2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• Is it a typical music video? Yes, due to the stereotypical visual performance of an
artist lip syncing his song. For inspiration on how to present our video and artist like
this, I researched music videos like Loyle and Carner’s Isle of Arran and Just Jack’s
Starz in your eyes. The main reason I studied videos like this was to see how the
director got a performance from the artist. I learned from this that you can create a
mood from how the artist looks and behaves. However, my music video is also not a
typical music video due to its original shot angles and quick cuts, as seen in
RATKING’S canal video, this video inspired me as did Babeheaven’s Friday sky.
Mostly due to its abstract and original look, but we also got an idea for a filming
location, Near west way on the motorway in London. To add to our music video being
original, I used unique transitions in my editing such as matching the two shots
where he switches the light off and the darkness of it matches the shot of his back
being detached from the front of the camera, as he walks off into the distance. Is it a
typical genre? The music itself is not a typical genre due to it being an obscure Trip-
hop. It has been described as a fusion of hip hop and electronica. Unlike hip hop, trip
hop is more dreamy and cinematic. I wanted to capture the difference in the visual
style.
Babeheaven’s – Friday sky
Just Jack – Starz in your
eyes
3. • How did I make it original? Diverse difference in the style of the song and the style of
the clothing worn by the artist. We didn’t want him to look like a stereotypical hip hop
artist, so I clothed him in a French workman’s jacket and a knitted turtle neck how ever
we also added a gold ring and necklace to make the look completely original. Whilst
anything this piece burrowed various aspects from different styles, it was more about
how we put it together. One of the main things that made this video original is the way
we expressed the mind set of the person behind the lyrics in a visual way. The song itself
is very much about how someone feels so distant from someone else and having our
artist displayed on his own, in a near empty studio and also walking the streets of
London alone, this matches the lyrics and portrayed what it was like in the head of the
person distanced from what he sees as most important. To make a video original it has
to surprise the audience so we tried to be surprising such as the mirror shot where his
face splits in half with the motorway in the background. We also used shadows very
heavily to make them just as much as a focus for the audience as the object or the artist
making them. Who inspired us? Artist such as loyle and carner inspired us due to his
original slow but melodic style, and then matching this style of music with his music
videos. This was one of our main goals (to match the music and lyrics with the visuals).
We also gathered inspiration for costumes from well know rapper ASAP Rocky, with his
casual non stereotype clothing but then added blingy garments such as gold teeth and
many other items of jewellery.
Rat King - Canel
Loyle and carner - Isle of
Arran
4. How effective is the combination of your main product and
ancillary texts?
• I designed the website to have the same feel as the video and to develop the
imagery to further promote the artist. The Gallery on my website develops the
‘outsider’ element of the video. Using photography, I could explore the trippy,
otherness which I had tried to capture in the images. The Merchandise page
carries on the themes of the video through the photography and makes them
fashion. I’ve also kept the colours of the merchandise black and white to follow
the colour of the images in the gallery and background The people who will buy
the merchandise will then become promoters of the video and the artist. I have
also included tour dates on the tour dates page to build on people’s interest in the
artist and to make them interact with him and his music beyond the digital
world whilst still promoting him at the same time. Coming onto my Digi Pack, it
pushes the photographic images more to make the presentation of the physical
music as dramatic as possible. In the images you can see my artist displayed in a
manor that is very similar to the music video. The aim is to enhance the meaning
of the lyrics through photographic imagery, for example the portrait shot of him
with a blurred face is giving the effect of being visible but not having an identity
because he feels as if he is not being identified in society. The images on the Digi
Pack try to portray the melancholy, away from reality feeling of the lyrics. How
the music is seen on the shelf has to be as cool as the music itself.
5. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
• From start to finish in the editing side of our production of our music video, we
ran a series of audience feed back sessions. We gave the audience feedback group
a set of questions each time and a copy of the lyrics. The sessions began with
first everyone reading the lyrics and answering the questions and then doing the
same after they had seen our music video whether it was still a work in progress
or had been finished. These feedback sessions played a huge role in the
production of our music video because we were able to have several different
perspectives of all ages on the weak and strong points of our video. The
feedbacks sessions at school were very helpful, they were mostly about the pace
of editing throughout the video. But our best feedback came from our parents,
which are both very familiar with this industry. We learned from their feed back
that the start of the video was compelling and had good pace and so was the end
section but the middle lost its grip and then regained it towards the end. Also
that the last shot/scene was not as moving as the beginning. Me and my partner
decided to use this feedback as a drawing board. We matched the pace of the
start and end by including the same editing techniques in the middle. To improve
the ending, we decided to reverse the beginning shot and give the video a
dramatic precise ending. All in all, the audience feedback played such a big role
in the end result of our video.
6. How did you use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
• Technology in the planning and production of my music video, Digi pack and
website, played a huge role. For the planning of our music video we used
Facebook to create a group chat so when me, my partner Dylan and our
artist were not together we could continue to plan the video. Sending the
lyrics for the artist to practice and organizing dates and times. Before the
day we filmed we decided to go to the first filming location (the studio) and
do some recce shots and also set up all the equipment and take it all down
again, so then on the day of filming everything went smoothly and we could
save some set up time to then use to develop our planned shots. In regards
to gaining inspiration from other music videos we used YouTube, giving us a
better idea on how to film our video but still keeping it unique and different.
To create our concept pitch we used PowerPoint that included mood boards
for location and costume. We gathered the images for our mood boards from
Pinterest.
7. • For the construction of our music video we used a range of high quality equipment, as
listed; CANON 7D Dslr, CANON XF100 Camcorder, Manfrotto twin system midi
tripod, Flourecent lighting kit with gels, DJI Ronin- M and finally a Kodak 4K 180
camera. As I had used the camcorder last year I was very familiar with it and I had
done some photography work with the 7d so I was relatively comfortable with that.
We mounted the 7d to the ronin and as I took a lot of the shots in the video that used
the ronin I became very confident with the 7d as I used it more and more. However
we were both completely new to the ronin and Kodak 4k 180 camera so that’s one of
the reasons we took a day before filming to get to grips with the new equipment, this
helped a lot on the day of filming. To edit our music video we used Final cut pro, I was
very confident with this software because I used it last year to edit my thriller
opening, so that gave us a head start and the opportunity to develop our skills on it
further. It was also a great software to enhance the footage we had got from filming
via it be changing speeds, transitions, transformations, filters and colour balancing.
My favourite part of our editing is the part where we used the darkness from one shot
where the light is turned off to match the darkness of the camera being retracted of
the artist’s back as he walks off into the distance in another shot. I used Photoshop
CS6 to create my Digi pack because I’m fairly familiar with it and I had a digi pack
template available to me so I didn’t have to pick my own measurements, I could just
work with the ones I had, this gave me more time to focus on the creative part of it.
And finally I used Wix to create my website because the vast customisation options it
offers. Considering I had no skills in website design, Wix was very simple to use and I
took full advantage of that to expand my creative design ideas.
