In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
(refer to your planning and research, what conventions did you find and use? what conventions did you challenge? refer to your audience feedback on your products)
We used conventions seen in a few of Lana Del Rey’s videos, in particular Video Games. Video Games was our main inspiration but we also looked at her other videos and videos by Ellie Goulding such as “I need your Love” and used techniques from these too. We particularly liked how Lana Del Rey’s performance shots were so entrancing and used this technique in our own product by using close up and medium shots with the artist keeping constant eye contact with the camera and her facial expressions being exaggerated by make up and the basic background and clothing. We also used the quick paced, gritty and random combination of shot sequences to create a believable montage of memories. Lana Del Rey’s video uses a variety of shot types, cutting speeds and a mixed up content to create the overall feel. Both Lana Del Rey’s music videos Video Games and Carmen used the effect of handheld footage as though the camera is being held by someone involved in the shot which makes the material believable and authentic. The inclusion of the random shots make the videos not solely about the narrative of two actors. Instead, the random shots add a different edge to the narrative explaining concepts and feelings not easily portrayed through acting such as a rose that connotes danger or seduction through its colour but its vulnerability and gentleness being so easily damaged or the shot of the drunken couple in Video Games which makes the narrative believable as clearly things haven’t been edited to create a ‘story’. We included a flower in our video and also included a variety of shots in the break up part of our video that look as real as possible, the flower was one of our favourite shots as we picked the red petals off in the beginning of the video to possibly foreshadow the devastation about to happen or simply show the vulnerability of the artist in the narrative. The shot of the bright red roses early on also infers to the audience that the shots have connotations and so they can apply this to shots later on such as the swing. Lana Del Rey’s performance shots are strategically placed in parts where the lyrics need to be exaggerated by her facial expression we also used this technique. Early on in the video, Video Games and Carmen, the narrative is introduced bluntly with obvious quite cliche shots of the couple who are clearly in a relationship the video then goes on to show shots that may off throw this previously simple narrative. We included this in our video by using shots of nettles which are easily recognisable as painful yet natural. We also gained a lot of inspiration for specific shots from artists such as Lana Del Rey and Ellie Goulding, from Lana Del Rey we liked the spinning palm tree shots which are clearly handheld but worked particularly well with our natural theme throughout the video. We also liked the shots Ellie Goulding and Calvin Harris used in the I need your love video of the car driving down the road but skipping parts to look like they are driving fast, we used this technique in a corridor shot. We used sped up shots with inspiration from the Lana Del Rey Carmen video where the speed of the rose is manipulated and it looks like the rose is growing in seconds. The music video Carmen includes gritty footage that flickers to create an effect similar to this we added the sepia tone which worked in the same way and made the footage seem aged. The random shots found in the majority of Lana Del Rey’s videos add confusion to the narrative but engage the audience to unpick what meaning is meant, this is reflected in our video as most of the shots have a connotation. In the Lana Del Rey video Summertime Sadness there is the filming of clouds, we wanted to use things similar to this but develop them so we used time lapse to enhance this shot this was also the same for shots in the same video like the slight crossfading of smoke over performance shots we developed this by crossfading different things over performance shots for a longer time to exaggerate the blending and links between shots. Summertime Sadness also uses shadows which we used in our later performance shots gaining inspiration from the effect the manipulated lighting makes on the artist and background. When we showed our first draft to our peers it was commented on, without prompt, that our video was clearly based on a Lana Del Rey video, showing we were using conventions effectively, and that to make it even more obvious we should exaggerate and include more performance shots.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
(refer to your audience feedback, refer to your research, what conventions did you find and use? what conventions did you challenge?)
I tried to keep a consistent theme between the music video, digipak and magazine advert. In my research, particularly Lana Del Rey, I found that consistency between products can make the artist recognisable over a variety of mediums whether this be through a signature pose or advertising effect. To do this I took note of certain things we did in the video that made it effective and carried this on to my ancillary products. We altered the visual effect of the video as a whole by adding a sepia tone and adjusting the saturation to achieve a shot that was rustic and aged but you could still see the bold red lipstick, with obvious connotations. In my magazine advert I manipulated the saturation of the whole document which changed the effect of all the images, I then used the rubber tool to make the lips return to a bold red, in my advert I added more of a tea stain effect with the sepia using the colour picker tool and brush as I thought this would be more effective, indie and raw in a magazine. I again added the sepia tone for the front and back cover of my digipak which shows a consistency between three products all having the consistent sepia tone and noticeable lips, a convention shown in Lana Del Rey’s videos as her plump lips become the focal point of close up shots. In our music video the artist is the focal point and we manipulated the cutting and placement of shots to exaggerate her. The artist keeps strong eye contact with the camera for the duration of the video in a usually medium shot, her long brunette wavy hair and photogenic face combined to make an easily editable and aesthetically pleasing shot, this is a convention I found in the research I did around magazine adverts shown perfectly in a Marina and the Diamonds advert. I thought our video portrayed the artist perfectly creating an instant and quite intimate recognition of the artist. The strong eye contact and bold lip colouring makes the artist seem seductive also exaggerated with the lip movement and facial expressions which is emphasised by the simple clothing and bare skin, this is a technique used by Lana Del Rey especially in the video we picked most inspiration from, Video Games. The creation of a brand identity is done, in these products, by the close and raw shots to remove the distance between the artist and the audience as the audience will feel closer to the artist who is being newly introduced in a way of getting to her know her as she is “there for the taking” as it may seem she looks quite vulnerable. I challenged the convention shown by Lana Del Rey and Marina and the Diamonds who had just one photo in their advertisements by creating a collage for my magazine advert. As I am introducing “Bliss” as a new artist I wanted to exaggerate her personality and portray this to the audience. I decided to create the collage for the magazine advert rather than the digipak because as the advert is revealing the artist but the digipak is probably only looked at when the audience have bought the album. Using a collage allowed me to piece pictures together to show different sides of her personality, I combined laid back and posed shots to create an overall concept that the artist is relatable yet legitimate. In the video we changed the saturation to darker nearer to the end where the relationship was fading out, this emphasised the narrative of the piece, in the ancillary tasks I used brightness to lighten the sepia tone to make the artist look more attractive to the audience instead of being possibly dull if I had of carried on the darker sepia tone this was a small change between pieces to make them fulfill their individual function but join to become an effective combination.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
(when did you engage audience feedback (first draft), what were the results of your feedback? how did you change your products based on this feedback? what did your audience feel about your final product?)
I have learnt that the audience feedback is invaluable in the editing process particularly as the video includes our own ideas, concepts and a created narrative I think we were too involved to judge if it worked and would be understood by an audience. We knew what we were trying to portray and spell out to the audience but we needed to ensure this was being readily received. When showing our audience the first draft we received the feedback that there was, at some points, confusion with the narrative. For example some people said “it’s not clear at the end that they’re splitting up” and “some of the random shots are too random and obscure”. It was also commented on that there “needed to be performance shots throughout the whole video” as they were “really pretty”. In the next week we filmed a break up scene, more performance shots and removed random shots such as the spinning chair. We filmed a whole different kind of performance shot as we thought the beginning performance shots wouldn’t fit with the fast paced part of the song. We put Amy in a dimly lit cupboard and used a torch on her face as she sung the song and we filmed a medium/close up shot. The light created shadows and exposed her red lips and facial expressions more clearly, in filming a whole new lot of performance shots we ensured we had no lip syncing problems with the faster pace. The performance shots made it obvious that the artist was the focus despite the narrative, it meant she was more obviously the artist of the song and allowed the audience to recognise this. We also filmed a more exaggerated break up scene and asked our actors to use body language to show their hostility towards each other, they stood far apart and used hand movements whilst arguing and PJ stormed off at the end. In particular the storming off part made it obvious there had been a falling out, this made the shots such as the reverse driving of the car and flashbacks to when it could be seen things weren’t as they seem and had changed more understandable. We filmed some close ups of Amy flicking her hair and looking displeased that we could put in to add the artist expression and emotion towards the narrative of them breaking up. On my ancillary texts I received feedback commenting mainly on things I needed to add to make the pieces more professional looking, I added the “Download on iTunes” and “Amazon” badges to show how the audience could purchase and access the album. I also added some short and snappy reviews from credible sources, I didn’t want to overpower the advert with this as I wanted to stress this artist is Indie and is doing it for the music not for money or popularity but it did need some recognition. To make the advert still look raw and indie I put the reviews in a more scrawly font to coincide with the tea stained effect, so, the piece looks authentic and like someones wrote their review instead of it being typed which looks more manufactured. My Digipak needed production credits to again look more professional, I also put a question on my feedback form asking whether they thought I should keep the front and back cover sepia or the whole book, it was unanimously decided that it should remain just the front and back cover that should be sepia.
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
(list and evaluate the different uses of technology during this project)
vegas - crossfade, speed up, camera - time lapse, blogger, photoshop - colour to red lips, sepia brightness contrast quality trickier than word had to get used to layers and ability to manipulate, overall effect and what thought
To create the desired effects in our music videos we used a variety of media technologies. In the construction phase we used techniques with our camera and edited these in Sony Vegas to create the overall effect. For example when filming we used time lapse by facing the camera towards the sky and formatting time lapse so it took loads of photos of the clouds, and when edited together this made a short montage of moving clouds perfect for our video and the representation of time. In the editing process we used a variety of techniques on Sony Vegas such as cross fading, quick cuts of different shots in a sequence and speeding up or slowing down shots. We crossfaded object shots with performance ones such as the rose and Amy singing on a bench to contrast the colouring and show the link between the two. To do this we placed the shots over each other on the timeline and altered the opacity to create two shots into the one. To exaggerate our song title and overall message ‘Time’ we sped up and slowed down shots, we slowed down the picking of petals but sped up the car shots. To do this we right clicked the specific shot and changed the properties to speed up the shot we increased the number to 4 or to slow it down we changed the number to -0.5. This made our video thorough, it showed that we had properly thought into the narrative, message and content of our video by piecing everything together to create a theme running through the video of ‘time’. We found this video much easier to edit using our skills gained from previous projects, we added all our individual skills to the video by taking it in turns to edit and apply the different techniques such as opacity, cross-fading and quick cut sequences. This video was easier to edit as we made it more into sections and had much more thorough planning which allowed us to edit efficiently and constantly rather than stopping to do more filming or re-work certain things. We thought much more practically in the planning process and were realistic about what we could do as we had previously found we tried to do too much for the time and resources we had. We used Blogger to showcase our improvements and how our product was developing, starting right from the beginning we showed all our planning on our blog and then tied it together in a concept, we showed all our planning on Blogger and then kept up to date posting our developments in the editing stage for example. When we finished making our music video we could look at Blogger and see how our video had come together and formed from different parts to be a whole. In photoshop I added an sepia effect to the overall product then using the rubber tool to add/return the colour to the lips, I am really pleased with the effect this created and I think I followed all my planning and influences from researching indie conventions. Photoshop as a programme is much more complex than programmes I am used to using such as Microsoft Word for this reason I had to spend a lot of time looking for tutorials on the internet and practising things with pictures before actually creating the product. I needed to adapt to the use of layers and how to manipulate the image effectively by getting to grips with the different tools. The most difficult effect I added was shadowing one of the collage poses, this was to make it edgy and not a simply plain collage that could look quite manufactured. To make it indie I wanted to make it different and on first look you would not see this shadow but when you do you realise there is more to the image than meets the eye. I think this followed everything I had initially stated about how independent artists advertise and conventions I had seen by Lana Del Rey, Marina and the Diamonds or Nina Nesbitt. Although I wanted my image to look gritty and raw so I made it look tea stained for example, I also wanted the product to be professional and so I decided to manipulate the brightness and contrast of the whole piece to add recognition to what could otherwise be seen as an amateur product.
