Cecily Morris

Music video evaluation

Our task was to create a music video the song “This is the life by two door cinema
club” we create the concept of two very different worlds, and that the narrative
shots where meant to be in Stefans mind, this is why we show at the start of each
narrative location that we go through his eye. We wanted the band shots to be
very boring and over exposed like this was a boring world of nothing. We added
a ‘love interest’ so that it gave the narrative an interesting stories instead of just
someone walking around. At the end we come out of Stefans eye like everything
in the narrative is a dream.

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

We produced a music video for a song called ‘This is the life’ and we created a
different name for our band which is ‘The Known’ we decided to do this because
we left it gave our band some individuality and a different image, and band
names consisting ‘The’ is often seen in the ‘Indie’ genre. We also thought this was
a catchy name that people aged 15-30 both male and female would find it
relatable.
At the start of the year we where shown Andrew Goodwins theories from
the book ‘Dancing in the distraction 1992’ we were told to use this as our
guidline, to start with we looked into the history of music videos and how many
of them you would find have followed these guidelines.
These theories where;
 There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals.
 There is a relationship between the music and the visuals
 Particular music genres may have their own music video style and
iconography
 There is a demand on the part of a record company for lots of close-ups of
the main vocalist/artist
 The artist may develop their star iconography in and out of their videos,
which over time becomes part of their star image
 There is likely reference to voyeurism, particularly in treatment to
women but also in terms of systems of looking.
 There are likely to be inter-textual references, either to other music
videos or to films and TV texts.
We each chose a music video of our own choice, and were told to make a
powerpoint displaying how they fitted into Goodwins theories.
When creating our product throughout the whole time we kept looking
back at the theories to make sure we followed them as far as we could. “there is
a relationship between the lyrics and visuals” we showed a relationship when
trying to emphsise the lyrics “This is the life” we did this with our narrative
shots, we showed Stefan having a busy and interesting life in a large city London,
this was shown further with the contrast between the bright shots and the
boring band shots.
“there is a relationship between the music and the visuals” when planning
the music video we thought about how we could make the music and the visuals
connect, where would going to make the relationship strong or where we going
to have no conncetion on purpose, we had a little of both, the band shots where
plain and boring which was done to show a contrast to the feel of the song which
happy and uplifting. But in the narrative shots where our lead singer Stefan
danced around London, which fits this, feel of the song. The song is very
repetitive it has a slow start and then a fast end but the middle of the song is all
the same, this made it easier to creating an interesting narrative so that it wasn’t
repetitive like the song.
When developing our music video we had to reaserch other bands
of the same genra such as Bombay Bycical Club, the feeling and blur we started to
find things we could use as our target audience is similar. It gave us a base for
our music video. By taking ideas from their images this shows we used some
intertexual references. Our main interxual reference is the tunnel shots, we got
the location for this from the Fix you video by coldplay

by using this location it will immediately widen our target audience as anyone
who has seen this Coldplay video will see ours and recognize the location. This
will make the appeal of our music video widen to an older audience as Coldplay
have an older fan base.
When a band is created there is always a lead singer, or main person of a
band. The companys behind the making of music videos will demand this person
to be center stage. Our lead singer is Stefan, we make him the star icon of the
music video by placing only him our of the band in our narrative shots, this
instantly will make the audience recognize him as the lead singer. We made him
stand out agaist the other band members by deciding for him to wear different
clothing in the band shots everyone is just wearing white, he is also wearing
white but with a black jumper, he is also always places in the center of the shots,
and has the most close ups.

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

as part of our project we had to create a working website homepage and a CD

case, including the front, back and inside. This is because al record labels will
demand this in order to promote the band and their image.
As you can see this is our website design. We desided to follow the theme of our
song ‘this is the life’ we cant the website to be bright and colourful. We took
colours from the music video when we go through Stefans eye, and through the
colours into the website design. By doing this it the audience will see the
connections and relate them together. We singled each band member into their
own colour so that attention is not singled onto one person, but each member as
its own. Although the pictures are colour, we kept the backgroun colors simple
Blue and black, blue is known as a masculine colour, and so is black. We wanted
to promote the song and music video by having the song play while on the
website. We also have a clip from the music video as a sneek preview. There are
links to “Facebook” and “Twitter” accounts which we made for our band, these
are two major social networking sites and a very good way to promote a band as
millions of people can follow them and their activities this makes the band
interactive towards their audience. The font used for the name of the band is
very urban and looks as if it has been hand written with is individual and youw
ill find many other ‘Indie’ bands do this. When reaserching other websites we
looked at bands such as Kings of Leon, Bombay Bicycle Club, The beatles and Take
that. We looked to see what the younger audience will look for in a website, our
first draft of the music video is very black and white, we decided that this was
used for older bands as its easy on the eyes and very simple. The younger bands
used strong colours such as Red or Blue. Using bright colours is very youthful
because it attracts your eyes.
This is our CD design, as you can instantly see we have used the same colours as
we did on the website. By doing this the audience will make the connection as
see the theme we have which becomes our bands ‘Iconic Image’ which is one of
Goodwins theories. We used a similar hand written font to fit to our
individuality. We got the idea for our front cover from the Blur CD cover

Although blur is not necessarily an ‘Indie’ band we found it athetically pleasing,

there is something about the individual colours which makes you think of the
Andy Warhol’s paintings of Marilyn Monroe. The colours are all very appealing
and easy to look at. When in a CD store the bright colours will stand out to you,
this also brings Goodwin’s theories back as it shows intertexuality as people who
look at our CD cover design will link it to Blurs CD cover and they will instantly
become interested to listen to our band.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Through out our whole project we tried to get as much audience feedback as
possible so that we could get many different peoples points of views so that they
felt involved and that we weren’t close minded and mange to make it appeal to
our audience as far as we could.
We held our first Focus group to pitch our idea to them, after doing this they had
told us we needed to make a lot of change, this was very helpful as then we
managed to change our idea and not go down a track, which our audience
wouldn’t be interested in. our target audience is 15-30 and we wanted it to be for
both male and female genders, so every time we help a focus group we tried to
get as wide of a age range as possible and a mix of both genders. We held another
Focus group for our Digi Pack, and their we discovered that the audience found
our original ideas for our Website and CD pack boring, we then added the colour
that they now find much more appealing. Showing the finished product to people
we got lots of positive feedback, they said by making the band shots a very
different colour to our narrative shots they understood that they were meant to
be in different worlds almost.
We also got amazing feedback from a director Jim Cole, he was the one
who gave us the idea of over exposing the band shots, as he explain it would give
the distinct contract of the two different locations.

How did the use of media technologies in the construction, research,

planning and evaluating stages?

The first technologie we used was a website called ‘Blogger’ we used it to track
all our ideas and show the whole process of our music video, this was extreamly
helping in creating our music video as everything we need could be found in one
place. We could post all our research such as other bands videos from ‘Youtube’.
‘Youtube’ is a very useful way to promote bands as it is open for the public to see
and get comments from it. We also posted images of ideas we had had. On the
blog teachers are able to post their ideas that is very helpful when planning and
analyzing.
We used “Screenflow” to show the process of our music video, this is a program
where you can record yourself speaking but show everything on the computer
screen at the same time. Like a directors commentary, this is a simple way to talk
about everything and analyze what is happening on the screen instead of just
writing it down.
When filming and editing our music video we used new technologies such
as HD cameras and ‘Final Cut pro’ the HD cameras where very easy to use and
light to carry around with us. ‘Final Cut’ is a very professional program used on
‘Apple mac’ computers this is where we basically created our music video, we
added effects to the clips and manage to lip sync all the lyrics to the visuals. We
also added transitions to make it very clear that the two worlds were very
separate , and in Stefans mind. We took the band shots which were shot with a
white backdrop and over exposed them with a brightness and glow video filter
on “Final Cut”. We used a lot of reverse in the music video this was mainly used
at the end to show how we are going back in time. We also sped up some shots
this was to keep the audience attracted and keep a fast pace to the song.
Although at the start of the song to show the day beginning we slowed down
shots. Using a change of speed also helped with our lip syncing as in places
where Stefan would be out of time we manage to Lip Sync is by slowing down
shots or speeding them up.
We used “Wix” to create our website, this is an extremely simple website
to you yet it give a very professional and effective final product. As it has so many
different effects and features you can add as much or as little as you want. You
can also upload your own images, music, and videos which makes it very much
your own website.
We used “Photoshop” to create or CD pack, it is used to edit images and combine
different ones together. Photoshop is always very effetive as you can do
whatever you like, take things off the internet and add it, change colours
completely and add effects.