Music Video Project

Evaluation

The Videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC0OYTVgjoU

Project Overview• Having known Polly for a long time, and being familiar with both her style of music and

creative way of working, I knew she would be an ideal artist to work with on this project. I contacted her and she seemed very interested, and we decided on a song to work with. As this song ended up being 'The Camden Backfire Blues', a song she wrote herself, we decided it made sense to film the video in Camden Town, London. The location provided a mixture of interesting visuals ranging from intricately decorated buildings, walls and streets, to more simplistic interior locations like bars, pubs and shops, all of which happily allowed us to film inside. This provided us with the opportunity to include a lot of different shots and camera angles, depending on where we were at the time. The location synchronised well with the song not only due to its title, but also its theme and lyrics; the song is about a girl caught up in the seemingly damaging side of the nightlife and music scene, both of which are heavily weaved into the culture of Camden Town. This meant that there was a definite visual connection between the song and its visual representation. The only 'prop' we used in the production was Polly's guitar, as I wanted to ensure that the video's narrative scenes did not seem entirely staged; heavy prop usage can often give the impression of a 'studio' creation, which was not the effect we necessarily desired.

Conveying Codes and ConventionsWhen listening to the Camden Backfire Blues, I was reminded of several songs and videos I was already familiar with, such as the story featured in the Arctic Monkeys' song (and video for) 'When the sun goes down' or the negative themes of other songs, particularly Babyshambles 'Delivery', the video for which I also liked. Various aspects of these, and others, such as the great use of black and white, as well as variation in the shots used in Creep's video for 'You', have been featured in my video, from the black and white imagery I chose, or the inclusion of a lone character as the focus of the video. As 'The Camden Backfire Blues' is a song with a definite narrative structure, I wanted to reflect this in the video, but not too overwhelmingly. I gave it a loose narrative in the sense that there is one central character being followed through the story the song is telling, though the lyrics themselves are not illustrated entirely literally, as this can often make a video become quite clichéd or tacky. There is also a performance aspect to the video, emphasising the fact that the character included is also the artist behind the song, the one who is telling the story. I expected that these themes would make the video enjoyable in a visual sense but also relevant to the song it accompanies, enhancing it instead of distracting from it.

• As well as studying video's individually, I also took influence from having observed certain director's bodies of work, such as that of Saman Keshavarz, director of videos for acts such as Russ Chimes (Midnight EP series), Apparat (Song of Los) and Cinnamon Chasers (Luv Deluxe), who despite not using performance or lyrical illustration in his videos, does feature narrative, though usually in a much more traditional sense, with multiple characters and definitive plot. What I took from Keshavarz' style is the way in which he conveys emotions within his visuals; by using frequent close ups and focussing on facial expression as well as action to create recognizable 'characters' even within such a short space of time in a music video. Another director I was influenced by is Douglas Hart, who often creates videos for artists much more similar to my own, such as Fionn Regan (Catacombs), or Ocean Colour Scene (various). What I admire about Hart's work is his effective combination of both narrative and performance within a video, something I have incorporated. As well as this, the aesthetic appeal of his work is great; he often experiments with colour distortion and unconventional camera angles. Removing the colour from my video, and experimenting (though not as greatly) with camera angle, has proven a notable transcendence of Hart's work.

Keshavarz

Hart

Challenging Codes and ConventionsIn addition to intertextualising the work of others, I have also ensured that my video has it's own appeals, so that it doesn't appear to have copied aforementioned works, or others. It does not copy all the styles of one video directly, instead combining effects and ideas to become a production in it's own right.

The video includes many typical, basic codes and conventions of such media products such as lip-synching, performance/narrative, and in terms of editing, the way in which the video cuts to the beat of the song, as well as the transition effects used. What challenges these codes however, is the way the song presents the character. Usually in songs with similar lyrics, there is a third person narrative, something that conveys in the video too, with this character merely being observed and spoken for. What my video does is present a first person narrative of a song written for the most part in third person. The fact that a female sings these lyrics significantly suggests that the song is about herself, which means therefore the video provides an insight into this character. It is her story, not a story about her.

As well as this, the fact that lot of the shots I ended up including in my video were those I did not plan before hand adds to the video's challenge of convention. I think it gives the video a natural quality; it does not come across as being too heavily drafted or staged, instead appearing much more realistic, and true to the nature of the artist herself. When directing her, I was careful not to be too specific or constricting in my proposed actions; as the song, and in turn the story, were Polly's own, it made much more sense to pluck a certain amount of the narrative from real life action.

The DigipakThis is the design for my music video digipak. It contains many important features such as the artist's image, logo, song title, video age rating and a bar code. The back also contains a list of the pack's features as well as positive quotes from its magazine reviews, further encouraging the viewer to purchase the pack. It's main features is it's photography. The fact that the digipak contains strong visual imagery suggests to the potential buyer that the imagery found in the contained video will also be strong. I tried not to crowd the digipak too much, as I wanted it to be simple and aesthetically pleasing enough that it is still pleasant to look at after having owned it and looked at it for a long time.

Print Based AdvertsThe print advert is essentially an alternate version of the digipak's front cover. This way, there can be no confusion over what the product it promotes will look like. It includes extra details, like a release date and information about Polly's website. These things would only be found on an advertisement and not on the cover itself, as the information they contain will become outdated and irrelevant, not an aspect you want to include in a product you want people to keep for a long time.I also produced this small printed flyer, which could be handed out at gigs. It too features an image of the digipaks cover, but also some original photography, providing variation for someone who has already seen the main print advert.

Codes and Conventions of the Ancillary Texts

The influences I looked to for My music digipak were similarly interesting as those of the video. I had to use imagery and text that corresponded with the song and video, to ensure a consistent house style; with the plans I had already made for the video I looked to the print-based imagery the artists I had already studied were using. What I found was that because a lot of the artists I had studied in terms of video were male, even though they were often promoting music of the same genre, their albums and digipak covers were less focussed on personal image than the way in which I wanted mine to be. A female artists' work, whether intentionally or not, will be subjected to more scrutinous analysis in terms of that female's image; by both male and female audiences alike. Because of this I knew it was important to present Polly in the exact way I wanted her video to be viewed; professional, aesthetically pleasing, and also representative of her music genre, but not in a stereotypical sense.Some digipaks that I found to include these conventions were Lana Del Rey's 'Video Games/Blue Jeans' release, and Kate Walsh's 'Tim's House' album. What I liked about these covers was the way that colour and pose were used; Del Rey's had a great use of vibrant colour, Walsh's were muted. This is something I combined in my own digipak, with Polly wearing bright colours, as well as the bright colour of her eyes, then being muted slightly so that the image was much more easy on the eye.

Representation of the Brand IdentityI think the digipak and print advert, in spite of visual differences form the video, do represent it well, as they both incorporate features relatively typical of Polly's indie, folk, or acoustic style, such as both's main image, a pretty, though not sexualised image of the artist, relatively simplistic in structure so as not to distract from the photography, it's main aspect. Neither the print advert or digipak cover feature heavy use of text, as I think this can often cause a potential buyer to avoid both, not wanting to read the words just to understand the content. All text on the back of the digipak is less likely to have this effect, as it will not be seen at all until the buyer has picked up the product, clearly aready interested by the visuals on the front, or the artist, whose name and image are featured prominently for this reason. When viewing all the products I have created together, I think that they all represent eachother well. There is a definite house style and sense of brand identity between the digipak and print advert; they are almost the same; I made them this way because an advert for a product would logically contain an image of the product it presents, so the viewer knows what it is they are to look for; for this reason, both have the same main image, and Polly's name and song title in large print. This also works well in terms of a person who sees the video before encountering the print advert or the digipak. The song's title 'The Camden Backfire Blues' is repeated in the lyrics of the song; anyone who knows the song will recognize those words when they see them on either the print advert or the digipak.

Audience FeedbackIn order to get an accurate view of what people would think of the video, I used a number of methods to collect response. Polly shared the video on her Facebook page, a good way to get the video seen by it's target audience; people who already enjoy Polly's music and subscribe to her page will be interested in seeing this video. The response we received from this was great, 79 people 'liked' the video, and it received a number of positive comments, complimenting various aspects such as the video's locations, Polly's style, the visuals we created, it's use of black and white, among other things. This proves that the video looks professional and is enjoyable to those who viewed it. The fact that people have complimented Polly on her look and her voice as well shows that the video represents her well too.

Polly's song, 'Camden Backfire Blues' is available online to download, and she informed me that there were a significant number of downloads of the song in the time following the video's release; this is absolutely great for both of us, as the reason any musician creates a video is to promote the song, to raise awareness in the hope that it will be bought. This has happened, proving that the video is a great advertisement for it's song and artist. With it being extremely low budget to create, this also means that Polly has profited from the creation of the video, another great aspect of the project.

Survey Results• Another way I collected response was through the creation of a survey on Survey monkey. All

the questions can be viewed here, but a selection of them provided more of an insight into people's views than others, as follows:

75% of those surveyed said that the video was very entertaining and interesting to watch, and the other 25% said it had good qualities. The fact that no-one responded negatively is great as it proves the video is a good piece of work even when not considered within Polly's body of work; people enjoyed the video for more than just it's song and artist.

This question received exactly the response I wanted- When creating all the products I tried to keep in mind a brand identity, and each product's representation of its counterparts, and the fact that this has communicated to 95% of the entire audience proves that this was successful. It also mentions how the fan would be 'impressed' or 'pleased' in both the answers that received votes. No one thought that the fan would feel 'mislead' by the way the video was presented by it's print advert or digipak, great because disappointing a fan is the exact opposite intention of any artist's releases.

40% of the people who watched the video and took the survey researched Polly's work afterwards. This is a good amount, and it means that those people were directly compelled to check out Polly's music after the way the video presented her and her work, the explicit intention of the project. A further 40% said they would check out her music in the future, still meaning that the enjoyed the song featured. 20% of people simply said that she was 'ok', although no specifically a negative reaction. It is great that no one said they definitely wouldn't want to check out her music, as it proves that she was definitely not presented in a bad way. After collecting responses for this question however, I did realise it's flaw; I did not include an option for those who were already familiar with Polly's music, although those who are would probably still be able to use one of the answers provided to voice their opinion of the song.

Every person surveyed said that they think both the digipak and video would be satisfactory to a professional artist, an excellent result. The reasons for such a response included references to the professional photography of the digipak and print advert, as well as their eye-catching images. In terms of the video, people voted yes because they thought it was well made and fit well with the song, and also that it did not look like a college project, but like a professionally made video.

I also asked people to rate each product out of 10, and neither were rated below 7 at all by anyone, which is also a great response to receive.

Artist Response

Polly herself was also very happy with the video; the way she shared it on Facebook proves this, as well as this message she sent me:

I'm very glad she is happy with the video, as important as audience feedback is, it's also crucial that the artist themself is happy to share and be proud of their work.

Media TechnologiesI used a wide variety of media technologies throughout the project.

Research and Planning Stages:

My research stage included the use of media technologies in the way I consumed the media I was then referencing; I used the internet, namely YouTube to gain knowledge of the types of music video that are out there, how they can differ, the effects one can include in them, as well as the way each one represents it's artist. This was similar when I research existing digipaks.When planning the video I created a small animation on Adobe Premier, as video editing software was not something I had much experience in using. I found this helpful later on in my editing phase, as I had learnt certain skills that were then included in the final video. I did not actually use Premier to edit my music video, but a lot of its basic conventions are the same as Final Cut, which I did use.

Construction, Editing and Evaluation Stages:

In the construction of all the products, I used several technologies. To create the digipak, print advert and booklet, I used an SLR camera, and after capturing the shots I needed, Photoshop to create the images I wanted to use. After using effects that muted the colours of the photos, and that slightly adjusted their focus, and added text and frames to some, they looked much more professional and in keeping with the house style I wanted. Photoshop was a program I had used a lot before, both in the previous year's magazine project, as well as in outside projects, so I feel that my prior knowledge of such technology assisted the proficiency with which I used it, creating some images I am very proud of.

When constructing the video, I used a handheld video camera, and then Final cut to edit. The camera itself was quite simple to use, and most of the effects I added to the video came in the editing phase, such as the removal of colour saturation, transition effects and cropping certain shots. Final cut was a program I had not used before, and even with my prior knowledge of Adobe Premier, I did find some aspects of the program quite time consuming to begin with, but as the editing went on I became much more confident in using it, meaning that I picked up some great skills for similar projects in the future, which is great.

In my evaluation I used technology to gain audience feedback. The video was posted onto YouTube and Facebook, both great ways of sharing media. Facebook, a more personal way of doing do proved excellent for audience feedback, as well as giving a lot of people the opportunity to see a video they might not have otherwise seen; as it appeared on their homepages, watching it was so easy to do.

Throughout the project, I have posted all stages onto a blog on Blogger. This was a very useful way to present work, as it gives me and those interested in the project an outlet to find all information and references in one place. The fact that it is online has been very useful too as it meant I could access my work anywhere, be that at home or even on my phone if I was in the production phase of the project.

As well as the blog, a lot of my correspondences with Polly took place via e-mail, great because it meant we could share ideas in the form of links to existing music videos, as well as online images and articles, even when we couldn't meet up to do so.