings”

The star we have used in our music video shares many common values of music stardom. Our male singer is young, rebellious and may be seen as a sexual magnet in the eyes of many women. The song is rather aggressive and is original, creative and our singer shows much talent. The fact that our star is alone conforms to the country and western stereotypes of solitude however there is a major element of realism and authenticity in our pop promo as it’s not the typical glossy and positive atmosphere that is constructed in many other pop videos, this is our unique selling point. We have gone against the stereotypical ways of constructing a music video and have used a “naturalistic” approach to our artist and therefore the artist is given time to evolve and progress through out their career however at the same time we made sure our star is attractive to our audience , as our star emotionally sensitive and is portrayed to be experienced for his age, because of his life crisis and heartache this is extremely attractive to teenage girls as I am sure many can relate to his painful experience.


Richard dyer believes that “fundamentally, the star image is incoherent, that is incomplete and open” dyer says that this is based on two key paradoxes. Firstly the star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary from the consumer and secondly must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumers. We have followed dyers ideology and have effectively made sure that the fans of our star will go away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image.

This image reveals the direct address used in our music video, although we do not use much of this, the audience can feel a connection between themselves and our star as it is as if he was singing to the audience or fans directly. Moreover our stars sexual magnetism and youth shines through this image, thus attracting the female target audience.



This is the opening shot of our music video. We immediately break away from the country and western genre, this image reveals the urban , modern and industrialised setting that we wanted to create. Our opening shot instantly sets the mode of address and signifies key aspects of the star image .Very much of our music videos rawness and originality came from our location, Battersea power station. Our location created a lot of emotion, an emotional metaphor was created through the dark, eroding and sinister landscape that sat in the heart of British culture in central London. Many people can relate to our pop video as most people have been or at least seen Battersea power station once in their lives.




This is an example of inter cutting and how we used light to create a sinister and oppressive atmosphere. Moreover this shot is so powerful and dramatic; it really depicts our singer’s stardom and uniqueness. Moreover the jump cuts used symbolise the unstable and troubled mind of our star.





This image simply is used as juxtaposition from the darkness and urban decay to remind the audience that there are some positive aspects of star image. Moreover the glow and brightness of light reflected on our stars face and use of close up further emphasises our stars quality and furthers the idea that our star is an anecdote towards the troubled young people of today’s society. Moreover the bright colours used here conforms to western stereotypes.





These images and jump cuts paradox the positive and bright atmosphere to reinforce the disheartened and pensive star to emphasise the fact that he is an enigma, the urban decay symbolises the modern day decrepit nature of an economically oppressive society and further breaks the stereotypes of the country and western genre.






Another technique we used to construct our star image was blurs, in after effects we blurred some of our shots to reinforce and dramatise the fact that our star is unbalanced and has emotional issues. Moreover we shoot our star to constantly carry his guitar with him this is to emphasise the fact that he is clearly organic and competent musically, however he uses the guitar as a social weapon , he doesn’t play it at all in the video, this is to break away once again from the typicality’s of western genres .

This is our album cover, as you can see the image in one way does conform to the country and western sterotypes due to the fact that our artist is solo and the use of the font creates a western theme. However the pensive look on our artists face reveals the fact that he is in deep thought and further emphasises the ideas of a new modernday emotional man, thus appealing to the female young target audience and the teenage male target audience, as they may be able to relate to the problems that he is stressing over. Furthermore the album cover reveals our atrists youth and sexual magnestism which creates his star image.

This is our poster and we used this to promote our star image. As you can see we yet again tried to break away from the country and western genre, yet we used the guitar, western style font and de saturation of coulour to ensure that we follow to some degree the country and western stereotypes. However the background of urban decay and the general atmosphere of modern day city life once again challenges the audiences expectations, thus making our star more diverse and interesting, this gives him an edge and differentiates him from other artists. the sexual magnetism and slightly rebelious charachteristics shine through this poster.



This is our albums back cover. we decided to use this sepia lighting to dramatise and symbolise the unstable and emotional star that we are trying to construct. moreover the guitar shows the stars genuine passion for music, his organic image shines through this image and realism is revealed, this image shows the star to be a true musician and artist. therefore the target audience may connect to our star as they are convinced by his true authenticity of love of music, which further supports his emotional and mysterious image.

Task 3 what have you learned from your audience feedback

Theory bank

Blummer and katz

Blumler and Katz created the theory of ‘uses and their gratitude’. We used their theory to asses our audience response. This is the theory in which they argue that audience respond to media texts in four ways.
1) The audience identify with the characters on the screen . Personal Identity, the ability to compare one’s life with the characters and situations within programmes and hence explore personal problems and perspectives. No matter from where or what class any audience member we have can also compare their life to the lives of the character’s on screen. We can even identify with the pain and heartache or even confusion as many people go through thee emotions in life.

2) Diversion Blumler and Katz say that Diversion is the ability to get away or escape mentally from everyday realities. Blumler and Katz say that in order for a media text to be diverting it has to occupy the viewer for more than 70% of the time. Our target audience could defiantly see our video as something they could relate to therefore watching it takes them away from pressures of school, university, home, emotional stress and even the pains of heartache.

3) Personal Relationship Blumler and Katz say that personal relationship is about the ability to be able to identify themselves with the characters within the media text.

4)surveillance The forth is Surveillance, a supply of information about “whats going on” in the world.

Stuart halls theory A preferred reading An aberrant reading A negotiated reading

The JICNARS
scale

 A - higher management/ administration/ professional
 B - middle management/ administration/ professional
 C1 - supervisory/ clerical/ junior management
 C2 - skilled manual
 D - semi and unskilled manual
 E - subsistence income/ pensioners/ widows/ casual labour/ unemployed
What have you learned from your audience feed back?

To asses audience feedback we took data from various sources. Firstly, the promo was uploaded onto YouTube so audiences all over the world could easily access our product and write comments on the same page, like you tube we also used our online blogs on the Blogger site. . We also used a Focus Group and friends to answer a questionnaire. I tried to use open questions and a thorough discussion with all members of the focus group through out and realised this was a small scale trial of our pop video and ancillary products.

In terms of our target audience we aimed our pop videos for both males and females because we thought that men may relate to our singer as he is portrayed to be an enigma, no one knows what goes through his aggravated mind, moreover he is real, our star is not “glammed” up to be something that he is not, therefore he may not be such a huge threat to the male sex. Females may relate to the video as although our star shows realism he has also got a lot of sexual magnetism about him, he’s young and looks attractively rebellious. We thought that the appropriate age for our audience was anything from 17 to 28 as we thought any younger girls or boys may not be able to fully understand or appreciate the emotional message we are trying to reveal through our video.

In terms of Jictar, we believed that are appropriate target audience was B C D and E these people fit into a minority of classes in society, our main audience are teenagers who are disenfranchised from the adult world, who feel somewhat isolated. Our audience are able to discover their identity for the first time and may relate to the artist as they have most likely encountered relationship issues that were serious for the first time. We chose these people, as they would probably be most likely to appreciate the artistic, modern, urbanised and emotional video that we produced.

Through the use of a Focus Group, we wanted to discover whether our target audience enjoyed and understood the message we were trying to put across, the narrative, the representation of the character and if they could identify with them, how our video could be improved and even if they liked the song we had chosen. At the beginning of our Focus Group session we wanted to address some main points and get some specific answers, so we showed the video and handed out this questionnaire:

How old are you?
Are you male or female ?
What is your favourite music genre?
What other forms of media do you use to keep up to date with music?
What would you expect to be in a country and western pop video?
From the image shown, is the genre of country and western easily recognisable?
What type of people do you expect to watch/listen to country and western music?
What was the message/ intention behind the video? did you get it?
if so, what caused that?e.g. i understood the message of love and distruction because the constant shots of a broken heart...
Did this video stick to or subvert stereotypes about a country and western pop video?

There were a variety of reasons as to why we used a focus group instead of any other methods. One advantage of a focus group was, that people take your questions seriously and consider their answers and get some qualitative results. Secondly, with a questionnaire you have to wait for it to be filled out and then have to read through the information on it, where as the advantage of a focus group is that after asking the questions you get instant answers in return this is quicker, it also means you get an answer that is direct and too the point you don’t have to shift through vast amount of information that is most likely not reliable anyway. Finally, when you are in a focus group it is a face to face process, this allows you to not only see their emotions and reactions to your video but also means that you can start interesting discussions that relate to our pop video. our focus group gave us a good insight of how others see our video. We wanted to check the following things with our target audience…. That decisions we made in the construction and planning were accurate. That we read our audience correctly That the star image was commercially successful and worth investing further That audiences would gain considerable value from the product That there was no misinterpretations of the image and messages we have created

Task 4 -A DIRECTOR’S COMMENTARY ON HOW I USED NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES.

The draft of our commentry


Pre production and planning

We are commenting on how we used technology, why we used it and how we made it creative, moreover we are reflecting on the change and advancements from last year’s use of technology to this years a2 product.

Starting with the pre production and panning of our music video. We used search engines such as youtubes official websites and fan pages to get an idea of how to generally construct a successful music video and to inspire our own music video through the use of web 2.0 technologies. Furthermore we used my space, facebook and even twitter to research and develop our bands institutional context. We also used web 2.0 to contact the record company of the song we used by Calexico to ensure that the copyright and legal matters were all sorted out, this ensured we could put our music video onto you tube and blogger after we constructed it.

We looked at other music videos to not only enhance our creativity but also to get a feel for the country and western genre, moreover we used feedback from fans as we didn’t want to make the same mistakes as other music videos that we looked at did. We looked at some of dolly partons work and that also enhanced our creativity as we did not want our music video to be that stereotypical of the country and western genre where as Keith urbans work was much more diverse and took the modern outlook on country and western, his videos on youtube and his fan pages inspired our unique and slightly edgy take on the country and western genre.

We also purchased all our props online including the second hand guitar from ebay and a cowboy hat that we decided not to use as we thought it would be conforming to the stereotypes of a country and western singer, as you can see we have moved away from this dressing our star in casual, very young and up to date clothing.

Our blogs this year are very much like a creative filter, last year our research on the internet was much broader, there was no limit set to us which led to us this year summarising what was significant and useful. We now use the internet much more precicesly and carefully and we have a defined idea on what information is helpful. This year we have used our blogs as a filter, last year was much less selective as to what exactly was needed on our blogs. Therefore we use technology in a much more mature way and we are learning how to be much more selective.

Another form of technology we used in the pre production was Photoshop, we used this programme on the computers to anticipate the image of what we wanted our star to look like, we looked at how we could manipulate images in preparation for the after affects.

Final cut pro is a programme that we used when we constructed our story boards and turned it into an animatic, we transferred rushes into final cut pro onto a time line this helped us cut our final product and the track helped us revise and fintune our story board ideas.
Construction promo digi pack

First of all, in constructing our promo, digi pack and poster we used final cut pro, we captured images from the shoot for our digi pack and then put these images through Photoshop to edit and improve them, we used took stills and used one of the cameras from the shoot day.

During the shoot day we were lucky enough to use a sony hd camera this camera enables us to shoot 3times more material then we could have done last year, moreover this camera was digital and in the editing stage the shots where in order and much easier to organise in comparison to last year as we used a tape. The fact that there was more film available meant that we could be more creative with our shots and be a bit more experimental, the camera has allowed us to be more free with what we want to shoot as we simply have the space and time, this enhanced our creativity as we had so much choice, from side angles to low angles to high angles we could capture and develop our star from the availability and advancement of our technologies.

Post production

In final cut pro we used markers when we were editing our music video this helped us make significant changes to the beat of our song and rhythm instrumentation, it helped create pace in our edits.

In after effects we used desaturation of colour to create a more sinister atmosphere. Moreover we used jump cuts throughout our music video to emphasise the fact that we our breaking the country and western stereotypes and the jump cuts are used to connote fast pace modern times and a urban take that we used in the country and western genre. Moreover the cuts highlight his star image, they symbolise his issues and troubled mind, the jumps relate to his unstable disturbed sociological state, for an example , Shots of our star stroking his chin further stresses the idea that he is constantly in deep thought.

We used a juxtaposition in saturating our star to make him remain glowing and warm through the use of lighting, whereas the back ground is saturated to be cold and dark , this was done to ensure our star image remained positive and dazzling.

Another media effect we used was montage, this was heavily influenced by one of Russia’s most prominent filmmakers, sergie eisenstein, he was essentially the father of montage and our mode of address.

Our artist in many ways was singing about emotional tragedy we used the same stylistic ideas as eisenstein that convey the same ideas of tragedy. The constant dramatic flashes of lights were also copied by the infamous Russian film maker in our music video, the light creates a disconcerting or unsettling atmosphere that relates back to the idea of pain, nightmares and tragedy. All these after effects add texture to the viewing experience, which is engaging and therefore interesting to watch.

The final copy of commentry


We are commenting on how we used technology, why we used it and how we made it creative, moreover we are reflecting on the change and advancements from last year’s use of technology to this years a2 product.

Starting with the pre production and panning of our music video. We used search engines such as youtubes official websites and fan pages to get an idea of how to generally construct a successful music video and to inspire our own music video through the use of web 2.0 technologies. Furthermore we used my space, facebook and even twitter to research and develop our bands institutional context. We also used web 2.0 to contact the record company of the song we used by Calexico to ensure that the copyright and legal matters were all sorted out, this ensured we could put our music video onto you tube and blogger after we constructed it.

We looked at other music videos to not only enhance our creativity but also to get a feel for the country and western genre, moreover we used feedback from fans as we didn’t want to make the same mistakes as other music videos that we looked at did.


In after effects we used desaturation of colour to create a more sinister atmosphere. Moreover we used jump cuts throughout our music video to emphasise the fact that we our breaking the country and western stereotypes and the jump cuts are used to connote his emotional disturbance and supports the star image of a man in touch with his dark side, this is also shown by the discolouration of his eyes suggesting that he is exhausted from the emotional strain. It also represents the fast pace of modern times and a urban take that we used in the country and western genre. Moreover the cuts highlight his star image, they symbolise his issues and troubled mind, the jumps relate to his unstable disturbed sociological state, for an example , Shots of our star stroking his chin further stresses the idea that he is constantly in deep thought.

We used a juxtaposition in saturating our star to make him remain glowing and warm through the use of lighting, whereas the back ground is saturated to be cold and dark , this was done to ensure our star image remained positive and dazzling.

Another media effect we used was montage, this was heavily influenced by one of Russia’s most prominent filmmakers, sergie eisenstein, he was essentially the father of montage and our mode of address.

In final cut pro we used markers when we were editing our music video this helped us make significant changes to the beat of our song and rhythm instrumentation, it helped create pace in our edits.
We also purchased all our props online including the second hand guitar from ebay and a cowboy hat that we decided not to use as we thought it would be conforming to the stereotypes of a country and western singer, as you can see we have moved away from this dressing our star in casual, very young and up to date clothing. This desaturated guitar is used to display his emotional turmoil.

During the shoot day we were lucky enough to use a sony hd camera this camera enables us to shoot 3times more material then we could have done last year, moreover this camera was digital and in the editing stage the shots where in order and much easier to organise in comparison to last year as we used a tape. The fact that there

more film available meant that we could be more creative with our shots and be a bit more experimental, the camera has allowed us to be more free with what we want to shoot as we simply have the space and time, this enhanced our creativity as we had so much choice, allowing us to cut and cross cut our footage.
was

Account of Editing process

Editing In our editing process we mainly used a piece of software called Final Cut Pro this is a time line based system. We used a lot of special effects such as de saturation of colour, jump cuts, blurs we did this through the programme Adobe after Effects. We used Another media effect called montage, this was heavily influenced by one of Russia’s most prominent filmmakers, Sergie eisenstein, he was essentially the father of montage and our mode of address. We looked at Einstein’s work very closely and used his ideas, he was a huge inspiration to our editing process and how the final video was constructed. We also used a programme called Colour to de saturate the images to either make the darker or lighter. Colour is a programme which allows you to change the appearance for the images, for example you can change the hue and saturation as well as brightness and colour of your video. Using Colour can sometimes be a very length process though because instead of being able to apply settings to the whole video you have to edit it shot by shot. Starting the editing process proved to be rather challenging as I found it slightly confusing, it was difficult to know where to start. The way we started editing was as a group, however we all wanted different things as to how our video would be constructed. We eventually used the most commonly used and easiest technique in editing; we applied the shots to the time line for the whole length of the shot and then placed smaller shots over the top of this. There are other ways to edit most people would have followed their storyboards, we could not do this due to last minute changes to our pop video idea. For our group, it was just a case of experimenting with what worked and what didn’t. After we had finished our draft, we showed it to one of the media teacher’s mat, who gave us advice on how to improve it. Mat helped a lot as it was difficult for us to criticise our own work and we needed his aid to steer us in the right direction, giving us tips on what looks bad and what looks good, I think it is very important to get an external view on your work as sometimes we found it difficult to find the faults. There are two types of editing; you can either use continuity editing or discontinuity. Continuity editing is editing that usually follows a certain pattern or a cuts on the beat. Discontinuity editing is the opposite of this, can often come across as quiet random. For our music video we decided to use discontinuity editing. The reason for this was because representing the song and brand; we wanted to reveal the unstable and discontinuous mind that our star had. When we were editing we used the theorist Negus to help us apply editing conventions. We subverted Negus's conventions of short shots; we also used a wide and extensive use of shot types, camera movements and angels which fitted nicely with our theme.

account of shoot day

Account of shoot day Our shoot days date was changed at to a variety of different dates, whether I was due to the snow or Battersea power station not being available or one of our group members being ill, we changed the date on numerous occasions. In one way this was a bonus as we had more time to plan however in another way it became extremely frustrating as the deadline was drawing near and the editing deadline was right around the corner before we even shot our pop promo. However the day came and we were all extremely excited as the weather was in perfect condition. We came to realise that we had a very short period of time to shoot at Battersea. We set of at nine and had to be out of there by four, however as we were travelling from surrey we lost a few needed hours due to travel. Once we arrived we were in a huge rush and panic to get all the footage we needed. Therefore we had to improvise with some shots and become a little spontaneous and move away from our plans as there simply wasn’t enough time. However we did as a group, go through various shots and the order in which they would take place. We did so by looking at the storyboard and questioning which shots we would and wouldn’t incorporate in our days filming ahead. Once we had arrived at Battersea we had a twenty minute induction. The manager of the site told us of all the dangers of Battersea and gave us a health and safety sheet and booklet that we had to sign. We were also told to wear steel cap boots, high vis jackets and builders hats, as essentially the power station is a building site. . We then met with our artist, Alex Pointer and headed towards the site where we would actually be filming, whilst doing this we were also introduced to our guards for the day who watched us whilst we filmed. This was a requirement on behalf of Battersea to avoid injury and trespassing. .We then started filming at mid day, beginning with taking shots of Alex walking around the station, he was extremely organised having learnt the song word for word and interpreted the feeling of the song extremely well. Luckily the day was dry and clear so we were able to get more shots than we had been expecting. We went on shooting various shots of Alex for about 4 hours, with Alex slowly walking around and inside the station. We told our artist we wanted shots of him walking with a guitar on his back, the guitar is important as it conforms to the stereotypes of our genre, we then used our second cast member,Lily Resta, who lay on the ground with her eyes closed, we took various shots of her, it was dark where we took the shots and therefore it took some time to get the images that worked for us . Her presence is left open for our audience’s own interpretation yet she is there to represent the reason behind Alex’s misery. Whilst we were inside and outside the station, with the help of media assistants Luke and Matt, we captured parts of the building that showed decay and erosion. This was symbolic as the decomposed and rotting parts of the building acted as a metaphor for Alex’s own self destruction. The inside of the building was dark and murky so it was perfect for our filming as we wanted to capture this sinister atmosphere. Once finishing the shoot we then took all the safety equipment back. We were extremely pleased with our progress and managed to get a lot done in the little time we had at the station.