Final Music Video Draft

Ancillary Text 1

Ancillary Text 2

Evaluation Question 1) In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?

Similarities To Existing Products

Because my music video was an original and no other music video had been created for my chosen song I wasn't actually able to compare it to anything original, so I chose to compare it to other music videos within the same genre that I chose.

Analysis of My Own Music Video

As the music video starts, we see a fade in of a guitar close up being played, the video then changes to a medium close up of the boy playing his guitar. As the music becomes more upbeat and starts to become faster, there is a close up of a boy playing the drums which then tilts up so we can see who it is that is playing the drums. A loud guitar starts to play over the song and we see a medium close up of all the band performing until then we see a close up of the drums being played again. We then go back to seeing all the band perform and then the camera slowly zooms in onto the electric guitar being played as the music again becomes more upbeat. The camera pans up so the audience can see who is playing the guitar to finish with a fast zoom out which then the camera is focused on another electric guitar being played.

The lyrics start to come into the song and this is when we start to see the narrative to the music video. For this part of the music video, it is also shown in black and white to represent the sadness and dullness of the homeless man. It starts with a homeless boy being crouched down outside a row of houses, the camera pans around showing what the area is like. The video then fades to show the same man walking down a street, “trynna find somewhere to stay” is played as the man looks back, showing he is looking for somewhere to stay. The camera then cuts to a shot of the man crouched down again in front of a wall with his hands covering his eyes, this could show how upset he is, the camera slowly zooms in onto his face until we see an extreme close up of the man’s eye’s which appear to be teary to again show how saddened he is to be homeless.

The camera again cuts back to the performance part of the music video showing the full band and is back to normal colour no longer black and white. The camera quickly zooms in onto one of the boys playing the electric guitar and then zooms out again showing the lead singer play her guitar.

The scene changes again back to the narrative and changes to black and white. In this shot we can see him in a bathroom in which he appears to be taking drugs, this shows that he is homeless because of the drug situation or that since he has become homeless he has started taking drugs. The camera shows an over the shoulder shot of the man in the mirror washing his hands and looking at him in the mirror realising what a mess he has got himself into. We are then back to the man walking down a street again to the lyrics of “finding somewhere you’ll fit in, to fill in an empty hole”, so this part of the video again shows the man looking around trying to find somewhere to essentially fit in, this is shown by a handheld tracking shot.

A close up shot of the lead female singer is shown as she performs and plays her guitar. The camera shows zoom ins and close up/extreme close ups of all the band members playing their guitars again as the guitars begin to play a big part in the song.

“Troubled man where you running too?” as this part of the song is being played, a handheld tracking shot of the man’s legs are shown as he is running, therefore here there is a link between lyrics and imagery. We see him an over the shoulder shot again back in the bathroom as he is looking mad at himself into the mirror and realising what he has become. The song then repeats itself with “troubled man where you running too?” with yet another shot of the man running down another street; linking lyrics to imagery. Another shot of him taking drugs in the bathroom again is shown and the camera follows him as he looks up as though he is hurting. We can see alcohol from a plastic, cheap bottle being poured into a cup again, showing his life to have become a mess.

For the end part of the video we see mainly a medium close up of the band performing, with the occasional zoom in/out and extreme close ups. To the end the music video there is an extreme close up of the man’s face until the camera zooms out slowly showing him to be crouched down again similar to the start of the music video and finally the video finishes with a zoom out.

Cinematography used:

• Pan right
• Pan left
• Tracking shot
• Handheld shot
• Zoom in
• Zoom out
• Medium close up
• Extreme close up
• Over the shoulder shot

Editing used:

• Slow motion
• Fade out
• Black and white

Mise-en-scene used:

• Electric guitar x3
• Microphones
• Microphone stands
• Speakers
• Drum kit
• Card
• Bottle
• Sugar (represents cocaine)

Lighting used:

• Dark/gloomy

To get a feel of how realistic my ancillary texts are, I compared them to products that are currently on the market.

Here I have compared my front cover of the digipak to a band in which is within a similar genre to my band (rock), I felt by comparing the same genre this would make me realise if I had produced it correctly. As you can see, both front covers are very similar, both including the bands name, song title and a picture of the band; simple. 

For my single advertisement I compared it to Florence + The Machine Lungs advert. This is actually where I got my inspiration from to create my advert also. So as you can see I have labelled parts of the advertisement that are the same for example they both include the artist name, picture of artist, release date, website and the song/album title. I think this is really good that my advertisement conforms to current adverts already out there as it makes it look more realistic. 

For my back cover I compared it to Arctic Monkeys 'Suck It And See' album, I again chose this because it was a similar genre to my band. As you can see again the conventions are exactly the same, both including the bands name, a track list, record label, a barcode and extra information. I chose to associate my band with the Rough Trade record label because once I had researched this company, it seemed they had taken on a lot of rock bands therefore I believed my band would fit in perfectly. For some extra information I just stated where the track was made, the details about the record label and also the bands website (which I have made up) so listeners are able to get to know the band more.

Conventions of a Music Video

Conventions of a Music Advert

Conventions of a Digipak

Conventions of Alternative Rock

I decided to follow a narrative/performance structure for my music video which relates to Sven Carlsson’s theory when he suggested that music videos fall into two different groups; performance and conceptual. When a music video mostly shows an artist singing or dancing, this would be known as a performance clip. Although when the clip shows something else during its duration often with artistic ambitions, it is a conceptual clip. I believe my music video falls into the category of a performance clip as half of the video is shown as the band performing with their instruments or singing.

As stated in my textual analysis I created for my music video, there are a few links between lyrics and imagery for example; “trynna find somewhere to stay” the camera shows the man looking around for somewhere to stay, “finding somewhere you’ll fit in, to fill in an empty hole” again similar to the other example he is again looking for somewhere to fit in and finally “troubled man where you running too?” we see a shot of the man running down a street which again links lyrics to imagery. 

Theories That Apply

Tessa Perkins

Tessa Perkins created the 'stereotype theory'. A stereotype is an idea that is adopted about specific types of individuals/groups of people. Although the thoughts may not always reflect actual reality. Perkins identifies 5 such assumptions;

• Stereotypes are not always negatives
• They are not always about minority groups or the less powerful
• They can be held about one's own group
• They are not rigid or unchanging
• They are not always false

This theory applies to my music video as I do believe that I have conformed to the rock genre via the use of dark colours, mise-en-scene (electric guitars, drum kits etc.) and also the use of costume too for the band members as I made them wear darker clothes, no bright colours as you don't tend to see rock people wearing lighter colours.

Sven Carlsson
Sven Carlsson's theory is that binary oppositions drive the narration of the music video forward e.g. black and white theme. Also that there are two main types of music video' performance and conceptual. Performance clips where the video mainly shows an artist singing/dancing. Conceptual clips are where something else is shown during the song's duration which may have symbolism or an artistic meaning.

There are three types of performance clip; song performance, dance performance and instrumental performance. For conceptual, the audience watchin something beyond the artist that aims to have artistic ambitions.

In my music video there is performance and also narrative shown. Performance as we see the band members lip syncing and also playing their instruments when it is the instrumental parts. Also narrative as we see the homeless man going through his homeless journey by living on the streets, taking drugs and alcohol.

Tim O'Sullivan Theory

O'Sullivan's theory suggests that all media texts tell us some kind of story. Through careful mediation, media texts offer a way of telling stories about ourselves - not usually our own personal stories, but the story of us as a culture or set of cultures. Narrative theory sets out to show that we experience when we 'read' a story is to understand a particular set of constructions, or conventions, and that it is important to be aware of how these constructions are put together.

In my music video, you can see that there is some kind of story shown when the homeless man is looking for places to stay and taking the alcohol and drugs because of how his life has become. Also this could relate to some people they may have been through the same happenings as what happened in my music video which could make it personal to some people.

Evaluation Question 2) How Effective is The Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?

How do all my 3 products link together? (music video, ancillary text 1 and ancillary text 2)

House Style
Throughout creating my three products I kept a house style, by having a house style this enables the products to be identified as all linking together. Once they are identifiable, this allows the band to become a 'brand', which associates with the Richard Dyer's star theory. To create this house style I made sure that over all my products I kept a black and white theme, to bring across the alternative-rock feeling/mood.

I also used very similar fonts and photos for both my ancillary texts as shown in the picture below.

Target Audience



Research
To find out what people thought of my video and to see what improvements I could make if I were to do it again, I created a survey using SurveyMonkey. This is what it looks like...

In the end I actually received 20 results for this survey which I was really pleased with! All 20 people answered that they do like my video which is great. For the second question some of the answers included things like...

'i liked the story behind it and how you have linked it to the song''the genre and the narrative''I like the song and also how well the video works with the lyircs''Everything!'

I was really happy with all this positive feedback. For my third question 11 people said Young Adults (18-21) and 9 people said Teens (13-17) so as I assumed the target audience would be younger adults and also teenagers who would consume this music video. Finally for my last question, I feel I did receive some really good feedback which has made me think that I would definitely take some of the comments on board if I actually were to re create my music video. Some comments included things like...

'you could show his life before it got like it is shown to add effect and create more of a narrative'

'Try adding more of a story'

'maybe show more performance of the band'

'You could show he got himself into the drugs in the first place, but I really enjoyed watching :)'

I also did this for both my ancillary texts...

I asked the same people who filled out my first survey to also fill out this survey as well, so I did again get 20 responses which is great. For my first question 100% of the people answered yes which I could not be more pleased about. For the second question I received some comments such as...

'I really like the poster, I think it looks really professional!'

'I think they're both eye catching'

'they go well with the alt rock genre'

'they look cool and i like the pack of cards idea'

For my third question, 19 people said they do think my two ancillary texts create a house style, meaning that 1 person answered no. From looking at my comments for the fourth question I think this can be explained why the one person answered no when talking about different types of font...

'make font the same on both poster and cd'

'Try to make the CD a bit more detailed, could add a picture on the back cover where the track list is! But I really like them both.'

'add picture to the cd's'

'Maybe add more detail onto the cd case'

Ancillary Texts In Action

From looking at all my feedback that has been given to me from questionnaires and me asking people in person what I could do to improve if I were to redo my coursework again, I think for my music video I would try to add more depth to the video by showing how the man in the music video actually got himself into such a state by consuming drugs and alcohol, I could have maybe shown the audience how happy his life was before but then something dramatic happened which lead him to react in this way. I think by doing this it would catch the audience's attention more and maybe even make them want to watch the music video again and again. I would have also shown more clips of the band, even though I did want my music video to be more of a narrative video, I still would have liked to have added more lip sync and more performance as this as well may have attracted the audience's attention more.

For my ancillary texts I agreed with the feedback given on my questionnaire as I think I could have added a bit more detail into the digipak with the back cover especially. I originally liked the simplicity of the digipak although looking at it now it feels like there could have been something added such as a picture or just artwork to make it more eye catching. Same with the front cover of the digipak, I wish I had used maybe a different picture as this one does look fairly plain even though I do like the picture, I don't think it goes for my front cover.

I really enjoyed making my poster and I think the outcome for it was great and I had definitely done the best I could with this ancillary text. I believe it is really eye catching from everything such as the main image used and even the font works well. As soon as I found this font I knew straight away it would look good and work well for my poster and it turns out it has really made an effect. I also think the picture that I took for my poster worked great as the way I have made the people arrange themselves doesn't look too busy or anything it just seems to work well. The detail at the bottom of the poster also finishes it off and adds a little touch.

Overall it seems that from conducting all my research to find out how effective my combination of my main product and ancillary texts, that they do work together well and come across as effective due to all the positive feedback I received through survey monkey and through family/friends.

Evaluation Question 3) What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?

In order to find out what was best for my music video and what people would enjoy watching the most I conducted a survey using survey monkey towards the beginning of creating my advanced portfolio to ensure I knew what I was going to do as early on as possible. Here is a SlideShare I created which shows the questions I asked my audience and also their responses too.



To help me decide which style of poster would be best for my music advertisement, I sent it to a few of my friends via iMessage and Whatsapp, all the feedback told me I should go with the one I ended up choosing anyway. Not only this but I also asked in person people like my family and friends which they prefer and every one said they prefer the one that I have picked. This is really good as I know that is eye catching to my audience and also it must be appealing for them to like it.

 
 


After producing my first draft for my music video I created a 2 question survey using Survey Monkey. I only included two questions as this was all I needed to know in order find how to improve my music video. Here is what my survey looked like...

In the end I received 14 responses. 13 out of 14 people said that they do like the clip of my music video which appeared really promising and made me realise the work that I had put together must have worked in some way. For the second question I asked the audience 'How would you suggest I improved this clip?' due to you being able to skip this question not many people did answer, in fact only 8 people replied. Here are some of the replies I got...

'include more camera angles'

'You could show him in different locations not just the same place'

'I really do like this clip I think it stands out and works well with the lyrics as it connects to them, but to improve u could show him over a few days rather than just showing him on the same day, I think this would reflect what his life was really like'

'i reckon you will show videos of the band but to improve id say just show the band when they're singing'

Taking my feedback on board, I did use more camera angles when it came to filming the rest of my music video as shown below.

As I was initially going to do anyway, I did show the band in the music video for a performance clip...

Evaluation Question 4) How Did You Use Media Technologies in The Construction and Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

Hardware, Software & Computer Programs I Used


Tutorials I Used








All of these tutorials where used whilst creating my music video with the Final Cut Pro software on the Mac computer. I found all of these very helpful and taught me what to do easily and straight away rather than struggling.

Creating My Ancillary Texts
To actually create my ancillary text 1 I used Microsoft Word as I didn't want to edit my photo or anything so I found this would be easier and I also downloaded fonts to use from 'dafont' which I was able to use on Microsoft Word. Here is step by step pictures of how my finished ancillary text actually came together...

 First of all, I chose which image I believed would work best for a music advertisement. I then played around with the colour of the picture, I tried normal, black and white, sepia etc. however in the end I thought black and white worked the best as I wanted large bold white font so this would make the advertisement stand out more. I then already knew what font I wanted by looking on 'dafont' so I downloaded this to my laptop and used this for the title. I made the title appear at the top of the advert, in the centre so it comes across as bold and eye catching to the audience. I tried to place the name of the band in a few position such as to the left of the advert or at the bottom of the advert but I just believed this worked best. I then carried on the same font for the name of the song and had a few play arounds as to where I could place this, but I knew I wanted to add additional information as seen in my advertisement so I placed it at the bottom of the advert to ensure I could fit the info in and still make it look good. So for my additional info I included 'brand new single' to show the audience that the band are going to have a new song out and also the release date underneath so the audience know when it's available to purchase. Even though I liked the look of the poster I still felt it looked fairly plain which I wasn't too worried about as I didn't want anything 'busy' or 'in your face', so to add that extra detail to the advertisement I placed at the bottom a white strip which has the logos of where the single will be sold and also an exclusive rating from NME as to how the song sounds. I chose the magazine NME because the genre links closely to the same as mine.

 To create my digipak I used Photoshop. I have took some screen shots of how I actually constructed it and how it all came together in the end.

So, in the first picture you can see a blank digipak template, this is what I worked from and what helped me putting everything in the correct places. I firstly decided to add my front cover as shown in the bottom right hand corner of the second picture, I had previously decided on this image as I liked it for a front over picture so I knew which one I wanted to do straight away when it came to putting it all together. I tried to find a similar font to my music advert so in the 3rd picture I used a Photoshop font called Agency FB. I placed this at the top in the centre of the image to make sure the audience could clearly see it. Underneath the band name I added the title of the song 'Homeless Man Single', I also added single on the end to make the audience aware that this was not an album they were buying.

Next I added one of the other covers images which was a bit of a fun like picture where the band where just messing about it wasn't a serious picture so I thought it went well to show the audience this. On another panel I created a pack of cards like image which I think turned out really well and just added some more interest to the digipak and was fun for the audience to look at.

Then I decided to add the CD and DVD which I just wanted to keep plain and simple, therefore I just created a black disc and put the bands name on it and also the name of the single and whether it was the CD or the DVD.

After creating all this, I then went onto the back cover of the digipak where the track list goes. I decided to place the bands name at the top of the back cover to make sure the audience know who's single they are purchasing and then underneath I added the track list in which is on the CD. To add a bit more of an effect on the back panel I included some extra information at the bottom which included things such as the barcode, record label logo and information about where the digipak was made and also a bit of information about the record company.

To make my digipak complete, I added the spines of the digipak in between the front cover/back cover/side panel to make it a finished digipak. The last image is the final outcome!

First Draft of a Digipak Back Cover Design

This is my first mock up of a back cover design for my digipak, I like this because I used the idea of the playing cards pack which was my first inspiration and I believe it has worked well. I used 5 different images and here are the original pictures...