Evaluation Q1 & Q2

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

From the beginning of our music video project it has been an aim for my group that even though we want our music video to look real, we wanted to challenge the codes and conventions of typical music videos and put our own mark in the music industry.

In the planning and researching stages for our music video we decided to watch music videos of the acoustic genre in order to gain an insight into the codes and conventions. The most influential artist in the development of our own music video was Adele. The video to ‘rolling in the deep’ inspired us to use a black and white filter as when we analysed this video we felt that it was this effect that emphasized the emotions of the song lyrics. I also became aware of how the simple shots of Adele sitting on the stool in the middle of a room made the audience attentive to the themes in the lyrics, as it highlighted that Adele felt alone and the image of her isolated in the room emphasized this. The themes within this song were the same in ‘bullet’, this lead to us using and developing the idea of the artist being sat down singing the lyrics. I found that when watching ‘rolling in the deep’ there were a lot of long shots and mid close-ups and thought that there should be more close ups as this focus on the face would show the artists emotions. This criticism helped us when filming as we decided we would put emphasis on different facial features-mainly the mouth and eyes. This was exceptionally effective as it made the performance more interesting and enjoyable to watch but also made the audience connect with what the artist was singing.

 Other music videos such as Jason Mraz’s ‘I’m yours’ and Laura Marling’s ‘New Romantic’ used close-ups and extreme close-ups often which was very successful this inspired us in our performance shots to focus on the mouth singing the lyrics and the eyes to show the pure emotion behind the lyrics. One of the ways we challenged other music videos is quite subtle but had a phenomenal result. When editing the narrative to the music video we decided to use a high brightness to suggest that the memories of the female lover are happy and beautiful however the performance shots are black and white. The contrasts between the shots are a great success, I feel that this decision will help the audience engage in how the female character is feeling and they will be able to relate to her emotions. besides this, the contrast between the shots are beautiful to watch as it makes the narrative clear as it shows an obvious difference between the past and present within the video. The theme of memories is a key theme within music videos such as ‘photograph’ by nickelback. This video uses quick montages of special moments. We decided to use this technique within our own music video as we felt in ‘photograph’ this technique was extremely effective in portraying the theme of lost love and wanted the same effect in our own video.

The themes within our music video are very conventional as our narrative follows a typical teenage love story and depicts the pain of first love. It is a situation that is relatable to our target audience of 31-25 year olds. By creating a situation that is common for our target audience we have also made our artist relatable which will make viewers interested in more songs by our artist and to purchase this track.

Our CD cover most defiantly follows most of the conventions of a real media product; however we were extremely motivated in challenging typical features of a real CD cover such as the type of camera shot used of the artist. Most CD covers today typically use a close up or a symbol connoted with the artist. Instead of following this convention we thought we would use a mid-shot of our artist. We did this because we wanted to show our artist breaks the rules of the stereotypical acoustic artist by showing Lucy is a seductive outfit. Most acoustic CD covers feature the artist in a way that presents them as either environmental loving or mysterious. By presenting Lucy different we are showing that acoustic music is developing and changing in order to appeal to a modern audience. On our CD cover we did use a typical feature of a CD cover which is a symbol in order to represent what the artist is about or what he or she stands for. Our symbol was birds. Birds are a typical symbol of freedom; this helped us to show that ‘Bella diem’ is free from the constraints of stereotypical acoustic music and shows there is no set type of music that ‘Bella diem’ creates. The photograph of Lucy has been edited on ‘PhotoShop’ by using the ‘posterize’ tool. We thought that this is an unusual technique to use so it would make ‘Bella Diem’ stand out on the shelf against other CD covers and could suggest there music is also extremely different to other artists that exist today.

The biggest challenge we made to the conventions of our media products was not using the artist featured on the CD cover and tour poster within our music video. This was due to Lucy not being available to film. We did worry that this would confuse the audience on who ‘Bella diem’ actually was and what did Lucy actually look like, but when researching for ideas we came across Pinks ‘in a family portrait video’. This video features a young girl singing Pinks song without Pink being seen once and this was defiantly effective in creating a believable character. I decided to be the female character within our music video and in my opinion was the best decision we made as I was able to create a relatable character who made the situation described in ‘Bullet’s’ lyrics come to life.

The tour poster was the last media product we created and wanted to make sure it fitted perfectly with our CD cover and music video. We used a photo of Lucy that was from the same shoot as the one from the CD cover as we thought this would help the audience to recognise ‘Bella diem’ everywhere they go. This is a typical convention used by most artists. We have used birds throughout all of our media products as a symbol that reflects the band and would be featured in all the merchandise created for the band. For the layout of our tour poster we looked at many examples of tour posters belonging to artists of the acoustic genre:  Laura Marling’s tour poster does not actually feature her on the cover. As a group we decided this wasn’t something we wanted to do, as ‘Bella Diem’ is a new band and wanted them to be easily recognised. However, this is effective for Laura Marling as it reflects her quirky, mysterious personality. I liked how her name was big and bold on the tour poster as it is very eye catching and would easily get the attention of passers -by. I also liked the colour featured on her tour poster and this inspired me to use striking colours on our own tour poster.

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (tour poster & CD)?

In order for an excellent combination of media products we kept in mind the same ideas and themes when creating them individually. Our music video, tour poster and CD cover have a similar style running throughout which help ‘Bella Diem’ become recognisable to the audience. It is clear to see that our media products are linked from the themes, style and symbols that we have included in all of them.

When linking and combining our media products we looked at different CD covers, music videos and tour posters that fall under the same category as ours. We were extremely influenced by Laura Marling’s use of linking her media products as the distinct font for her name would be easily recognisable to her fans and makes her unique as an artist. Also the plain writing and simple designs for both the CD cover and tour poster clearly distinct her from other artists. This inspired us to create links that would make ‘Bella Diem’ stand out against other acoustic bands. From analysing the success of Laura Marling’s CD cover and tour poster we decided to keep our ancillary texts extremely simple as we felt this would be more attractive and appealing to our target audience. We chose birds as a symbol that would be present in all our products as when researching we found this was a typical convention used by most artists.

Ensuring that there is a clear link visible between our CD cover and tour poster was also created by the way ‘Bella Diem’ appeared on the product. By the artists name appearing in the same colour and font it is easy to see that the tour poster and CD cover belong together. Another reason we did this was to make our artist easy to recognise, by having the same text the audience would get used to seeing it and picture it in their minds straight away. This we thought was a good idea as ‘Bella Diem’ is new to the music industry and would need recognition from fans.

I think the only way the combination of our main product and ancillary texts is not effective is Lucy not being present in our music video but is the main feature on both our CD cover and tour poster. This could potentially confuse the audience as to what ‘Bella Diem’ actually look like and this is a major concern of ours. However, due to the band not being able to film it was our only option to use someone else in our video and we are still very pleased with our end result. Artists such as pink used actors in her video to mime her song and it looked extremely effective and we feel that by not following the norm we are challenging current music videos and being individuals.