In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I feel that my music video uses conventions of a real music video quite well. The artist I have chosen Lana Del Rey is from the individual / alternative genre which appeals to more of a niche audience than anything.Lana Del Rey is an American singer-songwriter, and she initally began to perform at the age of 18 and signed her first recording contract at the age of 20 with 5 Points Records.
I used conventions of the real media product by interpreting the same style mise-en-scene.
For example, Lana Del Rey's video National Anthem uses the same style mise en scene such as rich looking clothing and props.
Therefore, to appeal to this type of audience I ensured that my artist wore similar costumes, had similar facial expressions, and the correct mise en scene was used to appeal to this, as the typical theme of the indie genre is to wear this type of particular clothing.
Within the song National Anthem, it has strong connotations of money and that it is the key to success, therefore I made sure that I put these ideas forward in my video, by having a diamond necklace, making the performer wear a real fur coat, and having expensive wine in the video, which challenges the use of real media products. And the scene where Lana Del Rey is in the dining room drinking wine, I also incorporated this into my video by adding effects to pouring wine into a glass, to connote richness.
There are also scenes in my video which challenge the forms and convetions of the real music video, for example when the artist is wearing the fur coat in a couple of scenes:
The main reason I chose this song is because I feel I could develop on the themes of the music more, and add some more depth and different aspects to the video.
In the video produced by Lana Del Rey, she doesnt include the American Flag in her video, and the themes within her video are based upon her living with her husband who happens to be the president. Therefore, this has its own connotations of the National Anthem, as the codes and convetions of her video are patriotic in their own way. Therefore, to develop on this idea even more I decided to include the British Flag to interpret my own codes, conventions and themes of the song.
In the song, the lyrics read 'money is the anthem of success' and this is portrayed from the mise en scene I have used. However, in the second half the song, the theme tends to become more negative and the idea of having too much money could ruin your life. Therefore, I have included a shot where the artist is burning the flag to connote that she has been taken over by it and it is making her miserable.
I did not burn the entire flag, just the corner of the flag to ensure the audience saw a bit of burning, but not all of the flag.
All together, I filmed the music video in three different locations. The first location I chose to shoot in was my house, because I have a lot of plain white walls in the house which I feel could highlight the performer's emotions and facial and body expressions well. Altogether, these shoots took about three attempts each to complete, as she had to wear a few different costumes in order to get the themes and the mise en scene correct.
The second location I decided to film in was my garden, because there were a few different shots which I feel work well in this location. The first shot I really liked in this location was the one where the performer was stood in front of the bush with the flowers in the garden, when the artist was singing 'summers in the air and baby heavens in your eyes'. This reinforces the indie genre because this is the typical mise en scene that would be included, and the costume she is wearing suits the themes well and blends into the background. A different scene in the garden was the ones where the artist is stood behind the brick wall. This is also a white wall which works well, however I wanted to film outside because I wanted to get the effect of the wind in the artists hair which I could work really well with and speed up or slow down, which includes a range of effects and works well.
And finally the last location in the garden was in front of the bushes.
I feel these shots worked well in some aspects because it highlights the emotions of the performer well and also brings out the colour in the union jack flag really well.
However there are some aspects of this shot that I didnt like. Although it was a good medium close up shot of the artist and it was good to watch her engage with the versimilitude and mime to the song, it is very clear and apparent that there are cars driving past the bush in the background, which adds an unprofessional touch to the video in my pespective, and therefore I am not entirely happy with this aspect.
However, the final location I decided to shoot my video in was a small field near my house, which has a lot of nice trees and is a very nice setting. These shots are the ones at the beginning where the artist is in the bush, walking through with the fur jacket, and also the ones where the bird and some of the clouds have been filmed. This is personally my favourite few shots of the entire video, because I feel when I have edited these, they look very professional and I have ensured that the camera is still and professional.
However, there are again some shots I am unhappy with and given the chance to re-shoot them I would have. In the shot where the artist is walking forward through the bushes on the field, it is apparent that there are some houses in the background, which I feel again adds unprofessionalism to the video.
The way I have used the same codes and convetions is by looking also at my influencial media texts, such as these music videos:
These videos are the influential media texts especially because of their mise en scene and the genre.
The first media text is Birdy - Skinny Love and the second one is Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra, which after doing my research I found out that Lana Del Rey actually based her music on.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
In my opinion, I feel that the combination of both my main product and my ancillary texts work quite well. I tried to include synergy as much as I possibly could, to add consistency and make the whole product look professional.Firstly for the music video, the themes are quite patriotic and based upon the National Anthem, and therefore this is why I gained the props of the flags and the rich looking costumes.
This is shown in the shot where the artist is in the garden holding the flag. I feel that this shot is very powerful as the performer is holding the flag around her body, and the light from outside really highlights her emotions and the facial expressions she pulls when miming to the song.
This has an impact on the audience because it lets them know what the theme of the video is about more or less.
Similar to the real video, the only patriotic feature in this is at 5 minutes 39 seconds where an American flag is shown. Other than that, there are no obvious features, but the way the video portrays the codes and conventions of the theme , this is shown very clearly so that the audience automatically know what the song and the video are trying to portray.
This is one of the shared elements that I have included in my video compared to the real thing.
Another shared element I have included in this is the rich looking clothing. I wanted to relate to the mise en scene of the real video well to promote the idea of synergy, and therefore I gathered a fur coat, and ensured that the performer was wearing these clothes and a lot of jewellery to make sure she looked rich. I also had to ensure that her hair and makeup was up to date and therefore had to plan out how I wanted her to look.For my ancillary texts I decided to create a website and a magazine advert for my artist. I tried to include the themes of my video in the ancillary texts to add cross-form synergy between the three products, and also make it look professional and add consistency throughout the whole coursework.
This is an image of my magazine advert for the ancillary texts, and after a few edits and practices at which one I wanted more, this is the idea and design I came up with:
I felt happy with this design as I feel it includes all of the codes and convetions such as the mise-en-scene, the right cinematography (the medium close up shot of the artist) and the right colour scheme and fonts and styles for the advert.
I personally feel because I have included the Amazon.com logo and the 5 Star Records logo in the corner, it makes it believeable that it could be part of a magazine in real life, which challenges the codes and conventions of a real media text.
For the second ancillary text, I created a mock website for the artist. This was created on the website Wix which allowed me to include images of the artist, personalise the text, and include my own colour scheme and such to ensure that the genre and the themes fit in perfectly with what I was trying to portray.
This is an example of the home page of the website what I have created, and the homepage includes all of the links to the other pages, situated at the top of the page:
For example, the colour scheme is black, white and pink, which states the feminism and the lady-like theme on the website.
Also, the personalised text at the top relates to the magazine advert well, because the fonts are the same which creates synergy.
The one thing which I think could be improved would be to add more photos to the gallery on the website, to give the audience viewing it a wide selection of photos of the artist to look at.
However, I still think it is realistic, along with the magazine advert to ensure that it adds professionalism to the whole concept.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
From my audience feedback, I have learnt that there are some good and bad features about my video.Firstly, I had some questions on the blog which I needed the audience to answer, which was more like a survey so that I could gain a wide range of feedback.
The main feedback I received was that they thought the age range was aiming for 16-25 year olds, which is what I am aiming for in my video.
Secondly, they thought that it would appeal to a more female audience which is again what I was wanting to portray, and therefore I feel I have achieved what I wanted to.
I also recieved feedback on some of the shots I have used in my video. Firstly, the main feedback was that in some of the shots it is too dark, or the camera is slightly out of focus. This is something I was aware of initially, because of the weather outside as it was starting to get dark. Also, there are a lot of clouds in the sky, which I feel has contributed to this. This is something I have tried to prevent by editing and hopefully it doesnt look as noticable in some particular shots.
As part of gaining some more audience feedback, I decided to message some of my friends on the social networking site Facebook, to ask them to give me their own feedback on my video:
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This gave me a change to gain a wide range of feedback, and as seen in the image I asked for both good and bad comments being much appreciated, because this could give me chance to criticise my video and view the things which could be improved on.
Therefore, after seeing my friends' comments on Facebook saying they would watch my video and leave their comments, I went onto my YouTube channel to look at the comments, and gain some detailed feedback.
The following image is a comment I recieved from another media student at my college, giving her feedback on my video and highlighting the positive and negative features of my video:
Another positive aspect was the performance being believeable, and I tried to achieve this by researching into the model texts and some real codes and convetions of real music videos in order to make it as professional looking as possible and to include synergy between all of my products.
The negative comment within this post was that the Union Jack flag was used rather than the American flag, which is mentioned in the lyrics of the song. I couldn't get hold of an American flag in time for filming my video because it took a while to be posted over, and therefore I had to persevere with the Union Jack flag in order to get the video finished in time, which was the only issue when creating this video. However, I dont feel that this is a big issue, as I have tried to incorporate the Union Jack flag well.
Another comment was from my boyfriend after watching the video. He does not attend the same college as me, so had to watch the video from home. After watching the video, he gave his initial feedback by giving both a positive and negative comment:
"One good thing about the video was given the circumstances of the song, the mise-en-scene has adapted to it really well, you have included a lot of good features and the facial expressions match really well. One bad thing about the video was the lighting in some shots, it went from bright to quite dull and grainy, but I'm sure that was to do with the weather. Overall it is really well put together."
Therefore, I feel a lot of positive and negative comments have been put into the video and this really highlights the good and bad features of my video.
To gain some extra feedback, I asked some people on what they thought of my ancillary texts and if they related to one another. For this, I asked my parents for the feedback, to gain yet more of a detailed feedback from a wider audience range.
My mums comment on the magazine advert was: "I think the way you have included the image from the video on the advert looks professional and it looks as if it could be a real album cover by the way it has been edited. I like the way you have used the blue and the red font colours too, because the song is called National Anthem and it incorporates the idea well."
My dads comment on the magazine advert was: "The magazine advert is really good,I like the blue and red font because it reminds the audience what the album is called and what the main focus is on. Also, the picture looks really edited and appeals to a wide audience because it is from the music video which is really good."
Secondly, I asked them to review the website that I created as part of the ancillary texts. This is the reply I gained from both of them:
My mums comment on the website was: "It looks like a lot of effort has gone into this website even though you said it was easy to create which is a bonus. I especially like the gallery page, as it gives the mock audience something to look at and is something you would find on a real artists website".
My dads comment on the website was: "I really like the website, and the colours you have used really match the femininity of the artist and the genre. I also like the tours page, and the contact page as it is very professional and real looking."
After recieving these comments from my parents, I feel that they are positive, and I have achieved what I wanted to, in creating cross-form synergy and making the products look consistent and professional.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
During the creation of my media products, a whole range of new media technologies were used to construct, research, plan and evaluate.Firstly, the construction of my music video required me to use an editing suite to ensure the lip-syncing, shots, timing and effects were all in order and looked professional. I had never used one of these in this much detail before, and therefore this required a lot of practice and to ensure that I was familiar with it in order to continue and create a three and a half minute video. Altogether, creating this video took about three months, along with the planning and research.
Secondly, the research and planning of the video and the ancillary texts required a lot of detail and the use of new media technologies.
I had to use Prezi, which is a site that you can create slides in detail and plan what you are going to do. Within this task, I used Prezi to create slides for the locations, props, settings and costumes which are shown previously on my blog.
I also used YouTube, which is not a new media technology because I am familiar with this from conducting my research, and I used YouTube to look for influential media texts such as videos for the codes and conventions of my chosen genre.
There were other reasons I used Google in the process of the research and planning, to look for the target audience and images of what they would look like:
I found these images on the search engine website Google, to search for the indie genre and what the target audience would be.
Typically for this type of genre, the girls are more of the target audience than boys, and wear hippy-ish style clothing such as flowers, and earthy style and coloured clothing.
This is associated with this type of genre, and I felt I needed to gain an insight into this because I needed to connect and relate to the audience when making my video.
Therefore, in some of the shots, my artist has the same hair style, makeup style, clothing style and facial expression as what girls would typically have if they are associated with the indie or alternative genre.
I feel that when I created my ancillary texts, another new media technology was used as part of the task tocreate the website for the artist.
I needed to create a website as part of the ancillary texts, and used the website Wix to create it, which is a fairly easy website to use.
It allowed me to create around 6 different pages all based upon the artist and her new album, which I thought was very professional and effective, and it developed on my previous skills by creating a website a lot.
Therefore, after researching, planning, and constructing the products for my Advanced Portfolio, I feel a lot of new media technologies have gone into it, and a lot of new skills have been developed upon in order to try and gain the best possible results for my coursework video.
