Ancillary Task

Our whole grouped worked together to decide what to put in the Digi pack, we had an idea of doing a picnic on the Grand piano - however, we ran out of time so decided to use the pictures we took in the photo shot at the Miniature train station. We wanted to keep to the patriotic colour scheme in the Digi pack.

Then Jack and I picked some photos from this photo shot and put them jaggedly on a black background so that the brightness (also enhanced by me altering the saturation) would stand out - illustrating her personality. 

Nadine Board retake Evaluation

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

 Two conventions we used:

1. Mise-En-Scene

Kate Nash (Foundations)

We took the idea of giving inanimate objects characteristics from Kate Nash's music video - 'Foundations'. Using this convention gives our artist the same quirky image illustrated in Kate Nash's videos and makes the horrors she is singing of about the world naive and childish - making it amusing rather than sad.

2. Filming

Vanessa Carlton (A Thousand Miles)

We took inspiration from Vanessa Carlton in shots to emphasise that she plays the piano.

We got ideas of camera angles from the piano used in the video as we wanted to include quite a bit of piano to show that she is a talented musician rather than just a singer.

Our emphasise of the piano is a convention of indie music as it is a symbol of independence, talent and shows the audience that all of the music is the that artist - they write, play and sing their own music. It demonstrates that they are their music.

Two conventions we developed:

1. Mise-En-Scene

Roger Sanchez (Another Chance)

 We took the physical heart that the female character carries - this develops our idea of making the lyrics literal.

We have developed it as the heart is used in Roger Sanchez's video to make the audience feel sympathy for the character. Whereas, in our video, it is used to make the lyrics more literal and portray a naivety in our artist. The placing of the paper heart suggests another reading of what she is seeing - the male is looking at another girl's chest. It also carries on the happy tone to the song.

2. Mise-En-Scene

Kate Nash

 +

Lilly Allen (The Fear)

  

 

For the train station sequence we had our artist in a blue dress with red bows with a belt to show off her curves and red, white and blue shoes to fit in with the patriotic colour scheme (British flag). This also fits in with our very English orientated music video (cup cakes, miniature railway and English singer). The idea of using tights was from Lilly Allen as it makes the short length of the dress less voyeristic and sexual. We had our Artist's hair down with the fringe clipped back. We kept it looking natural but putting the fringe up showed confidence by showing her face. This hair style was also used in the performance sequence but she wore a plain blue dress with silver shoes. The heels show her feminine side. The dresses were both high cut so not to show cleavage (a convention that we picked up from Kate Nash), this - like the tights - stopped the actress from appearing too sexual or voyeristic. it is one main colour straight down (another convention we got from Kate Nash) so that she stands out, one big block of colour is more eye catching (this is also something that The Queen of England does) but we added a belt (or in the performance the dress tightened with a bow) to give her some shape and add a splash of colour.

Two conventions we challenged:

1. Mise-En-Scene

Vanessa Carlton (A Thousand Miles)

Vanessa Carlton has multiple scenes but spends the whole video performing on a grand piano whereas we wanted to keep it quite simple and didn't have a need for more setting tan we had. We only needed one to tell the story (miniature train station), one for performance (hall) and we added one to give it a bit more variety (white wall background).

We also differed in who was in the performance shots. Whenever our artist in shown performing there was no one else in the room - this was to show that she likes to play for herself, as she enjoys it. Rather than for a living and to get a message across, as shown in Vanessa Carlton's video.

Another way we challenged the conventions seen in Vanessa Carlton's music video is through the chosen narrative. We wanted to use a proper storyline as we and the active audience had thought this was more entertaining. It also gave us an opportunity to illustrate out artist's quirky side.

2. Editing

The Kooks (You Don't Love Me)

Throughout the music videos there is a lot of black and white - this is mainly due to the fact that they have not got a storyline but a "behind the scenes" video where everything looks candid whereas all of ours is obviously deliberately posed (this is partially to challenge Mulvey's theory that women are under the male gaze - watched unknowingly - and make her appear strong). All of ours is in colour to emphasise our artist's quirky side and bright personality. In our post-production process we altered the saturation, contrast and brightness to make the scenes appear as bright as possible which is a complete contrast to their turning some of the scenes into black and white.

HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?

A video of my answer 




HOW EFFECTIVE IS THE COMBINATION OF YOUR MAIN PRODUCT AND ANCILLARY TASKS?


Answer - Part 1
Answer - Part 2




WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT FROM AUDIENCE FEEDBACK?


Annotated video of audience comments
I annotated this video from feedback from a video I posted on Facebook and Youtube and a questionnaire in our Sixth Form. The questionnaire was sent out to students aged 16 - 18 and comments on Facebook range in ages from 15 - 48 years. We got a lot of positive feedback and very little negative - all of which are annotated in the video above.
We had received audience feedback throughout the editing stage of post-production and this helped us in our creativity and to make the music video as entertaining as possible, it also helped us keep the video appropriate for our target audience.

Nadine Board's retake music video

This is my final music video

I didn't feel that I needed to make much change to my original piece. I contacted the real artist, Josephine Vander Gucht, to see what she thought and if she could see any room for improvement:
"I love the video, it's really great. I love the train! such a good idea...it all looks pretty good and perfect timing!! Really great shots."
However, there was a bit at the beginning where our Jose is jumped up the train station and the angle changes through it. This didn't look right so I re-did it but using footage from the same take so that I wouldn't have a problem with continuity. This was very difficult as I found that we did not have enough footage and it was very dark but I managed to get it all in by jumping her smaller distances then in the original and changing the saturation, brightness and contrast on all of the cuts.

Ideas on Front Cover

If I have the artist on the front cover then she will be looking at the camera. I want to stay away from this idea of voyerism and subjecting the artist.
I will use the original artist's stage name. I want to keep her appearing "normal" but Josephine Vander Gucht does not fit the image we have created for her, and it sounds too foriegn to use as we have a British themed preffered reading. 'Jose' is a common nickname for Josephine, girly and bubbely.
I like the doodle and so might include that.
I want to incorporate the dreamy, childish niavety from the music video into the digi pack. As it is an English theme I could have the artist having a picnic.
I need to include instruments (guitar/piano) somewhere in the digi pack to show that she is a performance artist and loves to play. I could maybe look back at the idea of having a picnic on the piano.

research for digi pack

In research for my digi pack I have been looking at the two atrists that inspired our artist's image; Kate Nash and Lily Allen.

In Kate Nash's CD cover 'Made Of Bricks' she has the same physical image as was shown in our research - one bold colour allthe way down with a belt to define her body, hair down but styled. The dress is, again, not too revealing (from what we can see) but is still only knee length with heels to emphasise her legs.

The CD cover links to the title of the CD by including a house (Brick). The house is yellow to portray the artists' quirkness and bright personality with oversized dasies to complement this preffered reading. The horse shaped hedges, big bright coloured house and over sized dasies gives the CD cover a dream like feel which links in with our own theme and the font makes it look as if a child wrote it. This makes it appear innocent and niave - just like our own Artist image.

This CD cover for Kate Nash's 'My Best Friend Is You' again empahsises the childlike dream like image that Kate presents and that we have incorporated. The beige background of the CD cover makes it appear simple and the colage like picture makes it look as if she has made it herself and it could be made by anyone. The picture on the cover links with the title as it includes multiple hearts which is a representations for her lover for this friend. It also links as female friends often make colages together of all their photos together and this is a colage of possibly things iconic to their friendship.

Lily Allen's 'It's Not Me. It's You' CD cover is also a simple cover. It portrays her girly personality with the use of pink and her confidence in her body posture and facial expression (strong, chin up and smiling). The picture on kthe front cover did not appear to have a link to the title of the CD at first, but I realised that Lily Allen appears very happy and content. This could possibly have a reading that she is happy thinking that if someone has a problem with her or she breaks up with someone it is because of their problems - not hers. The cover catches my eye because Lily Allen is not the type of person to wear posh dresses, she is making a statment (but this is not something I want to incorporate into my digi pack as it is meant to be introducing the artist so her image needs to be made clear)

Lily Allen's 'Alright, Still' presents her to be from London but I very "common" kind of person. Her gold, big jewllery makes her appear more of a CHAV than a singer and the extra jewlery gives off the impresion that it is actually "bling". I like the doodle effect used on the cover as it potray a quirky, "normal" image which is what I want for my artist. It is very English as well, using an English cab, English police hat and the Lion wearing a crown. The speakers and records on the cover emphasises her love for music. However, it empahsises her ability to be a recording artist so I want to challenge this by using my front digi pack to protray my artist as a performance artist.



Audience Feedback

We were asking audience for their feedback on the video consistantly through out the editting process of our music video. We did this via facebook, youtube and face-to-face questionaires.
We got audience feedback through out the editing process to be sure that we were meeting the majority needs of the audience, changing a couple of the things that they had problems with.
for example:

• Where there are cross shots between the atrtist playing the piano and clapping. We had originally used quick takes switching between the same two angles but some audince said that this felt like it went on too long, it became reptative. So we changed it by adding in a mid shot from the other side of the artist (but still keeping to the 180 rule). This also had the advantage of establishing where our artst was (empty performing hall) and the instrument she was playing (a black grand piano).
• There was a scene we had near the beginning, just before the lyrics, which was of the train driving along the track but the audience said it was a bit boring. We realised from this that it was the wrong image for our artist, it made her too serious too soon, we needed something more upbeat and child-like. We changed it to the young boy waiting at the station and jumping for joy.
• Throughout the video there was different lighting (this was not on purpose, we were relying on natural lighting which of course changed through the day) and some audience said it looked wierd so I changed the saturation level on the duller scenes to make them as bright as the brighter scenes. This also helped us to further protray the artist's personality.
• However, there were some audience feedback we deliberatly did not take into account. Some thought the heart was too cheasy. This is because the majority liked it and the video was meant to be cheasy and cliche.

The fact that we have changed our music video due to audience feedback supports D. Gauntlett's theory that the audience have become a "making-and-doing culture", blurring the line between audience and producers and who has more power over the overall production - audience of producer.
Changing the music video suggests that in our production the audience have more power - this is because we want our product to appeal to their needs, otherwise it would not sell. However, I did not change the heart when given some bad feedback as it was a part of my artist's star image. On the other hand, I also did not change it because the majority gave possetive feedback on the paper heart.

In what ways does your product use, develope or chalenge forms of conventions of real media products?

Two conventions we used

1. Mise-En-Scene

Kate Nash (Foundations)

We took the idea of giving inanimate objects characteristics from Kate Nash's music video - 'Foundations'. Using this convention gives our artist the same quirky image illustrated in Kate Nash's videos and makes the horrors she is singing of about the world naive and childish - making it amusing rather than sad.

2. Filming

Vanessa Carlton (A Thousand Miles)

We took inspiration from Vanessa Carlton in shots to emphasise that she plays the piano.

We got ideas of camera angles from the piano used in the video as we wanted to include quite a bit of piano to show that she is a talented musicion rather than just a singer.

Our emphasise of the piano is a convention of indie music as it is a symble of indipendance, talent and shows the audience that all of the music is the that artist - they write, play and sing their own music. It demonstrates that they are their music.

Two conventions we developed

1. Mise-En-Scene

Roger Sanchez (Another Chance)

We took the physical heart that the female character carries - this developes our idea of making the lyrics literal.

We have developed it as the heart is used in Roger Sanchez's video to make the audience feel sympathy for the character. Whereas, in our video, it is used to make the lyrics more literal and portray a naivety in our artist. The placing of the paper heart suggests another reading of what she is seeing - the male is lookning looking at another girl's chest. It also carries on the happy tone to the song.

2. Mise-En-Scene

Kate Nash

+

Lilly Allen (The Fear)

 

We have mainly focused on creating a similar image to Kate Nash and looked at Lilly Allen in her video 'The Fear' to back up the ideas that this look is up to date.

Dyer's star theory is that "A star is an image not a real person that is constructed". We have tried to make our artist look like a 'normal' person, someone that you would expect to see on the streets. But at the same time we have "constructed" her to look modest, respectful.

For the train station sequence we had our artist in a blue dress with red bows with a belt to show off her curves and red, white and blue shoes to fit in with the patriotic colour scheme (British flag). This also fits in with our very English orientated music video (cup cakes, miniture railway and English singer). The idea of using tights was from Lilly Allen as it makes the short length of the dress less voyeristic and sexual. We has our Artists hair down with the fringe clipped back. We kept it looking natural but putting the fringe up showed confidence by showing her face.