Exam Practice - Question 1B

Analyse genre in one piece of work you have produced.
Genre is the specific style of any sort of media, whether it is printed media or moving image. This makes it easier to group different media together and lets the audience choose what they view in a simple easy way. For this question I will be analysing the genre used in my A2 Media portfolio music video – which happened to be acoustic music. To start my project I looked at existing acoustic videos to explore the conventions and analyse how different components of production were used in them. From carrying out this research I was able to see that nature and natural scenes were a very common setting and therefore a convention belonging to the acoustic genre. I also found that acoustic music covers a wide scale when it comes to what the song is about and therefore the visuals that run alongside the audio. I found that there was a recurring theme of love throughout the acoustic genre. Editing techniques were often quite slow cuts and fades in the love-themed videos. All of these findings helped with the creation of my work and were found in videos by performers such as Paolo Nutini, Newton Faulkner and Rusted Root.
My music video’s narrative ran a love story theme through its entirety and the visuals represented this with the lead character singing the lyrics and acting out her story of love. The lead female began as a weak character then moved on to develop a stronger personality as she becomes more in love with the lead male, then stays strong and continues to tell her story after rejection. This represents the convention of a strong character that develops throughout the video. The decision was made to contain this convention in the video because I felt that it had worked so well with other videos before in the genre and it felt safe to stay within the pre-written home of the acoustic genre. The inclusion of conventions of the chosen genre was also important to make the video appealing to my psychographic target audience (aged 13-20) who were people who were categorized into ‘puritans’ and ‘utopians’. These people wish to feel virtuous and want the world to be a better place. To make them want to watch my video, I included the conventions of natural settings and wanting to be with someone so that life would be improved and more enjoyable. I also used a young female as the main lead in the video, as the target audience would be able to directly relate to her. This is just another way in which genre was used in my video.

Exam Practice - Question1B

Analyse Narrative in one of your coursework productions.

The music video that I produced for my A2 Media coursework followed ‘The Narrative Circle’ theory devised by Torodov. His theory consists of the idea that every story must have a beginning, middle and an end. The cycle starts with an equilibrium where everything is in a ‘state of calm’ and things in the story are normal and equal (this stage acts as the beginning). This moves on with an unsettling event taking place in the narrative – known as disequilibrium (this stage acting as the middle). To end the cycle, a ‘new-equilibrium’ is formed (acting as the end of the story). My video conformed to this as the video opens with a sequence of shots showing the lead female character telling of her love and that she wants to tell the lucky man. Later on in the video disequilibrium breaks out as the characters man is taken from beneath her feet by another woman. The video ends with the lead character accepting this and is still on her own, this effectively is another equilibrium in the story, completing Torodov’ narrative circle.
There are certain elements taken from Prop’s theory based around folk tales and the idea that every narrative contains certain stock characters. This could also be described as the ‘fairy tale theory’. My music video contained few characters however it could be interpreted as the main male being the ‘hero’ who is wanted by the ‘princess’ (the lead female) and the woman who takes the lead male for her own as the ‘villain’ of the story.
Strauss’ theory of binary opposition consists of the idea that within a narrative, there is always an opposition to it somewhere, for example, there could be the opposition of rich and poor, good and bad or young and old. This theory is not implanted directly into the music video I produced however minute details and elements may be found if looked into in greater detail, i.e. the second female getting the man, opposing the lead female not getting the man. This could be seen as a binary opposition of successful against unsuccessful. Though this is the case, this link to Strauss’ theory is linked and not backed up with any other concrete evidence.
Overall, Torodov’ theory of the narrative circle is the most directly applied theory for the produced music video. There are various points throughout which fit in with the idea’s Torodov had and follow the cycle closely. Propp’s and Strauss’ theories can be applied to small sections and details of the video; however do not form a strong bond between themselves and the contents, or production of the video.

Magazine Advert

This is a magazine advert that the group created to advertise the album cover we created.

Evaluation 5 - Evaluation Video

To finish off our evaluation, we filmed our teacher asking our group questions about both the specific products and the project as a whole. The video can be seen below. Alternatively, the video can be found at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io0yhw8x99g&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Evaluation 4 -Media Technologies

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? (YouTube, Photoshop, Premiere Elements)

Media technologies have been of a great use throughout the entirety of our project, predominately the research, planning and evaluation stages. We have used pieces of software that provide a wide variety of functions and software that has specific purposes, however all of which we have found to be equally useful.

One of the first pieces of media technology that we used in our project is the vastly popular Internet video sharing site – YouTube. We used this to watch existing music video’s in the music industry to evaluate and analyse them. At first we had some issues when trying to access the site as the school network we were on did not allow users to visit YouTube. However, this problem was overcome and when we finally managed to visit the site, we were able to embed the video’s into our blog and analyse the conventions and contents of both the video’s themselves, but also of the acoustic genre that we had chosen to create a video for. This was at the very beginning of our project and we later returned to use the media technology that is YouTube to help us clear one of the final hurdles in our project. This hurdle was getting our video published so that it could be viewed by our target audience and so that we could hold viewings to gather feedback on our video.

We also used the internet to use Blogger, another website where you can share information, be it text, music or video, with people around the world. We used Blogger to create our ‘e-portfolio’s’ and it came to be a great help as we could edit, create or manage the posts that we created while we were at home or otherwise outside of the school network. We had a few issues with accessing blogger as the school network did not always allow access to the site however, having access from outside the school network allowed us to collate all our work into one place where it would be safe and look very presentable.

When it came to editing our music video and applying the audio track to run in time with it, we used the program Adobe Premiere Elements. This software allowed us to cut, trim, add effects, edit and apply audio to the clips we had filmed while being able to carry out a lot more functions. At first, we found it the program a little tricky to get to grips with but after a few hours practice we had managed to start understanding the programs functions and tools. It was easy to use as we could drop all our clips into one long list then select them to add as appropriate. While adding effects to the clips, Premiere Elements allowed us to preview how the clip would look before fully applying the effect and adding the clip onto the timeline, this was very helpful as we experimented with a wide variety of effects however only a select few made it through into the final cut. We also found it useful in places where we had a clip that was just a little short of fitting in with the audio track. The software, in these places, had the option to stretch out, or condense clips down to fit in with the audio track. We did not experience any real problems while using this software however, we did have a few tumbles where we misplaced clips or the software would crash and not save our work, this was again due to the school network having problems.

One of the final pieces of technology that we used was Adobe Photoshop. We used this to create our album cover and our tour poster (ancillary texts). The software was very useful and fairly self explanatory when it came to using its tools. I found the way that you could create layers and edit/delete each one individually very useful indeed. Photoshop contained many useful tools that we experimented with to get the most from the program however; we only ended up using a few of these because we did not want to overdo our products and keep them as realistic and natural as possible. One of the effects we did use was render>effects>lighting effects. We used this lighting effect to create a spotlight than shone across the back cover of our album. This was to create the illusion that there was a light shining onto the track list and it also helps focus the audience’s attention onto this space.

While filming our music video we made use of the camera Panasonic SDR S26. This camera is fairly standard however did not record the best quality images. We also used a standard tripod to create the steady, stationary shots that we required. This however did not always work too well as the tripods were quite old and in places were stiff to move and in some places, a bit ‘jerky’ and unsteady. We were offered the use of artificial lighting, however, our group turned it down as we wanted to make sure that our product looked natural and we used only ambient lighting in the production of our work. I feel that our final product (the music video) that we created was of a good quality, however it could have been improved slightly had we had more up to date or more industrial standard equipment.

Overall, the use of media technologies that we had access to throughout our project has had a massive effect on the quality and finish of both our main product and ancillary texts. Although we encountered a few technical products here and there with some of the technologies, our group managed to work our way around them in an efficient and professional way. Our final product and ancillary texts both had a good quality and professional finish (this can be backed up with our audience feedback) and this is down to our use of the media technologies such as the editing software Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Photoshop. If we were to complete the project again, I would use the same software that we used this time however I feel we could make a slightly higher quality product now that we have the knowledge of how to use the programs.

Evaluation 3 - Combining Our Products

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (tour poster & CD)?

In our group, while creating all of our products we kept the same idea’s in our minds throughout the process of making each one. This ensured that we could keep a common theme and style throughout the video and both the CD cover and tour poster. As they all have similar styles and themes throughout, when put together and combined, I think our products work very well together. It is easy to see that they are all linked just from looking at the contents and how the different components are placed and used.

It was important for us to make sure that our music video, CD cover and Tour Poster combined together well and had similarities between them. This is because we wanted out products to be the best possible quality and have a professional feel to them. There was a certain amount of importance to create a good combination of the tour poster and the cd cover as the album is supposed to be released alongside the tour so to make it as realistic as possible, a clear link must be visible between the two products.

One of the main similarities between our main product and ancillary texts is the way in which we have used the artist’s name. Each time you see this, it is written in the same font and colour on every product. This gives the products an instant link to each other and makes sure that when combined, they look like they belong together and not from or about completely different artists/genres. We not only used the name in this way to combine our products but also to ensure that our artist will be recognised each time her name is seen in this format. We also used similar text fonts and colours for smaller pieces of text on the tour poster and CD cover, this was so that when the products were all combined they suit each other, have a common style and are not made up of mixed up fonts, sizes and colours.

Another significant link between our main product and ancillary texts is the presence of our artist. Our artist is the main character in our video and appears in both the narrative and performance sections. She fits the stereotypical girl who you would imagine to fit in to the acoustic genre with blonde hair and is naturally good looking. She is also the main image on our CD cover so this gives an obvious direct link between the two products. Though this is the case, our artist is not present on the tour poster however; we thought that the video may still be linked to the poster through the album cover. This would be through the album title style and the artists ‘signature’ style. I feel that this means they are well combined even though the products do not all link directly to each other.

In conclusion, when we put all three of our products next to each other, it is clear and easy to see the links between them, however further, more complex links can be found when an individual looks closer into our work. All the products we made tie in well with each other and combine in a professional way to create our project and can be seen as a brand for ‘MOR Music’ and the artist we used.

Evaluation 2.1 - Audience Feedback

This post contains graphs that show the feedback we were given when we handed out our questionnaires during our focus groups.

Evaluation 2 - Audience Feedback

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We held two small screenings for a focus group where our audience could watch our music video and then answer a short questionnaire after the viewing. We had responses from five males and five females, all within the age range 13-57 – the majority being in the target group of 13-20 years. The first two questions were about the person filling out the questionnaire simply asking their gender and age.
We then asked questions based around the form of our video. The first question in this section queried the understanding of the video’s narrative. All ten people in our focus group told us that they did understand the narrative, which reinforced us with a feeling of confidence that we had created the narrative in a solid, clear way. One member of the focus group expressed that it was very clear and easy to understand, however, another suggested that it may become clearer if some form of title was included. This taught us that although we had made a clear narrative there are ways in which it can be improved through simple, yet effective, methods.
The following question asked the individual whether they thought that it was a good mix of narrative and performance in the video. To make sure that we got the best feedback possible we explained the meaning of this question and the different forms a music video can take. This ensured the focus group had a clear understanding of the question and could give a good quality answer. One of the males in the group commented that the inclusion of the two forms of video gave it a professional finish and made it ‘more emotional’. Other members expressed that it gave the video more depth. This taught us that it can be very effective to use more than one form of video as long as they are used in moderation and in an appropriate way.
A question was included in the feedback form asking what target audience they thought our video was aimed at. The answers came back in a very positive way with 8 out of 10 in the focus group saying teenagers (13-20) and 3 out of these 8 saying that they thought it was aimed at females. We learnt from this that we had achieved making the video appeal to our target audience as 80% of the focus group believed it was aimed at these people.
‘Do you think our video looks like a real life product?’ was one of our later questions for the focus group. Seven members of the focus group said that it did and looked professional. However, the other three claimed there could be; ‘some amendments made’, ‘possibly but it needed syncing’ and ‘if it stopped bouncing up and down’. This told us that we had made a good quality video however there was still room for improvement for it to be the best that it possibly could be, however due to complications with retrieving the audio track and filming schedules, some of these comments were expected.
We also asked our group what they thought could be improved. We did this so we could learn what we could improve on, or what we did well on, should we repeat this project. Some of the improvements suggested included; ‘facial expressions and acting’, ‘include opening titles’ and the most common suggestion was to increase the diversity of camera angles. We learnt from this that it is very easy to over use particular camera angles/movements, and this can have a direct effect on the quality of the video.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we asked our focus group whether they enjoyed watching our music video. 100% of the focus group answered that they did and this made us confident that we had created a video that was of a good quality that people would enjoy watching. Although all of our members did enjoy it, we are aware that this does not mean that it will be to everyone’s taste and everyone will enjoy it.

Evaluation 1 - Our Products

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

In many ways, our media products conform to the conventions of both our chosen genre and real media products. Firstly, our video sticks to the conventions through the form of the video using both performance and narrative in the visuals of our video. We used a simple narrative storyline about a girl who fell in love with a boy but did not have enough confidence to tell him, then when she gets the confidence to tell him the boy has found someone else. This gives the video a theme of love which is a theme very often found in music videos for the acoustic genre such as Duffy’s ‘Warwick Avenue’. We also stuck to the conventions of fades and slow paced editing to fit in with the genre of our chosen song.
Also, in our video, our artist was our main character in the narrative. This will help the artist get recognition for her music as people will be seeing her on not just the CD cover but in the visuals and audio of the music video too. This will mean the audience will start recognising her music and make the link between herself as an individual and her music creating a brand. This is important because she is just starting out in the industry and the sooner she gets recognised by more people then the sooner her fan base will grow. I don’t think that we challenged the conventions of the music video as we wanted to stick close to home with the acoustic genre.
Our CD cover conformed greatly to the conventions of a real life product. We decided to use a close up of our artist to use as the cover image for our CD. This means that the audience’s main focus on the CD cover is the artist. This means that the audience can put a face to the artists name whenever they hear her mentioned or hear one of her songs. We used a ‘sophisticated’ font for the artist’s name, which stands out slightly against the simple features on the rest of our ancillary texts. We used the same font across the CD covers and the tour poster so that there was a common style in which our audiences saw our artist’s name. The distorted background we used helped massively to help the audience focus on the close up of the artist. We applied a ‘lipstick’ effect on Photoshop to the artist’s eyes in the close up image which gave the audience an even finer focus point and suggests she is looking directly at the audience and added a splash of colour onto our CD cover. We also kept close to the conventions of a real life album cover on the backing to it where we included a barcode, copyright information and company logo across the bottom. These are featured on real life CD’s so we added them to ours to give it an air of professionalism and reality. I think we deviated slightly from the conventions of a CD cover when creating the track list as we wrote the track numbers in word format rather than the conventional number format. This is not completely new, but has not been used enough to be seen as a convention. We did this to represent going back to basics and thought that it would give the CD cover a unique point to it to stand it out against other products that would be on the market.
Our tour poster also fit into the conventions of real life products quite comfortably. The main component that fits into this is the list of tour dates on the right third of the poster. These are featured on almost every tour poster and are the main point of the product. With this in mind, we included them in a simple font to fit in with the rest of our ancillary texts and so that the information that the audience would need can be seen clearly and understood when walking by. We also included the artists name and tour name to fit in with conventions and to increase the recognition of our artist. The styles of the album and artists name also fit in with the rest of our products as the album release and tour are too run alongside each other so this is shadowed in the products we created.
Overall I think our products fit in well with the conventions of real life products and have a high level of professionalism about them. We kept within the conventions with most of our work as we wanted to keep within the boundaries of our genre and products. This was our safest decision as we knew these conventions worked well in the real world and are already successful. However, I believe there were a few cases where we deviated and challenged the conventions to make our product. The reasons for this were purely to make our products unique to others in the real world and to show that there was something that our artist has that others do not.

Final Video

This is our final music video, we have distributed it onto the internet using YouTube and is available at this link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcMUaZdMacw

Tour Poster

Our tour poster ties in with the rest of our products in number of ways. We created it using PhotoShop using preset features and our own images. We used the same font and font colour on the artists name as we used on our other products. This is because it helps link all of our ancillary texts. As well as this, in the real world, if the public were seeing the new artists name in the same way in different places they are more likely to remember it through the style used. We used it for these reasons as it would help our new artists fame and star persona grow in the music industry. We have also used the same name for both the tour and album - I'm Ready Now. This is because it is our artists first tour and album so the names represent that the artist is now ready to make it big in the music industry and has a talent that should be eventually known worldwide. We have followed the conventions of tour posters by including a list of tour dates on the right side of the poster. These are in a simple white font to fit in and coincide with the rest of our ancillary products. The main image on the tour poster is an original image that we took at a school's drama studio. We set up the stool and microphone stand and positioned the lights above to create the shadow that we wanted to achieve. We left the stool empty to keep a slight air of mystery around our artist and although she is 'ready now', she knows that she still has a lot of work to put in and a long way to go until she has reached the fame where she will be known by her face alone.

CD Inners

To the left you can see our left side inner (top) and our right side inner (bottom). These were the most basic products that we created and we kept them simple and minimalistic as we did not want to go over the top in the design of the CD covers as a whole. For this reason on the left side inner, we inserted just the album name on the bottom right corner. This is to remind people of the album name and as this is also our artists first album, we left the rest of the inner black as this represents a wide space and that our artist has room to grow her fame, star persona and career in the music industry.

Our right side inner was designed like this for many of the same reasons as the left one - to leave space for our artist to expand, to not overdo the overall design of our album inserts. On this inner we decided to insert the logo of the record label 'MOR Music' to increase the publics awareness to this music label.

CD Back Cover

This is the back of our CD Cover that we created using PhotoShop. We tried to stick closely to the conventions while creating this and as you can see we included the generic items that are featured on a real life CD backing. These are included across the bottom of the product, and include the copyright details, manufacturers details, record label details, the record label logo and a barcode. We included these features in a smaller, minimalistic and plain text as they do not need to stand out so much however, people can read it and see it clearly should they want to.

We tried to keep the back cover in line with our other products so it is quite simple, yet I believe it is effective. In our tour poster we had a light shining down over a chair and microphone and we tried to continue this theme on our CD backing which you can see in the top right corner, there is the light shining onto the tracklist. We created this effect in photoshop using render>lighting effects then changed the settings and angle of the light to what we wanted.

When writing out the tracklist we tried to choose song titles that fit in with our chosen genre - acoustic. We also decided that we would use simple colours that we used across the range of our ancillary texts to keep a common house style within our products. They also represent going back to basics and being simplistic, and this is what we aimed to achieve by writing the song numbers in a text format rather than the conventional number format.

CD Cover

As this was our artists debut album we decided on the album title 'I'm Ready Now'. We decided on this name as it denotes that she is now ready to start competing in music industry. Our original image was a colour close up of our artist. One of the main reasons for this is that it will get her face out into the world and people will start to recognise her face ith her music, increasing her star persona. We edited our original CD Cover image in Photoshop adding a black and white effect onto the whole image. We also added a 'lipstick' effect onto the artists eyes so that they were in colour against the balck and white image. This helps draw people in to the CD Cover and gives them a focal point for them to look at. With the background, we distorted it using a blur tool, again on photoshop, which made our artist stand out more clearly so people could clearly see it. We have placed the artists name in the bottom thrid of the album cover as it is her first album and she is not yet famous enough to be noticed and recognised from just her face. The font and colour of the artists name is a common running theme through our CD Cover, CD Backing and Tour Poster. We decided on this colour as it matches the mood of her music aswell as her personality. We also thought that if people were seeing her name in the same way each time it is more likely to stick in their heads. We chose a simple, basic font and colour for the album title as we did not want it to be to over the top and thought that this could also mirror her music as it is quite basic, with just her vocals an acoustic guitar, and the odd percussion instrument.

Hand Drawn Designs

These are the hand drawn designs that our group drew up to sketch out idea's and have a visual example of how our ideas will look when on paper. By creating hand drawn designs we could make any changes that were necessary before creating them on the computer.

The Project So Far (Cont) ...

Since the last update our group have filmed more of our music video. We have filmed the sequence where the second girl in the video is doing her make up.

Our deadline has been set as the 31st January. I think if we continue to work at this pace we shall have our music video, cd cover and tour poster completed.

We still have to film the last couple of shots for our video and are currently waitin to find out when our artist is available. We also have to take the photo's for our tour poster and lay it onto the template we have created.

The Project So Far...

So far, there have been three filming sessions in which we have filmed the majority of our video. Due to group and artist availability issues, these were all on the weekend and clashed with my work shifts so I was only able to attend the first filming session. This took place at the lickey hills country park. Here we filmed the opening and closing shots to our video and a few of the shots at the beginning of the video. The next two filming sessions that I didn't attend took place at our artists house. These sessions the group managed to film the majority of the rest of the shots. We now only have a small amount of shots that need filming. Due to the weather, we were unable to film these remaining shot as this would have caused continuity errors in our video. We are currently arranging a time to meet with the artist and complete our filming.

Whilst we were unable to film, the group have concentrated on editing the shots that we already had on the editing software, and we have been discussing and testing out idea's for when we start to create our CD cover and tour poster for our artist.

Recce Shots

This is one of our recce shots taken at the Lickey Hills, where our opening sequence is filmed. We chose the sunrise to open our video as we thought this represents a new begining and a fresh start, which is what our artist is going through in the release of this album.

This recce shot was taken on lacation of where we filmed the penultimate parts of our narrative. We chose a park as it is a likely setting for the actions that take place in the sequence and coincide with the conventions of our acoustic video and genre.

Shot List

This is our groups shotlist, this details every shot, in order, including; the shot number, shot type, description of the shot, action in the shot and an approximate durartion. This will help us when filming because we have a list to follow and also when editing as we know how the shots will be followed and by which shot.

Storyboard

Here we have scanned in our storyboard for our music video. We have decided to create a video with both performance and narrative forms, edited together.

Audience Theory

Segmentation
Audience Segmentation is used by industries as a way of categorising audiences for particular products. The audience profiles are split up into three segments known as; Geographic, Demographic and Psychographic.
By splitting up the audiences into these segments and having more specific groups makes it easier for industries to aim commodities at their audiences.


Geographic

Region - This is where our music video will be viewed and watched by our audience.
As a group we decided that our music video will be available to be viewed on a global scale through many different media players, such as TVs, the Internet, Mobile Phones and MP3 Players. We decided this because there has been recent convergences in media making media products available through may different players and in many different formats. This means there will be a wider access point for the video for people all over the world.

Size of Area - How large the area is that will view it, small villages to cities etc...
Our group decided it would be people who live in larger areas, such as large towns to villages as they are more likely to have the access to media players and connections that would be required to view the video. For example the TV and Internet signals are not the strongest out in smaller country side villages compared to the access capabilities of larger towns.

Climate - The climate where the product will be used, and in places where it is being made or manufactured. This part of the geographical segment does not particularly apply to our product however would be more appropriate for items such as outdoor products etc.

Demographic
The demographic segment differs from the geographical segment as it is more specific to the audience as individuals rather than a wider community.

Age - Our group decided that our video would be aimed at target audience of teenagers, but more specifically, people within the age range of 13 to 20 years old. We chose this age range because the issues raised in the song, typically relate to teenage life, meaning that our audience would be able to relate to our video and the narrative it follows.

Ethnicity - White British Teenagers, however, this does not mean that other ethnicity's would not be able to view, or even enjoy viewing our music video. This is because other ethnicity's generally enjoy different genres of music compared to the acoustic genre we had chosen. We chose white british as our targeted ethnicity because our video is filmed and set in Britain and our artist is British.

Gender - Our group decided that our video would be aimed at females. This is because of our song choice, the narrative that goes with our song choice and our artist. The song is sung by our female artist and is our narrative is one that would be associated with one of the female gender.

Generation - We have decided to aim our video at the younger generation of teenagers. This does not rule out older generations viewing our video it is just the generation we have chosen to aim our video at as we feel that they will be able to relate to the video as a whole the most.

Social Class - We are aiming our video at people within the middle class. This is because they are the people who are most likely to relate to our song, narrative and artist.

Psychographic (targeted at the inner qualities of a person)

We decided as a group that our video will be targeted at people within the 'Puritans' and 'Utopians' groups. These people wish to feel virtuous and want the world to be a better place. We chose this because it almost perfectly represents the people we are aiming our video at and the way they live their lives and the views they have.

Personality - The personality traits of our target audience are laid back and calm. This is because it is a common trait of the acoustic genre. A second personality trait of the audience is that they would be a romantic. This is because we have chosen a song with a romantic narrative and lyrics.

Our Chosen Song and Lyrics

Our final choice for the song we will use was 'Use Somebody' Covered by Pixie Lott.

To the left you can see the lyrics to her song that we printed off and annotated. The annotations are rough idea's that our group can develop into events for a narrative in the video. We have also annotated the lyrics with images that came into our head when reading through them.

Choosing A Song

From the beginning of the project our group had wanted to use the acoustic genre to create our video for. We had conducted research on the genre and listened to various artists on the Internet and on Cd's. When our group started to choose a song we were willing to listen to our first chosen artists own songs and see what we thought of them. After listening to her CD we decided that her songs were not exactly what we wanted for our video. Our group started researching songs again and picked a select few that we liked the sound of and thought that she would like to cover. The list read:

- Foundations by Kate Nash
- Break Even by The Script
- Thinking Of You by Katy Perry
- Somebody by Kings of Leon (Pixie Lott's Cover)

The groups final decision for our song was 'Use Somebody' originally by Kings of Leon, but we wanted it in the style of Pixie Lott's cover version. We chose this song because it was exactly the sound we wanted and we believed that this song gave us the potential to create a music video to the best of our ability and with an interesting and captivating narrative.

Choosing Our Artist

When the group chose our first artist, we chose an unsigned female acoustic player who had given us a CD of a small sample of her songs. After listening to her CD we decided that we liked her voice but the lyrics on the CD were quite muffled which meant we could not hear the lyrics clearly and what she was saying. We then suggested a list of songs for her to cover. The list was made up of the following songs:

- Foundations by Kate Nash
- Thinking of You by Katy Perry
- Break Even by The Script
- Use Somebody by Kings of Leon (However, we wanted it more in the style of Pixie Lott's version).

On receiving her second CD we discovered that she had only recorded one of the songs we had requested. Though this is the case, the clarity of the lyrics in the song had increased but led us to discover that her voice didn't fit the song we had chosen as she had a more 'Kate Nash' Style voice.

We then had to choose another artist to cover this song so that we could use it for our video. We had already chose an actress, Lucy, to appear in our video who has had previous singing experience and has a very talented singing voice so we gave her the choice to cover the song for our video and she said yes. This will make the whole process that little bit easier for our group as our actress will be more comfortable miming to her own voice and it will be easier for us in the editing stages.

Our group has also found a guitarist that we can use when recording the song, but she will not be appearing in the video as it is not required.

Change In Groups

When we started this project, we were in a group of four people. In the first session we started to discuss our tastes in music and what genre we wanted to create a music video for, the outcome of this discussion was that we would use the acoustic genre. The next step we took was to discuss our choice of song and artist but while doing this there was some disagreement within the group. This ended up with one of our members leaving to form another group in the class. My group now have chosen a song, artist and performer and we are now ready to make the next step in our work.

Personally, I think that the decision that we made as a group, ending with our group becoming three, was the right decision to make. This is because if we were having disagreements at one of the earliest stages then when it comes to making the bigger, more important decisions if we did not agree at this stage then our final product would suffer and it would not be of the best possible quality. Now all our group members have the same opinions and are open to compromise we have managed to choose a song, an artist and an actress for the video and we have even drawn up a rough narrative to coincide with the lyrics of our chosen song.

The blogs of my group members can be found on the following links:
James - http://www.jamesproctor-owen.blogspot.com
Coleen - http://www.coleenbrodericka2media.blogspot.com

Tour Poster Analysis 3

This poster was created to advertise a gig by Jason Mraz. The first thing we see that lets us know this is the large black text at the top of the poster, which says ‘Jason Mraz’. The text is in large black font that is easy to read and stands out from the background well. This enables passersby to quickly see who is performing the gig so even if they can’t see the rest of the details they will be able to search the artist when they get home. The text below and to the right also lets audiences and fans know the date and the venue of the gig, this is essential on tour posters because it lets the fans know whether they are free to go to it. The text below and to the left of the main heading is written in a different font from the rest of the text. This suggests to us that these are different bands as they are in a smaller font and a different font to the main artist. This can also suggest that they are supporting band, having them on the poster also helps raise their fan base as well as their popularity. Existing fans will also recognise that the main picture is of Jason Mraz and this is mainly recognisable through his iconic trilby hat that Mraz wears in many of his appearances. We can also tell from this tour poster, if we did not already know, that Mraz plays acoustic music and featuring this on the tour poster can increase the audiences to his gigs.

Tour Poster Analysis 2

This is a poster for one of James Morrison’s gigs. The poster is effective in many ways; firstly, the name of the artist is in a very large, clear font at the top of the poster. The name of the artist is in a font that is regularly used in products containing his name including albums and different posters etc. This helps existing fans to recognise the artist quickly and also people who are not aware of him as others realise who he is. The colour of the text – white - also helps it stand out from the blue background, making it easier for audiences/fans to see.
Just underneath the artists name is a small tagline saying ‘with special guests’. This lets the audience know that they not only get to see James Morrison but possibly other artists. The fact that the poster does not tell us who the special guests are this adds mystery and suspense in going to see him as you are not sure what else you are going to get.
Positioned in the middle of the poster are details of the gig including a date and the venue. This is also in white text which again helps the details stand out to the audience and passersby.
Featured at the bottom of the poster is a small picture of the artist’s latest album with a small note saying where fans can get the CD and also find out more about the gig, the artist and his music.
We can also see that the main image is of the artist, and this image can tell us a lot about him and his music than we first think. Firstly, the audience can see what genre of music James Morrison plays as he is quite clearly holding an acoustic guitar. We can also see by his facial expression that he is very keen about his music and gets into it a lot. We can also tell that this figure is the main artist for the gig as the spotlights from multiple directions on the stage. The blues in the background also suggest to us that the artist is very mellowed and his music is very pure.

Tour Poster Analysis 1

This is the one of Reel Big Fish’ tour posters for the tour that ran alongside the release of their album ‘Monkey’s for NOTHIN’ and the Chimp’s for FREE’. This is clear to see as there are very clear similarities between the front cover of the album and the poster on the left. One of the main similarities being the font and position of the band name, and the cartoon graphics of the monkey astronaut and the aliens.
One of the first things that you notice when you look at this tour poster is the name in the top left corner of the poster. This is in a similar font to the album cover and lets audiences and fans easily recognise who the band is and even for passersby who have perhaps not heard the band’s music but have heard of the band, this large text can catch their eye and make them think about attending a gig.
The next thing I noticed, looking at this tour poster, was the bottom strip. This was because it was a bright yellow colour, making it stand out from the rest of the poster. As well as this it follows the style of the album cover further as this bottom strip is featured on the album cover too. The bottom strip of this tour poster is very effective as after it has grabbed the attention of audiences/fans, it hold important information such as the date and venue of the specific gig and also the bands website which people can visit to purchase tickets and can further raise the popularity of the band and increase their fan base.
Also featuring on the tour poster is a large image of the band themselves. This is useful to get their faces out into the world and to help people associate them with the band. The tour poster also has a small tagline underneath the band name that says ‘with special guests STREETLIGHT MANIFESTO’. These are the supporting act for the gig and are a less well known band then Reel Big Fish. This helps the band Streetlight Manifesto also get more popular as they are the supporting band for RBF then their music is very likely to be similar to the band they are supporting. This means that existing and new fans of Reel Big Fish are likely to look up and listen to the supporting band.

Video Analysis: Rusted Root – Send Me On My Way

This video accompanies the song ‘Send Me on My Way’ performed by Rusted Root. The music produced by Rusted Root is more commonly categorised as Alternative Rock however they have also have said to be influenced by Native Americans and Indians. This is clearly visible throughout the video, mainly through the costumes that are worn by the band in the video. These are things such as animal skins and blankets etc. There are also traces of Native American influence in the instruments that the artists use such as drums and recorders etc. The appearance of the band themselves can also give genre characteristics from Alternative Rock as they have the ‘hippie-like’ appearance and a sort of ‘rugged’ look that people often associate with Alternative Rock.
During the entirety of the video we can see a lot of links between the lyrics of the song and the visuals that we see in the video. One example of this from the very beginning of the video where the lyric ‘On my way,’ is repeated over and over again, there are camera shots of a character taking a car journey through the middle of the desert, this could imply that the character in this sequence is going on a journey that is directly narrative parallel to the lyrics. There is also a lyric in the song that says ‘And how we will run away’. This is directly matched to the visuals that we, the audience, see in the video of the whole band walking and running across hilltops and mountains.
We can also see through the whole video that there are clear relationships between the music and the visuals in the video. We can see this mainly through the way that in the video the artists are playing their instruments and this obviously matches the song that accompanies the video. These two factors of the music video also have a relationship as the music that is being played is very lively and has an upbeat tempo; this matches the bands dancing on the mountain top, which is also very lively and upbeat.
Throughout the video there are lots of close ups of the artists in the band and this helps them get noticed and also put their face out into the world and get them to be more popular. The video also contains the notion of looking where the character at the beginning of the video looks at the door and then we see the door accompanied with the lyric ‘Send me on my way’. The video is a mixture of both performance and narrative based.
I like the way this video is set in an unusual setting and the band are playing on an open mountain top and am likely to use an unusual setting in a video of my own, I do not like that the narrative part of this video as it was very confusing and am likely to use a more clear narrative.

Video Analysis: Newton Faulkner – Badman

This video was made for the song Badman, coming from Newton Faulkner’s second album ‘Rebuilt by Humans’. The music produced by Faulkner is heavily acoustic; however, there is not much reference to this in the video for Badman. For example, it is a common convention of the genre for an acoustic guitar to feature somewhere in the video but there is no appearance in this video. Though this is the case, the artist is a white male with dreads and a beard. This gives him one of the stereotypes that are linked with the acoustic genre that he is a hippie-like character. This stereotype is also hinted it at through the lyrics of the song which are made up of the artist asking someone to run away from civilisation to ‘fields and tree’s’.
Throughout the song there a various links between the lyrics and the visuals in the video. Firstly, the artist sings about fields being built upon and sings ‘shopping malls from meadows’ while he sings this he is walking through a meadow-like forest, surrounded by trees and greenery. The whole video is made up of the artist running through forests and fields to get away from civilisation and where everything is being built on and this relates directly to the chorus of the song which is made up of the repeated lines ‘Do you want to hide inside your house?’ and ‘Please just run away with me’.
Links are also made between the visuals in the video and the music, the most obvious of which is near the beginning of the video where there is a steady drum beat and the artist steps and bangs his feet in time with the beat of the dream. It would also usually be expected to see an acoustic guitar somewhere within the video however there is not one in this video.
There is one long continuous shot of the artist throughout the whole video and varies between mid-shots and close ups but the video contains mostly close ups of his face, this helps him include and emphasise emotions in his music and video. The video also includes the notion of looking as the artist looks straight down the camera at various times in the video. The video does not really include any intertextual references at any point in its duration.
The video is quite unusual for the acoustic genre; it is very abstract as it one continuous shot of the artist walking through a forest however, he has no body and he is a giant head with his dreads in boots. Though the video is quite obviously abstract there is a small element of performance as the artist is lip synching the words while walking in the video.
In this video I quite like the sense of abstract as this is not commonly used in acoustic videos so I think it is something good to use when producing my own video and think it helps set the video apart from others of its kind and helps give it something unique. What I don’t like about the video is that it is just the one long tracking shot of the artist and I think a variety of shots could have been used to increase the quality of the video. Also, I feel more locations could have been used, particularly more adventurous than just fields and a forest.

Video Analysis: Paolo Nutini – New Shoes

This video is made to go with the song New Shoes, which is taken from Paolo Nutini’s debut album ‘These Streets’. Paolo Nutini is quite a popular artist and has just released his second album ‘Sunny Side Up’. The music produced by Nutini can be categorized into a number of different genres but is mostly classified as acoustic. There are characteristics of the genre within the video to back up that the music is acoustic. One of the most obvious of these is the fact that around halfway into the video there is a character who is playing the acoustic guitar, aswell as this the video is quite upbeat, which can also be considered a characteristic of the acoustic genre.
Throughout the video there are many links between the lyrics and the visuals that we see. One example of this is when the artist gets into his kitchen and finds the party the music becomes slightly more upbeat and the drumbeat more evident. This change in music helps lighten the mood of the video and coincides well with the genre. Another evident link between the music and visuals is that there are characters within the video that are playing the instruments to make the music accompanying the video.
There are also many links made throughout the video between the visuals and the lyrics. Mainly, these links are just actions that are undertaken in the video that link directly to the lyrics. A prime example of this is when the lyrics ‘Oh, short on money but long on time’ are sang, the artist in the video checks his pocket where there is no money to be found and then proceeds to check his watch, where he looks for the time.
Close ups of the artist are used quite regularly throughout the duration of the video as it is based on a narrative surrounding him. The close ups aid the emphasis on certain components of the narrative such as lyrics and the emotion of the character. This can be done by having a close up of the artist when singing a specific lyric. Close ups of the artist can also help increase recognition of him as the more often people see his face, the more recognised he will become.
The notion of looking is widely used in the video where the artist looks down the lens of the camera in various shots, this makes the audience feel more personally involved in the music. It is also used with the lyric ‘as I focused on the time’ where it focuses in on the alarm clock. The video is mostly narrative telling the story alongside the lyrics however there is a small amount of performance in it where the artist lip synchs the words.
I like the way they have used a narrative way of making the video and will consider using this when producing my own video. I will also use the elements of a performance based video that these producers have used.

CD Cover Analysis 3

CD Cover Analysis 2

CD Cover Analysis 1