My media product uses and develops conventions of existing music videos. I chose the song 'Forever and Always' by Taylor Swift because the songs lyrics are emotional and relatable to my target audience of female teenagers, therefore i felt that i could portray these feelings through the use of my talent, locations, theme and colour scheme. I also made a focus group who i could ask for ideas and feedback to help me develop my media portfoilo.
When carrying out research for my music video, i researched the conventions of music videos and i found that the main conventions used throughout many videos are the use of different angles for the talent and the use of close ups to show the talents and expressions. I used this convention in my music video by using zooms on my camera to film close ups of my talent on parts of the song where there are certain expressions and emotions because of the lyrics. My music video illustrates the meaning of the lyrics through the expressions of my talent and pace of the video.
I also used a variety of locations in which i filmed my talent lyp singing to the song. From watching various music videos, as well as music videos of the same music genre, i found that they all included the talent/artist singing as well as other shots of the talent. I showed this in shots such as the phone and laughing scenes. These portray a small narrative that is broken up between the singing to represent the talents emotions from the lyrics.
Various music videos that i researched did not start their music videos from the beginning of the song, some added a dialogue scene on to the start of the video and in some cases, some added dialogue on to the end. In my video, i filmed a small dialogue section that gives and insight of the girl and the relationship with the boy in a flashback. When the lyrics start; 'Once upon a time' this is explaining the flashback and the narrative of the lyrics is that it wasn't 'forever and always' like she once thought. Therefore, i used conventions of a dialogue scene in my music video that is often used throughout many videos of the same genre such as another video by the artist Taylor Swift; 'White Horse' which begins with a phone conversation.
However, my video does challenge some conventions as it does not follow a strict narrative pattern throughout the video as it is mainly performance based, whereas many videos choose to follow a convention for a performance or narrative or an equal balance between the two.
When producing my music video i came across some problems. Outside locations were hard to shoot in due to the weather and in addition to this, the indoor locations were hard to film in as it was not my house and therefore was not easy to always film there. In addition to this, commitments made it hard for myself and my talent to always meet up to do the filming and therefore an idea that i had when filming, was if i was to make this project again, i could use a family member that i will see all the time or to use myself as the talent and film it using a tripod. This would allow me to be able to film whenever i needed too.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
My video follows a colour scheme of colours often related to girls such as pink, so therefore i decided to follow these colour scheme into my ancillary texts. This has meant that my ancillary texts of a website homepage, a magazine advert and the digipak cover are all aesthetically related to my music video.
I created my ancillary texts on photoshop and used photographs of my talent that i had taken. I chose my main video feature of the decorated wall as my digipak cover because it is a personal feature to my video and therefore follows the trend. My talent's facial expressions represents the meaning of the lyrics on the cover and i also followed this onto the back cover. As an extra to my digipak and ancillary texts, i also created a poster to include in the digipak by using a similar photograph of my talent and the feature wall.
I cross referenced my foundation portfolio of my music magazine into my advanced portfolio. On my website homepage i made a reference to my magazine; 'One for the radio'. I feel that i have made progress on programs such as photoshop since my foundation portfolio. However, i have used more drop shadows and strokes on my texts in these ancillary artefact's as from looking back at my foundation portfolio i concluded that some of my text was not as bold as i first thought and that it needed to be more eye catching and therefore i chose black and dark pinks for my texts this time with dark drop shadows.
I feel that the combination of my music video and the ancillary texts is effective because they follow the same pattern and scheme and the texts hold enough information to be informative but are still appealing to teenagers who are my target audience. I also created an outtakes video as an extra on the dvd and alongside this i have also created a directors commentray video as an extra. I created these on imovie. I put another song by the artist of 'Forever and Always', Taylor Swift in the background of my outtakes video as this carries across the pop/coutnry crossover music genre into the extra features as well as just the music video.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
When i had completed my video, i showed it to a few members of my focus group who i recorded whilst they were giving me their feedback. My audience feedback has played an important part in my evaluation of my project as their ideas have helped me to think of what i would change in the future if i was to do the project again. However, my feedback was mainly positive and as my focus group are of the age that i am aiming for, this has helped me to evaluate how my target age group will take my media product if it was to be distributed. I also emailed a friend with the ancillary texts attached and asked for her feedback on an email. In addition to this, i sent my friend my ancillary texts and then phoned her for her opinions. I recorded this phonecall and have uploaded some of it onto my blog.
How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
My advanced portfolio has allowed me to become more confident when using a video camera and i have also learnt how to use programs such as imovie which i had never used before this project. My planning before filming my footage allowed me to film easily and more efficiently as i had a plan through my storyboard and animatic to follow. However i was unable to shoot some of the footage because of other commitment problems. I was unable to film the intertextual reference of 'Romeo and Juliet' on the balcony scene as the male lead i was going to use was no longer available in my free time to film and therefore i had to adjust my video to fit around this. This is also true of the band performance which i changed to my talent performing in another location.
I created my interactive mood board using a website program called glogster.com. Using this i was able to create my mood board with videos and linked text. I included pictures and ideas that i will use in my video on the mood board such as props, locations and general concepts of the video.
Final Conclusion
In conclusion, i am pleased with my final music video and ancillary texts as they fit with the genre of my pop/country music crossover style and are appealing to my focus group and target audience. Although i came across some problems whilst filming and in the production of my video, these have helped me to learn and develop my media skills when using different media technologies.
