Ida Maria – I like you so much better when you’re naked Music video

Evaluation Questions

Sophie Colquhoun

1) In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?• For my advanced portfolio I chose the song I like you so much better when you’re naked by Ida Maria.• Ida Maria genre is normally classified under indie/rock/alternative rock however this is not always evident in her music videos. • In “I like you so much better when you’re naked” it features footage of the band, but then has cartoons or innuendos to go with the lyrics. Her original music video is abstract and I wanted to apply a more naturalistic approach and play on the lyrics. • To show Ida Maria’s genre and personality I focused on the mise en scene of the video. For example my main character is seen wearing casual clothes (A long black top, leggings and a cardigan) which is similar to what Ida would wear. I also chose to set scenes in a bedroom because of the lyrics and outside to show my main character being care free which is often how Ida Maria is represented herself. • Because Ida Maria didn’t really portray her genre in her own music video this gave me more lee way with my own music video with the genre. • I used other conventions of media products by using Goodwin’s Theory and applied this to my music video. He states that most videos contain voyeurism and this is particularly evident in my music video because I have close ups of bare legs and both the male and female characters removing articles of clothing. • He also says that the visuals illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics. My production illustrates the lyrics for example when it says “light a cigarette” I show a close up of a cigarette being smoked “Come on take them off. Another example is when the lyrics says “Oh I’m nervous” I show a close up of the female character twiddling her thumbs, also when the lyrics say “All the clever things” I show A-Level books which imply clever things. These are shown below:

Continued: • Also Goodwin’s theory states that close ups are always included and in my music video I used close up shots to present certain lyrics of the song are few are already shown above but I have close ups of my female character to show the who the song revolves around, and I also have a close up of the man singing the lyrics to show he also feels the same way.

• A music video clip that is understood as a silent movie and have visuals that are easy to follow are classed as a narrative which is a visual tradition for music videos. In this way I do use media conventions because my story is easy to follow. • In my video I tried to use images that would be similar to what Ida Maria would use, although I didn’t use it in my final production my female character jumps into the air with both legs up which is similar to Ida Maria’s pose. Similar to Ida Maria I also have poses of her holding the love heart, this was also stated in Goodwin’s for band iconography.• I used pink and yellow colours which is evident in her own video for I like you so much better when you’re naked.

•2) How did you use new media technologies in construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

•New media technologies enabled to research further into my artists and theories easily due to the internet which helped make my research thorough and reliable. • I also used blogspot.com which documented my planning stages which included ideas and influences, changes to any of these ideas, CD’s research and magazines advert, it also shows where I planned to film my video, camera angles I wanted to use, it also shows me applying the Goodwin's theory to other music videos. Using blogspot allowed my planning to be accessible and organised. • We also used a canon video camera which had zoom in and out features so I could focus on certain areas or particular scenery.• I also used a tripod which gave me stable shots for different heights so I could get a wide use of camera shots. It also minimized shaking of the camera. • I used to editing software Imovie which allowed me to cut bits from clips that didn’t fit in with my video and also make it fit in time with the music. • I also used the cropping tool which allowed me to take away backgrounds which I used for the close up of the cigarette shot so that was the focal point of he video. I also used cropped other features i.e. my reflection in the mirror and the girls shoulders so the cigarette was the main focus. • I could also change the saturation/hue and brightness of video clips so the quality was better and the shots that were filmed at different times looked the same. • I also reversed shots to add a comical spin to the song for example when the male character is taking off his clothes, it also helped create my narrative stance and make it prominent.• I could also speed up or slow down shots to make it in time to the lyrics, add the comical spin to it and in time with beats. •There was also a feature to stabilise shots so any shots that were shaky could be minimized.• There was also a precision timer which could be used to help sync the footage to the lyrics

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3) How effective is the combination of your final product and ancillary products?

• • Whilst producing my final and ancillary products I had to take into account Ida Maria’s image and genre.• As I have already researched Ida is fun, quirky and this comes across in her existing CD covers, below.

• Her CD’s cover are simple and she is the focal point of the CD. I particularly liked the red CD cover, as the colour stands out and draws in an appeal. • Therefore I used pictures where she looks fun and happy to go with the genre, mood and the song. • I used a similar font to Ida Maria’s because I felt it worked well with my products and this is used on most of her CD covers. I used flirty, swirly handwriting for the title of the song to suggest a girl had wrote it, almost like a crush. I also thought that the handwriting looked fun, similar to Ida Maria’s CD cover, above. • From looking at these two CD examples I decided I was going to use a simple picture and experimented with different backgrounds and different colour of font too.

• I researched into magazine adverts to see if they could influence my ideas. I used a HMV logo. I involved a picture of my artist and the boy main character so people know who the artist was. • I also put Ida Maria’s website page at the bottom so fans can find out more about her and her music, enter competitions and follow her.• I looked into NME adverts in particular as this magazine features the most adverts, typically the magazine advert would feature three other adverts along with it so this way I needed to grab my audiences attention. • I therefore used a bold picture that stands out, I did this by using the saturation and brightness controls. I also used big bold font which would also grab the audiences attention.•I think my products could possibly be seen in a real shop but personally felt that the look and images I had in mind were hard to portray without them looking too basic and unrealistic. For example images background couldn’t be cropped out using the software available to use so it looked like the images had just been stuck carelessly on. To try and override this I used the main picture as the background hoping this would minimize this effect. • My CD cover

4) What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

• From my audience feedback I learnt that my video was funny and appealed to teenagers because of the narrative I took with my video. • They also said that the “I like you so much better when you’re naked” flashing up on the screen was particularly effective because it was in tune with the beats and lyrics. • Audience feedback told me they liked the fast bits of my song and they also liked how the main character looked like he was being told to take them off. • A criticism I received for my production was that “All the clever things” didn’t sync properly with my character singing. Although I tried to alter this, unfortunately changing this clip meant other bits became unsynced.