OCR Advanced Portfolio in Media Studies H540

Audience feedback:

Feedback is a very important part of anything progressing forward, without feedback we make mistakes that go unseen and we can not correct them. It was very important to us because of how they determined what we did and how we did it. We got feedback throughout the year at different stages in different ways. At first we used the class as feedback via presentations, gathering around the computer and just asking for opinions, social websites and Emails. The reason why we did this was to widen our skills, ideas and knowledge as we progressed trough the year.
The feedback we received did effect our videos outcome, when we nearly finished our video the class sat around the computer to watch our creation. The feedback we got then resulted in a 90% re-shoot. This was because of the acting and how the locations contrasted from day to a dark hall. We then decided to re-film with new actors, new locations, and at night as to keep with the dark hall scenes along with the burning piano. This feedback benefited us well and was the reason for a sudden drastic change that made the piece we have today.

If I could do all this again I would change the way I used social media to ask for feedback. I should have used more like Twitter and should have used YouTube.

The performance part of the music video went really well, people enjoyed the multiple shots and the professional look. However the long intro before the music began received a 50/50 reception. Some believed it was too long others thought it helped create the emotional bond between the audience and the characters.

Classroom feedback for pitch:

We pitched our idea for the music video to the classroom and got feedback on what we should and shouldn't do. here is a snapshot of my post earlier on my blog.

Target audience feedback:

We also did two interviews via the sound booth in school to receive feedback on our idea, these two people classified for our target audience. Here is a screenshot of the page about these two interviews:

Classroom feedback on video:

Later when we made our first draft of the music video the class watched the video and told us what they liked and disliked. This then led us to re film and rethink our whole music video. Here is a snapshot of a post earlier on my blog:

Feedback on finished music video:

Our teacher sent our classes music videos off to other classes all through school. We got one feedback email from a teacher describing how she liked our work specifically our music video 'Up in Flames'. Here is the email from that teacher.

Facebook Feedback:

We posted our music video's onto Facebook and asked for feed back on it. These are the comments on the music video. Also Facebook is a great way of finding feedback from people my age who are around our target audience age. This meant the interest towards the video would be higher and the criticism should be better due to the people enjoying its genre.

One person from our group sent Emails off to three Professors at different University's around England in the hope of some valuable criticism and replies about our music videos. Here are all three replies:

Message sent:

Dear Dr Claydon

I am an A Level Media Studies student at De Aston Sixth form, currently in progression of my final year on the course and my group and I have made a music video as part of our coursework, which is 50% of the year's grade. My teacher (Sam Benzie) graduated from your university and suggested to contact you.

With your in-depth knowledge of the Media world, I was wondering if you either feedback on my group's music video, or forward this email on to whom ever has the time to watch and give constructive feedback on the production.

This is a link to the Media product on the school's You Tube account : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQXQ-_inQoc

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely

Reply:

No problem. I think you’ve done a great job. It’s interesting what you’ve taken from the original video (the lip-synching) but how you’ve changed the song context in your video totally changes the reading from it being the end of childhood to the end of an affair. I think you’ve done a great job with yours, though. The pacing working well with the music and the style is totally Coldplay and genre consistent. I did wonder if the opening was a bit long before we get to the song, however and your video is very dark (but I decided that adds to the moodiness). Seriously good work though!

Best wishes and good luck with the final results.

Anna

Dr E. Anna Claydon

Director of IDeoGRAMS and PG Senior Tutor

Department of Media and Communication

University of Leicester

Bankfield House

132 New Walk

Leicester

LE1 7RH

0116 252 2089

eac14@le.ac.uk/e.anna.claydon@gmail.com

Message sent:

Dear Mr Hickman

This is a link to the Media product on the school's You Tube account : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQXQ-_inQoc

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Sincerely

Reply:

I thought that was rather good - lovely song. Yours?

Some good ideas about creating mood with street scenes. just a couple of things:

Night scenes shot with 'available' street lighting often have a strong red cast, which can be visually a little hard to take. This happens because of the sodium vapour used in much street lighting. Here's a tutorial for getting rid of it and getting a much more naturalistic night shot:

http://www.friendsofhdvideo.com/blog/2009/11/fix-night-shot-red-color-tutorial-hdr-fx7/

You might also want to find street scenes that don't have quite so many unlit areas - occasionally it's a little hard to make out what the viewer is looking at.

Otherwise, a really interesting piece of work.

Best wishes,

David

David Hickman

Senior Lecturer in Film & Television Production

Director of Graduate Studies

Department of Theatre, Film & Television

University of York

Baird Lane

York YO10 5GB

United Kingdom

01904 32 5232

Email disclaimer: http://www.york.ac.uk/docs/disclaimer/email.htm

The message sent:

Dear Sir/Madame

This is a link to the Media product on the school's You Tube account : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQXQ-_inQoc

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you.

Reply:

Thank you for your email. I have forwarded your email onto our Lecturer in Sound Design to have a look at your music video.

Thank you for your interest in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television.

Kind regards

Annita

Department of Theatre, Film and Television

University of York

Baird Lane, Heslington East

York

YO10 5GB

All of this feedback was very valuable, however it came to use too late and our video's were already sent off. Therefore we couldn't add or edit the music video any more.

Teachers feedback:
Tour teacher and media specialist would often look at our progress to help us out on how to do certain techniques and ideas throughout the year. This was always important because we knew that their word is usually correct and accurate. They also contributed to help re-shoot the piece of work which we believe is now a much better video.

Digipak design:

Poster design:

Music video:

Conventions what does it mean?

Conventions (can sometimes be closely associated to stereotypes) means something that complies with a certain 'norm' idea. For example conventions of a 'SciFi' film (meaning what is the 'norm') are space, spaceships, aliens, supernatural, mythical creatures etc. The conventions of an 'Action' films are, explosions, heroes and villains, a damsel in distress, adrenaline filled chases, fight scenes etc. Conventions can be used for anything, films, jobs, society, certain areas and more importantly for us music videos. These could be edits, camera shots, props or costumes and so on. Some are genre specific, but there are also conventions of music videos in general. a

What are conventions of music videos?

Regardless of genre, conventions we expect to find in most music videos are:

Promotion for the artist
Tempo of video matches the tempo of the song
Variety of camera shots and movements
Costume, lighting, actors, make up, props, setting (appropriate to genre)

Conventions to music videos in this case is heavily associated to genre. There are hundreds of different genres from the well known 'Hip Hop', 'Pop' and 'Rock' to lesser known genres that branch of others. Within each genre of music video are different conventions, 'Hip Hop' tends to be lively, energetic, women, party, large crowds. 'Pop' can be difficult because it means popular music and this depends on the time it is released to what conventions it could have. For instance today's 'popular' music is vastly different to 20 years ago 'popular' music. 'Rock's' conventions usually are loud, guitar and drum based, live, aggressive feel etc.

What are the conventions of my genres?

Our genre is Alternative Rock:

The Conventions of 'Alternative Rock' in music videos are usually a narrative telling a story along the lines of the songs lyrics or some sort of random story still holding some small connection to some lyrics. The band usually take part in the narrative side of the video as either themselves or as fictional characters. They also usually have some sort of live performance in them expressing their professionalism and popularity. These would be synced with the instruments and the singers lips. There usually are many different camera movements, and shot types during this period.

Our performance shots:

These are still shots from our music video where the band is playing instruments and singing.

Top left: Close up of singer playing the piano.

Top right: Mid shot of the drummer playing to the beat of the song. This shot was a slow arching shot revolving around the drummer anti clockwise.

Bottom left: A mid shot and slow dip with the focus on the singer playing and singing to the camera.

Bottom right: A close up of the singers head and the edge of piano with the purple lights on the edge of his head.

All these shots are showing performance of with the singer and with instruments being played.

Kings of Leon:

These are still shots of Kings of Leon 'Use Somebody' when they include performance shots in the music video.

Top: Is a shot of a low angle long shot framing the whole band performing this is only showed for a short period of time to match the tempo of the song.

Left: This is another low angle shot but a mid shot of the guitarist in the foreground. The image is framed still so the whole band is in shot from the edge of the drums on the left to the other singer a guitarist on the right.

Right: A mid shot of just the drummer framed so it is level and has the whole drum kit in shot.

Bottom: A close up of a singer, he also holds the focus of the shot with the drummer in blur out of focus in the background.

The difference between the two videos is that Kings of Leon are performing live to a crowd. Were as we are performing to ourselves with no audience. This means we have met a convention of the 'Alternative Rock' genre but we have also developed this idea so it is us performing to ourselves.

Our Narrative shots:

Coldplay Narrative shots:

Along with Coldplay's "Charlie Brown" music video, we also used Narrative like what is so often used in this genre. This means we met the convention and kept to it.

And Post-Britpop:

Conventions:

The bands are usually guitar based often mixing with traditional British rock with some American influences. This genre isn't very popular and usually its conventions are those of others depending on what it is connected to. I.E. our band 'Coldplay' are also associated with the 'Alternative Rock', therefore 'Post Brit Pop' in this case its conventions are usually that of the 'Alternative Rock'.

Snow Patrol 'Called Out In The Dark'

Here is Snow Patrol in their video 'Called Out In The Dark' its concept complies with the convention of the singer playing as a character in a narrative story. However it has been adapted because he actually plays himself rather than a fictional character.

Our music video

We did the same thing with our music video, we added the singer into the narrative part of the video, however we adapted the already adapted idea so we had the whole band added into the video rather than just the singer.

This meant we challenged but also developed conventions

Mise-en-scene for both 'Alternative Rock' and 'Post Brit Pop':

Costume:

The conventions of the costume for the genre 'Alternative Rock' tends to be a calmer dress compared to its main link of 'Rock', the 'Rock' genre tends to be flamboyant and dark. where as the 'Alternative Rock' genre is smarter and more laid back. The same goes for 'Post Brit Pop' represented by Coldplay (below). Coldplay is dressed in black with white very basic but effective clothing for the genre representing the contrast and like the genre standing out from the other genres with their unique feel.

MUSE:

Coldplay:

Above: are the band members of the band Muse. The centre man is dressed in a smart suit and with casual shirt and jeans. This connotes a 'smart/casual' look which the genre is based on. The two people on the left and right are dressed in the same 'smart/casual' look. They are also dressed in dark clothing to match with the main genre of 'Rock' that they are connected to.

Our Music Video:

Above: We dressed our main singer in the same way to comply to the conventions of 'Alternative Rock' with a smart back shirt with a white tie, the white tie was to go against the genre an to meet the 'Post Brit Pop' genre. WE did this so we could comply with both genre's conventions at the same time, the other singers are also dressed in dark clothing and with something white to meet 'Post Brit Pop'. The other actors in the Narrative are dressed in the normal clothes that they wouldn't confuse the audience and mistake them as one of the band members. So this separates them from the band but doesn't make them stand out against everyone else just walking by.

Lighting:

The lighting for these genres are key when they are performing on stage or on their own. 'Alternative Rock' is usually in front of hundreds to brag that they are loved and are popular. Whereas 'Post Brit Pop' is more solitude and introvert. Both of these have quite complex lighting to keep the focus where they want it. (below) Kings of Leon uses a strong back lighting to create a silhouette of the band members to make them the emphasis of the scene.

Kings of Leon:

Snow patrol:

Here the lighting for Snow patrol (above) is made to be cold and isolating with the colour blue. They also make the lighting look magical due to doing many different individual key lighting generally focused on the singer. this also goes with the tempo of the song in some senses. The song is slow but wanting to give a magical feel and to help this audio they add the visual effects to enhance that feeling.

Our Music Video:

With our music video we used the schools lighting for both key lighting and fill lighting, The key lighting we made a red and focused on both the singer and drummer as they are the main focuses of the scene. We then added a purple fill lighting to add the subtle purple to the singer and drummer, this adds depth and feel rather than it just being plain and boring lighting. We comply with both the genres by making the band members the focus of the scene and to help keep to the theme of the song. Our theme of the song is 'fire' 'loss' and 'isolation'. We enhances the isolation by making the backdrop black and only the band members are visible. The fire, by using the red lighting, and loss by the solitude soft purple lighting. This meant we developed the concept of lighting by adding unique lighting to correspond to our song.

Actors:

The acting in both these genres are usually the band members either in a performance or a narrative for example Coldplay and Paradise, the men in suits are played by the band members and gather at the end to perform a performance:

We met this convention by using the band members at the beginning of the video and finished it with the band members playing in a performance fashion. This was because we wanted to end on a performance to make the viewer realise who were in the band and who did what.

Props:

Props in the two genres are generally the instruments used to make the music however in this case of Franz Ferdinand Take Me Out they use the instruments but also heavily use special effects:

Where as we kept to conventions to keep things simple using instruments :

However these props are just general conventions that we met, we also developed them. We decided to not only add instruments we set one on fire to correspond to the lyrics and title of the song "Up in Flames".

Setting:

Settings are usually in city streets and big stage performances like Coldplay and Kings of Leon: A great example of this is Coldplay and "Fix You" in this video the main singer begins at sitting on a curb and progressing from the city streets finishing a a large stage with hundreds of fans.

Here are screenshots from other music videos showing the locations of city's urban areas and big stage performances:

We kept to the city streets of Lincoln, and like Coldplay and their song "Fix You" we also filmed it at night this meant that we met that convention for a location. However we chose to develop the idea of a big stage performance to it being just the band members. This was to correspond to the solitude of the song itself:

Camera:

When Performances are shown (which is often in this genre) a conman camera movement is the 'arch' This is when the camera moves in a circular motion and is great to help include as many people in one shot, this is used in many music videos in the 'Alternative Rock' and 'Post Brit Pop' genre. We chose to develop our arching shot by adding a different shot halfway through. In our case it was an arching shot of the singer performing on the piano, that faded into a shot of the flaming keys, before then going back to the arching shot of the singer performing on the piano. There are also the typical close ups, mid shots, long shots establishing (for narrative and zooms that are used in nearly all music videos. We met these general conventions and used each one.

There is also the aspect of framing shots, and how the shot is filled. In "Use Somebody" by Kings of Leon this is used very effectively and is important to portray emotions and meaning:

Here they framed the shot to include all the band members but has zoomed out to we can see the empty seats in front of them.

The framing of this shot is with the focus of the singer on the left of shot with the empty chair on the right of the frame, showing isolation.

And this shot framed to have all the band filling the shot as the lounge and relax.

We then did this with our music video:

In these two shots I positioned the camera to frame the points of focus to the sides to highlight their loneliness and isolation, like they did in the video "Use Somebody" Kings of Leon. This meant we had met the conventions.

Here once again like Kings of Leon we used a zoomed out shot framing all the actors in shot and we can see beyond them the vast city lights. Once again we are complying to the conventions.

Editing:

Most music videos correspond the rate of transitions with the tempo of the song. This is to create a harmony between the sound and the visual. For example if there is a fast tempo the transitions would be rapid and appear with straight cuts (because there is not enough time to add any sort of special type of transition). And for slow tempo songs the transitions are slow and the shots tend to be longer. The transitions themselves therefore have enough time to be fancy and take their time. Then a song could begin fast or slow and become the opposite. This is when the transitions either speed up or slow down to correspond with the songs tempo. Our song was a slow tempo throughout, this meant so was our transitions However we kept to a simple cross fade throughout rather than more complex transitions. We did this because we thought it would simply over power the song and the visual. There is also the matter of what transitions are used. For example, Kings of Leon and mainly other music videos in our genre tend to use 'Straight Cuts' and normal basic 'Fades' or 'Cross Fades'.

Here are examples of some 'Cross Fades' used: