A2 Media Studies –Music Video Evaluation

By Andrew Ward-Salt

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions

of real media products?My music video is tailored to conventions found in the genres of music

which compose it, however it also challenges conventions which are seen in the actual video and genres, then develops them. By basing some of my research on the actual video by Classified, I was able to see how I could both rely on and then change certain features which

make the video interesting and meaningful. These varied from the use of Andrew Goodwin’s Theory of Music Video, to more subtle

references to the original video and Classified himself. Some of the references and conventions are based on crosses between 2 media types, such as a segment of my video referencing one of Classified’s

more well known photographs.

Andrew Goodwin's Theory of Music Video Analysis makes it simple to link various concepts to certain genres of music, and therefore easily find Conventions, and thus tailor to those conventions. One of the features of Goodwin’s Theory is that Music Videos demonstrate Genre Characteristics – this means that the videos for many genres have similarities which are considered conventional, such as Live/Lip-synced performances for Rock Videos or videos featuring Guitar Work, and dance routines in many of today’s pop videos, such as those of Female artists. Because of the mixture of Rap and Acoustic/Blues, there would have to be a mixture of Instrument Playing as well as Lip-Synced Rapping into a camera. To help complete this, I compiled footage of me Lip Syncing into the Camera, and my friend Mike playing guitar (Though I had to fill In for some parts later on in the video).

Examples on Next Page

In order to tailor my video to the convention of live playing, I recorded me and my friend playing the song and then synced it in with the song, therefore allowing me to follow the conventions whilst still making it my own video and style. In order to fit with the style as well as possible, the playing was done on an Acoustic Guitar, with hoods up, allowing me to look like an actual guitarist, but also to try to mask the fact that my guitarist changes half way through the video.

This is an example of how I used lip-synced footage in order to conform to the more recognized Rap conventions. These include rapping into a camera, as well as a white male rapper using his hands to gesticulate as he raps. Most of these scenes are composed of mid-close ups of the Rapper’s upper body, keeping his hands in view as well so you can see him in a personal yet powerful manner. These are often supported by items of worth such as “bling”, however the nature of this song doesn’t seem to warrant the need for bling, as it is more sentimental.

As well as tailoring to conventions based in the chosen genre, Goodwin’s theory also talks about links between lyrics and the visuals meant to portray them. My video sticks to the more bluesy acoustic side of the video as it features rapping, but also, a montage style to portray and develop on the conventions of the Acoustic genre, instead of splitting it evenly. I believe by developing these conventions for a split genre video, It gives me a better angle on the actual message behind the lyrics, and therefore visually interpret them for better understanding. The link between visuals and lyrics is better shown in a Rap video, through use of linking words to possessions such as many Rappers talking about their cars or jewellery, then having it on show. I go against conventions for the Rap style, but develop it through to the Acoustic Blues style, in order to get a better coverage of the combined Genre.

The apparent third concept on Goodwin’s theory is about the mixture between the music and the visuals, and how they link together. I help to cover this base by showing heavy use of the cuts and editing following the beat of the song at the start of the track. Towards the middle, as the song gets more even and melancholy, I tend to use longer shots, showing the guitar playing which you can hear in the background. This is a popular use of visual/musical link in rock videos due to the ability to show someone playing the Guitar or a solo in time with the song, helping to tailor to the voyeurism and links between the music and video at the same time. I attempted this by constantly focusing on the rapper (me) to get a good coverage of the main artist. This would be conventional for both kinds of genre which my song is composed of.

Another one of Goodwin’s statements is that record companies DEMAND footage of the main artist. Classified is an artist whom runs his own record company (Half-Life Records), so he gets the say in everything. This is unconventional, and I characterised his method of making the video by including myself and Mike in roughly half of the footage, instead of the general ¾ to a whole which is featured in many rap videos. This is counterbalanced by the fact that Acoustic/Blues guitar videos can feature anything from none to ALL footage containing the main artist or guitarist. I attempted a mixture of places and shots to depict the rap artist in my video, whilst also featuring the guitarist between shots and on the chorus.

Andrew Goodwin’s theory involves the notion of looking during the video, and states this is an important part of many music videos. I do not use the notion of looking for various reasons. Firstly because the notion of looking during rap videos is secondary to the concern of being rich and having bling. Secondly, the notion of looking is not something you’d find in acoustic/blues videos either, as it is more at home with female artists who need to be viewed as they are a recognisable avatar from which the group can be identified. Another reason for lacking the voyeurism is that I do not feel that it would go well with my song. Aside from the fact it is unconventional and I do not wish to make my video too unorthodox, so that it is recognisable in its own right.

Another part of Goodwin’s theory is the idea of references to film, however, to help me follow conventions I decided not to make references to outside media, aside from a few subtle references to photo shoots and other things from Classifieds musical career.

In conclusion, I believe I properly follow and work by using established conventions, which are relevant to both genres of my song of choice, as well as sticking to Andrew Goodwin’s Musical Analysis Theory. As well as following conventions, I also work to develop conventions, this is made more simple by the fact that I have two genres to follow, which are very different. This allows me to push conventions and develop them without making a video which is completely sporadic and does not coincide with what you would expect from one of the Genres.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I believed that an important factor in the creation of my products was a strong link between each thing. Intertextuality is and always has been a key point in many modern media products, in order to promote synergy. I linked my products by recurring features, such as the bedroom with the purple wall, and the roads near where it was filmed on the bus. Using these themes, I linked them together so that the audience for my product would recognize the images and then make a conscious link between them. The guitar is also a recurring theme in the products, as it is a symbol for the genre. These combinations effectively show you what kind of music the products are based around, as well as giving it an identity.

Moving from my mockups to my final products, I included the guitar in both my poster and my Album Cover/Case art. By using the same guitar I establish a great link – the guitar is in all of my media, and could therefore be a point of recognition for it, and a recurring theme for the future if more products were made from the same artist.

The combination of my products is known in the industry as a Digi-pack, or a digital package. This is not to be confused with the kind of CD known as a Digipak, which involves the use of a combination of card and plastic in order to make a sturdy case which is more resistant to cracking.

The kind of Digi-pack I am making is a package of 3 or more products, made to promote a specific artist or group of artists eg. The Bobble heads, t-shirts, albums, posters and even movies which were created to celebrate songs by the Beatles.

My Digi-pack was made from a Poster, Album artwork, and a music video. All of this combined to give off a comprehensive image which helps to portray my chosen artist and song, as well as advertise them in a way which is conventional and works.

When looking at my products separately, you get a good idea of the genre, the style of music and other general themes which go and in hand with this type of Media. The poster on its own is mainly a descriptor for the title track, showing that it involves a guitarist and a rapper, with the blue skies and snippet of green scenery giving an ambience which makes it seem very peaceful and mellow. The hiding of the artists’ faces gives it a somber theme, making you believe that the poster is helping to advertise a song which is more about contemplation than being an actual rap song. However, this illusion is dispelled when combined with the album cover, as they must all be taken into account simultaneously for the proper effect to be given.

If you look at the album separate to the other products, you tend to get the idea that the artist is a rapper, and that there may be some guitar involved in some of the songs. As well as this, you see the parental advisory sticker , which means that the songs on the album contain bad language – a popular theme in the genre of Rap.

From piece to piece of the album I have designed, you see definitive links such as the use of blues and the continuation of imagery. This gives off a good feeling as well as keeping consistency. By doing this, the other products can link in just as easily, and help each other to give off a wholesome image which advertises Classified as well as the genre of the music and themes in his songs.

You can see links between the products straight away if you put them in the same viewpoint.

When you combine all of my products, you see definitive links in them that makes them very effective as a combined Digi-pack. The links between the guitar, and the room, as well as consistent lower angle shots to show the importance of the rapper, and higher angle shots to show the secondary importance of the guitarist. These are important themes in order to get across the point that the main rapper has important views to be heard.

The consistent use of the themes shown in the previous slide are incredibly important to the success of combining my products. By making many links between the separate products, yet still making them stand out, it puts a bold message across, which is reinforced with your introduction to each separate product. This results in a strong idea and meaning behind each of the products which I made. The video holds the most importance to the set however, as it shows extensive use of the themes such as the sky, the guitar and the bedroom. This is an important casing point due to the fact that this almost ties together the other products, and without them, the ancillary products would not hold as much significance – they would just be items to advertise the new song.

In conclusion, the combination of my ancillary products went well. They are effective alone, however when adding the ancillary products, the video is given extra meaning, and if you notice the links, this makes a very good point of advertisement for the products. It should be noted however that due to the order in which my products were created, the video actually relies on the ancillary products, as they were the sole holders of the imagery before the video gave them meaning.

I believe that an effective combination of products is essential for success in modern media, as many products which are released have supporting/ancillary products to help aid their success. This leads me to believe that the Ancillary products not only support them (though they are effective at doing so) but are vital to the success of my Digi-pack as a whole.

What Have You Learned From Audience Feedback?

Audience feedback is when you ask the people who your product is targeted at for their opinion on various aspects of a product which you need improvement on. The products I have made were largely created due to feedback, and it is my firm belief that without the strong audience feedback I received, my products would have failed to appear the way that they are.

I made use of audience feedback in all of my products, but more extensively in some than others, for instance, I used much more feedback in my album artwork than I did in my poster, and my Video didn’t need to utilize much feedback, as most of the peoples issues were easily rectified with editing rather than re-filming and massive changes. Even though in varying degrees, its important to recognize the fact that all of my products made use of audience feedback, and I believe all of them benefited heavily from this feedback.

My poster changed very little from the original mock up. Unfortunately, I do not know whether this is due to a lack of feedback or perhaps just down to it being close to great from the start.

The biggest change from mockup to first draft was the use of a larger font, in order to better make use of the space on the poster. As well as this I had to replace the images with ones which were my own, but I learned something very important straight away – sizing is important. One of the most common suggestions (7 people told me about this) was the fact that there was a huge amount of space at the top of the page which I wasn’t making use of, and it took away some of the bold effect which my poster was supposed to have. This leads me to believe that Audience feedback is integral to creating a successful product.

The main change from my draft to final was improving the clarity of the guitarist, as well as shrinking him slightly to show the importance of the Rapper over him.

I believe that people asked me to change sizes mostly for preference, rather than actual genre based concern, but this helped me to understand audience feedback more, and give the people what they wanted, which is the point of audience feedback anyway.

By changing the size of the guitarist to make the rapper seem more important, the people I asked say it helps you better understand the genre, and that the guitarist is of secondary importance. I didn’t think of it this way, as I preferred to think of it as a joint effort, however, the point was a good one, and without it I would not have known what I knew now, and my draft would have been almost identical to the final product (and probably less appealing).

Another thing which audience feedback has shown me is that even the smallest details may be taken into account: most of the changes to my poster were so minute that I wouldn’t have thought of them without someone telling me about them so that I could notice.

The almost annoying preference of clarity came in again on my album back cover, where people were feeding back saying that it was too dark, yet an equal amount of people were telling me that the black font was consistent and the best choice.

This was a tough choice to make, as if I changed the font, one of the groups would be angry, so instead I changed the contrast/brightness of the picture behind the font, thus satisfying both people, as it helps you to see the font whilst keeping the font black.

Varied feedback proved useful here, as if people thought something but I didn’t know (such as the font being hard to read) I could have released my product and it would have been harder to read or understand due to flaws which were easily solved with a bit of effort.

Another thing I have learned from audience feedback is that the effort you put into your previous versions can save you a lot of time in the long run. For my album front, I had lots of nitpicky decisions, such as putting the guitarist in front or behind, which ended up being made void as I deleted the guitarist in the end anyway. If I had of asked a different question (rather, do you think the guitarist should be in the picture) rather than placement of the guitarist, I wouldn’t have had to change it so much from my previous draft, because as a rule, my products did not have to change much from first draft to final draft. When designing my album front, I tried not to change much about it, but in the process had forgotten about adding a parental advisory sticker, the fact that the album only has one consistent artist, and other things which lead to a change in title artist as well as layout – Following feedback later rather than sooner meant there was more room for error, and there may still be changes to make on my album for this reason.

Audience feedback helped me dramatically on my final video, but in retrospect the changes seem trivial. Many complaints were about timing, or that some of the scenes needed trimming down because they were too long.

I found many minor problems due to the feedback I was given, from timing issues to lip syncing issues, and the things I learned helped prevent me looking like an idiot when I posted my final draft – using a terribly flawed product would only embarrass me, not the actors in the video (though I was actually in the video as well).

I also noticed that the feedback I received was very helpful in areas where I lacked knowledge – Rap is not my preferred genre, so I had to follow stereotypes of hand gestures and low angle shots to get the desired effect. A good point of using audience feedback was that I learned many tweaks which I used to make my product more conventional. I have found that audience feedback is incredibly useful when you lack knowledge in an area.

Audience feedback had to be taken into account in order to get me some extra marks on my project, but in the end it really turned out to be very useful. Audience feedback has shaped my products immensely, and improved them to beyond a level which I could have made them of my own accord.

Put bluntly, I’ve learned loads from Audience Feedback, much of which is a real eye opener, a lot of things such as my comprehension of the genre as well as how I prioritize images in my ancillary products has been put under scrutiny due to the people whom I requested feedback from. In a way I’m angry because this gave me more work to do, however I’m also very grateful as the feedback I have received helped me to improve my work vastly as well as helping to increase my understanding of the Media and the Genre of music I have been working with. From an outsiders standpoint, I should have chosen a genre I was more familiar with, but I liked the song, so I chose it anyway - this made Audience Feedback a godsend.

Even though many of the changes seemed trivial, each one went into making my products what they are, and because of this, I believe Audience Feedback has helped me learn more than enough.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and

evaluation stages?I have had to use a diverse range of media technologies in order to

successfully complete my project, with each piece of technology I use being crucial to my success.

Each stage had several pieces of technology, and some stages shared similar or the same pieces of technology, but this did not lessen its usefulness to either section.

Throughout the project, possibly the most important piece of technology overall was my Blog. Located at http://bhsapandrewward-salt.blogspot.com/, this was the centerpiece of all of my work, serving as storage, an exhibit, and an essential platform for feedback. Without it, none of my work would be on show on the internet, I wouldn’t have had as much audience feedback on my work, and I would have a far less impressive portfolio of work to show.

This is my Blogger dashboard. My blog has ended up being a very important part of my project, thanks to its dynamic method of providing content. Using Blogger, I easily uploaded pictures of my work, made posts detailing the production of my products, and even uploading my videos without having to go through a complex system of sorting out the format of the video, then sending it to YouTube, then embedding it on a website for public viewing. Thanks to my blog, a lot of time and effort was saved, allowing me to put more effort into other areas of my project.

Another integral part of my project was Yahoo Music. My research was heavily based around music videos in preparation for making one of my own. Because of this, I had to check many videos of varying genres in order to get a better idea of conventions and common themes. By watching videos on Yahoo Music, I gained important knowledge for my research section which would eventually lead me to create the music video which is on my blog right now. Researching videos took up a lot of my time, and I didn’t include many of the videos I watched due to the fact they ended up having little relevance – still, Yahoo Music provided me with a lot of useful material.

Yet another vital piece in both my research, construction, planning AND evaluation stages is Microsoft PowerPoint. Because of its easy to use interface and design, I easily made the schedule and analysis slideshows that I would eventually use to improve my planning and construction sections. PowerPoint makes creating slideshows easy which was a boon for my project because after creating all of my work, then getting all of my notes ready to analyze and evaluate my products, it was great to be able to just type it up and paste in pictures and things as I needed them. The biggest thing I have used PowerPoint for so far would be the evaluation that I am typing up right now, without PowerPoint I would need to search for some other way to show technological diversity whilst getting my point across to this level of quality. PowerPoint is still however a weak piece of technology on its own, as it requiresSlideshare to be properly useful forviewing online via my blog.

As previously stated, PowerPoint is an important part of my coursework, however, PowerPoint slideshows cannot be directly posted to my Blog. Fortunately, Slideshare makes this whole process easy. By uploading your slideshow to Slideshare, they can change its format and publish it into a flash movie where it can be embedded into a website (or in my case, Blog).

This was incredibly useful, because without it, my slideshows would be rendered defunct because I’d have no way of properly placing them on my blog, and would have to find some other way to show my slideshows to the public. This is a great platform for content distribution and is another integral piece to the puzzle that is the creation of my entire blog – the Schedule I posted a few months ago actually helped to remind me what I was supposed to be doing, because I had forgotten a few weeks later.

Next on the list of Media Technologies I used was my editing software – Adobe Fireworks CS4 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended. These were an integral part of the creation of my posters and album artwork, and if I used inferior software, I can’t guarantee that they would have been at the quality they are now. By using FW and PS, I gave my products an instant advantage they would not have had if I had of used something like MS Paint. In comparison, If I used paint, then I would be ashamed to show the products, because Fireworks and Photoshop contain many more features, such as layering and advanced photo manipulation. Layering, cleaning and then compiling the various pieces which went into my final designs was simple and fast thanks to the software, and without it, my products wouldn’t exist.

A very useful piece of technology was my phone, which has a built in camera. Using this camera I scouted out locations in the areas near to my house, as well as taking important pictures which would later give me many of the stock images I would use in my poster and album covers, such as the people and the backgrounds.

The Camera I used was the one built into my Blackberry Curve 8320, and though its not such a new phone, it was of a sufficient quality to give me usable pictures which had plenty of resolution to spare when resizing and reshaping for my products. This was important to the planning, construction and evaluation side of my project as I needed the various images I had taken with the phone camera in order to properly portray, create and evaluate both my Ancillary and Main products.

Using a Sony Handycam and Pinnacle 12, I created my music video. This was a relatively simple task due to the intuitive interface and wide array of features which helped me give an air of professionalism to my product.

Pinnacle 12 contains many interesting features, such as special transitions and effects, which add a lot of variance to otherwise bland videos. I did not make much use of the special transitions and effects however, trying to keep my video as raw as possible in order for it to fit with the genre, however, I did use the interface’s various interesting features such as overlays and volume tuning ability in order to speed up the process of creating the various segments of the video. Pinnacle 12 also made it easy to sync up my clips, if I ever found myself with some clips which were out of time, I could extend the time frame, and edit it to a smaller time unit of measurement.

As well as the obvious creation software and display software, an incredibly useful part of my research was the various search engines which litter the web. These include the Google search engine, the many features of Yahoo, and for a lot of my information searches, I used Wikipedia. Though many of the information sources found through a raw data search engine are questionable, and Wikipedia can be edited by anybody, they still proved incredibly useful to my project in its entirety, and should not be forgotten when acknowledging the technology attributing to my success.

Points about Technology Used.

I opted for the most professional technology I could find when it came to photomanipulation – Photoshop and Fireworks are industry standard tools for editing photographs, and are commonly used for designing various things from posters to ‘improved’ photographs of celebrities. Though this gave me an advantage when in the creation stages, this software is expensive, and I’m lucky that I didn’t have to buy it myself. A problem with the software I used to make my posters and album covers is that it can have a steep learning curve for some of the more advanced features such as specialist filters on Photoshop or the addition of special effects on Fireworks. Though this can be a problem, I still managed to overcome the curve and use many features to my advantage during the process of the creation of my products.

Points about Technology Used.

Pinnacle is a very good quality suite for editing and capturing video, but it has (as with most software) a learning curve that must be overcome if you wish to do more than capture a clip and then paste it onto a timeline. It’s a great piece of technology which has good value for your money, but I found that it was time consuming to get the desired effect – which was a problem, especially during the hectic stage of construction, where many tweaks had to be made to fit with Audience Feedback.

All in all I used a variety of technology in order to get the effects I required for my project, and would have run into major hurdles if I lacked any single part of it. Though some are more important than others, I believe all were necessary in the creation of what is now a finished project.