AO - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

• For our music video we used a range of different technologies, for different parts of the production. The blog was very useful, as it enables us to see each others work, and what the other people in the group are thinking, we could use the blog to brainstorm ideas, and comment on the groups work.



• These things allowed us to collaboratively produce an idea and concept for our music video, and also post research or links that we thought would be useful to the video.



• We were able to post new ideas for the concept of the video or new shot ideas on the blog, allowing us to have up to date ideas, and seeing how our ideas develop. This was key in the planning of our video and the development of it.



• Another aspect of Web 2.0 we used was Survey Monkey; we used to carry out our first part of the audience research. Survey Monkey is a website which allows people to create a questionnaire online, and invite people to complete it.



• This was very useful as it was easy to create a questionnaire, and was also easy for people to fill out, as it was all done on the Internet. Another useful thing about Survey Monkey was that you could easily access results from the surveys, and create graphs and tables from them.



• For the filming, we used HD cameras, these were very good, and as the picture quality was high, which gave our video a better look. However, we did experience some problems with the cameras, which limited our filming on two occasions, due to a broken battery and a full memory card.



• These problems meant that we had to change our camera, as it was not working, and restricting our filming time. After we changed the camera to a different one, we had no further problems.



• In post-production we used Adobe Premiere 8.0 to edit our music video, which allowed us to use effects on some shots, and cut the footage up, so that it looked like a music video.



• Throughout the editing of our video (using premiere), we used the time stretch tool, because for a lot of sequences we needed to speed up the time or reverse the clip backwards.



• Below shows how we used time stretch to create this effect.

• 
  
  
  
  The tool was very effective as it enabled us to get a really stylistic feel to the video, and gave us a brilliant start to the music video. We also used the time stretch tool for the parts in the video where the video rewinds or goes backwards, this worked as it allowed us to change the storyline easily and fit in other parts of the footage that we filmed. E.g. when the video rewinds to the sequence in the snow.
  
  
  

• Another effect we used in Premiere was the video merge; we used this to over-lay the pictures of the lead singer as a child on the video. This allowed us to remove the desk which we dropped the photos onto, without removing the pictures.

• For our print production we used Adobe Photoshop, which we could use to create our digipak and adverts.



• In my print work I used a still from the music video, I did this by exporting a freeze frame from the video, then putting this in Photoshop, and I then cut out the figure of the lead singer by using the magnetic lasso tool. I used different effects on the figure in the bottom left, and created 4 layers of the figure all using a different effects. I distorted the images of the figure by using filters including, accented edges, coloured pencil, film grain, paint daubs and angled strokes.



• On all the images of the figure I used a drop shadow, to create the dark shadow behind the figure. I also used a drop shadow to create the white glow on other side of the figures.
  

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

• After doing the print work separately this means that we have not collaboratively thought of ideas for the digipak and adverts, which is the reason for the different constructions of the bands image.


• As we have produced two adverts for the print work, they are different to each other, this shows different interpretations of what would be on the bands poster, and how they should be advertised. Even though the adverts look quite different, they both use aspects of the band’s image that we have created, either in reference to the music video or the digipak.


• We have also tried to make the adverts and digipak quite striking to look at, and really catch the eye of the consumer. We have done this by all using blue as the main colour, and the colour that stands our in our print work.


• I think this has helped our group to create a cohesive band image, and can help consumer’s to identify that the print work is reminiscent of the video and the other texts we have produced.


• For one advert to link the music video to the advert we used a freeze frame from the video (below) in my advert, as this is a visual link to the music video and the band.


• This picture of the lead singer is used in the digipak as well, showing the link between the two. Also I have used a similar font to the one that has been used in the digipak and the alternative advert.


• Below shows the transformation of the image taken from the video, to the one which is on the advert.


• We also used other features which would help promote the band at their success, for example we included the band’s web address and their record label on the advert. This lets the consumer know that the band have a record deal, and helps them to link the success of the band to the album.


• 


• The digipak uses effects to connote the bands image, one effect which really stands out is the colour manipulation effect, which is used to take the entire colour away from the picture, apart from one colour or an object.


• This acts as a visual motif for the consumer, and conforms to the band’s image of being quite low key and inconspicuous.


• The digipak links in well with the video, as there are plenty of intertextual references to the video, for example on the front cover of the digipak, there is a picture of an eye with the world inside. This shows a clear relationship between the digipak and the video because the song is called 'See the World'.


• The band's image is constructed throughout the digipak, which is also shown in the video through the effects that we have used, like colour manipulation. Which conveys the band's tone, which is a naturalistic feel, and gives the band a organic image.



• In the video you can see how the lead singer is seen as playful, running around in the snow and looking as if he is having a good time, this is one of the key characteristics which Richard Dyer says is portrayed by ‘stars’, young and youthful people who have found success and are not afraid to show it.


• Dyer goes on to say that ‘audiences dislike age’, so in videos artists need to come across as young, by looking as if they have a lot energy and acting light-hearted in the video.


• Dyer states that this gives enjoyment to the audience, as they are watching someone else’s energetic life. As this can either revert some audiences back to their youth or relate to audiences that are of a similar to the artist.


• Dyer also talks about the artist creating a connection with the audience through close-ups, and breaking the fourth wall. These help to create an extra-diagetic gaze with the audience, enabling them to identify with the consumer.

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

• Our music video uses forms and conventions of music videos from the same or similar genre; we have done this by using techniques and styles that are evident in videos of the genre of our track.
• The music video that we have created conforms to the conventions of the genre of our track, as the music videos which I have studied in the indie rock/alternative rock genre are narrative based, and focus on a storyline rather than the band.
• So the typical music video of an indie rock track will have a storyline which is present throughout the video, and will be the main focus of the music video
• A good example of this is the Arctic Monkeys video for their song; When The Sun Goes Down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma9I9VBKPiw)

• This is what we have done, as our music video is based around the narrative of the main character, and his new lease of life.
• We have also incorporated some close-up performance shots, so that we can create that para-social intimacy with the audience. This shows us following the mainstream route, as music videos usually have a lot of meat-shots of the artist, and try to break the fourth wall.
• By following the mainstream for this genre, it helps the audience to identify with other artists or tracks in a similar genre, and enables them to find out which genre the track is. It can also help listeners of this genre identify and relate to the video.
• However, we have also challenged some conventions of this genres music videos, by not having any band performance shots, as music videos usually include performance shots of the band. But we only used performance shots of the lead singer, which isn’t conventional of a music video of this genre.
• We did this because we wanted to challenge conventions, so we decided not to have any performance shots of the band, and just of the lead singer. This was because we wanted to link the performance shots to the narrative, and we didn’t want to come away from the storyline of the video.
• A video which employs a similar style of performance shots is The Kooks – Naïve, which has lip-synching from the lead singer, but no performance shots with the band. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkaMiaRLgvY)

• Throughout the video we used rural and woodland locations, as this was a symbol of the organic sound that the track has, which gives the song a slight autumnal feel. Due to this we tried to keep the theme of the rural locations through the course of the video, and I believe we did this successfully.
• We used sped up shots through woods and urban areas, to create the feeling of a person travelling through their life. We originally got this idea from the video of ‘La Ritournelle’ by Sebastien Tellier. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsk8QQj5Nrc)

• This is also an example of how our video is post-modern, because we have used borrowed this idea from another artist (intertextuality).
• Using Goodwin's critical framework, our video conforms to the stereotypical music video, via amplification of sound and lyrics through a visual medium such as; the sounds is amplified through the cutting rate of the video, through performance shots of the lead singer, through lip-synching in parts of the song, through first-person mode of address when the lead singer is lip-synching.
• Although I believe there is a strong link between the music and visuals, I think that there is also an element of disjuncture in the video, as the narrative of the music video, is linked in with the lyrics or music of the track.
• We can also had another one of Goodwin’s theories to our video, as we have what he calls ‘the notion of looking’, when an artist’s image is repeated in the video e.g. through reflections in a mirror. Or in our case through a picture of the artist, this means that the audience are consuming the star more often
• 
  Goodwin also says that artist’s identify with the audience, by looking into the camera. This is shown in our music video; in all of our performance shots, the singer is looking directly at the camera; establishing para-social intimacy with the viewer through a first person mode of address. The artist is looking at the audience as if they are speaking to the individual directly, which is conventional of all music videos.

TM -Question 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product does use forms and conventions of real media products from a similar genre. We have done this by researching tracks and music videos from this genre. Doing this we have incorporated these conventions which conform to the Indie/rock genre.

•The genre of indie/rock videos are generally quite stylistic and individual. This is the main convention we wanted to conform with as we felt that creating an innovative music video would be more successful.

Other videos within the genre are simply band shots. We decided to challenge this convention as we wanted to create something different and go away from that side of the genre.

•However we did use meat shots, close ups and lip syncing which were within that side of the genre of rock/indie. Our video doesn’t follow the mainstream ideals of the genre as we don’t incorporate any band shots.

The real media product that our video conforms technically with is the video La Ritournelle’ by Sebastien Tellier. This uses the time stretch shots we in our video. This video was a big inspiration of our video

We do conform partly to the mainstream ideals because of the use of meat shots.

•Using Goodwin’s critical framework our video does conform to his theory of amplification of sound and lyrics through lip syncing, meat shops and first person mode of address.

•Goodwin’s notion of looking does occur in our video when the star is looking into a picture of himself. This notion of looking gives the audience another opportunity to consume the star.

Another one of Goodwins ideals is the first person mode of adress. We have incorporated this throughout the video as the lead singer is walking down the street singing into the camera, as if he is singing directly at the viewer.

This mode of address breaks the fourth wall and creates a Para-social intimacy between the consumer and the artist

The polysemic nature of a video isnt straight forward as there could be more then one preferred reading. By leaving certain aspects of the narrative open the audience could decode the meaning in a number of ways. One of the perferred reading of our video could be that he is seeing the world and different aspects of it, eg weather. Others could interpret as he making a transformation in his life and wanting to be a child again.

There is narrative fuzz in our video as it is quite a vague narrative. But the vague nature of the video is there for a purpose. We felt that the video was mostly down to interpretation of text. We liked the idea of going away from the norm of the story line music video and make more of a concept based video.

At the end of this coursework I came to realise the reasons for a successful video is if the consumers would want to watch video 3 or 4 times, in order to make an interpretation of text. Watching the video more then once enables the viewer to consume the star and the band image. This is created in our video partly because it is fun and easy to watch.


Having the viewer watch it more then once is a great marketing and advertising technique.

All music videos in their form are postmodern because a music video is a tool of advertising. Music videos borrow conventions of lots of media forms which are brought together to create a way of advertising the band, promotion company and promoting the artist.

There is a part in our video that there is a very post-modern way of getting the band name into the video. This is when the camera goes close up to the poster of The Kooks.

Performance wise, Our video conforms with the style in which the Kooks are trying to create. The style is very personal and approachable. Creating the a similar style made it much easier to visualise as it is already there, I also feel this style of performance conforms with both Dyer and Goodwins ideals on first person mode of adress and also ordinary and extra ordinary.

TM -Question 2- How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The brief was to create and produce a music video for a song that hadn’t been released as a video yet.

We have set out to create a cohesive band image to promote the album through a digipak, poster and the actual video. The advertisement was designed to run in NME magazine. As this is in keeping with the genre of music we chose which is indie/rock genre .

Use of visual motifs reinforces our band image and band ideals. The band image we wanted to construct was one of an innovative nature. Meaning we wanted to create something no-one else has done.

When researching and looking at other school videos and professional videos, we found that there was a big trend to do relationships and heartthrobs. This was one area we did not want to go into as it is very much over used in the industry. Our idea was simple yet extremely effective.


Semiotics

The Leading line of the advert James created goes as follows.

This is the leading line of the advert goes from the hand holding the globe, then to the band name, then to the album name and then to the “out now”. The globe has a direct link to the name of our song in that the name of it is “See the world” and there is a world. This theme of the world is also incorporated in the front cover of the digipak. This helps create one band image.

The digpak also denotates Seeing the world, as the earth is superimposed into the eye. The connotation of this is being able to see everything. I also feel it connotes looking into the soul. It is said that the eyes are the doorway to the soul. To create the bright effect of the earth I simply turned the saturation up making the earth to make it stand out.

The digipak and poster links in well with the video, as there are plenty of intertextual references to the video, for example on the front cover of the digipak, there is a picture of an eye with the world inside. This shows a clear relationship between the digipak and the video because the song is called 'See the World'.

The band's image is constructed throughout the digipak, which is also shown in the video through the effects that we have used, like colour manipulation. Which conveys the band's tone, which is a naturalistic feel, and gives the band a organic image.

I think this has helped our group to create a cohesive band image, and can help consumer’s to identify that the print work is coherent of the video and the other texts we have produced.

Dyer

With reference to Dyer the stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media – magazines, TV, radio, the Internet – in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences .The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences. Richard Dyer had two paradox's;

The first Paradox
Is that the artist should be both present and absent

The second Paradox
The artist has to be ordinary and extra ordinary

In reference to our music video there many key ideals by Dyer that I think I relevant. There is a lot of extra Diegetic Gaze which enables the audience to view very closely what he looks and acts like. This as Dyer says helps them market to their target audience.

This extradiegetic gaze allows the audience to view the costume which the star is wearing. Me as the star can then portray this through his Star Motif.

Getting the image of the star out to the consumer is very important as it allows them to view him. Us as the director needed to consider this very carefully as if we got it right it can make the band and music video very successful.

Dyer constructed the roll of style in TV and Music. A star is an image constructed by a range of materials

Music video
Adverts
Digipak

Close-ups create para-social intimacy with our music video allows the consumer to view the star in detail. This enables the star to communicate his ideals and style to the audience. This is evident in our music video as the star is looking straight into the camera singing to the audience.

Dyer Suggests that the editing of the music video and the use of posed shots of the star creates an incoherent message. The audience therefore strives to consume more products in order to complete this image.

In the music industry, performance seems to promise the completion of the image, but it is always ultimately unsatisfying. This is in conjunction with Dyers paradox 2.

TM- Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

• We used blogger as a collaborative e-portfolio in our group throughout the planning and evaluation. This enables an easy way to discuss ideas and give feedback on each other work. This is an example of web 2.0. Web 2.0 allows anyone to discuss or upload a video online.

• During our project we used many aspects of web 2.0 including blogger, survey monkey and YouTube. YouTube was extremely helpful as it allowed us to upload the video on to the internet for everyone to watch and leave feedback.

The audience research part of the project may have been much hard with out this piece of software.

•We used Adobe Premiere at the start of the project to create an animatic. This animatic was in the form of a storyboard of our concept for a music video. It helped us a lot as it gave us a very rough design of our piece. It aided us to visualise what we wanted to do with the mp3 we had of the kooks. The main help was with the cutting rate, as this made is easy to see how the cutting rate should be.

The Story board




•When it came to shooting with the HD cameras they were a few challenges that we encountered. The first being the settings of the camera, if this was wrong we would have had to reshoot the whole thing as it would have been the wrong size.

We went on a reccie to Brighton to get used to new cameras.

The Reccie

The Reccie was very useful as it enabled us to practice with the cameras and help prevent mistakes when creating our actual piece. But as you can see the quality of the video wasnt very good.

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This is because the settings for the camera wasnt correct meaning the end upload was blurry and disjointed. Without the reccie we would not have seen this problem until later on so it was a huge help to us in preventing mistakes.

•Another challenge we faced was the weather as the filming period was during British winter. We overcame this by planning in days where it wasn’t due to rain.

If it did start to rain the cameras were completely covered to protect them. We had to be especially careful in the snow because the snow was getting on the cameras. We used a coat to cover the camera in order to stop damage.

•We edited the video in Adobe Premiere, this proved an excellent device for editing. We used many effects in the video including time stretch which was a big part of the success of our piece.

Time stretch involved simply aplying the time stretch tool to the part of the video in question and then dragging it to the length of clip you wanted.

Time Stretch

Another technique we used was video merge. This part of the video was where the photos went over the 360 pan. This was an orginal effect which I believe hadn’t been done before. Making our video unique and innovative.

Video Merge

Another really affective technique we used was the rewind tool. This made what ever part of the clip we wanted to reverse.

Here is an example of the reversed clip.

My Digipak

My digipak was created on Adobe Photoshop. This piece of software allowed me to manipulate the image into a better looking and more atheistically pleasing one. A technique which I used was turning the opacity down on an image to make the two images fade togeth

er.

•As you can see, this made my image look like the earth was inside the eye. This simple technique gave my image a new look to it. This striking image of the earth and eye really contribute to its success.

•Another technique I used was turning the saturation up and down to enhance the colours of certain things in my digipak. This was the main theme throughout my digipak, an image with only one thing in colour and the rest in black and white.

Group - What have you learned from your audience feedback?

JP-
- Music Videos are adverts used to promote a band, so it is vital to create a video that will appeal to the target audience.

- We made are video to be for both focused viewer and ambient viewer. There is a lot happening in the video which can be exciting and there is a narrative to follow, however there is a large element of narrative fuzz and can be interpreted in many different ways. For those who do not interpret the videos narrative, it is just a selection of interesting visuals which can be good for ambient viewing.

- The purpose of the audience research was to test our ideas to an audience so we could make any suggested changes before it was too late.

- We conducted our audience research at various stages of our project.

- Our first part of audience research was completed before the pitch to gauge what the audience would expect to see in the video once would had suggested ideas to them and shown them the track.






- We used a site called 'Survey Monkey' to develop a questionnaire and we distributed it through Facebook to get a response from our target audience.

- We asked for locations, where they thought it could be filmed. We got a lot of variation in this, which told us that we would not have to confine ourselves to particular locations, we used a number of suggestions including fields, urban town areas, quiet streets and countryside paths. However we did not use famous landmarks and train stations as we felt it did not fit with our video's change in narrative.

- For the costume of our lead character and lead singer, we agreed with the majority of the responses to have him in slim jeans and a top. As a change of outfit was incorporated in the narrative we also had him wearing a shirt and brown shoes, which were also suggestions.

- We asked how they interpreted the song and what they would expect to see, and the response was largely supporting a fast cutting rate to match the song with a montage styled effect included.

- We gained a lot from this stage in audience research as it mostly supported ideas we had for the video, giving us the sense we were going in the right direction with our production.

AO-

The second piece of our audience research was taken after we showed our rough cut to our focus group, after doing this we got the following feedback:

It fits very well to the music

The variety in the distance of shots is good

A good use of creativity in some of the techniques used

Syncing needs to be improved

It is only a short sequence and more footage is needed for the timeline

Although this was a very short sequence of the music video, I think that the feedback was positive and we will benefit from the advice. The rough cut was very helpful as it gave us an idea of what to do to get on the right track and the footage that we had at the time was to the standard we wanted to achieve.

Our third piece of audience was after we edited the final cut of the music video, and we showed it to our focus group. For this research we asked people to comment their thoughts about the video on our blog. For this we asked and produced the results for the following questions:

What is the most effective part of the music video?

The majority of people said that the most effective part of the video were the sped up shots; either at the beginning of the video, or where the video rewinds through the house.

Do you think that the video is appropriate to the track? Why?

People seemed to think that the video was appropriate to the track, as it was fast-paced and had a fast cutting-rate. Some people also commented that it linked to the lyrics about ‘seeing the world’.

What is your interpretation of the narrative/

The majority of responses were that the main character was enjoying life, and having a good time.

What shots did you like, in particular?

Most people said that they liked the sped up shots at the beginning or the one were the video rewinds.

How could we have improved the video?

The only way that people said that we could improve on our video was to include band performance shots, as we only had performance shots with the lead singer.

This is a screen shot of comments on a blog of the feedback for the final cut of the video.

After seeing the responses from people I believe that they are all very positive, and we have received a lot of praise from the focus group. We can take from this that people really enjoyed the sped up shots, and that maybe we should have included more. I do agree with the people that said we could have improved the video by including band performance shots, as this would make the video feel like it is a band’s song, not a solo artist’s. However, at the time of filming, we did not think (as a group) that we need to include shots of the band, and we also wanted to go against the mainstream view of always having band performance shots.

TM-

We asked a focus group to complete a piece of audience research for our print work as well; we did this through the blog, and questionnaires. The results from the feedback are as follows:

For the digipak:
• People said that the digipak was striking, as one colour in each of the sides stands out.
• They liked the font and cover, with the over-lay of the images on these parts of the digipak.
• A lot of people said they really liked the front cover, because it was eye-catching and very aesthetically pleasing.
• Another thing which the group seemed to like was the fact that the front cover had a clear link to the track we had chosen for the video.

For the adverts/posters:
• The effect of the globe, which is being held in one of the posters, people found it to be enigmatic and eye-catching.
• Most of people said that the effect that was put onto the figure in one of posters was very good, as it made the stand out, and make the poster look as if it was 3 dimensional.
• Some people did say that the two adverts were not very similar and so did not really construct the same image for the band.

Here is a screen shot of some the feedback we got for the advert/digipak.

However, some did go on to say that the adverts and digipak together, look very striking, and show there is a clear relationship between them all. The reason for this was the blue, which is present on all of the print work we produced. The colour blue was a main feature in the print work, because we wanted to link the different texts together. This idea came from The Kooks, as they always use the colour red in their print work, and advertising, but we wanted to change the look, and make it our own, so we did this by changing the colour to a more striking blue.

JP - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

- Throughout all stages of creating our own media product, we used the blogging website www.blogger.com as a collaborative e-portfolio for our group. This has allowed us to record our thoughts and ideas, sharing research, and to post reccie’s and rough cuts to show development of our video.

There were challenges when using blogger:
- to ensure that we broke up the text in posts with highlighting key words and terminology, and adding clips and images, so that it was not large blocks of writing, as this is not the purpose of a blog.
- and that we shared out the work efficiently and met the deadlines so that our blog would be structured effectively.

- We used web 2.0 to communicate with each other about the project and, we used YouTube to post video clips with relevant information for each other to see, and this made the planning process more efficient.


- An example of this was the animatic, to create the animatic we drew each shot planned for our music video on to a time line. We then filmed each shot from the storyboard and imported it into Adobe Premier, this allowed us to put music to the pictures and get an idea for the timings and an idea of how it will look.





- Web 2.0 also allowed us to consume existing media products and analyse them. We could then post them on the blog so other members of the group could learn what we had learnt from analysing them.

To edit the video, we used Adobe Premiere.


- The first technique we used is the time lapse tool. By dragging down the length of the clip or typing a specific length in time of how long we want the clip to be, we were able to sync the fast motion parts with the music.




- We also used the reverse speed tool to further manipulate time in our video.





- Another effect needed was to merge two layers together in the photograph scenes. To do this we used the ‘videomerge’ effect, and then lowered the tolerance level and selected the colour of the desk that we wanted removed.


- Jump cuts were key to our video as we need to keep the tempo up in the video and they add disjuncture creating a more enigmatic tone.


- When editing we faced a number of challenges, when merging the layers we had to assess a number of options on how to do it, we also tried laying the photos over the top with a lower opacity. But after assessing ourselves and receiving feedback from our peers, we decided that this effect was more effective.

- We used an HD Camera to film our video, this was different to last years project as they were not available to us then, so we had to accustom ourselves to the new hardware as well as the new editing software that was necessary due to the new high definition cameras.

- During production our video we had a number of problems with video cameras. We had to replace our first camera after their were battery problems with it, causing the failure of one of our film shoots. So we had to replace the camera with a spare one and it worked fine.


- However the SD card was never formatted after being used prior to the project, causing us further problems when mid shoot our camera ran out of memory. To overcome this we had had to organise extra shoots to obtain the necessary footage in the allocated time.

-In Adobe Photoshop I created an advert to support and promote the band. To create it I got the bands logo and an image of the world in someone’s hand from copyright free images websites. Then matched the colour on the current glowing effect on the globe and created paths from it to the top corner. Then made a white brush mark through the middle of the ray of blue and lowered the opacity to create a more textured effect.


-To carry out audience research we used Survey Monkey to create a questionnaire, this was useful because we could distribute it through Facebook, a social networking site and example of 'We Media', to get directly to our target audience quickly and efficiently. It also allowed us to collaborate the results easily as well us being able to access the results from anywhere with Internet access.

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

- We have set out to create a cohesive band image to promote the album through making a music video of the song ‘See the World’ from the album ‘Inside in Inside out’ by ‘The Kooks’, combined with a print advert and a Digipak.

- The advertisement was designed to run in NME magazine as this fits in with the genre of the artist and will appeal to the target audience of the band. We chose to design a full page advert as it will stand out more in a magazine filled with adverts.

- The advert was created with a reading path to get across the information most effectively, in this case the world glows diagonally upwards towards the band and then the album name, emphasising the most important information, then taking the viewer down to the 'Out Now' label as this stands out against a black background, however not as much as the band name, creating an effective reading path.

- There are aspects of visual motifs, the world that radiates from the bottom corner, linking to the song ‘See the World’ that we are using to promote the band, reinforces the connection between the main product and ancillary texts.

- The Digipak I feel 'adds value' to the track with the intertexual reference to it, the eye being the world on the album cover. The digipak is very aesthetically pleasing, appealing to those who buy albums in high street stores.

- The Digipak conveys the tone of the band and album through the manipulation of colour and other effects present in the Digipak. The front cover references the track ‘See the World’ with the image of the world in the place of the eye along with complying with the bands current image of being understated.

- By using Dyer’s critical framework on the construct of the star image, it is evident that band image challenges popular culture through rebellious motifs shown throughout the video.

- First person mode of address in lip-syncing sections of the video create a para-social intimacy with the characters and band, as it feels as the characters, and therefore band through the lyrics are speaking directly to the audience.

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

- After watching numerous music videos associated with the ‘Indie’ genre, we realised that the majority were performance based.

- Many bands chose to follow the ‘mainstream’ route, with many meat shots as well as the concept of breaking the ‘fourth wall’, this allowed the audience to identify with the artist.

- We set out to challenge the conventions of the popular culture as we felt it would be in keeping with the bands current image. So we decided to create a video with more creative elements along with a narrative, not typical of videos from this genre.

- Due to the largely fast tempo of the track we new it would have to be enigmatic and engage the audience through the relationship between the music and the cutting rate and speed of motion, thus connoting a racy lifestyle of the artist, (one of Richard Dyer’s writings on the representation of ‘stars’ is that they lead fast and rebellious lifestyles which their fans idolise).

- During the research stage of production we came across a video ‘Sebastien Tellier - La Ritournelle’, which was the inspiration for the fast motion effect prominent in our video.

- Using Goodwin’s critical framework states that there are certain elements of which are recurrent through all genres, and our video conforms to the stereotypical music video.

- Amplification of sound and lyrics is present through lip syncing, cutting rate, the narrative and the strong relationship between the music and the visuals. For example in the snow sequence it cuts on the beat and action.

- However there is an element of disjuncture between the lyrics and the visuals which challenges the conventions of the stereotypical music video.

- We have chosen to include a variety of shots, ranging from close ups to long shots, employing the notion of looking, which all identify with the audience so as to promote the artist and the music.

- This is a conventional technique used in music videos, as is first person mode of address which was applied in our video with the character lip syncing looking into the camera, establishing para-social intimacy with the viewer.

- Our video polysemic, by leaving certain aspects of our narrative out, we have allowed our audience to create their own reasoning as to why the character started in a field, and this is very in keeping with the style of other videos.

- Our video is postmodern in its form as all music videos are considered postmodern, however through narrative fuzz, the playfulness of the character and finally the use of bricolage, I believe that we have used a number of techniques that in turn give the video postmodern status.

- Our playful take on the music videos genre is evident through signifiers such as the snow and the trampoline, giving the video a light hearted feel.

Group - Call Sheets and Risk Assesment

Group - Final Cut

Audience Feedback Questions

What is the most effective part of the music video?

Do you think that the video is appropriate to the track? Why?

What is your interpretation of the narrative?

What shots did you like, in particular?

How could we have improved the video?