Music Video Evaluation

2. In our group we created a promotional package that included a
magazine advert, music video and a digipack. We chose to do this on
the band Arctic Monkeys.
The Video:
In terms of camerawork our video goes against conventions of a music
video. Andrew Goodwin suggested that the main focus in the video
on the lead singer. However our video has several shots of the full
band and focuses more on the girl in the video. We decided to
challenge this convention as the song itself ‘Arabella’ is about a girl
and so this created the foundation for our video. In terms of mise en
scene we tried to follow the original video as much as possible. The
original video is shot entirely in black and white so we featured the
band shots in black and white to recreate this effect that the band had
in their video. However we also decided to have different
brightness/contrast on other shots to make them stand out as some
shots were flashbacks from the relationship between our two actors.
Furthermore we dressed our lead singer in a Harrington jacket, black
jeans and brown leather shoes. This is because our audience research
told us that the smart/casual look Alex Turner has created is what
makes him appeal to the Arctic Monkeys large fan base. Our ‘Arabella’
wore red lipstick which is synonymous with the ‘male gaze’ theory of
Laura Mulvey. We created her character as one that could be looked at
from the heterosexual male point of view as that is what the song is
about. Within our video we used a mix of high key and low key
lighting in order to in order to create a contrast that is often seen in an
indie music video. This meant that our video fit the characteristics of
its genre. Throughout our video we cut on beat to the song and switch
shots. This is another indie rock convention we followed as it is very
common within these sort of videos. We did turn certain shots in to
black and white (like the original video) however we did not include
special effects as an indie rock music video is normally very plain and
simplistic and this is what makes it effective so we therefore decided
to follow this convention.

3. The layout of our advert follows the conventions of a music advert. By placing
the band name at the top as well as the album title we have made this the initial
text that the audience will read and as we are advertising this then that is what
we want. We also place emphasis on the photo by placing it centrally and this is
very common with music adverts. The photo usually depicts something from the
album and needs to have emphasis on it. The title of the album is at eye level for
the audience allowing us to draw their attention to it. By making the magazine
‘NME’s’ rating a slightly lighter colour it allows it to stand out to the audience
and as a recognised music magazine, their rating would be trusted. Also this
allows the audience to recognise the genre the album is as this brand has heavy
connections with the indie rock genre. The advert for the Arctic Monkeys
pictured below indicates we have followed the conventions of our genre. The
image is also central and the bands name is right at the top and they both clash at
eye level meaning they are the first two things the audience sees. We followed
this in creating our advert. Also the poster features mostly black with the
background/text and the only light coming from the picture. We decided to use
this in our advert as we believe that the colour black and the darkness with a
slight showing of light represents what the genre which is the rebellion of youth.
This is emphasised even more by the fact we have a clenched fist as our photo
which is used a sign to indicate black power, power having connotations with
rebellion. When researching in to Arctic Monkeys products we found that most of
their advertisements were very plain and with little colour but this is what makes
them effective and allows people to identify their genre so we therefore decided
to follow this approach and create a poster that is simple but effective as it
communicates the genre across to the audience. We also included the record label
in the bottom right hand corner to indicate to the audience the connection
between the band and the record company ‘Domino’ who manage several bands
from the indie rock genre such as ‘The Last Shadow Puppets’ and ‘Franz
Ferdinand’.

4. Through our research we established that the most important thing on an
album cover is the colour scheme as it identifies the genre of an album. The
genre of the Arctic Monkeys is indie rock and the conventions of this are dark
colours that have connotations of rebellious youth. By including these dark
brown colours and the red bricked wall with black text we were able to
conform to these conventions. However on the last photo of a cup of tea we
challenge these conventions. This photo is taken in surroundings with high key
lighting. This contrasts to the other photos within the digipack and we did this
in order create uncertainty which is often what indie rock music is all about,
uncertainty. The layout of our digipack is very similar to our magazine advert
and we have done this to create synergy between our media products. This is a
very common convention when bands create an album. However we feel that if
we were to create our digipack again we would make changes to make it look
less like our advert to create the uncertainty within the indie rock genre so that
our digipack would communicate with our audience more. The dark colours
on the album ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ album cover
show the similarities between ours and the original Arctic Monkeys, further
showing we followed the conventions. Both our digipack and the original use
a very dark colour scheme, typical of the indie rock genre. Indie rock music is
about the music communicating to the fans on a much more personal level than
any other genre, with the bands often being very basic and close to their fan
base. Therefore we decided to have individual photos of each band member as
soon as you open the Digipack in order to make the album feel personal to the
audience and conform with the indie rock conventions.

5. Within our planning we looked in to the conventions of our genre. We decided that
we would run a colour scheme through our video and ancillary texts that would fit in
with our band, the Arctic Monkeys. The way we linked the two ancillary texts and the
music was using a dark/greyscale colour scheme having dark colours on my advert
and then using black and white band shots within the video. This shows how
effective the combination of our ancillary texts and main product is because there is
strong synergy between them as we have kept a consistency with the colour scheme.
This allows our audience to relate our video to its genre.
Our end product was a promotional package that include a Digipack, Music video
and Magazine Advert. The music video is at the forefront and is the most important
product with ancillary texts (Digipack and Advert) linking to it through features such
as the colour scheme and photography/filmography style. As we researched the
band and the indie rock genre we discovered that many videos from this genre are
filmed from the view of every day life and are plain and simple. Therefore we used
this when filming our video and filmed some of the narrative in a café as we felt this
was a typical everyday life situation and therefore fitted in with the genre. This links
to our ancillary texts because in our digipack we used the café location to relate to our
audience and every day life. We also featured a cup of tea which people would have
connotations of as being British. This creates synergy within our promotional
package.
There is a slight
inconsistency within our
promotional package.
The colours on our
Digipack are dark but
areas of it such as the
cup of tea photo is taken
in high key lighting and
contrasts to the dark
colours that we wanted
to use. This shows how
our combination may be
less effective.

6. We decided a way of keeping
synergy between the two
ancillary text was to include
the record label logo on both
of them (digipack and advert).
Not only does this keep
consistency between our
products but it also allows the
audience to relate the band to
the popular record label
‘domino’
As you can see within our two
ancillary texts and the video we
did use the dark colour scheme in
order to keep synergy between the
products. We believe this is
effective as it allows the audience
to associate our products with the
correct genre. During audience
research we discovered that a
dark and simple colour scheme
was associated with the indie rock
genre (the genre of the Arctic
Monkeys). Therefore the
combination of our main and
ancillary texts is good.

8. In order to gain all of this feedback the video was posted on a variety of social media platforms as well as YouTube
allowing people to comment or as seen on the previous slide handwrite their comments and give them to us. From
my audience feedback I have learnt that the audience enjoyed the actually narrative of our music video. The
narrative was based on a love story between a boy and a girl and this is a common occurrence in indie rock songs.
We wanted to reach out to a wide audience by doing this and many have said that they enjoyed our narrative which
indicates it was a success. Also there were many occasions where we decided to use ‘match on action’ and match the
footage with the lyrics. The audience appeared to like this as they felt it added to the flow of the narrative and I have
therefore learned that using match on action was a positive decision. However within our feedback the audience
noticed that the camera was not always stable and this therefore led to some shots not being straight. Although some
of this was done for effect it didn’t seem to have the desired effect. Therefore I feel that if I were to remake my music
video then I would take most of my shots using the tripod to ensure that the shots were fully in focus and not
shaking from side to side. Despite some of the shots not being very effective the Facebook comment indicates that
our shots were all relevant and linked to the narrative which made it blatantly clear what was happening. Also
praised was our editing and how we used different effects such as jump cuts and cutting on beats in order to
emphasises pieces of our narrative to the audience. I see this as a positive because indie rock music is about reaching
out to the audience with a relatable storyline in the song (a situation they could picture themselves in) and therefore
if he audience enjoyed the effects we used to emphasise our narrative then our video is following the conventions of
indie rock music correctly. Overall from our feedback I have learnt that in order to create a good quality music video
you need to capture the conventions of your chosen genre and then allow the audience to relate themselves to the
video. From the feedback we collected I believe this is down to how strong your narrative is as the audience need to
be able to understand but also how you edit your video is also highly important as it allows you to make your
narrative even more effective on your audience. Overall I believe that the feedback on our video was highly positive.

9. Video
We filmed all of our music video using
a cannon camera and edited it using
Adobe PremierPro. Whilst filming we
switched from using shots with the
tripod and without it to create certain
effects on certain shots. However once
we got the video in to premier we
used several tools within it to help us
edit it. We changed the speed of
several shots to make them slow
motion, which was easily done by
changing the percentage speed. In
order to match the conventions of our
genre we decided to have the band
shots in black and white. We created
this effect in premier by using the
brightness, opacity and levels tools
and changed them to give us the
perfect black and white match for our
video. After placing the video we used
the crop tool to crop the shots in order
to allow us to create effects such as
jump cuts. The final tool we used on
premier was the transition tool to
allow for smooth transitions between
some of our shots.
Digipack
The main piece of technology we
used when creating the digipack was
Adobe Photoshop. In order to meet
the dimensions of a digipack we
loaded that in to Photoshop and then
placed the images on top. We then
played around with the brightness,
contrast and levels of our images to
create colours that matched the
conventions of our genre (indie rock).
We did place the image of the café
individually in to Photoshop and edit
it on its own. We used the rubber
stamp tool in order to get rid of the
company logo on the front of the café
and to match the colours with what
we wanted. Then we imported a text
called ‘Chinese Rocks’ from Defont
and placed in Photoshop allowing us
to use it within our digipack and also
within our advert. We also use the
magic wand tool to individually cut
out each band member on the group
photo and place them on each part of
the Digipack.
Advert
Our advert was also created using
Photoshop. We gained a photo for the
advert which was taken using an
IPhone 6S. We used similar tools as
we did in the digipack when creating
the advert. We placed the image on
to a black A4 background. Once
again we changed the levels, opacity,
brightness and contrast to create dark
colours. Furthermore we imported
the Chinese Rock font from Defont
and use the text tool to write in what
we needed to. Using the text colour
picker we clicked over the image so
that the text had a similar colour to
the image therefore creating a
consistency throughout our products.
We imported the ‘Domino’ record
label to allow our audience to
associate the label to our products
and the band. The advert was the
element we did the least to so that we
could follow convention and create
something reasonably plain and
simple which is the style of indie
rock.

11. In order to know what we would put in our music video we used YouTube to
watch different videos from our chosen genre in order to capture the right
conventions. We also used survey website ‘Survey Monkey’ to find out more
about our chosen genre and got our target audience to answer the questions. This
gave us the most accurate information on our genre that we could gain. We
accessed the website on our college computers. Once we got in to group we used
social media site Facebook to create a group chat and this allowed us to share
photos of initial ideas with each other. This therefore allowed us to work more
effectively with each other as we could interact easier outside of class. I also used
YouTube to share another video. This was my interview which was vital to my
research and also my planning. I shared it on YouTube and I needed to have one
so that I could find out what my target audience would be expecting in an indie
rock music video. There is also hyperlink to this on my WordPress blog.
PowerPoint was a massive tool used in research. As we researched the genre we
created PowerPoints of primary and secondary research and also created
audience profiles on Microsoft word and then posted them to our blogs
(WordPress). To show a wider use of IT we converted the PowerPoints in to slide
shares. This shows even more technology being incorporated.

12. Initially we needed to establish what song/genre to pick so we each
picked songs and watched songs from those genres on global video site
YouTube. We also used social media site Facebook to set up a group chat
that would allow us to communicate our ideas together outside of class
making our project easier. We accessed these sites using a variety of
technologies such as Phones, computers and Ipad’s. Whilst planning
ideas we used programs on the college computers such as Adobe
Photoshop that allowed us to create ideas for our digipack and adverts.
These programs allowed us to create a more realistic design of what our
ancillary texts would like when they were completed. We then posted
our plans on blogging websites. I chose to use WordPress as I found it
easiest to use. By creating these blogs and using them throughout our
work it made it easy to display our work and also allowed it to be sorted
out easier. We drew out plans of each individual as seen in the photo of
the group chat and scanned them in to a college email to allow ourselves
to have an individual copy of them.