Monday 21 March 2011

planning for the evaluation

in preparation for our final evaluation we all went away and answered the four evaluation questions individually so we can have more to talk about when we do our group evaluation.

Thursday 17 March 2011

Olivia's evaluation

To create our music video we firstly looked at goodwins theory that states that every video has a element of voyeurism, looking, lyrics and actions match and so on. We chose a song that came under the genre we like most which was r'n'b.

Then we went on youtube and watched a lot of r'n'b videos for inspiration by artists such as chris brown, rihanna, bruno mars and trey songz. We noticed that all of the songs where about love and relationships, this is a common convention of r'n'b.

I also researched on the origin of r'n'b and realised how it was inspired by jazz as gospel music, also how it has a strong repetitive beat and is normally sing by African Americans. I found out that whitney houston, michael jackson, mariah carey and mary j blige are all iconic figures in r'n'b.

From watching all the videos and digesting all the research we found out that the generic conventions of r'n'b are:
black artist
lots of voyeurism especially by women
lavish lifestyle is illustrated
fancy cars
pretty ladies
sophisticated but street clothes
video is cut to the beat
artist features heavily in the video
tattoos
white vests and ear piercings for the men
dance routine
street

and we conformed to most generic conventions to some extent.

We were greatly inspired by chris brown's with you video, we decided to incorporate the idea of other couples showing love in our video for cut aways.

Moreover Bruno  mars' just the way u are also gave us a bit of inspiration as he doesn't really have a narrative in his video it isn't definite so we decided to add a argument scene in our video so the video can hold multiple meanings to our audience.

We rejected the use of extreme voyeurism because we didn't want to dehumanise or degrade woman because of the uses and gratifications theory by blumler and katz. Because R'N'B videos are normally watched by young people and they watch our video to gain some kind of identity and we wouldnt want to encourage  teenagers to dress provocatively. Also it was difficult to find a young lady willing to show much flesh so we used mild voyeurism unlike a Trey songz video.

We also subverted the convention of using a black artist, we used a young iraqi guy. Because many big r'n'b artist now are not black for example: Justin timberlake, Justin bieber, Mike posner, Drake and Jay sean. We wanted to show how diverse r'n'b is now and to help young people gain a good identity form our video.
I chose to use Khalid to feature in our video because he has that street look with the slits in his eyebrows, ear piercings, dress sense and tattoos. He also looks a bit like a mixture of Drake and Jay Sean so he will be a easy and appealing artist to sell due to the intertextuality.

We used a black girl and asked her to wear a short dress and high heels in our video to add a element of voyeurism also kind of conform to the convention of using black people in the video.

I filmed in five locations a nice flat, the riverside, tom thumbs arch, canary wharf and under a train arch. We wanted a mixture of elegant and raw street locations because r'n'b artists always come from the bottom up to lavish lifestyles.I think our audience will use our video for surveillance into the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Our ancillary task sells the artist, his picture dominates the front cover because we found that all of the other r'n'b cd covers we looked at done the same thing like on the front of Trey songz invented sex cover.

However we had to make multiple cd covers and magazine covers because our audience said that the two didn't link together clearly. Because he doesn't wear the same clothes in the video and in our video the location features heavily but it isn't shown at all on the digipak, so i decided to make a new digipak including landscape and khalid in brighter clothes due to the film in Tom thumbs Arch standing out so much.

We decided to dress khalid in the second digipak in a nice casual jacket and a cap to add that urban touch. In our first digipak we dressed him in a smart ralph lauren polo to represent the artist being wealthy. We wanted to sell him as a smooth streetwise gentle man.

Our digipak offers the consumer a free poster and the song lyrics printed on the inside cover if a hard copy is purchased. Because of all the illegal downloading going on I thought this would be a good incentive for the buyer to spend the money and fund the artists future singles.

I expect our audience to come across our video on facebook or youtube. I would like them to repost and tweet our video so it reaches a wider audience than viva or 4music viewers.

Youtube was a big help for our research I watched so many music videos to get ideas from. I also used blogger to watch other media students videos and read through their posts to be inspired.

Wikipedia also helped during planning and research I learnt that r'n'b videos are full of short rhythmic cuts to the beat.

We all downloaded 'like an iceberg' to our phones and played it out aloud at each shoot to help or actor sing to I also printed out the lyrics so we all had a copy to refer to. Finally I bluetoothed the song to our actor for him to listen to and learn at home.

We kept intouch by phone calls, texts and facebook I tagged the other group members in status' and announced shooting dates as I was the production manager.

I used a canon video camera to film our video I filmed each scene three times so we could pick the best clips for our final piece. Furthermore i used a flip camera to record clips for our evaluation which will go alongside clips of us and photos of real r'n'b artists.

The video camera was also used to film for our animatic the the footage was edited in imovie.

I purchased rose petals to sprinkle on the girls bed to add romance to the video. we also used a big industrial light whilst filming the voyeurism scenes to make them more defined because the lighting in the common room was very poor.

We edited our footage on imovie which was very fiddly because if u delete a few seconds of film to make lip syncing more accurate all the rest of the film became unsynced. I added transitions and added effects to certain clips to improve lighting. I also copied and cut clips to the beat using apple c and apple t. Finally I made some clips faster and one clip of our artist looking into the light slower to make our the clips more effective.

Finally I created our digipak using my own digital camera and photoshop cs2 to crop our photos to standard cd size, adjust contrast and brightness, add filters, add text and finally bar codes and logos.

We got audience feedback at numerous points of production, firstly after we decided we wanted to create a video for Claude Kelly's like an iceberg. we played the song to two media classes and asked them what ideas the song gave them on narrative and star construction.

The audience suggested our artist looked like Jay Sean and our video should feature lots of cheesy romantic gestures like strolls on the beach. However this wasn't possible for us because when we started filming it was snowing heavily so being on the beach would of looked absurd.

Audience feedback was also attained when we came up with our ideas for the video, we asked them if they thought our ideas would be effective and if not why and how we can change them to make the video more appealing to the audience.

From then on we got audience feedback when we created our first two rough cuts when we didn't have the lip syncing correct and we never had the a female or argument scene in the video.

The audience advised us to introduce a element of voyeurism to our video as it is a generic convention so we did that with jessica on our next shoot.

They also said that some of our actors lip syncing wasn't strong enough as at times it looked like he was muttering and he didn't hold notes as long as he should have so we re filmed the first verse. Even filming it in a apartment instead of our college stair well so this really helped elevate our video.

Finally after we had done all the lip syncing and added voyeurism we felt like something was missing so we asked our class mates what they think we needed, they suggested we add a slight narrative so we decided to add a argument scene to give allow our video to be interpreted in different ways and so more people feel they can relate to our video.

The most helpful bit of audience feed back was about our ancillary task. We thought it connected well with the main task but our audience said otherwise. If we didn't change our digipak our artist wouldn't be as popular as the audience wouldn't realise it was our single in the shop because of the plain backgrounds and different costumes.

Throughout filming I realised hoe difficult lip syncing was. Our song is originally sung by a African American but we used a Iraqi from east London. Words were pronounced in very different was so our lip syncing didn't look as accurate as I would of liked. I also realised how important singing the lyrics are just saying them isn't enough as it looks weak. I really appreciate music videos now I have seen how much effort and dedication is needed especially working in a group.

Monday 14 March 2011

Mariam's Evaluation

Our music video is by Claude Kelly, Like An Iceberg...
Our Media product use challenges the forms and conventions of a real media product. This is because we used a hip hop and RNB  genre. Mainly a love genre with a typical black girl and boy. We used Khalid, who had the perfect features of a RNB singer. He looks mixed race, with the fair skin and facial hair. We see him as the celebrity singer, Drake. He has the wow factor already so that really completed our music video. He also had that wise street look just like in many RNB videos and the singers.

For the female actress, we used Jessica. She was perfect because of her nice skin tone (black) which is mainly seen in many hip hop and RNB videos. We didn't use a lot of voyerism because too much of that would represent women in a negative way. Jessica was doing and wearing the simple things in the the music video. She was wearing a dress and lying down on a bed. We showed a 'lovey' scenario because it suited it when it was Jessica's  part.

Overall, compared to a music video, this is very much like a hip hop and RNB music video. We used many sights such as Canary Wharf, Tom Thumbs Arch, an urban setting in Limehouse Tunnel. It was in the daylight and night when we filmed. Because there was many lights in the night it looked really good. especially in Tom Thumbs Arch where the lights would change different colors. We knew that using many different locations would appeal to the viewers because just filming in one location would make the video less appearing and very boring. khalid, was expressing his feelings everywhere, near the water fountains, outside under the tunnel, in his bedroom, in the park etc. It was like everywhere he goes, he was always thinking of her, his love who makes him melt.

For our ancillary task,  we done a mini photo shoot of Khalid. We done it in urban settings such as underneath the tunnel, in the park but also in a car to make it look sexy, almost like he is a celebrity. There was also pictures we took of him sitting down inside, on the floor, looking very seriously sprung, (in love).
We concentrated on the colors of the photo and what Khalid was wearing. We used a lot of red colors and other multi colors. This is because it suits and goes with our music video.

Nazmins evaluation questions.

1. In what ways does our media product use,develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The genre of the music featured in our music video is is RnB. The song we used was Like an iceberg by Claude Kelly. Other music videos in this genre tend to sing about their lives such as the streets,the hood or their glamorous life now. Others sing about the opposite sex or just the concept love.We chose song that was about the love. To create our music video we looked at Goodwin's theory that's says every music video needs to include voyeurism, match of lyrics and visions  music and vision and so on. We chose a song that came under the genre we like most which was R'n'B.
From looking at other music from the same genre about love we found the videos were was either abstract or just played on the concept of love by showing a lot of romance, couples etc. I think that our media product challenges the forms and conventions of real media product at some points such as instead of having a typical black artist we used a Khalid who is originally from Iraq. We decided to do something different and  move away from the stereotypical concepts because we wanted to create a music video that caught the viewers eye and make them want to watch more. However it wasn't completely different because our artist still had the features and dress sense of an RnB artist. He looked mix race as most RnB artist do , he had a slit on his eyebrow that made him look street, he had the facial hair and dressed very casual like most RnB artists do. We asked our peers after choosing our artists and they said that it was fine an didn't completely challenge the genre because he had similar looks to an famous new upcoming RnB artist Drake.
For the female actress that we used in our music video we used the stereotypical female for RnB music videos were there really slim, pretty but also have the sex appeal. In this type of genre the females are used for voyeurism to attract a male attention an so that the song sells just like other famous artists do such as Beyonce and Rihhana. She was wearing a revealing dress and laying on the bed which real stars do for voyeurism.We took this idea f laying on a bed with not a lot of clothing from Rihhanas music video Hate that I love you. We didn't use a lot of voyeurism because we couldn't find a female willing to do this but we also didn't want to portray females in a negatived way because the song is about love and a man singing about her.
From comparing our media product to real music videos  we found that it was really similar and fit  well with the genre.
Overall I think that Our media product did challenge the forms and conventions of real media products in terms of the artist however new artists are coming in to this genre and things are changing in terms of not having all only black artists in this genre.With everything else we very much didn't challenge the forms and conventions of our genre and followed and took ideas from real music videos and iconic artists.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
We created our ancillary tasks using the software photoshop. For our ancillary tasks we looked at real CD covers and music adverts to see how they do things to get the song to sell. We found that they promote the artist by having a big picture in the centre taking up most the space. We also found that they linked the magazine advert and CD cover to the music video by using a picture that is memorable from the music video so that the audience can easily recognise the CD cover and magazine advert. We made sure that we didn't challenge the forms and conventions at all for the ancillary tasks because we wanted  the product to sell and this would be done if we followed what real stars did for there music videos and magazine adverts.We took ideas from real CD covers and magazine adverts and used similar text style and poses look of the artist so that the ancillary tasks fit in the RnB genre. We had to continuously made changes to the ancillary tasks and took feedback from peers, friends and family.
At the end we got audience feedback from our peers again and they said that the ancillary tasks were really good and liked how the colour of of the texts we the same for both the CD cover and magazine advert. It helped link them together. However we did get criticised for having 3 pictures of our CD colour in a 1 top and the 4th in a jumper and they said it looked quite odd.
I think that our ancillary tasks look really good and real. We took a lot and of tips and ideas from real CD covers such as trey songs CD cover and Tichey Stryder magazine advert because they are iconic artists that are doing very well in the music industry. By taking a few ideas such as the type of colours used and he whole artist look it helped to make our ancillary tasks look very professional and real.

3. What have you learnt from you audience feedback?
We got allot of audience feedback throughout the whole different stages from planning our music video too making change to the final product. We felt that the audience feedback was very important and needed to be consistent in order for us to be success full. We took as much as we could in a lot in to account but also took our own ideas because that was also very important. We got audience feedback right from the begining by asking them what type of music is most listened to in their age group. after we had chosen a song we made our peers listen to it and asked them what ideas came in to their minds and any storylines that they thought would go with it. By having audience feedback aswell as our own group ideas we combined the to ideas together and came  up with our final idea for the video. From our audience feedback they said that the song sounded very cheesy and  1 person said it reminded them of Jason Derulo's song what if. This was good so that we were able to copy  similar bits from the real video. Others said that they didn't really see a narrative but a very abstract video of  love.Al this feedback was very usefull and helped to develop our own ideas.
We also got audience feedback for our ancillary tasks after doing the first draft. At first we were told it didn't really fit in with the genre we then made changes and showed our classmates. They said it was a huge improvement yet something was missing. Another said that the magazine advert didn't link with the CD cover because the text style and colours didn't match. After taking in all the feedback we came up with our final ancillary tasked were allot of people approved. By taking in audience feedback it helped to develop our ancillary tasks further making it look more real.
Overall we learnt a lot from the audience feedback because they gave us ideas that as a group didn't think of and helped us to see things from a different point of view. The feedback gave us  a chance to improve our work so that it was at a higher standard compared to what we  initially had in mind.

Monday 14 February 2011

our female actress. she is black too so we do stick to generic conventions!!!


We originally planned to us Leema  but unfortunately she wasn't able to take part due to some unforeseen circumstances therefore we had to some one else. We then decided to use Jessica because she fit the genre and we were running out of time to find another actress.
This is some behind the scenes footage on our last shoot of Jessica. This is our element of voyeurism
however she didn't have a red dress so we had to settle for this floral dress.This was because we was running out of time and needed all our footage to start editing and get our video done. However it is still feminine and revealing and it in to the RnB genre of having voyeurism in the music video.

Olivia and Nazmin

props

as it is valentines day. i went out and bought some cheesy props that represent love and passion to use them in our video as cut aways for our music video.

olivia