Final cut

The above video is the final cut of our music video for the song 'Haven't Met You Yet'.

Evaluation Question 4

My fourth evaluation question is: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? 

Evaluation Question 3

My third evaluation question is: What have you learned from your audience feedback?


The following is a link to my prezi answering the third evaluation question.

Evaluation Question 2

My second evaluation question is: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Evaluation Question 1

My first evaluation question is: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Editing

Last lesson, we did some more filming. We re shot the scenes with our singer in. This is because we wanted him to be wearing trousers instead of jeans. This didn't take us long to film or edit in because we knew exactly what we wanted and where we wanted them. Below is an image of the recent editing process:

Final Digipak and Poster

The following images are our final drafts of our poster and digipak:

We used an app called colour splash to turn the tie red on our image of our singer. We chose the colour red as it connotes the feeling of love and the album itself is called 'crazy love'. The narrative of our music video is also based around the idea of love and so their is link between the three products. We changed the font colours so they are all matching the same shade of grey, this is because it looks neater this way. The fonts stay the same for the name and title on both the poster and digipak, however it changes for the website and the information about including songs on the poster. This is because it makes it more interesting to look at as well as making the writing stand out more. We changed the photo on the front of the digipak so that it matched the one on our poster, and we also moved the font around so that it matched as well. This is so that the link between the two promotional pieces are clearly shown. We decided to keep the inside of the digipak simple in comparison to our first draft. The reason for this is that it looked as though there was too much going on. Another aspect that we changed on our digipak was the addition of the social media icons. We added these because through our research we notices how many digipaks had these icons on to help promote the artist and their song through intertextaulity as well.

The use of Photoshop

When editing our digipak, we needed to use photoshop to remove the background on one of the images that we wanted to add in.

To do this, we imported the image into photoshop, and used the magic wand background easer tool. This is because we wanted to remove the white background. To ensure that the image of the microphone was saved without the background, we saved the image as a PNG. This then meant we could put the image of the microphone onto our digipak without the white background, ensuring our digipak looked professional and neat.

Poster Feedback

In class today, we showed our poster to one of class mates and asked her for feedback. The flowing image shows the feedback that she gave us:



We found this feedback really useful and as a result are going to make changes to both our poster and our digipak. This is because the feedback has pointed our a few flaws in our poster, such as the lack of colour, and so to make it better and more aesthetic we plan to add colour and also to add more intertexuality, by adding in a website.

Digipak Draft

Our digipak draft also matches the typical conventions and aspect of Michael Buble's. This is because we know that it will conform to it's genre's conventions this way. It is also to ensure that the digipak matches our poster. This is important as both as promotional pieces for our song and music video.

Our digipak is also in black and white, matching the theme of our poster. The image on the front of our digipak is different to the one on our poster, but it is off the same actor. We did this to try and make it more interesting. The link is still clear because of the costume and the use of the hat. Something we noticed in our research was that Michael Buble often had his name in a strip going across the front of the digipak, we liked this idea and so thought we would incorporate it into ours. The font on our digipak is the same as on our poster and so highlights the link between the two clearly again.

Poster Draft

The following image is our first draft for our poster. The purpose of this poster is to promote the song 'Haven't Met You Yet', which is what our music video is based on. To help us make this successful and more realistic we used some typical aspects and conventions that Michael Buble uses within his posters and digipaks. An example of this is the use of black and white, we have used this and it is also common amongst Michael Buble's promotional pieces. The titles are also fairly subtle, which is similar to Michael Buble's use of titles. This has helped us to ensure that our poster fits into the conventions of it's genre.

Poster Research

Before starting to create our poster, we did some research. The purpose of the poster, alongside the digipak, is to promote the song. With this in mind, we understood that the poster had to have strong links similarities with the digipak, otherwise the promotion would be confusing for the target audience. I looked at Olly Murs poster and his digipak for his album Right Place Right Time.

 The images on the left show his digipak and poster. The similarities are abundantly clear. The image of him on the poster is the same as the one on the digipak. The fonts are the same, as well as the colour and layout. His poster mentions that there is a number one song on the album, which is something we may do on our poster, to ensure there is advertising for our song. The colour of Olly Murs name matches the braces that he is wearing. This is an idea that  I like and would like to incorporate into our poster and digipak.
Another aspect of his digipak and poster that I like is that the font matches the style of the genre. His music is within the pop genre, and the style of font has a fun feel to it, much like pop music.

Olly Murs digipak has influenced my ideas for our digipak and poster, in terms of the style and the way they match things up within the individual products as well as the two together.

Feedback

Today in class we all went around and viewed each other rough cut and gave feedback. The feedback that we received on our video was very useful. We need to improve on the lip syncing in a couple of areas of the video as it is slightly out of sync. As well as this, there are a couple of shots that are shaky or out of focus which we will need to either film again or remove. However, a couple of shots can be fixed by using the warp stabilizer. We found this feedback very useful in helping to improve our video. There was also positive feedback, in which people said that they enjoyed our use of close-ups. They also said that they thought our narrative was good, and that our actors and shots helped to make it all believable. An example they gave of this was a shot of our actor running. One other positive that we were given was the link between the narrative and the song lyrics. The feedback they gave said that they enjoyed the link, and that it made me the video more interesting. Below is an image showing some if the feedback that we were given:

Rough Cut

The following video is our rough cut :

We are planning on filming some of the shots again as we aren't completely happy with all of them. This is because some of them are unfocused or have objects in the background which hinders the mise-en-scene. The costume of our singer is also something we would like to change. This is because we believe trousers will look better than jeans.

Photo's

Today we decided to use the cameras to take some photos for our digipak and magazine advert. We thought that a white background would look good and help to allow our actor to stand out more. There is a variety of different poses and angles within the photos we took, and below there are a few examples of the photos.

Editing

Today, we decided to do some editing for our music video. We have worked on matching up the lip syncing and ensuring that the video flows between shots of the narrative and the performer. Below our a couple of images of our editing process:

Location

We decided to film our actor for the singing part of the music video in our school theatre. This is because it is easily accessible and has a plain white wall. My research into jazz music video's taught us that they typically have quite bright lighting. We thought that the plain white wall, along with ensuring all the lights in the theatre are on, would create a light setting for us to film his singing. A photo of the stage we filmed on is below, along with a photo of our actor during the filming.

These photos both show how there is a light setting for us to film in and how it is bright, helping us to conform to the conventions.

Presentation Feedback

After presenting our idea to our class (a prezi can be seen in a previous post relating to the presentation) we had a range of feedback which can be seen in the images. Most of the feedback was positive in terms of the song and how it matched our narrative that we have created. Another positive piece of feedback was that they thought that our choice of actions within the video linked in well with the lyrics, something which our questionnaire showed most of our target audience liked. 

They did also say that we needed to think about our location and variation of shots. A big piece of feedback that we found exceptionally useful was the idea of adding in shots of another character unrelated to the narrative to be singing. This is to make our video more interesting and also to ensure it looks like a music video and not a short film. 

Haven't Met You Yet Plan

The following is a prezi which is all about where we are at in progress with our video and idea's for 'haven't met you yet'. We will be presenting this to our class and getting feedback to help us improve further upon our ideas.

Digipak

Before starting our digipak we decided to look at some others. Firstly, we looked at the typical layout of a digipak which can be seen below:


We then went on to look at the different digipak styles for the different genres of music. Pop genres tend to have very colourful and busy digipak's. An example of this is Katy Perry's Teenage Dream album's digipak. It is very bright and girly, the colour scheme is pinks and blues. The images are all linked and flow nicely. The target audience is clearly teenage girls.




















The next digipak I looked at was The Paper Kites album Woodland. The genre of this band is folk/indie. There digipak is not as bright as Katy Perry's, it does however have a constant theme throughout. Unlike the pop genre, the artists are not seen on the digipak. The main theme of the digipak is in correlation with the name of the album as it is focuses on trees and flowers and the woodland setting.











To help ensure that our digipak fitted in the our genre I looked into Michael Buble's digipak's. I noticed how a continued theme throughout his album's digipak's is that there is an image of him on the front and the writing is inside a strip going across the image. I thought this was something we should also do as it was clearly a theme linked to Michael Buble and his albums, and so by doing it with our one it will help us with the advertising part of our coursework task. I also noticed how he is usually well dressed in his digipak's and so thought that our actor should be well dressed as well. A typical convention of jazz is that the artists are well dressed and so this will help us to conform to the conventions, as well as make our digipak more aesthetically pleasing.

The Lady is a Tramp

Tony Bennet and Lady Gaga's music video for the song Lady is a Tramp.

Their music video is a performance based video to a jazz song. A typical convention of of jazz music videos is that they tend to contain quite upbeat emotions which make the audience smile. This is seen within their video becuase they both have a light, happy attitude and body language which is clear to the audience, helping to make the audience feel relaxed and enjoy the song. They are both smiling and laughing a lot throughout the song as well, helping to create the upbeat atmosphere  and make the audience smile. They also manage to create the happy atmosphere through the little dances they do throughout the song, as again it creates a relaxed yet upbeat atmosphere. This happy mood is continued through the use of bright lights, another convention of a jazz music video.

The brights lights are used to create the happy mood for the audience as the brightness links to the idea daylight and sunshine. Another use that bright lights have is drawing attention. By having a brightly lit music video it attracts the attention of the audience. The bright lights can be seen throughout their video as the studio

that they are filming in is clearly lit up brightly. They also place emphasis on the use of lighting within the video because it starts by fading in from a blurred dimness into a bright sharp focus shot. The next convention of a jazz music video is that there is a large performance space. Throughout the images seen in this post it is quite clear that the space that they are filming in is very large and open creating a light atmosphere which appeals to the audience. However, in a lot of jazz music videos there are multiple locations so as to keep and emphasise the energy of the song this isn't seen within their video. The reason for this could be because the energy is created and emphaised by the artists themselves, espcecially Lady Gaga. She moves around the space and dances throughout the video, keeping the atmosphere light and energetic through her movements.

The costumes in jazz music videos are often sophisticated. Alongside her movements, the camera itself tends to pan alot and move around the space, focusing on the artists throughout, helping to keep the energy up as it means there is a lot of movement. The men tend to wear suits and the women tend to wear dresses. Both artsits conform to this, seen through Tonny Bennet's suit and Lady Gaga's black dress. His tie is also black, which matches with her dress, showing sophistication and elegance. Their costumes can clearly be seen in the long shot in the image. The elegant, sophistication of the costumes within jazz music videos reflects the older years. Another aspect that reflects the older years is the use of the old fashioned microphones. These old fashioned microphones are typically used within jazz music videos as they hint at the older years which jazz songs typically represent. One major way in which this video does not conform to the conventions of a jazz music video is the setting. Jazz music videos are typically set in lots of older, run down places to create a light, 'old school' atmosphere. This video is set within a clean, white studio. The reason for this could be because Lady Gaga doesn't come across as old enough to have the old fashioned, 'old school' atmosphere and so the setting is more suited to her. Overall, this video tends to comform to the majority of the conventions of a jazz music video.

Target Audience

Our target audience is teenagers, and mainly females. This is because we can relate to both aspects of the target audience which is beneficial in helping us to make sure that the video is something the audience will enjoy. The following prezie is all about are target audience :

Hard Out Here

Lilly Allen’s music video to her song ‘Hard out Here’ represents the oppression that women face from men. The first shot seen is an aerial pan showing her lying on an operating table, surrounded by men working on her body. This immediately creates the idea that men decide what happens to women’s bodies and how they should look. The use of an American doctor on a British patient suggests that it is American’s that are the main cause for men having the power over women’s bodies, as well as the idea that the need to physically change the way that women look has been created through America, due to the large impact it has on other countries. The dialogue at the beginning shows how an unfit man is judging her body, while she feels the need to defend herself by stating that she has had two children. The other man then stereotypes that women ‘get like this’ after they have had children, showing how the two men are judging women and their bodies. The cut away to a shot of a TV showing a stereotypical music video of young, attractive females in small amounts of clothing dancing provocatively shows the audience how women are told they should look. Lilly Allen’s voice during the dialogue is timid and weak; however it changes instantly when she starts singing to a more confident, strong voice. The lyrics throughout the song are highlighting the sexism towards women. An example of this is when she sings ‘I don’t need to shake my arse for you because I’ve got a brain’. These is instantly highlighting how women are seen as stupid and rely upon their bodies to get far in life, however she does not need to.  Straight after these lyrics there is shot showing the liposuction, suggesting that it the girls how believe they need their bodies to get by in life that go through those sorts of treatments. The lyrics ‘it’s time to speed it up because I can’t move at this pace’ suggest that she is ahead of most people in the belief that men and women are equal and that women don’t need to show off their bodies for men. The overall theme of the music video suggests that it is a stereotypical female music video, where the women are showing of their bodies and dancing provocatively. There are many close up and long shots showing the lack of clothing on the women and the full suits that the men are wearing. The body language and dancing of the women is the typical open leg dance

which is seen in a lot of music videos these days as it makes the women look sexual, something that will please the men. The look of the entire video agrees with both Berger and Mulvey’s idea of the male gaze and that ‘men look, women appear’. The way the women are dressed and dancing is for the pleasure of the men viewing the video. However, the lyrics of the song contradict everything that is visually shown. With the visuals and the lyrics together the music video can be said to be making fun of other, more typical music videos. The fact that Lilly Allen is completely clothed, despite the fact the clothes are body hugging, shows that she still doesn’t want to show off her entire body just for a video. During the chorus, there is a mid- shot showing Lilly Allen trying to get one of the men to twerk;

another dance move which is provocative. The man is struggling to do it properly. The editing then cuts away to a close up of the women dancing, and then back to the man who is now saying no. This shot is a low angle, which shows power. Depending on the situation this power could have been given to either the women of the man. However, due to the fact that the man is saying no and choosing not to dance I would say that he has the power in this shot. The idea of the men having power is, again, typical within these music videos. Using Dyers idea on stereotypes being about power, and those with power stereotyping those with less power we can establish an idea that the man in the video is stereotyping the women to

 be dumb. Due to the suit that he is wearing, it is safe to assume that he is someone with power as he is well dressed. The mid shot of her in the kitchen washing the car wheel plates fits in with the stereotypical idea that women should be in the kitchen and cleaning. The shot then shows the man come in telling her how to do it properly suggesting that he believes she isn’t smart enough to know how to do it herself. He also then tells her to look sexier towards the camera which she does; going back to Berger and Mulvey’s ideas on the male gaze. There is another shot linking to this later on in the video, in which the same guy is getting her to seductively eat a banana, again linking to the idea of women being

objectified by men, a topic which comes in the lyrics of the song. Keeping the idea of the male gaze in mind, there is another close-up shot showing one of the women dancing while another puts money down her top. This creates the idea of strippers, which again goes back to the thought that women are there for the men to look at and objectify.  With the theme of this video being to make fun of other music videos and contradict them, there is a shot which

mimics a shot seen in a video made by an artist earlier that year. This shot shows her dancing around balloons which spell out a description of her body. The use of this is to highlight how people don’t care when a man does it however; if a woman does it they become more outraged. This is made clear through the lyrics ‘inequality’ and ‘injustice’. The overall effect of this song and video on the audience is to raise their awareness of the sexism within music videos towards women. The use of the continuous contradiction between the lyrics and the visuals shows the audience not only how women are typically portrayed within in videos, but also to question why it is necessary. The purpose of this video is to make the audience think while watching it,