A2 Music Video Analysis

ADDICTIVE
A2 Music Video
Analysis
ST MARY’S SIXTH
FORM
CHESHUNT

In what ways does your media use, develop or challenge forms
of real media products?
during the production and making of my music video I came across many different aspects
that could be challenged or incorporated into my final piece. We researched different
conventions of other music videos and researched facts, figures, and products that we
could potentially take ideas from. When looking through this research we decided to look at
certain aspects to make it easier for us to pick out key ideas and themes. These were:
 Certain links between the visual context and the lyrics of the songs
 Direct links between the music and the visual context
 Conventions of the pop genre (special effects,
 Different gazes used within the music video (male / female gaze or other views)
 How the artist is portrayed to their target audience?
 Performance / Narrative / Concept based music videos
Throughout our research we found many examples of these concepts and saw a correlation
of the same ideas in different pop music videos. From our research we ensured that we
incorporated these into our video to ensure that the product we offer is of the same quality
as established artists.
Q1

Certain links between the visual context and the lyrics of the
songs
Q1
The video that we thought really highlighted the lyrics running parallel to the
visual context was Pixie Lott – Its all about tonight. We came across this
video during our initial research of pop artists, which we recognised the
pattern between certain shots and the lyrics.
Before the lyrics in the song even
begin, we see shots of her that
suggests she is going on a night
out. Images such as her looking
into the camera with heavy eye
make up and the city mis en
scene suggests a party lifestyle.
The song begins with ‘I bought a new
pair of shoes’ and the shot is of her
walking in heels, her bare leg is
showing to suggest that she is on an
night out. This shot brings energy as
the beat of the song matches up with
her walk.
Having a link between the audio and visual not only helps push the narrative
forward but also enables the viewers to have a personal invitation into the
video, by understanding exactly what the artist means. This is something that
is used consistently throughout many pop videos, so it was something that I
used within my pop music video; you will see the following examples

Certain links between the visual context and the lyrics of the
songs “After acknowledging the clear links between the audio and visual
context, I was adamant that I would fit the conventions of the pop
genre, this is made clear within the first few shots. The lyrics of the
song are ‘But I gotta let it go’ and during the course of this line the
images flick from the young girl walking alone, to them as a couple
and then back to her being alone to symbolize her ‘letting’ go. The
blink effect used in the video gives the impression of her
remembering what happened when they were together and ends
when she is alone. The clothing she is wearing when with her
boyfriend is different to that when she is alone which suggests that
this was a different time.
Here is another example of where we linked the lyrics
with the visual, the lyrics of the song were ‘As your
shadow crosses mine’. We begun with a shadow in the
right and using cross dissolve transitions used three
shots to show it crossing over the artist
“As your shadow crosses mine”

Direct links with the music and visual
Throughout the music video I tried to incorporate a lot of shots that are synced with the
lyrics of the songs. This is something that is used a lot in our music video as it allows the
audience to recognize the narrative using the lyrics of the song.
Here you can see the young girl at a
party with a strobe light on her face.
The constant flashing images and
sunglasses show that she is having
a good time and living her life. This
shot is shown at two different times.
The lyrics of these times are ‘Shine a
light on an open door’, having a light
on her face during this line really
interacts the video with the music,
and links with the lyrics. The
following lyric it appears with is ‘
What it takes to come alive’. The
shot is shown throughout this lyric
being sung as it shows a party
lifestyle, as if the young girl is
coming ‘alive’
The second shot is shown during the
words ‘We found love in a hopeless
place’ – the arguments symbolize
the hopeless place that they are
surrounded by,

Direct links with the music and visuals
The link between the music and the visuals is not as apparent as that between the lyrics and
the visuals. It was not until I had researched previous artists did I recognize that there it is
commonly used throughout the pop genre and this is when I truly understood the effect that it
can have. I specifically remember recognizing it in the video Neyo – So sick. Neyo is a
conventional pop artist and opens his video with shots of mountains in a split screen, and
throughout the video the top and bottom section is continuously travelling through the
mountains. Personally I think that the mountains represent the loneliness and isolation that
Neyo is feeling during the separation of his girlfriend, the endless mountains symbolize his
endless sadness. The cold weather could also represent his cold feelings towards their
relationship and Neyo continuously writes songs regarding love so it could show his true
feelings.
- Neyo: one in a million - Neyo: Mad - Neyo: Closer - Neyo: Sexy Love
This I found really interesting as I gathered that it is not only important to express
the meaning of the song but to also express the meaning of the artist, in doing so
people will recognize songs with certain artists. There are contextual meanings
behind each shot rather than just imaging lyrics, this really develops the narrative
within the music video..

Direct links with the music and the visual
These links are first recognized in our music video when Jayme-Lee and her
boyfriend are playing in the park, and they are spinning around, the shots are
edited to sync the music and represent the rushing heartbeat. The rushing of her
heart is because she is with her boyfriend and in love, the flutter of her stomach
and the increased heart rate are all symptoms of Love and this is why the shots
are synced to the music.
1 2
3 4
The representation of a heart beat is
important to give the message that there
is love between them, this recurring beat
gives an exciting feel that gives the
audience the suspense for the final beat.
The music drops and the bass kicks in
after this shot and this consistent beat is
like a drum roll and leaves the audience
excited to move onto the next shots.
However these shots are very fast
moving and the audience could find it
difficult to keep up with. The link between
the music and the visual may not be as
direct as hoped and this could have been
improved on.

Direct links with music and visual
There are a number of different shots that link with the music being played, it was important
that this was recognized in my initial research as this helps the reader recognize the
narrative and really shows what the music is really about.
After understanding the links between the music and the
visual we really tried to put this into our music video as this
is what drives the narrative forward. Shot number one is a
shot of her and her boyfriend lying down, cuddling and
smiling in the middle of a free. This setting shows that they
are both free, representing their love. The next shots are of
the young girl running around in the field, representing their
freedom and the life that they have between them as a
couple.
This then is contradicted when we begin to see the
arguments between the couple.
These shots show the up and down relationship that they
have, one shot they are so in love and the next they are
fighting and arguing. All of these shots link closely with the
music and this is important as it is these
shots that develop the narrative. Without the
shots of us arguing the audience would never have known
that it is a love and hate relationship. By developing this
we are giving the audience the chance to relate to the
music
video.
From our initial research I learnt that having a link between
the music and the visuals gives a video that easy-to-watch

Conventions of the Pop Genre
When our group begun its research into
the different conventions within the pop
genre, we came across many similar
happenings throughout a wide variety of
music videos. We mainly wanted to
focus on clothing and appearance as well
as looking at the setting of the videos. I
had many discussions with my group to
discuss the ‘look’ that our pop artist
would be going for. Rather than use the
idealistic conventions of provocative and
edgy clothing, we decided to challenge
this convention by using quite simple
styles. Wearing jeans, converse and
baggy jumpers. We wanted to challenge
this convention to observe whether or not
we could make it a successful pop music
video without the lack of clothing.

Conventions of the Pop Genre – Performance, Concept or
Narrative based.
I tried to incorporate all three different concepts into our music videos. After watching a
number of pop music videos I realized that they are mainly Performance and narrative
based, as the artist is trying to tell a story through the acting and performance. In a lot of
pop videos the artist sings directly to the camera for example in Pixie Lott’s – All about
tonight, roughly 95% of shots are narrative or performance based. We decided to use this
in our music video and primarily use narrative and performance shots, Our video is mainly
narrative however includes many shots that are performance based. The reason behind the
narrative shots was to tell the story to the audience, it was important that we got our
narrative across and I do not believe this would have been done by mostly performance
and conceptual shots. We did, however, want to include at least one conceptual shot and
this was done through the use of tic tacs imaging drugs, we used the ‘drug’ scene, which
we found very difficult to film, what we achieved was not as realistic as we had hoped
for and this is something that if given more time, we
would re-film and perhaps change the conceptual shot.

Special Effects – Split screen
After looking at a number of videos we saw the regular
use of the split screen effect. This is something that I
really wanted to incorporate into our video as it had
been done by many artists and can deepen the
narrative for the audience. An example of a good use of
split screen is in Destiny’s Child – Emotions, where
each split screen depicts his other life, as the narrative
continues we then begin to see the destruction of each
life in the different thirds of the screen. This use of split
screen really shows the different points of view, which
is what we wanted to show.
However we incurred a problem during the editing of
our film, out of all our group there was nobody who
was familiar to Final Cut Pro, the editing software
that enables us to have this effect, although my
decision would have been to continue with final cut
pro, where eventually we would have familiarize
ourselves with the software, a group decision meant
that we changed to iMovie 09, this software does
not allow ‘split screen’ but instead can only place a
shot on to another shot, which ended up looking like
a box in the corner of the screen. Due to lack of time
we had to continue with iMovie 09 and instead of
using this convention we challenged it and put a
cross dissolve effect to obtain a close effect as split
screen, we lengthened out the shots so that they
overlap each other, giving a dream effect.

Special Effects – Reverse and Speed effects
Another effect that I was very keen to use was changing the speed and the reversal of
shots. This I thought would be a successful way to sync the beat of the song with the shots
being played, we successfully included this into our video in two different places. What I
did was copy and past the shot so that the same shot is being played over again. Every
other shot was then ‘reversed’ and the speed was fastened. When looking at other pop
music videos, we looked at ‘Usher – Climax’ as I had heard that there were a lot of shots
where speed had been adjusted.
This effect was used to give the
impression that she is picking the
leaves off the flower, a typical shot
where the young girl says ‘Love me,
Love me not’ which links with the
narrative of the story
Using this effect not only helped me with the editing and syncing the shots with the music but it
also creates an energy that interacts with the audience and keeps them entertained. The shot
was made to represent a heartbeat as it is synced with the music. When shown, a number of
people have said that this was very successful and they enjoyed it. Therefore by including these
effects we have successfully used this particular convention of a pop music video.
This shot is of Usher and a female kissing, it is shown
during the lyrics ‘Going nowhere fast’. The speed of
this shot has been adjusted to give the song a build up
and to match with the lyrics, The audience can
instantly tell that the speed has been adjusted as the
movements that they make are not possible, it gives
the effect of a complete build up and adds energy to
the other shots.
“Going nowhere fast”

Special Effects – Point of view
Another technique that is regularly used throughout a
lot of pop videos, is to regularly change the point of
view. The camera is wobbly and gives the effect of a
handheld camera, this is used to show another persons
point of view and the environment around them using a
handheld camera. One music that I particularly noticed
this effect is One direction – You don’t know your
beautiful. Having shots like this in a pop video help tell
the narrative, and make the video more personal by
interacting with the audience.
Here we used similar shots however have also developed
them by adding a reverse effect. By doing this we are
interacting with the audience and giving them an insight to
the actual song and the point of view of the person holding
the camera. As there are only ever 2 characters in the
music video we assume that it is her boyfriend filming, this
gives the effect of a ‘home video’ and a more personal
touch compared to an ordinary acting shot.
I think that we successfully managed to incorporate this
into our video as it definitely gave the effect of a home
video, and in doing so we made this more interactive and
put across the boyfriends point of view.

Special effects- Cross dissolve
After researching cross dissolve effects in popular music videos, I recognized that this
was a popular convention used within the Pop genre, Here are a few examples of pop
artists that use cross dissolve.
Cheryl Cole – Fight for This Love
Rihanna – Where have you been
Justin Bieber ft Chris Brown
– Next to You

Special effects – Cross dissolve
During our research we encountered many pop videos that use a cross dissolve effect that allows
the audience to see two shots at once, this evidence is shown on my blog. These shots give the
impression of 2 points of view, they can see the transition clearly and this makes it aesthetically
pleasing. We included a fire shot that cross dissolved into a shadow. This special effect was done
using a deodorant canister and a lighter.
We tried to include a lot of these effects as we only had
the iMovie 09 software to use that limited our use of
special effects. By including many of these I thought that it
may look better even without the use of Final Cut Pro.
Successfully we managed to include many cross dissolve
effects by layering the transition onto the shot and
lengthening the transition to make it last longer. We cross
dissolved three continuous shots to make it seem as she
is looking back on a bad memory, we then added an effect
on the shot to further imprint the memory effect. You can
see from the images that the transition rolls over 3
different shots, the lighting is dark to represent a ‘dark’
time however I think that it could have been improved with
better camera quality and lighting.

Different gazes and how they are represented to their target
audience
There are many examples that show the different
gazes, both the male gaze and the female gaze.
The likes of Justin Bieber use the female gaze to
his advantage and sell records. He knows his
target audience is young women who adore him
and therefore plays on this by making videos of
him looking into the camera, holding eye contact
with the person watching the video. Other Artists
such as Rihanna use their body and image to sell
records, the male and female gaze is used in
many of Rihanna videos as ‘Men want her and
Women want to be her’. She uses explicit scenes
and dresses provocatively to catch the audiences
attention.
Here we tried to change her image
compared to the rest of the video to make
her seem more ‘sexy’. We wanted to attract
the male gaze within the video as well as
the digipak. I believe we achieved this as
she is wearing little shorts and a small top
which is similar to that of Rihanna. We
used this particular convention of her
videos, as Rihanna is a sex symbol and
obviously works well.

How effective is the combination of your main product and your
ancillary texts ?
Photo insert (folds in and out)

Combination of my main product and ancillary texts
From the initial stage of being told what our task was for the year, our
first reactions were what song are we going to choose? What genre?
What themes shall we portray, once we had chosen on a certain genre
we then narrowed down different songs that we thought would work
well with a video of our own. We decided that love would be the best
thing to depict through a narrative, and therefore came to our decision
of We Found Love by Rihanna as this was in the charts at the time .
When we first looked at the song we thought that the song was purely
made to show a narrative, we thought that Rihanna may have just
made up a story to fit with the lyrics of the song.
After researching potential reasons behind, I came across an interview
which I posted on my blog, this interview is Rihanna revealing that the
reasons behind the video was in fact to teach young women of life
lessons. As the video focuses on substance abuse and the young
couple spiralling out of control, She quoted in this interview "One of the
big things for me, I always want to help young women and give them
insight into life experiences” she goes on to mention her abusive
relationship with singer Chris Brown, she wants to give something
back and try and prevent others from being in the same situation.
I t seemed as though according to our research, that we had judged
Rihanna’s intentions when creating this video, and rather creating
something that is seen as sexually explicit and inappropriate she had
touched on a much greater subject. We therefore decided that we
wanted to continue with this aspect and include the themes that she
wanted to target in the original
“One of the
big things for
me, I always
want to help
young women
and give
them insight
into life
experiences”

Combination of my main product and ancillary
After we came to the conclusion that we were going to continue the idea of
focusing on substance abuse and an up and down relationship we looked at a lot
of Rihanna's other videos, I recognized that there is a large involvement of love
and hate with –take a bow – unfaithful – hate that I love you. This would match
perfectly with our love and hate theme, therefore we decided to change Rihanna's
album name from ‘LOUD’ to ‘Addictive’ to further imprint the idea of substance
abuse and an addictive love. This ‘Addictive’ love is what the single is about, we
run through topics of abuse, happiness, substances and really show the
relationship go from being good to being bad.
First of all we looked at different digipak of pop artists and
all noticed that they included a colour scheme, we then
decided to continue our colour scheme that sprung from
our research, the idea of black white and red. We wanted
the digipak to include both sides to Jayme-Lee, the pop
star side and the edgy side – just like Rihanna, by
including a simplistic front cover and back cover of her
smoking. According to YouTube statistics the most popular
target audience is ages13-17 in females and ages 18-24
in both men and women. We wanted to use this
convention and develop it into re branding Rihanna's song
so that it appeals for just the older audience, rather than
the young. This then rebrands Jayme-Lee’s image into an
older and more ‘edgy’ artist that can dive into more serious
topics without having to be aware of her younger
audience. From the statistics below you can see that the
younger generation are still interested however the large
decrease in numbers suggests that we have developed
the convention successfully.

Combination of main product and ancillary texts
From our research we finalized on the decision to include red throughout the video and the
digipak. There are a lot of similarities between each ancillary text.
• All sections of the Digipak include red e.g. On the back cover Jayme-Lee has red lipstick
on and the track titles are in red. On the front cover Photoshop was used to highlight Jayme-
Lee’s lips against a black and white background, as well as the name of the album in red.
The ticket to enter the competition also had a red, black and white theme which was run
throughout the ancillary.
•Both on the back and front the writing is red
•Pictures throughout have been edited to brighten the picture and make the colours look
more dramatic.
•Pictures have not been repeated and the
outfits in each picture are different
•Casual theme throughout, as if she has
signed the album. Jayme-Lee on the front
cover is put with a kiss to make it more
personal and the ticket entry says ‘Lots of
Love’ as if it is a personal greeting from the
artist directly
•From our research we recognized
that the majority of pop digipaks that
we analysed were close up shots that
really show the detail. Therefore we
took a close up picture of the young
girl, and used a similar picture in the
insert.

Combination of main product and ancillary task
Something which could have been linked more effectively
was the Single name and the album cover, many album
covers mention the most popular single on the album and
we could have put ‘featuring the hit single We Found Love’
however we looked at a number of different pop album
covers and found this not to be a convention of the pop
genre and so therefore did not put this forward. By
following the conventions of the pop genre we were
making our product as successful as possible and ensured
that we fit our genre.
We linked the competition entry to the album cover as we
thought that this could potentially entice fans into buying
the album. Something which we did however fail to
mention was the freepost envelope, we also did not
arrange other methods of entry as many people would
ignore the ticket if it means sending it off. In today’s
generation with the online age many people prefer to
enter competitions over the internet as they cannot incur
charges and find it a lot less hassle doing this with the
click of a button.

Combination of main product and ancillary texts
I wanted to include the themes of our video into our digipak, and so therefore continued
the colour scheme of dark blacks and browns mixed with red. There are scenes within
the video that have a lot of colourful visual, a lot of red is used throughout the video and
this was put into the digipak to link the two together.
The red scenes are always during the performance
based aspects of the video and this is to really
highlight the link between our main product and our
ancillary texts.
Red is a very seductive colour and is normally
associated with lust and fire, its important to
understand this when we consider the idea of
increasing the age of Jayme-Lee’s target audience.
We wanted to link this adult and seductive look with
the branding of her album and album cover, we
included red and dark colours throughout the music
video and then further onto the digipak. It gives the
idea of a more adult feel and pushes it away from
the younger target audience.
We tried to include dark scenes during the
down times within the relationship however
the colour scheme did not always match
because certain things were not red. E.g. Pink
dressing gown. This link could have been
initiated within the music video a bit more to
really link the two.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
5 others
like this
After we had the final version of our video we
posted it to facebook to get as many peoples
opinions on it as possible, we posted it and
received 19 likes altogether, thus being very
proud of this and we received good feedback
overall even though we had specifically asked
for a critical analysis. Comments that we
received were positive and gave us some good
feedback. We posted it to YouTube, Facebook
and Twitter in order to get a lot of different
opinions.
‘Bath and pushing scene
could be bit longer’
‘I like how you used the flash
light’
‘this is so good’

The feedback we received from twitter
was astonishing, after posting the video
we received a retweet and a reply within 5
minutes. It is important to link every media
platform with our product as this is how
things get recognized. Twitter is the
fastest way of communication with over
140 million ‘tweeters’. The vast amount of
users and fast interaction levels allow a lot
of things to be spread very quickly which
is why my video was noticed in such a
short space of time. It was pleasing to see
that people were retweeting it for their
followers to see, this means that they
enjoyed it enough to showcase the video
themselvesFrom our audience feedback through twitter and
facebook we learnt that there wasn't much we needed
to change as they said they enjoyed it, however little
shots such as the bath shot and the fighting shot will
be lengthened and tweaked to ensure everybody is
kept happy and that we listen to our audience. If we
ignored our feedback then we would not know
whether or not our final product would be a success,
having the opportunity to broadcast a lengthy video
with such ease makes it a lot easier for more people
to view it. Our YouTube channel to date has one
182

On the 19th April our media group attended a showcase that involved different media
students, and their families. As a class we put together a group of questions which were
asked to the audience (including friends and family). We then evaluated the answers and
put together a table that listed the answers, overall we received some really good
feedback and took comments on board to improve on our video.
1) Did you think the choice of settings in the video were appropriate?
On this question we received different feedback, one audience member stated 'Sort
of need more repetition' however another person stated that it was 'too' repetitive. Its
difficult to analyse when you have comments that contradict each other. Other
people said 'yes', 'yes it worked good', 'yes because they are varied'. Overall a
positive view for this question.
2) How successful was the video in satisfying the conventions of the genre?
There was a lot of positive feedback from this question, as you can see from the
table below. We had to make sure that every part of our video matched the
conventions of the pop genre, our digipak follows the conventions and to make our
video follow we looked at different artists that are involved in the pop industry, we
particularly looked at Rihanna's other pop videos in order to develop a sense of her
pop 'style'. We got comments such as 'very typical pop video' 'very successful in
showing the genre’ and ‘the pop genre would be lucky to have this video'. In terms of
the editing we had different views one viewer stated 'lip syncing was great' however
another person said that the timing of the lip syncing could be improved, however
after going through the video on a high speed computer it matched will and was
synced in time with the song. We believe that the reason behind the poor lip syncing
during the showcase was the slow speed cables and the connection. Our video kept
buffering and took some time to load. Viewers particularly enjoyed the spotlight shot
and stated that these really satisfied the conventions of a pop video.

3)|Editing - how successful is the editing?
again this question linked with the above so the feedback that we recieved was very similar,
stating 'good shots / sound linked with lip syncing' and 'very good'.
4)Cinematography - How successful were the choice of camera angles and movement?
The camera angles we used were very similar to those used in other pop videos, we took
ideas from some and put them all together to create our video. We recieved some positive
feedback for this question, 100% of people thought that the camera angles matched the music
video however, one responder quoted 'some repetitive shots'. However from our research on
previous pop music videos, they incur a lot of recurring shots here is an example
1.58 2.14
Here you can see that at two different
times, one at 1.51 and the other at
2.14, they both use the same shot, I
found it a bit of trouble to get the
exact shot however this was as close
as possible. If Justin Bieber a Known
pop artist can use the same shots
then I am sure Jayme-Lee can.
However maybe we could have
varied the shots a bit more
5) Did the narrative of the music video suit the themes of the song overall?
Some people decided that the narrative of the music video did suit the song, however
others thought that some ideas crossed over, other people thought of it as a replica of
Rihanna's previous video, even though the only similar shot was in the skate park, this
was to remain contextual to the music video. Altogether most of the feedback received
was positive.

What did you learn from your audience feedback?
After our showcase we didnt have a lot of time to drastically change any of the editing,
therefore using our audience feedback we came up with a list of scenes that were
mentioned in the feedback. We looked at the feedback and analysed what could be
tweaked or improved without drastically changing the video.
It was a very
typical pop video
Some shots were
slightly too
repetitive
Could improve on
lip syncing
From our showcase we learnt that the majority of
people did enjoy our video and did not give us any
criticism however we also acknowledged the
comments that did advise us on what needs to be
changed: Because of the timescale involved we
decided that we would not make any drastic changes
but try to tweak bits here and there to make our video
more appealing and more successful.
What we will change?
-Make the bath scene longer
- Improve the lip syncing
-Try and delete repetitive
shots
- Shot where she is banging
on the door needs to be one
shot as you can see the
difference in lighting.

During the production of our digipak we begun researching different fonts and styles
and considering different pictures we could potentially use, we thought it was
important to get the right picture as this is what would depict the entire album and the
song choice. The video is hidden behind this album cover so we thought it would be
important to listen to the feedback that we received from family/friends and our A2
media class.
Our target audience suggested that the first
image that we thought of would not be
suitable as this does not suit the black,
white and red theme and they said although
it is a good picture because the lighting is
good that we should reconsider our album
cover. We then sat and took more pictures
with a basic background. We then edited the
lips so that it does fit the colour scheme,
and we then chose image number 2 as out
final picture.

I have run through the post production feedback that was carried out however we also
conducted pre production research, which came in the form of a questionnaire. We
conducted a questionnaire to first back up our initial thoughts on our genre of music and
our decisions This is the questionnaire that I initially created before producing our
video we found out that
80% of people asked were aged 18-24 and a further 20% were aged
25-34, this gives us the idea to push Jayme-Lee's image away from
one that is appealing to those under 18's. We could consider re
branding her image to use the female and male gaze.
50% of people said that they preferred pop music, 30% indie and
20% rock. So therefore by looking at this we are certain that creating
a pop music video was the best decision.
‘What do you think makes a music video appealing’ was one of the
most interesting questions to use, a lot of people said that bright
colours, flashing lights and appealing people all make a music video
appealing. It is important to remember your target audience and
include things that people want.
100% of people said that colours were important and they also said
that it is important to get the right colours, to use colours that stand
out rather than ones that dissolve into the background.
nearly 80% of people asked said that Love was the most popular
topic of a pop music video, considering the likes of Justin Bieber and
Rihanna. 20 % also said that fun and partying was the next best
narrative for a pop music video.
From our pre production
research we were
confident of our choice of
genre and decided that
during the production of
our video we were going
to include different
lighting and colours to
appeal to our target
audience.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
Blogger
Throughout the process of our final A Level year we used a blog to track and keep up to date
with work. In our previous year we simply printed out our research on A4 pages, very few
pieces of research were done and compared to this year I found it quite daunting. When the
year began it was hard to grasp the layout and format of the blog, which is why not many
posts were posted in the early stages of the year. However as the year went on I got the
hang of it and ended up using embed codes, html formats and different layouts to depict the
format that I wanted. The best thing that i found with the blogger was
-Interaction with people that are not bias towards you
-Have access to other peoples pages all over the world
- My blog has so far had audiences from all over the world from Russia to the
United States
Having a blog makes life a lot simpler as it allows all our
research and planning and evaluation stages to all be complete
at one place. On the blog you can label everything which groups
it together and makes it a lot easier to view and navigate around.
The layout of your blog can be adapted according to the look
that you want to go for.
I used the blog to not only put my research on but to also embed
YouTube videos that allowed my whole group to access, this
interactivity is what helped me with lots of different and varied
posts.

Number of page views I
currently have on my
blog, shows my
interaction and the
interest of other people.
This is the video
bar that shows
recent and popular
YouTube videos.
The labels
allow easy
navigation
around my
blog

I have also used an online presentation software prezzi.com to create my presentation for
web 2.0, I think this is a great way to show Web 2.0, the interaction with this website is all
because of Web 2.0. I also embedded a YouTube video into the presentation which further
imprints the idea of interaction within websites. Using the website helped me create
presentations online, it makes it a lot easier and already has set formats. The disadvantage
to this website is that it makes you develop a full and detailed presentation, for one that is
simple it is near impossible to use. You are unable to embed the presentation without
completing all the stages. This makes it very time consuming, and unable to use if you only
have a simple presentation.
I was however impressed on the level of interaction compared to Microsoft presentation
software, it enabled me to upload a YouTube video which enhanced the interaction even
more.
Here is an
embedded
YouTube video, the
video is of Michael
Wesch’s Web 2.0

During our research we used YouTube to look at a variety of different music videos that
helped us to decide on a certain genre. Once we had begun the construction of our video we
looked at the original and thought what we could do differently. YouTube statistics allowed us
to conduct secondary research about the target audience of the original Rihanna video. The
statistics showed that
At the beginning of the year I did not know the extent tha
YouTube could do., the statistics channel of each
YouTube video enable the viewer to see the amount of
views and the whereabouts of this view, this was used
during the production as this is something that we used t
challenge the conventions of Jayme-Lee’s image. We
used YouTube statistics to back up our idea of pushing
Jayme-Lee’s image away from the younger generation.
YouTube also helped during our initial research as it
linked similar videos with others, which gave us a much
wider range to look at and potentially use.

Another technology that I used throughout the development
of our Digipak was an app called Instagram. Instagram is an
app that edits photos by clicking a button. It gives you
different effects that you can wash the photo with, you can
crop, flip, rotate or edit the contrast and saturation.
Instagram is similar to twitter however rather than ‘tweeting’
you upload pictures and can follow people all over the
world, the more likes you get on your photos the more
popular you profile will be. Instagram encourages a ‘citizen
photographer’ nowadays you do not have to own an
amazing camera to take amazing photos, an iphone
camera and a good app will give you some of the highest
quality pictures.
This picture was
edited using
Instagram, many
of the pictures in
our digipak were
edited using
Instagram

Throughout the development and the production of my music video we used
the software iMovie 09 rather than final cut pro as my group found this a lot
easier to use. The downfall to this software was the limited effects that we
could use and I personally would have preferred to have edited on Final Cut
Pro as it ended up being me that edited anyway.
This is an example of iMovie 09, we
used this software to include effects
such as ‘cross dissolve’ and added
transitions to create a blink effect. This is
shown when she is walking on her own
and the effect is used to show her
moving further away from the camera

Sony Bloggie
We also used a digital camera and video camera to put together all
our shots, the sony bloggie I will list the advantages and
disadvantages to the camera that we used
Advantages
-Lightweight and therefore is portable, and easy when travelling to
different locations
-Uncomplicated and easy to use even without reading the manual,
this is good as I am not very literate with manuals.
-Negatives
- Image quality was quite poor and was quite blurry at times
-The lightweight camera did not give it stability and therefore
maintaining a still shot was quite difficult
Even though we changed the settings to the highest quality and 24
optical zoom we still found the images grainy and unclear, in certain
lights the camera would not function and we found this quite difficult
to work with.

All in all my media experience was a good one, I learnt so much about new
and different ways to publish texts, I learnt about how to embed codes using
html which was something very alien to me at first. Regarding the filming, we
learnt how to stabilize an image and understood which lighting is best to use.
If I could change certain aspects of my production then it would be
• Edit on Final Cut Pro to include effects that make the video look more
professional
•Re film certain scenes
•Put me behind the camera rather than in front

A2 Music Video Analysis

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