Final post

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Final product(s)

Here is our final music video:



Here is my final digipak:

Here is my final magazine advertisement:

Evaluation: question 4

Evaluation: question 3

Evaluation: question 2

Evaluation: question 1

Ancillary task: final magazine advert

Here is my finished magazine advert:

This product, like my music video and digipak, is targeted at female consumers of 16-24yrs of age. I have used the same simplistic design used on my digipak – the font, images and colour palette are all the same, creating synergy between all 3 products. I also researched indie magazines or other magazines which are typically consumed by our target audience, and featured their star ratings as this would be a good way of drawing in a wider market.

Theorists:

• Dyer's Star image is woven throughout both of my ancillary tasks and the music video - by using the ‘corner’ shot from the music video on my digipak and magazine, the image to become more familiar or recognizable to a potential consumer or audience across a range of platforms, creating a lasting appeal. 
• Saussure’s semiotics theory can be applied to my magazine advert, as the monochrome colour palette, smoky background and troubled expression on our performer’s face signifies the emotionally powerful style of music demonstrated in the track for our music video.

Intertextuality

Here is the definition of intertextuality, according to wikipedia:

In our opening, one intertextual reference which could be made is the hooded figure in Pretty Little Liars, who in terms of costume, looks very similar to our hooded figure...

Another intertextual reference is Black Swan, where mirrors are used to show the internal conflict of the protagonist...

A final reference could be to Cage the Elephants 'Cigarette Daydreams' music video, which we used to help establish our own narrative...

Ancillary task: final digipak

Here are the 4 panels of my digipak, as separate components:

And here is my final 4 panel digipak, which was stitched together with a sleeve and placed on a template I found online.

My digipak was targeted at female consumers of 16-24yrs of age. 
The minimalist design appeals to a niche market, with bold white font placed against a dark background to draw the potential consumers' attention straight to it.
The monochrome colour palette is a convention of the indie genre and an aesthetic of alternative consumers, giving it a sharp, expressive design. I created synergy between my music video and digipak by using the same font as the title screen, shots within the music video and the circle shape on the cover.

Theorists: 

• Katz and Blumler's 'Uses and Gratifications' theory was kept in mind when selecting images for my digipak; I used images of our performer who falls under the same demographic as our target audience, so it fulfills the need of 'identity', or someone who the reflects the audiences values. In addition, this theory states that consumers may choose to consume a media product if it fulfills their desire to 'escape' - the image on the inside cover shows our performer looking out of a large window into a contrasting setting, with a yearning expression which embodies and portrays this theme to our target audience. 
• According to Young and Rubicam's 'Psychographics' theory, our consumers are either 'explorers' or 'aspirers' driven by the need for public approval, image, aesthetics and discovery. These themes are linked to my digipak, as the close up shot on the cover links to the ideas of appearance and perspective.

Software used:

• Pixlr express
• Lunapic
• Paint
• DaFont
• Powerpoint
• Photoshop

Evaluation questions

Here is the marking criteria of the questions which I will be answering for my evaluation:

Tracklist

Here is our tracklist – we decided on these names using influences from shots in our actual music video and words in the same semantic field which show that our album has a clear theme...

1. Empty Gold 
2. Lucid Dreams 
3. Reflections 
4. Drains 
5. Flashing lights 
6. Autumn 
7. Mirrors 
8. Dark Moon 
9. Lungs 
10. Falling 
11. Purple Smoke 

Narrative

This is a post focusing on the narrative of our music video, to clarify what the story within our video is about.

The themes present in our music video include:

• Inner conflict 
• Continual struggle 
• Confusion 
• Self-acceptance 
• Issues with identity 

We have left the interpretation of our narrative up to the audience, as our shots are ambiguous and show various emotions.

Our narrative follows Todorov’s narrative theory...
Equilibrium – the opening shots of our music video all focus on introducing our locations and the hooded figure is not shown until the lyric below.

'and you'

Disequilibrium – the hooded figure is shown following our performer, gradually building up to a climax.

Resolution – the identity of the hooded figure is revealed to be our performer herself and she has been made to come to terms with her conflicting sides.

Representation

This post explains the representation of figures in our music video, using theorists where appropriate.

Our performer is an 18 year old female student with a working/middle class background.
According to Young and Rubicam’s theory she embodies the values of ‘the explorer’ or ‘the aspirer’. This is shown through a variety of shots e.g

escapism

image/self-perspective

individualism

the impact of external influences/ perspectives

adventure

materialism

The hooded figure in our music video is open to interpretation from our active audience. This links to Staurt Hall’s audience reception theory...

The dominant hegemonic/ preferred meaning is that the hooded figure represents our performer herself, representing her ‘dark side’, inner demons or the conflicting areas of her personality.

However, we are aware that our active audience members may see this differently; some may take the negotiated position and perceive this is another person following our performer, our performer following herself or our performer going crazy - this is understandable from the shots below.

We hope that the audience do not entirely reject or oppose our intended meaning – we have chosen to reveal the enigma code in our narrative (Barthes’ theory) in the final shot as a revelation which ties the music video together.

Ancillary task: magazine ad research

Below is a slideshare I have made, analyzing the conventions of some magazine adverts for indie artists and their albums. I chose these as most of them are well known, and eye catching - these will hopefully give me some insight into what needs to go on our own advertisements.

Showcase evening

Today, we had a showcase evening at our school where teachers, students, parents and others were invited to watch the media products created by both the AS and A2 media groups.

This was a great opportunity to get some audience feedback for our product, which we collected using feedback sheets (e.g below) and on our camera.

Here is a video of the event - sadly the camera didn’t manage to film the last two presentations (including ours) but this shows the format of the event...

Group vlog: finished music video

Here is a quick vlog we did after we finished our music video, explaining the final stages of editing and our thoughts on the process!

Final product

Here is the final draft of our music video!

Audience feedback

Here is some audience feedback that we managed to get from a few friends and the year 12 media class. We thought this was necessary as all of the people we included in this research fall under our target market, therefore they have given us a greater insight into what our audience would like to see. We are almost finished with our video and we have taken on board the comments made by our peers to help make the final changes to our video.

 

Editing: iMovie techniques

We used various tools available to us on iMovie, in order to enhance the shots in our music video. Here are a few examples:

The negative effect was used on some of our shots to create a heavy contrast between light and dark colours. The example below had a quick duration, adding flashes to the video and splitting the other clips with a long duration.

The cutaway tool was used to create a smoky overlay on our performer in the studio shots. This links to the lyric 'smoke as black as charcoal' and corresponds with Goodwin's theory.

Here we used the reverse tool, creating disarray for our audience - perhaps this links to the 'fever running through my bones' as it gives the effect of drawing blood, which was mentioned by one of our peers in media.

We changed the colour and saturation on this shot, illuminating our performer by drawing out the natural light from the window, which was reflected on to the mirror so our audience could see her more clearly to emphasize the revelation.

Here is a screenshot of our timeline, demonstrating how we composed the fast paced sequences. We changed the duration of each shot to around 0.6 seconds, and split the studio shots of our performer acting 'crazy' using inserts, which also synchronized with the tempo of the song.

We used the flip tool and split the clips of our performer in the forest so that she appeared on both sides of the shot, creating confusion for our audience. This shot complies with the rule of thirds, which is said to be visually appealing - we used the flip tool, drawing the eyes of our audience to different places on the screen to disorientate them and reflect the state of our performer.

And of course, to create fluidity across the whole music video, we used the black and white filter tool for the monochrome colour palette.

Editing: draft 2

Here is another draft of our music video, showing the changes we have made since our last draft. Here is a list of things which we still need to consider:

• The lip syncing is still not edited perfectly
• The position of some of our clips 
• The grass and kaleidoscope shots do not seem to fit in some parts of the video
•  Insert shots need to be placed in the video to decrease the duration of some shots

Nevertheless, we feel that since we have finally inserted all of the footage we were missing, we are super close to finishing. Before we finalise our music video, we are hoping to get some audience feedback which will hopefully be on our blogs within the next few days.

Editing: title screen

Here is our title screen. We chose to present our titles in the same way as some of the existing media products which we researched. We decided against using a logo, as our chosen font is the same one which we have chosen for our digipak - the letters already look like symbols. In addition, we chose to have our titles against a flashing establishing shot, in order to make them bold and static. Both titles were presented on one screen for a 3 second duration, as we felt that this was more clear and looked more professional.

Editing: draft 1

Here is the first draft of our music video! We are well aware that it still needs a lot of improving - here is a list of things which we aim to fix before our deadline:

• Lip syncing 
• Positioning and length of some clips 
• Size(s) and transitioning of the circle
• Insert footage of lightbulb
• Edit fisheye clips so they are less static
• Insert song title/artist name at the beginning of the song

Final filming day(s): insert shots

To make our editing more fast-paced and ‘choppy’ we decided to gather some quick insert shots which could be used to cut the shots with a long duration. We also thought this might be a good idea as our video is heavily performance based, and including shots with no lip syncing might be beneficial in order to keep our audience engaged. Here are a few of the shots we have gathered:

The original ending on our storyboards for the old idea, was to have a revelation where it is explicitly shown to the audience that the hooded figure is in fact, our performer. We chose to stick with this idea as it links to Barthes' narrative code theory. The hermeneutic/ enigma code in our video is the presence of the hooded figure - unanswered enigmas often frustrate audience, therefore we chose to reveal the mystery code at the end of our video in order to satisfy our audience. Here is the final shot, which we hope will clearly tie our narrative together:

Inspirational music video: Cigarette Daydreams - Cage the Elephant

Cigarette Daydreams has been a huge inspiration for us, especially in terms of post-production and narrative. Here is a short explanation of the video...

"Perhaps a search for a love by a woman trying to outrun her past? Ambiguity abounds as the film is a psychologically-fragmented story of yearning, memory, and desire. It counterpoints images of innocence and danger and revolves around a tour de force performance by the Parisian trained actress Juliette Buchs." - grungecake.com

Many close ups of the actress are used in the video, conveying  a range of emotions from nonchalance to anger. These shots are cutaways to various locations, suggesting a desire to escape. Particularly evident through the mirror shots, is the idea of self-conflict and a struggle to find peace within oneself. Such themes have helped us derive our own narrative for our music videos, and we hope to use similar mirror and close-up shots to portray this message clearly to our audience.

Insert shots are used, which are quickly cut in an almost montage-like fashion. Within the short shot duration(s), the audience are given brief enigmas (Barthes) about the narrative, however these are not tied together until the end of the video. The vintage shots, with an old age filter appear to be memories of the actress as a young girl, alluding to yearning or a loss of innocence. This is something we could think about in terms of editing pace. Perhaps using a vintage filter on some of our shots to create an old photographic look could aid the narrative progression of our music video. Although the colour palette of this video is predominantly monochrome, occasional full colour shots using a grunge filter can also be seen, enhancing important stages in the narrative.

The artists of the song also appear in the video, linking them to their narrative and introducing their identity, to familiarize themselves with the audience.

The final shots of the video serve as a revelation, where it is clearly shown to the audience, that the entity the actress has been running from is in fact herself, who she burns in a car as an attempt to finally escape from her past. We love the idea of inner-conflict as a narrative focus, and how the progression of it in this video is given as a set of ambiguous clues, leaving the audience to interpret their own meaning. We hope to think of a similar narrative, which satisfies the audience at the end of our video with a similar shot to the one below.

Here is the actual music video, where the range of shots and quick cuts can be fully appreciated: