The song I chose for my music video falls into a niche genre, which allowed me to be creative when re creating the video for the song. The artists name is Lenka, and although her music could be classed as pop, it has some folk aspects which makes it unique to an audience. The artist herself presents herself according to this genre of music, wearing long wavy dresses. The artist appears respectable and relatable, compared to other female artists that are more common such as, Shakira, Britney Spears and Cheryl Cole, who dress in a more provokotive manner and bare more flesh. An audience challenges themselves to aspire to be like these female artists, although the ones that are more respectable and far more relatable are not as common in the charts.
The artist herself has gone for a more subtle approach to pop. Her music video is quirky and fun telling a story of herself, even the lyrics are more relatable such as, 'I'm just a little bit caught in the middle' compared to the lryics of Shakira; 'Theres a shewolf in your closet. Lenka's music has more emotion than most pop music involves. This is inhanced by the simple, yet sweet Lenka video. I wanted to keep this emotion through my video and make it relate to the lyrics as much as possible. My idea was to have a girl that was transported to a different world that was unfamiliar to her. The real world she found herself in was actually what was going on in her mind. As a boy appears in the video, showing senerios of them arguing, making up and then breaking up, the talent I chose had to battle with herself and her emotions. I think this is a common occurance with a female audience, many find themselves going through heartbreak and having to get through it. This tackles the feelings of a female audience. My music video shows the good times and bad that the talent has had with a previous boy in her life. Many girls have gone through this, or find themselves going through it with someone in there life. My music video challenges the media conventions, as it does not beat around the bush and tread around the talents feelings. It conjurs up feelings or being lost and found, which is very different to the music videos that are popular today and the songs that make it into the chart, which are mostly about nights out and relationships. An example of this is Cheryl Cole's 'Three Words' but the song is more common than it is relatable. Also from the Black Eyed Peas 'I gotta feeling' about having a night out drinking.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
For my ancillary texts I created a music promotional poster and the front page of a website. My music poster is effective in combination with my video as I used a snapshot from the video itself and manipulated the talent to contrast with the tree. I wanted to show the switch between real life and fantasy which is very much like my music video from the talent going to work, walking out the lift to a world in her mind. The tree in the poster transforms into a cartoon to show the contrast between what is real and what is make believe. This is similar to Lenka's own promotional poster for an event. Cartoons and pastal colours are used with the phrase 'We Will Not Grow Old'.
I have also created a website front cover, which is bright and colourful. I have used flower brushes to connect with the videos natural theme of being transported to another world. The front page of the website shows clips from the video to encourage viewers to watch the video. I had a photoshoot with the talent to take some shots for my Digipak to hold my DVD. I dressed the talent in a blue sequin dress with curly hair to make her look respectable and similar to what she does in the music video. I got some good shots of the talent connecting with the camera which will appeal an audience. I had the idea for the front and back of the digipak being the front and behind of the talent's head, catching good detail in her eyes and hair.
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
I uploaded my video onto YouTube so that people could comment and give constructive critisim. I got a number of comments from people that enjoyed my music video saying that it was a good take on the song. I also decided to interview people about my music video. I asked my class mates that were also working on the same project what they thought about my video and they were able to understand the challenges and what was required from the project. On my first version of the video they were able to give critisim so I could change several parts of my video. On of my class mates suggested that the artist's memories would look more effective in black and white. I was able to test this idea and the feedback was successful in helping me achieve a better overall effect.
The audience thought the talent I had chosen was suitable for the song and genre. I was complemented on what the artist wore and the shots I took. A particular part of the music video was noticed, how I converted the shots of when the girl is pushed into a chair. This changes from her being with the boy, to being alone in a room she has never been in. Although the audience agree I could have added more lip sinking, I adapted on the idea of the artist being alone and lost with no connection to the camera, apart from in memory shots.
I also interviewed the talent I used as the artist. She was very helpful through out the making of the project and I was able to find out what she found challenging in the making of the video and what parts she enjoyed. My talent was able to give critism about the making of the video and what particular parts were her favourite and if she enjoyed working with people involved in the making.
"Rolling down a hill was the biggest challenge, my skirt rode up quite a
bit!"
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
Most of my media technoligies were used in the construction and editing stages of the project. I used a camera and tripod to film my video, I experimented with what I could do with camera in what kind of shots and effects I could create. I used to shot of the girl running with the camera, but the music video came together when i combinded my shots using my guideline before shooting to bring together what I had originally designed as my music video. I used imovie for the editing part of the video. I uploaded all my clips onto imovie and then cut them to create effects such as when the girl falls into the chair, she shots cutting from one scene to the next. The black and white gradient came in handy when creating a memory effect. As I wanted my video to portray a girl feeling lost, cutting the shots from scene to scene worked well in my favour. I used this idea several times as the girl goes from standing in the lift, to appearing through a hedge. I also used the speed option to slow down one of the shots where the boy moves towards the camera, with the lyrics 'slow it down, make it stop!'
For my ancillary tasks I mainly used photoshop as I was able to distort and edit images to how I wanted both my poster, digipak and website cover to look like. When creating my poster I used the magnetic laso tool to cut out the branches and leaves that I did not want on the tree and replace them with a branch photoshop brush tool. I also changed the image of the talent to be disjointed to the rest of the image. For the website, I went for the same look and used photoshop to create a colourful wesbite, using flower photoshop burshes as a main theme, which I also incorperated into the inside of my digipak.
To upload my film onto a disc, i used idvd to create a page that was accessable to out takes and a directors commnetary as well as the video itself. This was laid out with clips of the video, and the song playing in the background.The flower theme has also continued here, which links in with the theme of the ancillary tasks and the main music video intself
Overall I think my music video is a success.
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