‘How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?’

In the early stage in the development of my media project, I relied primarily on online media, viz. Google and YouTube, for gathering research on music videos. I used Google to look into the conventions of music videos and to learn about things such as three-point lighting. It was invaluable when I moved on to research the ancillary texts as Google Images was incredibly useful in displaying a vast selection of existing media products from which I could take inspiration and note the technical methods used.

YouTube was hugely useful in the research stage of the project as it allowed me to view an extensive library of actual music videos. This afforded me the opportunity to look for videos of the same genre as my chosen track and note the conventions of that particular genre. I was able to look at the camera techniques, the pace of editing, the choice of colour palette and the mise-en-scene in videos in order to gain awareness of the requirements of an authentic music video.

When moving on to planning the music video, I used Facebook in order to communicate with those involved in the project. I used the site to inform my actor about what we would be doing each day of filming. It was a valuable tool of communication that helped me co-ordinate the production schedule and keep to my timetable. When, fairly late into the development process, I was dealt with the bad luck of my actor no longer being available, it proved an indispensable technology, giving me the ability to sort myself out with a replacement performer. Had I been without Facebook, finding a back-up actor, and, by extension, completing my video, would have been a much more uncertain prospect.

A vital technology in the production of the video was the camera. Having already used the cameras at AS and GCSE, I was competent in the use of the technology and I felt that, in this project, what I was able to get on film was much closer to what I had imagined than in either of those projects. In the previous projects, my lack of complete competence with the technology hindered the realization of what I had envisioned. This time, however, I felt much more comfortable using the camera and saw it as a tool to create something good rather than a complex machine to be managed. Skill with the technology was demanded in this project due to the fact that I was working on my own and did not have someone else to rely on for competence in this area. In the scenes in which I was lip-synching, I had to manage simultaneously filming and performing.

The other piece of filming equipment I utilized was the tripod, which I also became confident in the use of. I remained conscious of the need to vary the height of angles and it became second nature to repeat shots experimenting with different angles. I think that this year I have become much more skilled with the camera equipment, having used a greater variety of angles, as well as becoming more conscious of shot composition, something that I think I’ve done especially well. I will admit that what I’ve not done well at all is camera movement. I have none in the video and it suffers as a result. This was mainly due to simply forgetting to do it, which happened because so much of my shots were spontaneously filmed. If I had stuck to my storyboards I would have movement but since I almost completely ignored them (not out of laziness or other reasons like that, but because I found it more productive to film the way I did) all of the video’s shots are stationary.

A technology that was central to the production of the video was the Apple Mac that I worked on. Being used to Microsoft PCs, working on a Mac was, even after doing so since Year 11, not completely natural to me and unfamiliarity with programs and tools provided me with obstacles in the development process. Nevertheless, I was able to manage and I definitely think that this year I have become a great deal more competent with the Mac, ostensibly due to the solo nature of my work, which called for a high degree of confidence in using the system.

The principal program I used to produce my work was Final Cut Express. Having used the program to make my AS and GCSE pieces, I had a good level of experience with which I could confidently create my A2 work. Even so, over the course of the project, I have learnt a good deal more about the program and have been far more adventurous in making the video. Having complete directive and creative control over the project lead to me experimenting with different tools, the colour corrector especially.

Due in equal parts to a greater amount of time spent on working on the video, a higher level of competence, and the desire to make the video more authentic, I have created a video with far more edits than my GCSE piece. Spending more time on the video gave me time to meticulously adjust the pacing once I had the basic video completed. At GCSE, because I spent less time making the video, I was left with a video with a very rudimentary level of editing. My improved competence with the program meant that my editing was of a much higher standard. This was also partly caused by my conscious attempt to make my video as authentic as it could be, as a genuine video has much pacier editing than can be seen in my GCSE video.

For the production of my ancillary texts, I used Photoshop. This was the first time I had used the program but I feel that I became confident with using it and was able to learn how to use all of the features in order to create a good set of supporting materials. I was initially frustrated with using the program as I had no idea how to import images. After I got past this, I was then confronted with the problem of adding other images and text on top. I found myself annoyed with how the added layers would disappear, not move or generally act strangely. In time, however, I learnt how to use the program effectively and was ultimately not held back by my early incompetence.

While I was using Photoshop to create the ancillary texts, I used Google to find necessary images, namely a barcode, some record company logos and an iTunes logo. I had also used the site when researching existing CD covers and print adverts. I also used Photoshop to add text to the images. I spent time trying out various fonts and seeing how it looked with different filters and effects. I found a text type that suited the style I was looking for and used the available effects to make it a little blurry, to fit with the images.

When it came to the evaluation stage of the project, the first media technology I used was Microsoft Excel, which I used to process the information from my audience feedback. I organized the information and used it to make graphs, which helped me visualize how successful I had been in making my video. I used the graphs in my evaluation to help illustrate where I had and had not been successful.

One of my many graphs

For part of my evaluation, I used my YouCam webcam to film myself talking about my audience feedback. This was not the first time I had used the technology and I felt that using it would help make my evaluation less text heavy and add some variety to the forms of media I used. I recorded my seven-minute video and uploaded it directly onto YouTube, posting it to my channel.

The media technology that I used constantly from the beginning of the research stage until the end of the evaluation was WordPress. I had maintained a blog at AS but it was not until this year that I began to take a pride in keeping my blog up to date and at a high standard. I admit that my AS blog was quite lacklustre and did not fully document the development process of the film opening. I was determined this year to keep my blog frequently updated and to write much more about the research I had done and the production process. I think that I have achieved that as I have posted far more posts this year compared to last year and they have been of a higher standard, being longer, more in-depth, and not being all text.

During the research stage, I used WordPress to talk about what I had been looking at and what it had taught me. I made posts about music videos that I had seen and discussed the techniques they used and what I could apply to my video. I made posts talking about the ancillary texts and showed examples, thinking about what I could learn from them. In the development stage, I used the site to post about how I had progressed, talking about how the video was coming along. I also posted my progress on the supporting materials, with screenshots showing how much I had done.

I really feel that my A2 blog is a major improvement on last year’s blog. I have maintained it to a better standard, keeping an extensive media library full of images and organizing my posts into easily identifiable categories.

In the final stage of the project, I used WordPress to post my evaluation. Using the site for this was helpful as I could look back on my previous posts and be reminded of things that had influenced me that I could mention in the evaluation. I could also use my media library to post images of these influences, as well as examples of real media products.

I think that this year I have used a great deal more media technologies than at AS. Throughout all stages of development, I have referred to many different technologies in order to better research, plan, develop and evaluate. In addition to the technologies I relied on last year, namely Google, YouTube, WordPress and Final Cut, I have used new technologies to create a far better piece of work.

‘What have you learnt from your audience feedback?’

Thankfully, the response to the quality of the video was largely praiseful

My handling of the narrative was not as well received.

Most of the main themes in the video could be detected.

The feedback confirmed what I thought about the video’s target audience.

‘How effective is the combination of your main media product and ancillary texts?’

When creating my ancillary texts, I considered it to be of great importance to make sure that their style was consistent with that of my primary media piece. I had to consider the text that I used, the colour palette and the composition and content of the images themselves.

In fitting with the dark and dispirited tone of the video, I decided to use a limited colour palette consisting mainly dark, cold colours. This also fit with the visual tone of the video, which featured a lot of dark shots and had been colour-corrected in order to homogenize the bleak tone. While researching, I saw that most CDs and adverts carry the same visual tone as the video(s) they promote, an example being Pink’s Blow Me (One Last Kiss) (2012), the single cover for which fits with the classical cinema style of the track’s video, with the colour and text style reflecting the style of the video.

CD cover

In order to best keep with the look of the video, I took stills from the video to use as both the CD and advert images. I think that this, while it was easy to do, was not the lazy way out and in my research I noticed that many CD covers use images that have either been taken from the video or that have been taken separately but made to look like something from the video. One such example would be Katy Perry’s album Teenage Dream (2010), which uses an image recognizable from the video for California Gurls (2010). I also noticed how very often the advert would use the same, or similar, image as the CD cover. This is why I used the same image for both the advert and the CD back cover. This is often done for commercial reasons, as people will recognize the CD from the advert. Again, Perry’s album is proof of this, as the advert for Teenage Dream uses the same image as the CD cover.

CD cover

Advert

When choosing which image to use as the front cover, I wanted one without the character in my video in it. This was because he only appears in the video for that particular song and, as I had made an E.P., I didn’t think that having him on the front cover would be a realistic thing to do as the cover should reflect the entire E.P., not just that one song. I chose instead to use a still showing a phone box at night. It had some of the glowing effect that I had been looking for. The other tracks on the E.P. are fairly similar in tone to Lonely Soul and, had they had music videos, I imagine they would be similar in visual tone as well, so as long as the CD packaging reflected the tone of the video, I felt that I had done a good job of making CD art that worked as a package for all of the tracks. I knew that this was important because all good music releases have package art that reflect the tone of the tracks. For instance, the artwork for M83’s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (2011) fits with the feel of each song, with both the text style and the colour complementing the spacey, surreal feel of the tracks. There are no tracks on the album with which the artwork does not fit.

When working on the ancillary texts, I felt it important that they convey the themes of the video. As I believed that the E.P. as a whole would carry the themes of my particular track, the art for the E.P. should make those themes, if only subtly, visible. The album art for Green Day’s American Idiot(2004), for example, is visually reminiscent of propaganda art, subtly referencing the album’s themes of disillusionment with society and the state.

Art designer Chris Bilheimer took inspiration from communist propaganda in order to convey the album’s themes.

For my E.P., I needed to reference the themes of loneliness and isolation, as well as bringing across the urban imagery that I used heavily in the video. I thought that the phone box shot was ideal as it shows the subject, here an inanimate construction, glowing alone in darkness, which I thought worked especially well to convey the sense of loneliness in the song. Also, of course, it shows an urban location, fulfilling the need for urban imagery to be present.

Inside the CD booklet, I used stills of birds, which I thought worked well to convey the theme of escapism, as birds are very free creatures. The images I used in the booklet are each very simple and minimalist, which I meant to show the themes of isolation and loneliness. By having images with very little in frame, they present visually the isolation of the video’s protagonist, which, as I have said, is a theme I planned to be present throughout the E.P.

I thought the lone bird could help convey both the themes of loneliness and escapism.

The simple composition of the booklet shots I think assisted in the conveyance of the theme of isolation.

One thing that I did to link my primary work with the ancillary texts was to include the artistic references of the video. I had used references to both Edward Hopper and J.M.W. Turner in the video to help bring across the themes of loneliness etc. and to show effect that the music-writing has, respectively. Having decided that the themes of isolation, loneliness and urban entrapment were more central to the E.P. as whole, with the escapism theme being specific to Lonely Soul, I chose to run with the Hopper references in the E.P. artwork. This can be seen on the front cover, which I selected partly because of the glowing effect of the light in darkness, a common aesthetic feature in Hopper’s works, as can be seen in Drug Store (1927), for example.

Drug Store (1927)

I still included limited reference to Turner, however, by using one of my sky shots in the booklet. It was not one of the vividly coloured ones that I had because I had to maintain a harmonized colour palette throughout the E.P. art but the reference exists in the subject of the sky, a prominent feature in Turner’s works.

Rocky Bay with Figures (c.1830)

Ultimately, I feel that my main media product and ancillary texts work well in combination, as both the CD cover and advert bear visual similarities to the video and the themes of the video are visibly, if only subtly, present. Visual consistency between the two is a measure of success and, as they do aesthetically complement one another, I think that I have created two sets of media that work well in unison as commercial products.

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

When developing my video, I was conscious of ensuring to adhere to the conventions of the genre of my track. I decided that I could play with the conventions of some elements of my video but, for the sake of creating something that was still identifiable as an authentic piece of media, I should be mindful of the need to fulfil certain requirements of a music video. These conventions ranged from very basic technical things such as the style of editing to more complex details such as artistic references and the control of the product’s colour palette.

Given the nature of the track I chose to work with, the conventions of its genre are more unclear compared to a more mainstream song whose genre is plainly visible. Lonely Soul (1998) falls under several categories in terms of its genre so when considering my obligations towards fulfilling the conventions of the genre, there was much room for interpretation. The track, specifically categorized, would be labelled as Trip Hop. This genre is primarily a mix of electronica and downtempo with elements of hip hop (manifested in this particular track in its looped drum rhythm), but given the experimental character of the genre, individual trip hop tracks can be vastly dissimilar from each other and when approaching this task, there was no clearly defined set of requisites that I had to fulfil.

Having said this, the song carries a very strong tone and feel so I felt it a necessity to construct a video that complemented this. The track has a very dark and eerie tone so obviously there were confines as to what tone I could compose in the video. I felt that there were themes within the lyrics that I should present in the video. When researching existing videos, I saw that there were some videos in which the narrative was very closely linked with the song’s lyrics, with the video telling the same story as the lyrics, only visually. I also saw videos in which the narrative was completely detached from the narrative of the lyrics. Another significant portion of the videos I researched included a video narrative that, while not a direct translation from that of the lyrics, does carry the mood that the lyrics create. One such video would be Accidentally in Love (2004) by Counting Crows.

The video presents a different narrative to that of the lyrics but still retains the feel of the song. Something similar to this that many videos use is a narrative that has been constructed from the lyrics that do not tell a full story. The lyrics will not have a narrative that one could extract and are rather simply the basis for a narrative that is shown visually in the video. I would give Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die (2011) as an example. The song’s lyrics do not, in themselves, fully present a narrative. The video takes the lyrics and constructs a narrative from them.

This convention was one that I chose to adhere to. In my video, the narrative I constructed centred around my protagonist, who is a lonely and isolated individual, and involved him experiencing music, specifically the listening to and writing of it, as a means of escapism. This is not what is told through the lyrics. They merely gave me a base on which to build a narrative. Some of the lyrics reflect parts of the narrative I created, helping to hold the two together as a cohesive whole. For instance, the words ‘let your mind drift and get out of this place’ fit with the theme of escapism in the narrative and obviously ‘God knows you’re lonely souls’, ‘I’m a lonely soul’ etc. fit with the themes of loneliness and isolation.

During the production and development of my video, there were many conventions in regard to the technical side of the process that it was necessary I use. Through my research, I gathered knowledge on what these were, paying attention to established ways of using camera angles, lighting and editing. Though these may seem to be very fundamental elements within a music video, the nuances of their implementation reflect numerous things about the genre. A more sentimental love song would likely use a slower pace of editing, as can be seen in Gabrielle Aplin’s Home (2012), which has a slow, steady editing pace that complements the serene tone of the song.

Rap or dance music, on the other hand, generally use a much more energetic and pacing style of editing. One example of this would be Headlines (2011) by Drake, a very briskly edited video. The video’s fast editing fits both with the pace of the song and with what one would expect from that genre of music.

The editing therefore falls under both the categories of technical requirement and convention. Making sure that I had used it to a good standard was simply a technical aspect of the production process and controlling it and keeping it consistent (until the climax, where I purposely quickened the editing) was just part of making a good video. My control over the editing could also let me fulfil the conventions of the genre, helping me adhere to the conventions of real media products.

The same was true with the camerawork. While storyboarding and filming, I was aware of the need to keep the cinematography to a high standard while simultaneously thinking about how I could use it for the purpose of reflecting the feel of the video. Real music videos have certain conventions in regards to camera angles and shot composition. If the video is for a mainstream pop artist, there will almost certainly be a lot of focus on the artist, including many close-ups. Looking at videos for some tracks that were more like my song, I saw no examples of this and the focus was usually more on the narrative rather than the performers. This could be attributed to the fact that my genre is mainly practised by DJs/solo producers who are not frontman material and therefore do not feature as prominently in their videos. For example, the artist of my chosen track, Unkle, is a two-man outfit and neither of them perform vocally in their music. Instead, they often employ guest vocalists. These guests may be focused on in a similar way to an artist starring in their own video. Another note about performers is that, generally, the more famous and popular they are, the more they will be focused on, as video directors realize the value of the artists themselves as a selling point. An artist such as Rihanna will feature extensively in videos of her songs, evident here in the video for Diamonds (2012), in which she appears in almost every shot.

Contrarily, a musical group where the performers/musicians themselves are not as focal will be focused on less, with more attention paid towards the narrative, an example being Crystal Ball (2006) by Keane, which is a very narrative-driven video with less focus on the band. I felt that my guest vocalist would not suit being as focal as Rihanna is and decided that I wanted a strong element of performance in my piece to reflect this.

One convention of high-standard music videos is the use of lighting and colour in such a way that they assist in the construction of the videos’ themes. When planning the use of lighting in my video, I wanted to ensure that it helped me present the themes that I wanted to be in the video. I thought that having the character poorly lit would help show his invisibility in the world. Something similar was done in the film One Hour Photo (2002, dir. Mark Romanek), in which the protagonist’s clothing has been carefully selected to make him blend in to the surroundings, for the purpose of presenting the very same thing that I was trying to.

I also thought that having him well lit would help highlight him in the shots where he is on his own, thereby highlighting the matter of his isolation. My finished video has many examples of both techniques, as well-lit locations were more ideal for having him poorly lit and darker locations provided an excellent opportunity to light him well.

I felt that shots like this reflected the character’s invisibility in the world.

While researching other videos, it was evident that the colour palette is controlled both for the sake of visual consistency and in order to support the tone of the videos. Conscious control over my video’s colour palette allowed me to amplify the tone I created in the video. Through both a careful consideration in the locations I used and post-production visual correction, I tried my best to harmonize the colour palette for aesthetic consistency. I also attempted to weaken the colour in a number of shots because I thought they looked too vibrant for the overall tone of the video, which I thought obliged a bleaker visual tone. The song clearly has a dark, dispirited tone that would best be accompanied by a colour palette consisting of greys, blues and other cold, sombre hues. A controlled colour palette can be seen in Unkle’s Be There (1999), which has a strong green tint to its colour palette, used to augment the slightly strange feel of the video and add to the sense of uneasiness.

I strove to maintain a minimalist colour palette to reflect the tone of the song.

Such dolorously coloured shots I think help sustain the video’s tone.

A convention that is used in many, but not all, music videos is the use of references towards other works. A video may reference a certain painting, film, book etc., for a wealth of different reasons. In the particular case of my video, I made the decision to reference the works of American painter Edward Hopper. His paintings generally present lonely figures in urban environments, something that clearly fits perfectly with what I was hoping to show in my video. Referencing his works helps the themes of those works show in the video. By creating shots reminiscent of particular paintings, a visual comparison is drawn between those scenes and mine and the video calls to mind the Hopper paintings along with all of the reactions they evoke. I attempted to mirror the tone of these paintings through shot composition and lighting. While filming, I was looking to compose shots so as to draw a visual comparison with them and I positioned my actor in such a way that he was isolated in a similar fashion to their subjects. Many of Hopper’s works, Nighthawks (1942) and Automat (1927) to name but two, feature a strong use of light, with numerous works displaying the glowing effect of light amid darkness. Again, re-creating the aesthetics of such works links my video the mood evoked in those works.

Nighthawks (1942)

Automat (1927)

Drug Store (1927)

The stark composition of Hopper’s paintings can be seen replicated in other media works. The film Collateral (2004, dir. Michael Mann) in one scene shows the principal characters by themselves at a petrol station. The shot’s composition and lighting are both reminiscent of such paintings. Mann may have been consciously imitating these works for the purpose of showing that, like the subjects of Hooper’s paintings, the two characters are alone and insignificant. Indeed, late in the film, Vincent remarks upon this, saying ‘millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, and a speck on one in a blink. That’s us, lost in space…who notices?’.

Recurring subjects of Hopper’s works are urban locations. Almost always presented as grim and comfortless, I decided to reference the paintings in order to reinforce the idea in my video of urban locations being melancholy and restrictive. I included myriad shots showing hard, grey urban locations in order to show this and composed certain shots similarly to certain paintings in order to conjure the same mood that they create.

Manhattan Bridge Loop (1928)

Approaching a City (1946)

I also referenced, to a lesser extent, the works of J.M.W. Turner. I thought that the vivid colours of paintings such as The Slave Ship (1940) and The Fighting Temeraire (1838) would act well to contrast with the bleakness in the rest of the video. I felt that the colours could demonstrate visually the significance of the protagonist’s progression into writing music as as a form of escapism. The intensely coloured shots are to the rest of the shots as the song-writing is to the protagonist’s life. I tried to obtain shots aesthetically reminiscent of Turner paintings, primarily through filming skies at the time of day when they are most vividly coloured.

The Fighting Temeraire (1838)

The Slave Ship (1840)

References to art can be found easily in other media products. In the video for Nick Cave’s Where the Wild Roses Grow (1995), Kylie Minogue is presented in a way very visually evocative of Millais’s Ophelia (1852). In this particular case, the reference may have been included to foreshadow the ending of the video, because, as the painting shows Ophelia in her last moments before drowning, it hints at the death of Minogue’s character at the end of the video.

Ophelia (1852)

In the video for Madonna’s Vogue (1990), a number of references are made towards golden-era cinema, chiefly through the replication of the lighting and composition of iconic Hollywood images. Here, references are being used mainly as a homage to other media but could arguably be to create a comparison between Madonna and iconic Hollywood actresses.

I think that ultimately, my video adheres to set conventions much more than it challenges them. During all stages of production I was more concerned with creating a media piece that was authentic and looked like a genuine music video than challenging the conventions of music videos. I was perhaps a little worried that if I disregarded certain conventions, it would harm the authenticity of my video. I feel that what I have done is produce a music video that effectively fulfils the conventions of both music videos in general and of its specific genre. While my video may thus be a little conventional, not pushing any boundaries, it works well as an independent music video, something that I can be pleased with.