Media Studies- Music Video Evaluation

Christina Barnes

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

Links between the visuals and the lyrics: This shot directly portrays the emotion of the actor, and combines this with the lyrics being sung in the video. “The mirror shows this man…” from the lyrical side of the video, is then directly related to through the visual elements and acting within the video. By doing this, it reinforces into the audience’s mind what they are viewing and meaning and importance behind this viewing. Moreover, it also starts off a strong narrative which continues throughout the video and therefore gives them a passive idea of what is to expect later on within the video. Having a narrative to a video is a strong element of real media products, which shows that our music video uses and develops on forms and conventions of real media products. This again will make the video more appealing to an audience as they can relate it to already existing media products and there way of expression in their videos.

This shot relates to our most memorable and strongest theme throughout our music video- the blindfold. The blindfold symbolises the loss of love and the lack of able ability to gain it back; giving up on a lost cause is what the actor is doing. The blindfold stops his eyes from finding love, of so he believes. “If we all have eyes then why can nobody see…” shows a resemblance between what is happening and being seen visually, but also through what is being heard as well. This could allow the audience to view the video vicariously as they understand and become a part of both the situations within the video and the meaning and ideas surrounding it. Moreover, with the loss of the actor’s eyes and this being reinforced by the lyrics, the audience will empathise with the actor and perhaps be able to personally identify with him, if a similar situation has occurred within their lives- the loss of love, confusion, lack of hope and general misfortunate in the face of life.

“But I’ve said this way to many times…” is strongly shown in this shot through both the visuals and the lyrics- by talking it allows the audience to focus especially on the lyrics and what is being sad, which in turn allows them to gain a good understanding of the video as a whole and the mood and the tone which is featured throughout. The lyrics spoken in this shot say a lot able how the artist is feeling at this present time and what development he has gained/ loss from love and by representing these feelings and emotions boldly the audience, again will sympathise with the actor’s situation and relate to him in doing so.

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Genre characteristics:Our song falls into the genre category of an alternative rock ballad. A strong element of these in real media products is that they portray a strong layer of emotions throughout the song, and relate the video to this, to further emphasise the meaning and narrative which is involved. The lyrics are a strong element for inclusion in this genre of music and will usually be strongly represented through the visuals also, to allow and audience connection to be made in more ways than one. Our music video sticks to these codes and conventions religiously as we believed it would give the video an element of professionalism which an audience would find comforting and more easy to understand and hopefully in time relate to. Also, we wanted to attract our target audience as best as possible and through giving them what they stereotypically relate to, it would give us a more successful chance of doing so. We want them to be able to personally identity with the song, it’s lyrics, the visuals and the actors/actresses and perhaps even again a sense of escapism from the video if they are able to delve into it in relation to their own lives and the feelings within it. We stuck to the stereotypical mood and atmosphere conventions for our genre of music (despair and anguish) because again, attracting the target audience’s attention is critical and allowing them to ‘become one’ with the video will bring success to the popularity of the song and the acknowledgment of the artist himself.

Voyeurism: As a whole, our music video doesn’t have strong relations to the ideas of voyeurism and ‘being watched’ however, it does have elements including within it, which relate to our theme of ‘being blind my love.’ In this shot, the actor is seen to be in his own house, trying desperately to come to terms with what his life has become with the loss of his eyes. By the shot being in his house, and continuous ones to follow, it gives a voyeuristic feel to this section of the video. This is because, we are viewing him in his environment, which, stereotypically should mean that he has the empowerment and the ‘upper hand’ but, because of representation of the loss of his eyes and the visual use of the blindfold it contrasts the stereotypical attributes. Instead, the audience –as the visuals viewers- are given the power and act as surveillance over the actor. This reinforces his weakness throughout the video and allows the audience to gain some feeling of control over him, but at the same time empathy for this situation and his loss.

Intertextual References: throughout our video we only had one main intertexual reference which also happened to be one of our inspirations for a scene within our video. This reference was Biffy Clyro and his music video for “mountains.” The scene where Biffy can be seen to be shouting the lyrics at himself is the scene which we found particularly influential to our piece and decided to intertextually reference it. The main reason for this was because of the opening line we wanted to use for this scene, “mirror, mirror on the wall, I cannot stand the sight of you anymore.” We thought it would visually interesting to offer the audience another direct relation between the lyrics and the visuals, by all it gives the video and element of creativity and flare. By adding flashes of the girl (“…just sit and listen girl…”) we also add diversify from the stereotypical elements included within an Alternative Rock Ballard, which offers the audience something new to relate to and view. This could also act as a link for the audience in terms of remembering the artist/song. By adding this intertextual reference it allows the audience to make links between our music video and others that they have seen previously, to then further make comparisons on what they like and don’t like. In this case, the reference added more flare and creativity to the video, or an element of surprise, as well as incorporating visuals and lyrics further

My Digipak Back of Digipak: entails the contents of both the CD and DVD

Front cover

Inside sleeve showing a freeze frame of he music video- audience relation

2nd inside sleeve and CD and DVD holders, all containing freeze frames from the video- continuation of my key theme and enables the digipak to flow from start to finish.

My Advert

Artist’s name to enable brand recognition and reinforce into the audience’s mind

Live performance from the artist- a key value of my target audience, their likes and dislikes.

Strobed effect allows audience relation to the overall theme of the advert- live performance; reinforcing it into their mind set

Important consumer information on release date and purchase areas

Images of the digipak which the advert is advertising- shows a diverse edge to the band and allows further audience relation

Live audience, again reinforcing the theme for the advert and a like of the target audience. Shows diversification in terms of the band

My Booklet

Front Back

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

I wanted my main product and my ancillary products to reflect each other but also to show different elements of the band, the song and their music as a whole.

By using freeze frames from my music video within my digipak it gives them a direct relation to one another and a continuation of all themes and motifs will be carried from the video, into the digipak. This will allow the audience to recognise the links and relate to the digipak in the same way they did to the video. Continuity will work successfully by using the freeze frames and will make both the video and the digipak easy to relate to and remember, as they reinforce each other in the ideas, tone and mood they exert. Moreover, by giving the digipak the same styling as the video, it helps to develop the artist’s iconography and further develop their recognition in the industry. This is, over time, help the artist’s star image and will give them the notification they need. A strong star image can help to further a career and will give them a strong target audience. Furthermore, with the styling of the digipak, as the live performance featured in our video has a dark tone and atmosphere, giving the digipak the same feel as this through using darker colours and shading would further link them together. Also, this is giving the target audience a hint of a stereotypical feature that they aspire to view- live performance, which is more boldly portrayed in my advert.

I wanted my advert to show a more diverse side of the artist and contrast the strong narrative of the music video. However, it incorporates a popular element of my target audiences wants and needs, and is a feature of what they like to do in their spare time- a live performance. By giving my target audience an advert which contrasts the digipak It shows that they diversify from just making albums/songs and are willing to explore new areas of the music industry. Moreover, it will appeal to them on a different level from the digipak and could mean they can indentify with the artist more easily, and possible new audiences may be able to gain a better understanding of the artist and grow to like them/their music/ what they do. Moreover, within our music video, we do have elements of live performance, which will help the advert and video link together, rather than confusing the audience with elements that are not portrayed in other areas of the artist’s work.

What age category do you fit into?

0-16

17-25

26-35

36+

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

This pie chart represents the age ranges in which I gained form my audience feedback. This can tell me what age my video has appealed to and if this fits my target market. From this pie chart, the most popular age range was 17-25, which is directly the age range my target audience are. This allows me to know that my video has successfully appealed to the correct audience and that they have been able to personally identify with the track, video and the artist. It also shows that the narrative aspect of the video was appreciated highly by my target audience, showing that the themes, ideas and portrayals were successful also. I believe this was further encouraged by the use of the actor/actress and their ages, as it made it easier for the audience to both view the video vicariously and it could offer them escapism through its relatable meanings and portrayals.

What gender category do you fit into?

male

female

This pie chart shows the divide in gender categories that have viewed the video. From this, I can see that it was more popular to males than female audiences. One reason this could have been was because of the strong narrative aspect of the video featuring a male. This would be easier for a male to relate to as they can empathise with his feelings and emotions if they have been in a similar situation. However, by knowing that girls have viewed the video as well, it shows that the video appeals to both male and female viewers, showing a more diverse appeal in contrast to an R&B video, which stereotypically focuses on the portrayal of either a male or females, not both. Moreover, in our video we show an equal appeal to both males and females through not objectifying either gender. This means the audience feel more equal and this could appeal to their own feelings and emotions and make them feel respected by the video, especially women who are constantly objectified and victims of the ‘male gaze.’

The audience were then asked: Having viewed the music video, could you give me two themes which you feel are expressed within the video?

This question allowed us to find out how successful our video was in portraying different themes and what the audience felt these themes were and if they related to the ones we has originally thought up. From the answers below, all the themes were substantially linked together, showing that our video proved successful in showcasing the emotion and atmosphere which we wanted from our narrative. Moreover, this also tells us that the audience must feel the song and video further relate to each other due to the explicit notification and portrayal of emotion, mood and atmosphere. We were also pleased that the link between the ‘eyes’ in the song and the literal ‘eyes’ in the video came across strongly to the audience. ‘Love’ was also another strong theme which the audience said they felt was present in the music video, which is a positive as the who video, song and artist was related around the idea of love, and all connecting emotions and feelings.

The audience were asked whether they thought the visuals in the video match the lyrics of the song and in reply 100% of all who were asked replied with a yes. This gives us a strong indication that our video was successful in offering the target audience the links between the visuals and the lyrics which they required and would appreciate most strongly. This not only shows that we had a good understanding of our target market, but also that our video had elements of professionalism within it and would fit correctly if played among other videos with these related links. Moreover, it also allows us know that our narrative aspect of the video was not only successful in the portrayal of the song and its meaning, but also that it was easy to understand by the audience and that they could relate to it well and perhaps even embrace the meaning and ideas behind it within their own lives. A successful link has given a positive response from our audience, which hopefully means that the video was an overall success to them in terms of the narrative, links between the visuals and the song lyrics, and a good portrayal of a stereotypical music video of this genre.

We then asked the audience a question about whether they felt that their was a narrative to the video- and if yes, what. This, to us was an important question as we wanted our video to have a strong narrative aspect so that the audience could personally identify with both the video and the actor/actress. From the answers which we received, the narrative was felt by the audience and also we got different variations of our original narrative story. This shows us that our narrative was portrayed well enough for the audience to not only recognise, but empathise with but furthermore, by having different variations of similar ideas from the audience is shows that our narrative has scope and room for change is terms of the audience’s personal ideas and feelings, and perhaps even personal experience.

What music channel would you expect this video to appear on?

Does the editing match the tempo of the track?

The genre of our music video was indie rock, and the channels which our audience suggested offer videos in this genre. This shows that our video was successful in portraying our genre and gave the audience stereotypical values and aspiration that they require from a music video of that genre. Moreover, our video must have had qualities of verisimilitude for the audience to feel the genre in such a strong way.

Matching the editing with the tempo is important for any music video as it allows the audiences mind to flow with both the visuals and the lyrics and also makes viewing the video more enjoyable and understandable. From our answers, our video was successful in doing this. This means that our video was an enjoyment to watch, and again had professional qualities throughout.

Does the video inspire you to find out more about the artist?

yes

no

In this case, we found that the audience, only by a small percentage, were not inspired to find out more about the artist. From this we have learnt that the audience admire and aspire to have and see quality within their videos and that if this was the only fault in our video we could easily correct this in future work. Also, perhaps using the original artist of the track could have given a more easily viewed relation between him and his song and would have portrayed a more convincing understanding of the song and its meaning.

Does the video inspire you to find out more about the song?

yes

no

In this question, however, we found that the audience did want to find out more about the song itself. This leads us to further believe that by using the original artist for the acting we would have gained a more positive response for the previous question as he could really feel for the song and was better emotionally attached. However, as our artist now lives abroad, it was not possible to use him. Music videos are most importantly about the song in which they are portraying, and for ours to be deemed successful in enticing the audience to know more means we have an understanding of how important a good relatable video is to successful showcase a song and how a strong narrative helps portray this in the case of our video.

What, if anything, could be improved?

With any music video, there will always be a way to improve upon certain aspects of it. With our video, the main thing the audience said that could have been improved the acting skills and the guitar playing. Although these were not our direct faults, we could improve on them by perhaps offering better direction and give the actor more of a brief as to what is expected by them. Moreover, some of our shots were said to have been a little amateur, which on reflection could have been helped if we had taken some shots more than once, to make sure we could get the best quality shot possible. With our time limits this was a difficult aspect to maintain throughout and therefore a few shots only got one take. Overall, to improve the video I personally think more time and care would make for an overall better shot range and strong direction or even a previous de-brief to all actors/actresses would have given them more confidence and idea of what was expected of them.

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

Research: We wanted to gain a good understanding of the typical characteristics of a music video and particularly of our genre category. Gaining a good understanding allowed us to have a precise idea of what was required of us from our video in order to please our target audience and we could also grasp key factors which they wishes to aspire to perhaps have or be like and what they admire in a video, a song, the genre and an artist.

The above logos represent the four main new technologies that I used to help me with my research. I used youtube to view a variety of different music videos from different genres to gain an overall understanding of music videos and the connotations that they evoke and then focused on my genre to see what stereotypical attributes they contained, which I could also use in my music video. The video which inspired me most, as I have mentioned, was Biffy Clyro and his video for ‘Mountain’ because of the strong self worth theme that is featured throughout and I found it only fitting to include qualities of this within our music video, intertexually referencing it in a scene of the video. I also looked at BugVideo for the same reasons as youtube, but I found that BugVideos helped me in finding out different ways of accessing verisimilitude in my video. My reading the different articles and watching some of the videos of the site, it became more clear to me what the audience would be expecting from a music vide and that in turn means what they will believe and empathise with. Verisimilitude is important for any video because if the element of realism isn’t there, then they cannot connect and relate their own lives to the video. However, an element of a vide which isn’t solely the trust could allow for greater means of escapism into the video. Another new technology I used was the television. As well as watching other videos that were popular in the charts at the time to see what my target audience were appreciating, I also found it quite useful to watch any concerts that were occurring at the time. This is because, a stereotypical attribute of youth culture, and my target audience is there love for live music. By looking at different concerts I could see the elements which they aspired to view and qualities which they admired, such as the rawness of the music, the closeness to the actual artist and the overall mood and atmosphere, and find some way of involving these attributes within our music video- such as why we decided to add the element of live performance and a wide range of close ups so that the audience could feel the mood that was being created more fully and perhaps link it to the elements of a live performance and personally identify with the different scene and the contrast our video gave.

Planning: The three main ways we planned for a successful music video was through the use of our different induction and transition projects, which were: our animation trial, our A-Z video and our transition project from AS to A2. By trying out different methods of capturing and editing a video we could get an understanding of which we were best at, which we enjoyed most, and which we thought would be most successful for our own music video. The animation allowed us to time manage and get a precision to our work through careful movements and a small plot. It also gave us our first insight into using adobe premiere in the way that was required for an animation sequence. We had to create the movement through assembling our images together at the right pace and time so that it flowed like any other video movement. Our transition video was the first time we used and recorded any footage and by doing so it gave us a better understanding of how to control the camera and work it successful for when we did our A2 music video. We also got a glimpse of what it was like to direct our actors and maintain control over them and the plot we have thought out and it also allowed us to find out what angles and movements worked best for the camera, the audience and the actors/actresses. We had our first induction with adobe premiere and how you edit your footage and this gave us the ability to again try out new things and gain knowledge of what works and doesn’t work and most importantly how long editing takes and the precision and focus needed for make a successful video.

http://cba2media.blogspot.com/2010/09/animation-first-attempt-prep.html

http://cba2media.blogspot.com/2010/09/transition-project-take-on-me.html

http://cba2media.blogspot.com/2010/09/abc-song-prep-work.html

We did a lot of test footage for our video so that we could try out any ideas which we had to gain whether they were successful or not and how they would portray our video to the audience. Also, I gave us a better understanding of what was needed to be done on the day of our video shoot and how long each section of the narrative would take. Along with this we could really get into the rhythm of how the camera we would be using worked and which angles looked best and especially how to use the pull focus successfully- an element in our music video which we wanted to show the switch between actor to actress in certain scenes. These test shoots were one last opportunity to really play about with the different editing skills as well and to really up our understanding of adobe premiere. By doing this, our shoot day and the editing would run as smoothly as possible and it meant that we could be efficient in what we were doing at all times.

http://cba2media.blogspot.com/2011/01/trial-footage-2.html

http://cba2media.blogspot.com/2010/12/music-video-demanding-eyes-trial.html

Construction: For the video, the main tool which we used for construction was adobe premiere. This is the only editing software which we used as we had the broadest understanding of how to use it, from doing all or test footage. We spend a lot of time making sure that our video was what we had wanted from all our planning. We used the Sony A1 for filming which we also had a broad understanding of and this again saved us time and confusion and it gave us the tool which we need to create our pull focus, which was vital for our video to show the switch in point of view and focus. The main tool for construction I used for my digipak, advert and booklet was photoshop. By using photoshop, I gave me the tools to make by products look professional and genuine. Also, by using dafont.com I could gain text that directly related to my genre and was stylised to fit well into all my products. All these tools aided me in not only creating media products that looked successful and realistic but that also offered by target audience the genre characteristics that they aspire to view and be a part of.

Evaluation:The main tool which we used in the evaluation stage was suverymonkey. This site allowed us to create our audience feedback questionnaire and then publish it on any social networking site. This not only made it quicker and easier for us to gain responses but it also gave our questionnaire a professional vibe about it and allowed our target audience to see how much work we had out into not just our products, but the whole project. Facebook enables us to share our questionnaire with all our target audience and also in viewing the video as well. By using a site which youth cultures and especially our target audience appreciate we are offering it to them in their social environment, which they feel comfortable in, meaning they will be more obliged to answer our questionnaire and take time to view the video further. We are appealing to their needs and they likes, which they will respect.