In what ways does
your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
My chosen song is ‘Umbrella by Rihanna ft. Jay-Z’, the song
is within the RNB genre. This song already has an established music video,
which inspired me a lot when coming up with ideas for our own video. Not only
was the original video an influence but we also looked at other RNB music
video’s such as; BeyoncĂ©
– Dance for you. This mainstream artist has had a very successful career
and is very established within the industry. The song ‘umbrella’ has a range of
fast and slow pace, the fact that the song is about love and a relationship and
protecting someone is very meaningful and then including ‘umbrella’ with sort
of a abstract meaning. After looking at different RNB artists and videos, I
preferred the idea of an abstract type video and not a story-type video. I
preferred an abstract type video because I thought it worked better with the
genre being RNB , and with the typical convention of including dancers and
dance routine, it’s easier to not have a story line with RNB music, especially
with the an artist like Rihanna because she’s meant to be a sex icon, and the
big aim of the video is for her to appeal to the audience and look incredible
and sexy. I wanted to create a video that was nearly all performance, to do
this I used a range of long, medium and close up shots of the main artist, I
also used a lot of lip-sync throughout the video, I think this makes it a lot
more effective and realistic, more interesting for the audience to watch.
After researching thoroughly in the
codes and conventions
of RNB in general and then my chosen song in particular I found that the most
common things that are within an RNB music video are; minimal clothing, to
create the sex appeal for the audience. Expensive jewellery (or a lot of it),
there is examples of this in the beginning of the original video when Jay-Z is
performing, this is typical within an RNB music video because jewellery means
money and money suggests to the audience that they are rich and powerful and
that’s how they get that point across. Dancing is a big typical convention and
is highlighted throughout the original video, it’s important because it shows
off the artists’ skills and makes her look very appealing to the audience,
quick cuts and fast paced editing helps to make the dancing and her performing
more interesting and effective because it fits well with the song pace.
This shot influenced us a lot because it says a lot about
her as an artist. It gave us a lot of thought about what type of outfits are
going to be appropriate and will best appeal to the larger audience. How she is
positioned is a big thing to think about because she has to look physically
attractive to the audience, therefore possibly showing some flesh. Really loved
the lighting to this shot, as I think it makes her seem mysterious and a
powerful woman.
Here we have a close-up. We decided we wanted to add quite a
few close-up shots in our own music video because we felt it really highlighted
the main artist. Her looking straight into the camera we felt really connected
with the audience and made her seem believable. It also highlighted her beauty
and attracted the audiences attention. We liked the idea of the dark background
with good lighting on her face to make her stand out more and then the
attention is all on her.
We took particular notice to this shot because when we
watched the original video this shot caught our eye and made us think ‘wow’
that’s brilliant. What we thought was particularly intriguing was her body
movement. We wanted to include something like that within our video. We did in
fact ask our performer if she would be practically naked in the shot because we
thought it would be great to go with the convention of minimal clothing and
appealing to male audience. However, unfortunately our performer wasn’t
comfortable with doing this so we had to change the plan, and came up with the
next best alternative which we thought would be to wear a leotard which is
still very sexy and tight and would still appeal to the audience.
Here is an example of a medium/long shot, we wanted to
include quite a few of these shots within our music video because we were
basing the video as a performance video. Therefore long shots are vital to see
some performance of the main artist and not just her face.
I think that the original music video for ‘Umbrella’ gave me
great inspiration and ideas for my own music video. Once we had a good idea of
what we wanted our video to look like and what type of things we wanted to
include, we had to choose the locations for filming. We liked the idea of
having plain type of background because we wanted the main focus to be the main
artist and for her to be the main part of the shots. Therefore we came up with
the idea of filming in the green room at college because it enabled us to edit
in any type of background we wanted, which was perfect. We also choose to use
the theatre for the dance sequence, this was an ideal location because there
was enough space for everyone, it was again in college which made organising
things easier and getting all the performers together easier.
On the first day of shooting, we decided to start of
shooting some of the easier shots of just the main artist in the green room,
shooting mainly close-ups. We had asked a girl that was one of our friends
which didn’t go to the college; we had set
up all the different types of lights such as the magenta light and the tripod
and camera in the green room for everything to work with the filming. After
filming
and watching it back on the edit suite we realised it hadn’t quite gone how we
had hoped, the lights were quite set right in the green and so there were still
some green patches in the shots that we were unable to get rid of. Then
unfortunately when we had rescheduled with the performer, she later told us
that she was unable to carry on being our main artist. This brought us to a
standstill of been able to carry on doing anything until we found someone else
that could perform for us. We decided it would be best to ask someone that went
to college with us that would be in college everyday and wouldn’t have to
travel to come film for us. We quickly found someone else that was willing to
do it; she was part of the dance team in college, so she was perfect for the
part as she was really enthusiastic and confident. If I could re-do this I
would of picked someone that went to the college in the first place to be in my
music video because this effectively made us lose time and effort, on the other
hand it was a lesson in how to set the green room up with the right lighting
and wouldn’t make the same mistake when filming next time.
When filming we had to do things like writing
out the lyrics on paper for the performer to learn them in depth, to make
sure she was accurate with her lip syncing and generally more confident when
performing.
At the beginning of the production we created an animatic
for our chosen song, with all the shots in the right order and what the shots
would include. We found that once we had started to film, a lot of things
changed, we came up with new and better ideas for the music video that we
hadn’t put into the animatic. Therefore the finished music video isn’t quite
like the animatic exactly but creating one in the first place did help a lot
with coming up with ideas and working out how long shots needed to be for it
all to come together. A big thing we realised when we actually started filming
and putting the film on the edit suite for us to them watch back and start
editing, is that the shots were far too long to what we had planned them to be
in the animatic. So realised we would need more shots than we anticipated.
The part I found difficult when making my video was making
sure there was lots of varied shots and different things happening in the
shots, to make sure that the audience wouldn’t lose interest when watching the
video especially because it is a fairly long song been 4 minutes 13 seconds and
making sure all dancing and movement in the shots were quick enough to keep up
with the fast pace of the song.
Looking in depth to what the typical codes and conventions
are to RNB music videos definitely helped a lot and influenced quite a few of
the ideas in my music video. It made me more aware and gave me more knowledge
about what would work best for my chosen song.
How effective is the
combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
To begin with I started off by making drafts on plain A4 paper roughly with a pen, sketching out a few different ideas of how to lay things out on the page. I then went and took quite a few images of my main artist that was featuring in my music video. I took a variety of different ones, because then thought I would most likely not have to arrange another day to take more if some of them weren’t quite right for either the magazine advert or the digipak.
To begin with I started off by making drafts on plain A4 paper roughly with a pen, sketching out a few different ideas of how to lay things out on the page. I then went and took quite a few images of my main artist that was featuring in my music video. I took a variety of different ones, because then thought I would most likely not have to arrange another day to take more if some of them weren’t quite right for either the magazine advert or the digipak.
I then began to make my magazine
advert; I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 to create my magazine advert. I picked
the photo that seemed most appropriate and which I thought would fit well with
how I wanted to lay out everything on the advert.
I then began to make my Digipak,
I again used Abode Photoshop CS5 to create it. My original idea was to use some
of the photos that I had taken before, the ones that I hadn’t used for my
magazine advert. After looking at them, I wasn’t really keen on many of them
and didn’t think they would fit well all together, as I needed at least 4
different photos. So instead I came up with the idea of taking screen shots of
my music video and using them as photo’s, the images were far better suited for
the Digipak, looked a lot more professional and also carried on the continuity
between the 3 different products, which was a lot more effective. I began with
picking what images would go best on which side of the Digipak, taking into
consideration things such as; track list that had to go on the back cover; the
album name on the front cover. I used 3 different snap shots from my music
video for my Digipak and one image that I had already taken previously when
taking the photos for my magazine advert. The one I had taken myself I used for
the front cover, I felt it worked well because she was looking straight into
the camera connecting with the audience, it was also a close up of her face
which was effective because it draws the audience in, I feel it’s important for
her to connect with the audience especially on the front cover because it’s the
main side and the first side the audience look at. This was the only image that
was not in black and white, I made a draft of the Digipak with the front cover
image still in colour but I wasn’t really keen on it and didn’t feel it worked
with the rest of the Digipak because it didn’t carry on the continuity and sort
of stuck out and looked stupid. So I changed the image into black and white
with the effects tool and it looked so much more effective and linked together
well with the other images that it was next to. I tried to make sure that all
the images that I used showed the artist in a different position and looking
attractive in each one, ones that I believed would intrigue the audience with
each one they looked at. I included a bar code, track list, copy right and
website also on the back cover. I did this because I felt it made it look a lot
more professional and kept with the typical conventions of over CD digipak’s.
My main aim throughout creating my music video, magazine
advert and Digipak was to make sure they all linked together and that was clear
to the audience. To keep continuity throughout the products is important to be
successful in what you are producing.
Here is my
final finished draft of my Digipak.
What have you learned
from your audience feedback?
In the first stages of producing the music video coursework
we decided to ask some pupils in college some
questions about the typical conventions they would expect to see within
this type of genre of song (Umbrella – Rihanna ft. Jay Z). We got video
evidence from 1 person that said… The second person we got video
evidence from… The third and final person we got video
evidence said that…
This feedback helped us have an idea of what the audience
would be expecting to see within the video from listening to the song. It meant
we knew what things we shouldn’t include because it didn’t fit the conventions
of typical RNB music videos but also the things we knew wouldn’t be popular
with the audience and it appealing to the audience was one of our main
important aims. As if it didn’t appeal to the target audience then the album
would fail to sell. It was useful for coming up with ideas for
costume and cast
ideas, what type of scenes would be appropriate and what locations
would be best. After we had interviewed the students and established that they
thought having dancers and dance sequences would be appropriate for an RNB
music video, we decided to include this as it was obviously popular with the
audience but also after looking at other RNB artists and videos such as Beyoncé
crazy in love, you can see that the main artist does a lot of dancing and
is wearing little clothing because she’s meant to be a sex icon just like
Rihanna. We also looked at the original
Umbrella video version to see what conventions were included and how
Rihanna was portrayed. So decided that we would include a dance sequence, which
would be best filmed and performed in the college theatre. We knew that the
dancers needed to be wearing little clothing and look attractive to appeal
particularly to the male audience, because the female audience will hopefully
like the video because they inspire to be like the main artist and then the
males are attracted to her. Getting both genders of audience on side with the
song and video, therefore in the end selling more of the end product.
After uploading my finished music video onto YouTube and then my blog and watched it back I realized that there was a few errors and things that could look better so I went back and changed them. I firstly changed a spelling error which wasn't a major issue. I also saw a quick blip in the middle of two shots that was a black shot, so went back onto the editing suite, zoomed in one the two clips that were slightly spaced out and pulled them together so there wasn't a space anymore. And my third and final change was fading the shot of the four dancers that was being used as a background behind the main artist, I wanted to do this because I felt it didn't look quite right and realistic and fading it made it look a lot better. It also made the main artist more see able rather than looking straight at the dancers in the background.
The videos above are of students that are giving me positive and negative feedback. They watched my finished music video so then they were able to answer my questions and give me feedback for me to reflect on. A lot of the positive feedback I got were things like; the use of two shots in one, using one for background effect; using effects such as the reverse shot; that the black and white effect was good. The fact that some of positive feedback was repeated shows that obviously people agreed and shows they were the things I did successfully. The things that people said I could of improved were things such as; more of a dance routine; used more of the nature environment. I agree with critics, I would of created more of a dance routine if I had started my filming early, I wish I had done this now. I wish I had also not only just used the green room, mainly because the video would of had more background variety and would of looked more interesting, but also because we would of had more room to perform.
How did you use new
media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
I also used Google in my research stages to look at
different types of magazine adverts and digipak examples from various different
established artists. It helped a lot with influencing my ideas and giving me
knowledge of what actually is included on a professional realistic magazine
advert and CD digipak. I also used Google to research into the copy right code
that I needed to include on the back cover of my CD digipak. To also look at
different types of track listing, giving myself an idea of how many tracks
there should be for it to look realistic.
I used my mobile
phone in the research stage to record other students giving me feedback
about the type of genre of my chosen song, I did this by asking them various
different questions.
I used my mobile phone because it was a lot easier than using a digital video
camera. It didn’t need to be great quality so using my mobile phone made more
sense, as it was quicker to use and easier to upload to the computer. I also
used my mobile phone in the evaluation stages after completing my final
products. I again filmed with the built in video camera students asking them
for feedback on my final finished product of my music video. I got them
to watch my music video all the way through and then give positives and
negatives and what I could have done differently to improve my overall finished
products.
A main component with producing my ancillary texts was Adobe Photoshop CS5. It enabled me to
open images on to it and then edit then how I wanted them to look. I was able
to cut and crop bits that I didn’t want, add different effects such as black
and white which was essential for my photos so I could keep the continuity
throughout all my products. After editing my photos to how I wanted them, I was
then able to put together a magazine advert and digipak, including text on top
of the images and the template of the CD digipak that helped me size and place
all my photos correctly. Without using Adobe Photoshop CS5 I wouldn’t have be
able to create anything as professional and realistic to what I have done.
Photoshop is fairly hard to use, but I felt quite confident after learning and
using it for the past year.
To edit and put together all my clips of filming for my
music video I used Adobe Premierpro, which looks like this. I found it quite
hard to use at first but after some lessons on using it and experimenting with
different tools I got used to it. After each day of filming I uploaded the
shots immediately onto the edit suite (Adobe Premierpro) and put the shots into
folders of what shoot it was, eg. The folder ‘Shoot 1’ had all the shots of
filming from day 1. This helped me because it meant all the shots were
organised and I could access them easily and not lose any. Creating my music
video on here meant I was able to cut and re-size clips, add special effects
such as slow motion and reverse edit on the clip, increase and decrease the
speed of clips to match the pace of the music and many other different effects.
We used a Sony Handicam with a memory card to film all the music video; we used this camera because it was recommended. It was really good quality and battery life was fairly good. Very easy to use and understand. The only problem with using a camera from college was that we needed to know quite fair in advance when we would be needing the camera because of having to book it to make sure the camera would be free to use, as we weren't the only people needing the camera. Ideally I would of liked to have had my own camera that was just as good as the college one, to have been able to use that. Which would have been easy because I could of used it whenever I wanted.
We used a Sony Handicam with a memory card to film all the music video; we used this camera because it was recommended. It was really good quality and battery life was fairly good. Very easy to use and understand. The only problem with using a camera from college was that we needed to know quite fair in advance when we would be needing the camera because of having to book it to make sure the camera would be free to use, as we weren't the only people needing the camera. Ideally I would of liked to have had my own camera that was just as good as the college one, to have been able to use that. Which would have been easy because I could of used it whenever I wanted.
Finally to show my work and put it all together I uploaded it
all in posts onto my blogger site. It was an easy way for my teachers to see my
video and other products I had produced.
Word count 4,497