The document provides an evaluation of a music video created for the artist XXYYXX. It summarizes how the music video develops conventions of the chillwave genre, such as having a loose narrative and shots that add to a disjointed, dazed feel. Audience research found the target was males aged 16-24. Various media technologies were used at different stages of production, including researching other music videos online, using a voice recorder for an interview, PowerPoint for planning, and Final Cut Pro for editing. Some challenges were faced with editing software and working within the constraints of available equipment.

1. Evaluation
Heather Hutchinson

2. In what ways does your media product develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media products?
Our media music aims to follow many conventions of our chillwave genre, whilst also straying away and being
individual. We decided to follow main aspects of the chillwave genre by having a loose story line- following a loose
fractured linear narrative; of a girl on a hallucinogenic walk through a forest, this is similar to Bondax’s – Never Leave
which is in the same genre. A performance or strict story based video would contradict our artist as he is more of a
producer than a performer with a instrument.
There is no lip syncing in our video as we decided it would not be suitable for our genre as there are minimal lyrics
and the song and video are supposed to seem disjointed and not set up or choreographed. Andrew Goodwin’s theory
of voyeurism is clear in our music video as most of the shots follow the attractive girl and the viewer feels as if they are
with her in the forest, with the masked people, watching her. This coincides with the lyrics and visual of the song which
are ‘runaway, runaway, runaway breezeblock’, which is a convention of music videos, to show what the lyrics are
suggesting. The song is fairly slow and quiet, which is emphasised through the visuals. There is also lots of close up
shots or the artist, which is another point that Andrew Goodwin makes, these close ups allows us to feel closer to the
girl in the music video which allows us to connect more with her.

3. Our music video included lots of similar looking shots of the scenery around, this reflects Steve Neales’ point that
‘genres are instance of repetition and difference’ which is what we created with the repetition of some of the
shots. The use of repetition is a common convention in this type of genre music video, as it adds to the disjointed,
dazed feel of the music videos. I learnt all this after looking at the other music videos by XXYYXX and other artists
of the same genre. Unlike the other videos that we looked at e.g. XXYYXX-Never Leave, which included lots of
bright colours and shots using different camera filters and effects, which all added to the ‘trippy’ feel of the
video. However, we decided that combining different effects on some of the shots and leaving others without
would have looked less effective and too random; not keeping up with the typical genre.
Our video is set in the forest which has many connotations of nature and the circle of life, these colours are bright,
ethereal and almost ‘out of this world’, which signifies the hallucinogenic feel of the music video. The colours of
nature contract with the man-made aspect of the video-the white masks. This contrast of purely natural things
with the incorporation of the man made masks, represents modern society and how teenagers live in a society
where the two worlds are so mixed together, e.g. nature and technology. This could also be reflected in our
protagonists clothing, she is wearing black which is a colour than has connotation of mystery and fear, which is
also shown in our music video. It could also show that she is troubled and miserable, which explains why she is
alone in the forest on drugs.
This setting also represents the low budget of our music video and other videos of this genre. Our genre, in
contrast to other genres such as Pop, Indie, Rock etc, is very low key which reflects the independent, rough edged
feel of this chill wave genre. It isn’t highly choreographed and constructed using sets etc, like videos in the
mainstream.

4. The editing of our music video was also a typical convention of this chillwave genre. We
used fairly simplistic shots, including medium close up’s, extreme close ups etc, and we
followed a slow cutting rhythm and rate. This rate presents the calmness of the song, as
frequent cutting of shots would not match the music or that conventions of that genre. We
also included over the shoulder shots, and shots that looked like the protagonists view, I
think that these all worked well together and added to the feel of the video of the girl being
chased and having to run away.
As XXYXX doesn’t personally have many highly budgeted and published music videos to his
songs it made it very difficult, to look one and learn lots from that. But instead we looked
more at music videos by artists thaqt are very similar, which allowed us to understand the
type of conventions that were typical of this genre.
Picture from Bondax’s Wet
Summer. Follows a female
protagonist through varies parts
of nature, e.g. outside/the
beach. This is similar to our
music video with the attractive
female lead and her journy
through a forest.

5. How effective is the combination of your main
product and ancillary texts?
Digipak:

6. Album Magazine Advert:

7. This is our music video magazine cover. It shows XXYYXX’s logo in big in the
front. Behind it is imagery on some trees, which is taken from a screen shot of
the music video so it is all incorporated and linked. Our magazine advert is
fairly simplistic, and it is similar to the adverts for most genres. The Killers and
Kasabian are more of a indie/rock genre yet their magazine adverts follow the
same basic layout of the musician/bands name in a larger, bold font the
underneath it goes on to explain how it is a new album on sale. If I was to do
my magazine advert again I would make sure that I included a date or release,
as that makes it look more genuine and would appeal more to the audience
as it is informative and helpful.
I used synergy with the reference to the ratings from NME magazine and Q,
this is to show that this album is in high demand as other legitimate music
magazines of a similar genre think so. This is a typical conventions of all types
of genres, as it is a way of promoting the album and the music so that more
people are likely to buy it.
I think that the use of the gradient of the green in to black, is effective and
aesthetically pleasing. But I also think it signified the meaning behind our
music video, that society was once all about nature yet everything is fading
and becoming more polluted and corrupt. It also shows the blurred
boundaries for young people about what is right and wrong, the dark aspect
of the advertisement could represent the drug use in the music video and
how it isn't morally right. The drug, hallucinogenic feel of both the
advertisements and the video is a convention of this genre.
The large logo in the centre of the advert reinforces the musician we are
advertising, I wish that I had used a stronger stroke our outline to make it
stand out more, but overall I am happy with the appearance of it.

8. The insides of the digipak, where the cd’s
would go show a simplistic image of
some leaves on the ground. This
coincides with the theme of the music
video and each ancillary text of nature
and scenery shots. It fits in with the
overall colour scheme of the digipak, of
natural colours such as green and brown.
For this inside of the digipak, we experimented more. We used four main colours
using effects and filters, and then saturated them to make them lighter and less
bright. These colours symbolise the hallucinogenic, brightness of this chillwave
genre, whilst being fun and aesthetically pleasing at the same time. They contrast
to the colours used throughout the rest of the video and digipak, but this only
creates an edge and allows it to stand out more. The repetition and the reflection
is an image taken when we were filming the music video, which shows the masks
which feature in the video. The incorporation from the music video shows that
the music album and the music video are all working together to make one main
product.
The front cover of our digipak, is the same as our music magazine
advert. This is because the adverts are normally the music
albums front cover, which makes the album easily recognisable to
the buyer, as a form of promotion and marketing. So using the
same image with the logo, works effectively. It is fairly simplistic,
but it does its job to promote the album and artist.

9. What have you learned from your
audience feedback?
Firstly, to gain audience research we constructed a questionnaire through Survey Monkey, the
feedback we got from this then helped us when constructing our music videos. We
discovered, that our target audience were males between 16-24, who were most likely to be
students, who watched music videos online. We took this feedback and incorporated it into
our music video, for example, the video appealed to the males (male gaze theory) with the
female protagonist. The video is also fairly simple, and low budget which represents the
typical student lifestyle. Our videos were then uploaded through various types of
technologies, such as youtube and facebook, which means it is even more accessible to our
target audience.

10. To get audience feedback I showed my music video to the rest of my media
class. They were then asked to give either positive or negative feedback.

-Enjoyed the loose narrative of
the girl in the forest, could clearly
understand what she was doing.
-Liked the use of fades in the
beginning, and the repeated cuts
-Enjoyed the references to
controversial topics, e.g. drugs.
Displayed well, but not too much

- Some shots were a bit shaky
- Some shots, such as the establishing
shots were reused quite often
- The narrative was sometimes too
loose, and there were moments with
not enough action

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

12. Research
Since September, I have used many different technologies at each stage of my media coursework.
We started off with coming up with our initial idea, we did this by brainstorming as a group and
coming up with artists that we all like, we chose XXYYXX. We then began to research him and his
music. We used the internet to watch other XXYYXX videos on youtube, and videos of similar
artists, such as Bonobo, Bondax and M83. I already had a lot of experience with the internet and
was very familiar with how to use it. This research was very helpful and gave us a great insight on
the typical conventions of music videos of this chillwave genre. We found out that most of the
videos did not follow a strict narrative, yet focused on a attractive female. All the videos also had a
hallucinogenic feel to them. We then used the information from this video research to help
construct our initial idea. It was very helpful to get a wider understanding of what other music
videos of that genre contained, it allowed us to create a music video that followed the conventions
and that we were happy with, which follows Steve Neale’s view that ‘genre’s are instances of
repetition and difference’
We used google again to construct a mood board of items that give us inspiration for our music
video; pictures included white masks, forests and woods, and smoke. We also analysed digipaks of
other artists of other genres, such as The Killers and Rihanna. We used these to show how artists
use things such as colour schemes and fonts etc to present their album. The images they used are
also essential to attracting their audience. Each didipak was focused at their target audience, e.g
Rihanna’s main colour schemes was red which has connotations of love and passion, which are more
associated with females. As XXYYXX and the Chillwave genre is quit unknown, it was difficult to find
existing digipaks from that genre; this made it more difficult for us to produce our digipak. However
we incorporated images of the main conventions of the chillwave genre.

13. I used a voice recorder to interview a person to get more in depth answers about the kind of person
who likes the chillwave genre would enjoy. This was helpful to me as it allowed to me find out what a
the qualities these people have. We also asked him which music videos they have enjoyed in the past
and which qualities they liked in that music video. His responses implied that he likes a videos that had
a fairly loose narrative yet are intriguing and easy to watch, with many quick shots.
In his spare time that he said he liked to go out with his friends, play guitar and listen to music. If he
had £50 he said he would spend it on music downloads and on vintage clothes. This interview was very
helpful as it made it easier for us to understand the kind of things that people who we are aiming the
video at would enjoy. We then incorporated these ideas in to our music video. I didn’t have music
experience with using the voice recorder, but it was simple and easy to upload the data to the
computer. On the computer I then uploaded it through windows media player.
We wrote up all of this information on microsoft power point and then used slideshare to convert
them so they were able to embed on our blogs- blogger.com. The blogs are very helpful as they allow
us to store all of our information and make it possible for other people to look at the work we have
done and give us feedback.
Screenshot of blog

14. Planning
For preproduction planning I created a short powerpoint including a mood board of similar types
of locations that we were going to film at. We then used the social media application of facebook
to get pictures of the actor we were intending to film. However, our original actress couldn’t film
for us, so we had to change actors.
As a group we then constructed a story board, this was about 20 pages long and included shots that added
up to the three minute song. This story board turned out to be very helpful as we created a shot list from it
which was basically a shortened version of it, including the length of the shot and what it included. This was
very helpful as when we were filming our music video we were able to look quickly at the shot list and
know what we were filming next- (using Microsoft excel) It enabled us to create a music video that roughly
followed the story line that we wanted to. Obviously some of the shots did not work and we had to change
them, e.g. we intended to shoot a long shot but instead it became a medium close up. Due to the location
and the weather on that day, some of the shots were difficult to take, e.g. lying on the floor. So some shots
like that had to be changed.

15. Production
We used a canon 600D to film our music video, the camera was very good quality which helped us
get the shots that we wanted. One shot we did- which wasn’t planned- was a shot of the distance
which a bike, we then pulled focus to the bike handle, and then back to the distance. This wouldn’t of
been possible if we didn’t have a good camera, so it was very beneficial to the video. This use of
defocus/focus, reinforced the hallucinogenic, relaxed feel of the music video which we were aiming
for.
Once we had filmed our video, we used final cut pro to edit it together. I had very little experience
with this application and I found it very difficult to get used to. After a short period of time I soon got
used to the technology, and I learnt how to import the clips I need and work out the length they
needed to be. I found the software quite time consuming, and instead I would of probably of used
Premiere as other people in my media classed used it and they said to of found it simpler. We could
only use final cut pro on the macbooks which weren’t always available to us, which made it even
harder to compete our music video. I think final cut pro was helpful as it meant we could edit in a non
linear way, which was good to us as we adapted our music video from the original shooting schedule.