Evaluation Questions

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

My media product was to create a music video for an existing song that didn’t already have one. In my group; myself and Libby Jeffery used a song called The Story by an artist named Karima Francis. This song falls into the acoustic soul/ indie genre as it is hybrid, meaning that it doesn’t fall into just one specific category of music genre. Throughout the video I have both used, developed and challenged forms and conventions that are typically in real products of my specific genre. Our target audience was aimed at young females aged 16-24. The video is about a girl and her story of the love she has for somebody, being a typical love story. My group decided that it would be naturally a more female fan base as the audience would be able to identify with the female protagonist artist that is constant throughout the video.

Karima Francis has never produced a music video so we weren’t able to analyse any particular conventions that she may have portrayed. However, we analysed similar artists to Karima Francis in order to get a general over view of forms and codes that can be used. Normally in an indie, soul genre of song there is generally a mix between performance and narrative based filming, but in our video we converted normal conventions and decided to use just a narrative based performance. The reason for doing this was because we wanted to portray ‘the story’ to the audience that was being told through image, which links to the song title. In the video we used a typical mise-en-scene that fits with the genre.

The majority of the video was filmed and set in a rural, outdoor area such as a park or a field. We chose to do this as the rural setting has connotations of being a romantic place in music videos, where couples spend time together. In my group we followed forms and conventions for this genre in terms of setting and mise-en-scene, unlike R’n’B songs where the video is generally set in a studio with a dance performance. Also, we used effects within the editing part of our coursework to portray conventions with similar genres. The use of a slow fade technique was used in between cuts and shots of the film. The effect worked well with a slow song, setting the conventional mood of a love story and making it understandable to the audience that there is a change of setting along with the change of beat or verse.

Not only did we use typical conventions of real products, but we also converted some as well. As the song was a love song, you would generally think of a boy and girl actors in music videos. Yet we converted these stereotypical social norms and used two female actresses instead as it followed with the lyrics and theme of the song. It wouldn’t be something that the audience would expect but by challenging the conventions which you’d usually see in a real product, it worked better in the song and also made the video a bit more eye catching to its viewer. Over all I would say that my group followed and used similar forms and conventions that an audience would expect to see and that would be comparable with a real media product.



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

The brief for my media coursework was to produce a main product, which was my music video and two ancillary tasks; a cd cover (front and back) and an advert for it. As the encoder, I produced the music video first which then went on to determine the style and look of the ancillary tasks. My three media texts are intertextually linked as I have used the main star actress as the key sign in my video which then permeates through to my other two texts. The reason I have used this sign as the cohesion between my texts is because she is the dominant sign and the main focus of the video and the song. By using the iconic sign to pervade through all three texts I am trying to enable the audience/decoders to acknowledge the artist and familiarise themselves with her. In doing this the audience will then be able to associate the actress from the video with the advert and the cd single, linking the three together. If the video gets a dominant reading from the decoders, they are more likely to buy the cd single as they have familiarised themselves with the star.

The ancillary tasks play a big role in supporting and promoting the main product. By intertextually linking the products together it enables the audience to recognise the relationship between the tasks. In my ancillary tasks I have used a close up image of the artist, which again promotes the video and combines the visual aspects of the video to the print productions.

In terms of effectiveness I would say that it is and also isn’t. The reason for this being that all three tasks work in cohesion as they are linked through the signifier of the iconic star. It was also effective due to all three being aimed at my target audience of young females, aged 16-24. It was a predominantly female song, a love story which is portrayed through my ancillary tasks by the use of the female actress as the main star, as well as the use of colours. In my cd I chose to use a soft green colour and in my advert I used bright colours, such as pink and yellow. These bright colours would usually have connotations of being a female based colour, being the reason why I used them.

However, I also felt that there were limitations to the project due to technology and budget. Being a secondary school student without a budget and with limited technology this altered the outcome of the product. For example a real product would have a big budget and an incredible amount of technology in which the encoder would use to make sure that it was perfect. Due to this fact I feel this had an effect partly and limited myself and my group, but under the circumstances I produced three texts which I feel is effective in catching the audiences’ eye.


3) What have you learned from your audience feedback?

When producing a media text, audience feedback is a vital part of the process. Being the media producer you have to imagine the ideal reader for the text; the imaginary entity. When creating the media product as the encoder I had to empathise with the imaginary entity and create pre-conceptions of what I thought the target audience would want from the text. In doing this I researched forms and conventions of real media products to get a real understanding of what the decoders expect to see and what is accepted when forming a dominant reading.

During the start of the project my group screened some early footage of our music video to our peers in our media class as well as our two teachers. By doing this it helped us to gain insight on what they thought was effective and what wasn’t. Our fellow students commented on the product, mostly due to the montage and mise-en-scene. They felt that the montage worked well within the song but that a couple of places in which a scene was shot could be changed as they felt the setting didn’t quite work. They also suggested that it could be made more obvious in the video which were the memories and what parts were the present, by adding a haze or a glow to the memories. By getting feedback from an audience it allowed us to gain insight on improvements that we may not have necessarily noticed. My group took on the suggestions and changed the memories to have a soft glow in order to make it more noticeable, as well as re-filming a couple of scenes with a different setting.

Once we had completed the production of the video we screened it to another audience. We also created an audience feedback questionnaire, in which some questions were structured in attempt to operationalise the encoder/decoder model. Once the video was watched we asked our audience to fill out the questionnaire that included questions such as whether the liked or disliked it, and if they understood the video. The questionnaire sought to find correlations between social stratifications and to get an insight on the reaction to the video. The questionnaire would show my group whether the second audience got an aberrant or dominant view from the audience. However, all signs are polysemic and people react to media texts in many different ways. For example a member of my target audience may get an aberrant reading from my media text as they have different cultural views and beliefs, which in turn would cause them to react differently than I would have expected.

From screening our footage early on in the production stage and at the final finished stage, it has allowed me to distinguish different audience reactions to my pre-conceptions of what they would want from a text. I have also learned that feedback helps a text improve in the early stages of production, which improves the chances of it getting a dominant reading at the final finished stage.


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

During the whole process of my A2 level media coursework, I have used a variety of technologies to facilitate me in producing my media products; a music video, a cd cover (front and back) as well as a advertisement for the cd.

During the research and planning stages of my coursework, I used a variety of technologies including the internet and Microsoft PowerPoint. When researching my artist, Karima Francis I used the internet a lot in order to get background knowledge on her. Once I’d established that she didn’t have any released songs as of yet, I had to then research artists that were similar to her in order to view the different forms and conventions they used in their music videos. For this I used an internet site called YouTube, which allowed me to view videos of both Karima Francis performing live and music videos of similar artists. From researching these artists it then gave me initial ideas for the planning stage of my project, on what to include in my video. Once researching the artists I then analysed some of their videos and put my findings into a power point presentation which would later go on my blog enabling a visually aesthetic look to it. When it came to researching and planning our ancillary tasks; the cd cover and cd advert, I again used the internet in order to view similar artist’s products.

In the construction stage of the project, my group and I used a digital video camera for the filming of our music video. This was pretty easy to use and no complications arose from it. However, when it came to the putting together and editing part of our film we used software called Pinnacle Studio 12; this wasn’t as easy to use. We found it difficult to use at the beginning of our project as it was slow and sometimes unresponsive. Not only this but it was also difficult, we found, to slot various film clips in between others as this made the film jump about on the timeline, causing the shots and music to be out of sync. Nevertheless, it took time to get used to the software and once I was I found it easier to work with, which made editing unproblematic.

Once constructed our main product, being the video we then went on to constructing our ancillary tasks. For this the technologies I used was a digital camera in order to take the photographs for the product. After using the internet to research real products, I had a few ideas in mind so I took a number of photographs in order for me to chose what I thought was the most effective. Constructing my Cd cover and advert I used two types of software called Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw. I had no difficulties with either of these technologies as I had used them in AS media for the construction of my magazine. Adobe Photoshop allowed me to enhance and edit the photographs to give the right effect that I was looking for. After editing my photos I opened them up onto Corel Draw. This software made it possible for me to play around with colours, format and layout of the text I was producing.

Throughout the whole project I had to write up each stage; research, planning, construction and evaluation. I decided to display my work on a blog using blogspot.com. I found this particular technology effective as it had a clear and simple layout which made it easy to easy. I started my project using EDU blog but found this difficult to use so I changed to blogspot. I used various technologies within my blog in order to make it look as professional as possible. By doing this I included links to YouTube pages of music videos, I also created slideshows and power points which I put up on my blog through the use of an internet site called Slideboom.com. At the end of the project my group screened our music video to an audience in order to get feedback and an insight to their reaction of our product. By doing this we used an interactive whiteboard to show the video so that everybody in the audience could see it.

By using technologies throughout my project I feel that the aid of each has helped the planning and construction of my project a lot. There have been some problems along the way but I feel it has allowed my creativity to develop. By learning and using new technology, these factors have helped enhance my creativity by the many techniques available to use for the encoder (myself) to create a specific product for the decoder to be able to relate to.

Ancillary Tasks

Cd cover front and back.
Cd advert for the single

Research into cd adverts

Girls Aloud Music Advert

Here is the image of Girls Aloud music advert for their single 'Biology'. It's a very simple advert as the image is the front cover of the single and they only have the small circle with writing on it in the corner. I think that this is a very effective image with clear connotations. It links the visuals to the song as you immediately think of science and biology when you see the test tubes.

Michael Jackson Music Advert

In this advert the iconic star is the main focus point of the page. As Michael Jackson is in the centre, this is the image that draws the audience's attention, especially as the background is in black and he's surrounded by purple colours and the bright red of his shirt.

Rihanna Music Advert

Cd cover research and photo ideas

Whilst analysing similar artists, I also browsed around to find any cd covers that caught my eye, or that I found intertesting and gave me ideas.

In this cd cover, I found the setting of the image to be quite visually capturing. As my music video was set in a rural location, almost always outdoors I liked the idea of having a wooded area or beautiful scenary as my front cover, portraying the mise-en-scene and setting that was imperitive in the video.

I came across this cd cover over internet images. The reason it caught my eye was because it wasn't like anything I'd seen before. Although it is very plain, I felt the image of the tape to be quite effective. This cd cover then gave me an idea for my own back cover. I wanted to portray either a book, or a very dishevelled looking book with the track listings on the pages. This would then follow in to link the image to the song, representing 'the story'.

For my front cover, one idea I had was this image above. I was either going to keep it as is with different places the iconic star was sitting or standing. My other idea was to use photoshop and cut out the image of the female. I was then going to put each small image onto one of the photos above so that the end result would be one image of the stars but the image of the women was to be repeated several times on different postitions of the stone steps.

However, I changed my mind about this sencond idea, because when I started to cut the small image out on photoshop, I found it to be incredibly difficult due to the size of it.

Here are another two photos that I took as ideas for either the front or back cover of my cd single. The reason behind this idea, is that I wanted to have images that linked back to the video, enabling the audience to link the connections between the two. My initial idea for this was to create and portray love; i.e. the holding hands, with the symbolic book that is present throughout the video.

I then chose against these images as they both didn't have the eye catching quality or appeal that would make my audience want to buy the cd.

The photos that I finally chose for my end product was:

With editing, cropping and developing these photos, these were then the two finals that I chose for my end result product. The image of Libby; the artist, was used as the front cover in order for the audience to recognise her from the video. By having the artist looking just off camera it allows the audience to connect with her as it is visually eye catching.

The second image of the book I used for the back cover of the single cd. I cropped the image so that only half the book (a page) was seen. I edited out the writing and put the track listings on the page to look as if they had been written on. This, I felt gave the back cover a less formal look to it as if it was hand nurtured and again symbolising the story that is prominent in the music video.

Research into cd covers

After producing a music video the second part of our brief was to create an album cover and back, as well as an advertisement for the cd and song that used.
To get a general idea of conventions on cd covers, I analysed some which in turn gave me plenty of ideas for my own cd cover.

Here is an image of Karima Francis' original album cover. As she has not released any singles or music videos, this was the only thing of hers that we could analyse.

As you can she the album is very simple and subtle. Karima Francis is used as the main iconic star to portray to the audience that she is the main focus. Karima Francis is a very alternative, indie looking individual. I feel that by having the background colour as red against the amazing afro of hair that she has allows the cover to be visually enticing to its audience. Also, as the artist is posed looking down to the ground, you can tell that she is a serious artist, dedicated to music. As it would be obvious with brighter colours and a smiley face that the album would then be a sort of pop genre, happy, energetic album.

These two cd covers are artists which are similar to Karima Francis that I analysed previously in the project. Here, like Karima Francis the too have self-portrait image of themselves on the cover. Again like Kairma Francis, Tracey Chapman has kept the cd cover simple with only her image and name, whereas Alanis Morisette has used her image but also edited the cover to give it that softer effect and make it look like scenary; trees, branches and leaves.

Audience Feedback

Focus Group
As a part of auidence feedback we held a focus group with our class to see what they thought of our ideas for our video so far. Having doing this give a great idea of what peoples opinions are on our project. We presented our storyboards and out intital ideas to the group to see what they thought and if they could give us any feedback and advice on what we could change to make our video more effective.

When holding out focus group we didn't already know what we would be doing on our editing so we ask the group what they thought would suit our video in terms on editing. Here were some ideas they gave us:

• Hazy effect on the picture when having flash backs of a memory
• Have a more saturated or maybe black and white effect on the memory

Final Screening

Once our music video product was complete we had a final screening to an audience on an interactive white board. We also gave the audience a quick questionnaire to fill in after they had watched the video. By giving them the questionnaire this allowed us to get audience feedback of what they thought of the video.

Questionnaire:

1. What sex are you?
Male Female


2. What is your age?
16- 20
21- 30
31+


3. What music genre do you listen to?
Pop
Rock
R’n’B
Indie
Classical

Other (if so, please state) ____________________


4. What music video has caught your attention in the last year, and why?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


5. Did you like the song in the music video?
Yes No


6. Did you like the music video that you have just watched?
Yes No


7. Did you understand the narrative of the video?
(Please circle your choice)
1: Understood → 4: Didn’t understand

1 2 3 4


8. Did you think the setting complimented the song? And if yes or no, then why?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


9. What elements of the Karima Francis video did you like?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


10. What did you think about the use of special effects in the music video?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


11. Did you understand the use of special effects?
(Please circle your choice)
1: Understood
2: Moderately understood
3: Understood a little
4: Not understood at all

1 2 3 4


12. Do you think there could be improvement to the video, and if yes then what in your opinion?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Changes and Development

During our planning stage of this project, we made a couple of changes to our initial ideas as they didn't happen to work out in the end.

Actresses
One specific change was to do with our actresses used. Initially we had chosen to use Julianna Ehren and Bonnie Collier.

But due to time schedules and lesson clashes with when we needed to film, we had to change actresses in order to start with the film production. In the end we decided to use Liberty Jeffery and Nicola Sands.


Setting
We had to change our filming schedule from time to time, because our video was outside based we had to make sure that the weather outside was apporopriate for the video.

My group couldn't do any filming on days when it was raining hard, as it wasn't the setting and image we neccessarily wanted for our music video. This therefore slowed down the filming process and becomes a problem when having to get it complete.

During days when it was raining, some of the time we changed plans to do parts of the filming that we could do, for example the parts inside. This way we didn't loose as much time due to the weather.


Blog Type
Another change to this project is that I decided to change the type of blog we used. At the beginning of the project I started off with using EDU blogs. This choice wasn't my favourite as it was limited in many ways. I was then advised by an ICT teacher to maybe try blogger. I found this system a lot easier to use than the first.

It was easy to use and much more simply laid out and adjustable. I was very glad to have changed blog type as this made it much easier for me to put all my research and ideas into it rather than struggling with the first type.

Bi- Weekly Log of the production

Week 1- End of October
As a group myself and Libby started planning our ideas from our music video research that we would like to include in our own. We researched different genres to analyse their forms and conventions and then we pulled our research together with some added conventions that we liked the look of.
Start storyboarding and filming as well.

Week 2-
In the second week we started to do all our filming to get that done so that we could see how we would piece together our video and choose the right particular shots.

Week 3-
In this week we carried on filming and started putting the beginning of our video together and figuring out which types of effects looked best. We also chose our shots from the filming that we'd already done that we had decided to use in our final product.

Week 4-
Carried on our editing and putting the music video together. We also had our first viewing of what we had so far and our other ideas from our class focus group. This allowed us to get feedback on what they thought so far and any changes that they felt were needed.

Week 5-
Carrying on editing, making sure that the visuals follow along with the lyrics and that the wasn't any problems with the camera work. Also thinking up new editing ideas along the way.
Does one particular scene work better with saturated colour or not?
And is this reverse motion effective?

Week 6-
Still focusing on getting the editing completed in this week, but also starting to research different cd covers from different and similar genres to ours. By doing this I got a general view of the conventions on each cover held and it gave me ideas as well on the type of things I might like to include in my own.

Week 7-
Particularly focusing on getting to the end of our editing and working on what to put. We shot one last scene just so we could have a little bit more footage for the video.

Week 8-
In this week I moved on to my ancillery tasks. I took various pictures that I could use and chose out of a possible 7 which to have for my front cover and which to have for my back cover. Once having done this I started producing my cd cover on Corel Draw and editiong the picture on Adobe Photoshop.

Week 9-
I carried on with my cd cover design but also started researching various music single advertisements and what kind of magazines advertise my particular genre type?

Week 10-
In week 10 I used Corel Draw again but to design my advert this time. I played around with images and colours until I found the right contrast. I then took a look at the type of wording that is typically found in music advertistments.

Week 11-
I carried on with my ancillery tasks, finishing my cd cover and advertisment. Then showed them to members of my target audience to see what they thought about them. Whether they would see my product, and would it make them want to purchase the cd?

Week 12-
In this last week I touched up and added any finishing touches to my music video, cd cover and the single advertisment, before it was needed to be handed in to be marked. Once all our class had finished their products, we had a focus group within our class and also handed out questionnaires to our target audience and got them to watch the music videos. By doing this we got feedback from our audience as to what they thought.

Planning the filming

Before my group started filming we had to plan our time schedule and mainly the settings of our filming.
We chose our locations:

• The town centre
• Dunorlan Park
• Southborough Common
• Libby's house
• Grounds in the school

We ended up chosing these places either because they were convienient to get to and also if they were aesthetically pleasing places.

During the filming stage of our project we chose numerous days in which we filmed in different locations for different scenes.

Technology

Throughout our production work to produce both our music video and our ancillery tasks; a music cd cover and an advertisement for the cd/release of the song me and Libby will be using many types of technology to assist us.

During our filming we used technology such as a video camera to shoot our underlying film and the core structure of our music video. Once we shoot our film the programme that we will be using to produce our video will be Pinnacle Studio 12. This is where we can get to see our video in the making on a timeline and it allows us to add effects to the film such as colour saturation, slow motion, fades for the next shot.

Producing a cd cover and advertisement, the technology I will be using will be a digital camera to take the photographs. Then to enhance and edit my photographs in order to manipulate them I will be using a programme called Adobe Photoshop. When edited my cd cover pictures and advertistment will be produced in Corel Draw where I can add extra colours and play around with the layout of my pictures and the text.

Planning the music video

We recorded our initial ideas onto a storyboard (pictures below). In doing this it showed us a step-by-step of the camera shots, angles and different settings that we wished to use in our music video. Doing this is allowed us visualise our video before we actually started to film, if we didn't like something or felt that the shots had to go in a different order then it was simple enought to rub it out of the storyboard and draw it into another box.


The story boards below show our ideas at the beginning of the project. We have written notes about the camera angles and shot types we wanted to do and drawn pictures to show what actions we would like to have and what setting we would like our video to be shot in.

Here in our first storyboard is the opening part of the song. We want our first shot to be of the main girl walking in a rural setting and sitting beside a tree. We then wanted a birds eye view shot of the book whilst its being opened to show the audience that the book is a key feature of the storyline and it also links to the lyrics of the song.

In this second storyboard we wanted to show the audience the girls memory of her partner, telling her story. So we chose shots to cut back and forth between different memorys and different parts of a memory with her in the present time with the book as was seen at the beginning of the video.

Camera angles that we thought would be effective was close-ups of the two females holding hands, long shots of the scenery and the couple together, with maybe the use of a slow zoom in to allow the audience to get the feel of emotion from the performer.

This third storyboard shows some more different camera angles that my group wanted to include. Close-ups again, but this time of the book and the words 'the story' being written. Also we liked to include a slightly high tilted angle shot of the girl reading the main book.

Mood Board

Here I have included a mood board of all the things my group would like to include in our video, and also to get a general feel for the type of mood we are going for.

Initital Ideas...

When we had chosen the song we were going to do our music video to, we had to think of ideas that we wanted to do with our video. We noted down some of the initial ideas we had for our video:

• Have our video in an outside scence
• Have flash backs of the two girls together, have it as a memory
• When we have the memory we want to have the sunshine so it adds to the effect that it is a happy memory
• Want to include a book in the video, which is the story she is writing about herself and the girl she is in love with.
• Some memories to be done by handheld camera so that it looks like the girls has videoed them both together.

Having these ideas we wanted to then think about what types of shot we would like to include in our video, as the video is about a realtionship the shot types have to be personal and close so that the audience can get the vibe that they have a close relationship and so also they can relate to the video. Having these ideas we then discussed and wrote down the types of shots we would like to include.

Camerawork ideas:

• Close ups
• Mid shots
• Establishing shots
• Long Shots

Costume ideas:

Being an indie soul song, the costume has to relect the type of genre to reinforce the viewer with the visuals they are seeing. Myself nd libby thought that when filming sunny shots that floral and light colours would be best to use for the costume, this is due to the fact that it automaically makes the viewer think of summer. And generally when we think of summer, its a happy, laidback time.

In the video I used two of my female friends as the actresses; Nicola Sands and Libby Jeffery. The reason I used just to two actresses is because they were the main feature of the song, aas the song is about the love one girl has for the other. But also because it was easier to schedule filming shoots when all three of us were around.

Location/setting ideas:

From our first initial ideas, we wanted to shoot our filming in the outdoors as much as possible, in a sunny setting making it seem like its a memory.

Primary ideas for different locations were places such as:

• School fields
• Playing fields in Pembury
• Southborough common
• My house
• Libby's house
• Dunorlan Park
• Calverly Park
• A little remote coffee shop

Annotations of the lyrics...

As part of our research into Karima Francis and her songs we decided that together we would annotate some of the lyrics from her previous songs that she has recorded. The lyrics we have anotated are Karima Francis- The Author. We have looked in depth as to what this song is about and have written what we think the song is trying to say.

From this song and reading the lyrics we found that she is clearly singing about another girl who she is having a realtionship with. She is expressing how she feels about her and that she has written a book of the memories they have shared together. This song is definatly love orientated and passionate about how she feels for another person in her life.


Initially our idea was to have male and female actors for our music video, but seeing as the song is really about the love between two females we then changed our mind. When annotating the lyrics we picked out cetain words that we felt was important to portray in the song. Such as 'sun, the story, smile' The reason for doing this was so we could get initial ideas of parts that we thought were important to include in the song.

As part of our research we had to analyse other music video by our chosen artist, seeing as Karima Francis didnt have any music we vidoes we had to annotate other lyrics from her songs. We chosen the song Again to annotate as it is one of the only songs she has released, here are the annotated lyric: (to see them in big just scroll over the image and they will appear in a different windows to view)

PLANNING

How the research helped..

Looking at genres similar and different to my groups particular song choice helped me a great deal. The research informed myself and Libby of various forms and conventions for our planning.

We created our own ideas for our media product from the conventions we saw and any specifics that we liked the look of, we were able to incorporate them into our own style.

When analysing and researching music videos this helped me to see the comparisons and differences within each that were aimed at my own target audience.

Not only did we analyse music videos just for research, but we also set up a questionnaire for our target audience so that we could get feedback from their answers.

Questionnaire

1) How often do you watch music videos?

2) Do you ever listen to indie/soul music?

3) For a love song about a lesbian couple, would you carry on watching if it was with two girls rather than a male and a female?

4) What normally attracts you to watch a music video?

- a storyline
- a performance based singer/band
- a bit of both
- eye catching visuals and colours

5) What would uniterest you in a music video of this genre?
- a storyline
- a performance
- a bit of both
- a slow song
- nothing eye catching
- the song wasn't my cup of tea.

Research on Karima Francis

This You Tube video is of her first released song called 'Again'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdpETnzW980

This music video has only recently been released as when we started our own production prject, Karima had only released her album at the time.

In this video she shows the relationship she had with her mother as she was growing up. The effective use of the door as a prop signifies her going back in time and reliving the memory of her childhood. Or opening up her memories and emotions for her audience to see, just like the door opening.


Karima Francis: Observer music monthly' acts for 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvB9Iby3oh4

Our song choice

After researching many different types of genres of music video, it was then time for myself and Libby to choose a song in which we could produce our own music video for.

Our choice ended up being a song called 'The Author' by Karima Francis.

The genre for this particulaqr song is accoustic soul/indie. The reason for this is because it falls under the indie category, but Karima Francis' uses soulful mealodies in her songs. This makes the song a hybrid as it falls under different genre categories.

A lot of the time, the majority of songs are hybrid, as it is difficult to define each song into just one specific category. Many songs now have elements of different genres such as pop/soft rock, rock/grunge, or R'n'B/soul/pop. There are so many various types of music these days that its not as simple a lot of the time to put a song into a genre category.

Karima Francis is a singer/songwriter, formerly from Blackpool but currently based in Manchester. She started out small and unknown until the Observer named her 'number 1 act to watch out for in 2009' and after she performed at Manchester's In the City.

Shortly after this she signed a record deal with an independent company called Kitchenware Records.

Her debut album; The Author was released March 2009 and is the only album Karima has produced so far.

Kitchenware Records is a small organisation established in 1982 in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Their aim is to "develop and encourage new music irrespective of the genre".

Other artists that have signed deals with the Kitchenware Record Company are:

• The Editors



• Sirens



• Lighthouse Family



• Kate Walsh
  


• Naive New Beaters



• and more...

Steve Archer's Key Elements

Steve Archer, another media theorist considered that there needs to be a strong relationship between narrative and performance in music promos. Music videos will often cut between narrative and a performance of the song by the artist/band.
The performance within the video could be the artist performing the song or a choreographed dance.

In Steve Archer's theory, he came up with some key elements of music videos.

• Lyrics- Establish a general feeling or mood of the song. Key lines may play a part in the visuals but a music video will rarely illustrate the lyrics wholesale.

• Music- uses the tempo of the track to drive the editing and may emphasise particular sounds from the track, such as a guitar, keyboard or drum solo.

• Genre- Some videos transcend genres but others are more easily categorised. If you watch a particuklar genre of music video or music channel that only tends to play a particular genre, then you are more likely to pick up distinct features which enable them to be categorised into that genre. The features may be, themes, performance, mise-en-scene, editing styles etc..

• Camerwork- How the camera is used (camera movement, angle and shot distance) and how images are sequenced have significant impact on the meaning that is portrayed. Camera movement for example may accompany the performers movement but it can also be constantly circling the band/performer as they are performing on stage. Close-up shots create a sense of intimacy for the audience and also emphasises the commodity on sale; essentially emphasising on the artist's face and her voice.

• Editing- Most common editing is fast-cut montage, but some videos use slow pace shot transitions to establlish the right mood to the viewer. Often enhancing the editing are digital effects, when orginal images are played around with to offer a different kind of effect or pleasure for the audience. Editing is important in a music video as it allows the producers/encoders to manipulate the film in order to portray the right effect and mood to their decoders.

• Intertextuality- Music videos, often described as 'post-modern' which is sometimes used to mean intertextuality. Intertextuality is when a text draws upon or references an existing text. In music promos we frequently see existing texts being drawn upon in order to spark recognition in the audience. However not all of the audience will spot the reference but this does not mean their pleasure of the text is detracted, but there might be greater pleasure from thise who recognise the reference and feel flattered by it. Music videos tend to use refences from the world of cinema or television. For example, Madonna's music video 'Material Girl' drew on the song sequence from 'Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend'.

• Narrative and Performance- Often music videos will cut between narrative and a performance of the song. A music video allows the audience a much more varied access to the performer than just a stage performance can. Narrative in songs suggests storylines or offer complex fragments in a non-linear order, leaving the viewer the desire to see it again.

Analysis of music videos

MUSIC VIDEOS

Madonna- Cherish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wN-Tbf43AA

Geri Halliwel- Raining Men

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tio-YWTBHo

Madonna- Like a Prayer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79fzeNUqQbQ

Kylie Minogue- Can't get you out of my head

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfr9bhSmfXc

Forms and Conventions- Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin; media theorist, identified key features of music videos that he wrote in his book on the rise of MTV 1992. Goodwin researched and identified features which distinguish music videos as a form. These seven features were:

• A relationship between visuals and lyrics (illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)
  


• A relationship between music and visuals
  


• Particular music genres have their own style and iconography
  


• Demand of the record company for close-ups of the main artist. Artists may develop motifs which recur across their work
  
• They demonstrate genre characteristics
  


• Frequently reference to notion of looking e.g. telescope. And particularly voyeurism in the treatment of women.
  


• Likely intertextual references, to other music videos films tvt texts, etc.

These 7 points give a general over-view of the types of forms and conventions that are present in general music videos. Bearing these key elements in mind, I must make sure that some of these points, if not all are included in my own music video.

In doing this, I will be following Andrew Goodwins elements of the forms and conventions included in music video, which would then allow the audience to make a decision on the type of reading they obtained from the media text.

Analysis of similar artists to Karima Francis

Whilst doing background research on Karima Francis and looking at some of her other lyrics, myself and group partner Libby also researched into similar artists like her. We found a couple that fell into the indie/soul category and they were:

• Tracey Chapman
• Joan Armatrading
• Alanis Morrisette

By looking at similar media products this allowed us to get a general idea of what the target audience are used to seeing and the typical conventions and characteristics that are portrayed in these videos.

Media Studies

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Research: Uses and Gratifications Theory

Bulmer and McQuail are both Media Theorists that produced the Uses and Gratifications Model.
This approach model suggests why people use a particular media and the reasons for this, which lead to a variety of responses and interpretations.


When planning my own media products; music video, cd cover and cd advertisement, I will have to consider each use of media and what particular things attract the audience to a text.


The Uses and Gratifications Theory suggests that an individual's needs influence how they use and respond to a medium. And the same media text may gratify different needs for different individuals, which is associated with individual personalities. E.g. maturation, social roles and a person's background.





















Use of media:

• Information- People use media to find out relevant events in the immediate society/world. To seek advice and knowledge on general matters, and for self-education.

• Personal Identity- To find reinforcement for personal value's and to find models of behaviour in order to develop insight into one's self.

• Integration and Social Interaction- Identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging; social empathy. This type of use is a substitute for real-life companionship.

• Entertainment- This is generally the most common use of media, to escape or divert from other problems. Individuals get an aesthetic enjoyment and an emotional release which may also allow them to relax.

During my own media production, I will need to bear the various uses of media in mind. However, I think that my music video will fall mainly under the entertainment category, but also under integration and social interaction.

My audience would experience enjoyment from the video and watch it because they like it, as well as feeling part of a social group, identifying belonging.

Research into Genres and Conventions

Whilst researching different types of genres in the music industry, not only did I look at the music videos for each particular genre, but also what the videos contained. I analysed various music videos and noted that some genres follow the same conventions in they're category, however sometimes they may convert the codes and conventions.


In all music videos the artist is shown performing, the lyrics of the song influence what is shown in the video. The editing will also fit with the pace of the music and the costume, or code of dress reflects the mood of the song.


Generally when stereotyping music videos and genres, the characteristics in each category are the same or similar. For example, a lot of pop bands contain either a performance or mixed performance and narrative based in their videos. The group will have matching clothes, or with slight differences, and there will be a lot of cuts and quick editing.

But on the other hand, the majority of R'n'B music videos always have girls in them, with little or seductive clothing on. There are a lot of cuts to different scenes, generally containing the idea or theme of the performers wealth being apparent in the scenes.


Not every music video and genre type is exactly the same, there are a few expections. But a lot of the time different music genres follow certain types of forms and include specific conventions throughout their video.


Most artists and bands choose to follow the codes and conventions of their music genre type, but from analysing different videos it has become apparent to me that the artists that subvert the normal conventions make more eye-catching videos to the audience.

Semiotics and Film Language Research

When referring to particular readings of the texts, such as a dominant reading or an aberrant reading, you also have to be aware that a piece of text can get many different meanings from people. When one person takes meaning from a text, another could understand it in a totally different way.

Semiotics is the study of signs, and a sign can convey meaning to the audience. A sign is made up of two parts;

The signifier- the sign itself for example a picture of words in a text.

The signified- the meaning taken from the actual sign.


A piece of text can be polysemic, which means the text has multiple meanings. The meaning each indiviudal takes from the text is influenced by many different factors. This depends on our age, gender, ethnicit, the context of viewing and many other factors.

Film Language

Denotation- This is the first order meaning. It is the first obvious meaning of the sign that we understand.

Connotation- This is a deeper, less obvious meaning. A feeling or idea that is suggested by a particular word object or situation, although it doesn't need to be part of the meaning.

Syntagmatic- Syntagmatic connotation is the meaning signs make when they work together.

Didactic- Didactic texts have denotive meanings and aren't often open to interpretation.

Media theorists have produced examples of the different types of signs that can be presented in various texts:

• Iconic Signs- The signifier is connected to the signified through the principle of resemblance. These type of signs accuire their function through similarity to what they signify. E.g. A photo is an iconic sign as it resembles what it refers to.

• Indexical Signs- This is when the signifier makes you think of the signified becuase they are physically connected in the real world. For example smoke is caused by fire, so the smell of smoke (signifier) makes you automatically think of fire (signified)

• Symbolic Signs- This type of sign such as language are purely artificial as it is a human-imposed convention. There is no physical connection or natural resemblance between the word and the concept. E.g. The English word 'dog' and the concept 'dog'.

Media producers prefer they're texts to avoid being polysemic as they want they're audience to understand the one sign from it; to get the dominant reading. To get this producers achor the meaning of the text to prevent signs being polysemic. The signs then work together syntagmatically and prevent any polysemic meanings.

Research of music videos

During the research stage of the project, as a class and individually, I researched at lots of different music videos in order to get ideas of forms and conventions that I could include in my own music video.

Here is a music video of a pop artist with a hint of soft rock. The artist is named Pink and her music video is called 'Stupid Girls'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA9w4voK9YY


I analysed this particular video as it has alot of intertextual references within it as well as having a message behind it by making fun of the 'stupid' celebrity girls.

Textual Analysis of Music Videos- PINK

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We also looked at various other artists such as Madonna and Geri Halliwell. Their music genre also falls into the pop category along with Pink.




SCAN IN MY MADONNA SHEETS AND GERI HALLIWELL SHEETS RESEARCH

From the 16/12/09 our Media Studies Teacher asked us change our blogs into individual work.

The joint blog included:

• The Introduction
• Annotation of the lyrics
• Inital ideas
• Audience Feedback
• Changes and Development
• Explanation of our Storyboards

From this point on, all other post titles are individual work.

Some posts have been moved around into a better order but the titles above are joint work.

RESEARCH

Encoding Decoding Model

Media Theorist Stuart Hall, published his research on the Encoding/Decoding Model.
He stated that media studies tends to focus on one of three areas.

• Institution- who produces the text and why.
• Content- the media text itself, we might explore genre, narrative or representation.
• Audience-who the audience are and what impact does the text have on them?

We refer to the institation, the people who produce the text as the encoders. The encoders create the meaning of the media text in the assumption the it will be understood by the audience.

Therefore the audience are the decoders, who take meaning from the text. Any piece of text we read or listen to, we as an audience try to understand what the encoder is trying to communicate with us. However all texts are polysemic; having multiple meanings, so individuals decode texts in many different ways.

Decoding readings:

Dominant reading= This is the preferred reading, where the individual fully understands the texts codes and meaning.

Abberrant reading= The reader is unable to understand the meaning the encoder has tried to make. They don't get the text what-so-ever and there is dissoance between the cultural assumptions by the encoder and the cultural context of the decoder.

Oppositional reading= The reader understands the dominant meaning from the text but does not share the texts code's and rejects the reading. This is because they are in a social situation that puts them in the direct opposition to the dominant code that the encoder is trying to portray.

Negotiated reading= This type of reading is where the individual partly shares the text's code and accepts the dominant meaning, but sometimes resists it in a way that reflects their own positions, experiences and their interests.

To ensure the encoders get a dominant reading the encoders need to talk to their audience in an apporiate way; which is called the Mode of Adress. The institution will generally make assumptions on the decoders interest, knowledge and cultural views to try and anchor the meaning of the text.

The assumed language and points of reference an encoder uses to connect with an assumed target audience is known as the ‘Public Idiom.’

Whilst researching music videos and ideas for my own production, I have to take into account the audience I will be displaying my music video for. In doing this, being the encoder I will have to make an assumption on what they will be looking for in order for them to get the correct reading from my text.

Once having chosen my target audience and genre type of my particular song, i will have to reseach particular codes and conventions in which the target audience will produce a dominant reading for, thus making it a popular music video.

Introduction to our project..

The Brief
We were given a brief for the project that we have to work on this year. This was to create our own music video for an existing song that didn't already have one. Before creating a music video we had to research and analyse other music videos to get a general idea of particular forms and conventions.

To help us we were shown a few examples of previous years and different school's videos. By doing this we were able to see what they had created and what their ideas were for their videos. As well as looking at school videos, we also analysed music videos from different genre's. In doing so, this enabled us to view the particular forms and conventions in different genre styles of music and what each genre tended to include. When researching music videos we looked at a variety of artists including Madonna, Pink, The Script, Geri Halliwell, Beyonce and The Fray.


Group Organisation
When picking our groups we had to decide who would be partaking in each role within that group. Our group consists of Liberty Jeffery and Briony Crawford. We decided that Briony would be directing and filming the music video and I will be playing a part within the video. Having this information we then therefore had to pick a song we would like to do our music video to. The song that we both felt was appropriate and enjoyed was Karima Fancis- The Author. The reason we chose this song was because we both liked it from the moment we heard it. The song is about a story of a relationship between two people and the love that one women had for another.

After we had decided who would be doing each specific role, we then had to choose our other actress for our music video. We had to pick our actresses very carefully as they had to portray the genre of the song. The genre of our particular chosen song was acoustic soul/indie. The actresses we chose to play out the parts within the music video are Liberty Jeffery and Nicola Sands.


Target Audience
When planning my group production work i researched different types of music genres for different target audiences. By looking at various types of music genres this allowed me to get a general idea of lots of different styles and how each particular product addressed their aimed target audience. Addressing the target audience appropriately is important because the reader needs to relate to what their viewing, giving them that incentive to purchase that particular song or album.

With our music genre in mind we had to make sure that our video would address our chosen target audience. During the planning of our production work we researched many music videos with a variety of genres that were targeted at different audiences.

• Pop
• Rock
• Indie
• R'n'B
• Rap
• Dance
• Alternative

By looking at different videos and seeing the particular styles they portrayed allowed me to get a general idea of how each product aimed to attract and address their target audience. After doing some research on the music genre of our song choice we found that our particular target audience was mainly female, ranging from teens to young adults.


Conventions
Looking at music videos that fell under the acoustic soul/indie type of genre was definately able to help us with the planning stage of our media production product. I was able to look at the conventions of music videos with a very similar genre, which helped us to apply some ideas to our own product. Karima Francis is an upcoming artist that is not yet well known and also has no music videos of her own that we could use for background research. Because of this we looked at very similar artists like her to get some ideas, but it also gave us the freedom to be creative and choose whether or not we wanted to follow the genre's type of conventions.

For our music video we decided that we would portray the love story in a typical convention, by having male and female actors. In doing this we were initally following the conventions of a love story, even though the song was about two females. After a little planning and ideas from our focus group in our media class, we then thought it was appropriate to subvert the normal conventions associated with society by chosing to have two female actresses in the video instead. The reason as to why we chose to subvert conventions is because you very rarely see two women portraying their love in music videos, which allowed us to be different in a way.