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DJ DES
Music Video Evaluation
Presentation
Emily Neil
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1. In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
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Goodwins Theory
In Goodwins theory he states that music videos should have these six elements:
Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics
There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
There is a relationship between music and visuals
The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the
artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.
There is frequently reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic
treatment of the female body
There is often intertextual reference
As a group we tried to add all of these elements into our music video to make it look like it
could be on MTV. I am going to go through all of these elements individually to show how we
used them throughout.
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Genre Characteristics
To see what the characteristics of the dance genre were I had to undertake lots of research. I decided that
one of the easiest ways to see the characteristics would be to go onto YouTube and look at different dance
music videos. The first thing that I noticed was lots of music videos use bright colours.
Here are some screenshots from Rihanna‟s „Rude Boy‟ music video. I thought this was a good example of the type
of feel that we wanted to portray in our music video. Throughout the video Rihanna is shown in bright colours.
Above are the screenshots that I have taken from our music video. Throughout the editing process I added lots of
different coloured filters over the footage we had to make sure that the video would obey the genre characteristics.
By adding a coloured filter over the footage I believe that gives it a retro feel that is also present in the dance genre.
The effect I added that looks like the image has been sketch also fits into how Rihanna‟s video which you see in the
center image – the use of drawn on stars and scribbles. We wanted to make our video really bright and colourful
which I believe we achieved.
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Lyrics and Visuals
The relationship between music and lyrics is present repeatedly throughout our music video. As a group we
got inspiration from other music videos of using lips singing. This supports the relationship of lyrics and
visuals because the lips are singing the lyrics.
Here is the first time we decided to make the lips sing the lyrics of our song. We decided
to split screen the footage to give it more of a dance feel. Throughout we repeated this
same sequence but changed it slightly to not make it boring. An example is below.
Here is the second sequence that I edited into our
music video. We decided to add this in because as
well as adding in the relationship between lyrics and
visuals, it also adds the characteristics of the dance
genre that need to be present.
Here is the last element we decided to add
in that applies the relationship between
music and visuals. We decided that it would
be a really good idea to add in text onto the
footage of the lyrics. We decided to do this
because most of the dance videos we
watched had lyrics popping up throughout.
Once we added in the text we really liked
how it looked so decided to keep it. One
thing that didn‟t work out was the fact we
wanted the lyrics to pop out but we couldn‟t
find an effect that we liked.
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Music and Visuals
To show the relationship between music and visuals we decided that it would be a good idea to edit the
footage to the beat of the music. To gain this we I edited lots of cuts throughout to keep the footage short and
sweet. This added a lot of impact into video and also followed the genre characteristics of the dance genre as
short jump gets are present throughout.
Here is a sequence that took me such a long time to
edit but it was so worth it. I edited the footage to
multiply into many different split screens to the beat of
the music. This was very effective as I managed to get
it dead on the beat. Once the footage has multiplied I
then made them disappear one at a time, also to the
beat of the music.
Here is the next sequence where I edited the footage
to the beat of the music. In this sequence DJ DES is
seen leaving her house to go and DJ. I‟ve repeated a
small shot over and over to the beat of the music so
she comes in and out a couple of times. I am really
happy with how this sequence worked out as it really
fits in with the genre characteristics.
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Demand of the record label
Throughout our music video we wanted to try and keep DJ DES‟ identity secret however, our video would
then not have the element: Demand of the record label. To incorporate this we decided to add some close-
ups into the video to obey the rules. Below are the shots that we decided to add into our music video. As DJ
DES is apart of Sony BMG which promote their artists on a large scale we thought that we couldn‟t go against
what they say.
“Sony Music Entertainment is a global recorded
music company with a roster that includes a broad
array of both local artists and international
superstars. The company boasts a vast catalog that
comprises some of the most important recordings in
history. It is home to premier record labels
representing music from every genre. Sony Music
Entertainment is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony
Corporation of America.”
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Notion of Looking
To incorporate notion of looking we decided to add in a shot where DJ DES would be looking in the mirror.
The first idea we had was for DJ DES to write on the mirror in lipstick. However, the first time we did this the
lighting wasn‟t great and the lipstick was too light so it was hard to see what had been written as you can see
to the left. We decided that it would be a good idea to re-shoot this again. Also, as the writing said “Make my
day” but the song didn‟t say that at that certain point we have decided to change what the lipstick will say.
Here is the re-shoot that we did and it works
so much better. We lit it well, used a bright
lipstick saying „DJ DES‟ as then it didn‟t
matter where it would be placed.
The notion of looking is presented in all the images you can see on this screen because DJ DES
is looking into a mirror. This allows the audience to see exactly what DJ DES sees. We decided to
use this shot throughout our music video e.g. when she is getting ready doing her hair and make
up. We had some spaces to fill in our music video so thought it would be a good way to fill up
some spaces. I think this shot works really well as it is different and makes the video more
enjoyable to watch. My favorite sequence when this is seen is when she is doing her make up in
the split screens. This took me a long time to edit as I had to pick out the colour of the red lipstick
and nail varnish. It was definitely worth the hard work.
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Intertextual reference
In our music video we needed to have an Intertextual reference to another media text so we started to look up
the kind of feel that we wanted our music video to have. We watched many dance tracks and got lots of
inspiration from Rihannas music videos „Rude Boy‟, „Who's that chick‟ and „You da one‟. Throughout all of
these music videos there are lots of bright colours and dance sequences so we decided to add them
throughout our music video. Also we knew that if we used some of the things we liked that are shown in
Rihannas music videos then we would be obeying by the genre characteristics of dance songs.
Below are the screen shots that I have taken from our music video that show the intertextual reference.
Below are some screen shots I took from some of Rihannas videos that we liked the best so we decided to use
them as inspiration. Also we thought that would fit in well with the style of our music video and hoped that we
would be able to create a similar kind of effect.
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2. How effective is the
combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?
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Digipak
Here are my digipaks. The reason there are two is because at first I couldn‟t decided how I wanted them to
look so I made two so I could choose between them. My teacher then gave me the idea of having two
digipaks and two posters with one being a limited edition. As our slogan is “Sleep all day, party all night” I
decided to call DJ DES‟ album “Day And Night” so to represent this in the digipak on the right I used a black
background and bright colours for the „night‟ album and then for the limited edition digipak which is on the
right I used a white background and bright colours.
When I first showed my digipaks to the class there were a couple of things that I needed to change. I had to add on
the Sony BMG copyright information and change the way the spines were as they were upside down. My digipaks
work well with our music video because they are bright and colourful. In our music video DJ DES is seen wearing a
fur coat this is why we decided to have DJ DES wearing a fur coat on our digipaks. Also another element that is
present in our music video and digipaks are the lips. This will help the target audience see the relationship between
both of them. The typography we decided to use in our music video was called „touching letters‟ so keep my digipak
looking the same I decided to use the same font in my digipak too.
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Poster
When designing my posters I thought that it would be a
good idea to look up how some promotional posters look
first. What I found to be the case was that there is an
image of the artist (normally rather large), the release
date of their upcoming album and what record label they
are apart of. This is what I decided to put on my posters.
The posters do look very similar which is what I intended
because the target audience need to know that both
posters and digipaks are for the same artists album.
Above are a couple of posters that took my
eye which I took inspiration from. I think
these posters do a good job of promoting
the artist and show the demands of the
record label.
As the poster was supposed to relate to my
digipak I decided to keep all the typography
throughout both of them the same. Also as
this font is the same in our music video as
well I thought this would be a good idea as
people could then see they relate to one
another.
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Screening
To gain audience feedback everyone in our media class had to show their music videos so
they can improve things. The week before we had to screen our videos I made sure that all
the editing was done as best as it could be and that there was no gaps. I managed to achieve
this and we had a final product to show everyone. Even though our music video was finished
we had lots of things to work on! Everyone in our class including our teacher and media
technician wrote down elements that worked and elements that needed work so we could
make the music video to the best of our ability.
Elements that worked Elements that need improving
• Really good editing • Needs to be longer
• Effects – Could add more in! • Some shots need to be cut down in length
• The ballet dancing • Writing on the mirror needs to be
• All the Split screens improved – cant see the writing clearly
• Nice props • Add in more split screens
• Costumes • The timelapse sequence when clothes
• Lips are thrown on the bed happens one too
• Animations many times
• Lip sinking
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Second Screening
We took all of our feedback on board and I edited in lots more split screens then there was originally. This
worked really well as it gave the footage a really retro feel which is what we wanted. Because we had to
delete quite a lot of footage we already had in our video it meant we had to do a lot more filming to fill up the
gaps. Also where we had to make the video longer there was quite a lot of filming to do! Where I had to add in
lots more split screens I decided to add them into the dance sequences. One of my favorite sequences is
where the footage multiplies over and over again until there are twelve little feet dancing on the screen.
Another thing we had to improve was the writing on the mirror. This before was shot with the lights of with a
very lightly colours lipstick so to improve this we decided to light it well and to use a reed lipstick. This
sequence now works really well.
Positive feedback gained from second screening:
• Clearer narrative
• Multi split screens
• Photo animation
• Lips throughout
• Works with song
• Recognisable artist
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4. How did you use new
media technologies in the
construction and research,
planning and evaluation
stages?
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New Media Technologies
Research and Planning
YouTube: YouTube helped us a lot throughout our research as we was able to look up many
different music videos really easily. This helped us to find inspirational videos of how we
wanted our video to look.
Blogger: Using blogger makes it really easy to record all of the information we gathered.
Blogger has a html element so you can add videos as well as just writing. This made it easy
to show all the different videos that we found inspirational.
Construction
Final Cut Pro: Final cut pro is the editing program that I used to edit our music video
together. Our video wouldn‟t have all the effects that it has without final cut pro as they are
from the program.
Photoshop Elements: When creating my digipak and poster I used Photoshop. Photoshop
allowed me to create things that actually look like they could promote an artist.
Mobile Phone Technology: to make sure that I danced at the right tempo of the song we
put our song onto a phone so we could play it when filming. This worked really well as all the
dancing and lip sinking are in time with the song.
Evaluation
Youtube: We had to create a YouTube account so we could upload our finished music video
to so we could gain an embed code to make it easier for us to upload it to blogger. Also this
way we can post it to social networking sites.
Blogger: Blogger helped in our evaluations because we were able to go back and look at
all of our previous posts and see all of our feedback clearly.
