Evaluation

In ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
As our chosen genre, indie acoustic, has various rules of how the conventions are represented such as performance of the band/artist, they should subvert to the typical ways of the indie genre. However independence plays a big role in the identification of the indie genre, the main concept to focus on is being different from other artist of the same genre and being unique. In our production, my group and I have portrayed the genre in various ways but hopefully highlighting, for example, the performance scenes through the mise en scene of the guitar being present every time Danny lip syncs. Throughout our music video, there are numerous examples of myself and the group staying with the convention, developing a convention and challenging a convention. These three fields are discussed as follows:

Used

Performance -Guitar

Inspiration

When planning and researching conventions within the Indie genre, we gathered together some Indie features that are significant for our music video. We found that the performance of guitars played a big role in Indie music videos and are seen mostly throughout those videos; therefore we made sure to include performance scenes including a guitar to help emphasise the genre. As our song is based around a singer with a guitar in hand, this was important to enhance this feature in our final products including also the digipack and magazine advert. I found that Indie music artists tend to accentuate the use of guitars throughout their texts perhaps to prove themselves in a way that shows they can actually play giving them a chance to showcase their talents. We tried to include the guitar throughout the video along with Danny singing the words such as through the choruses, some verses and also scenes with the female role included as well. At the beginning you can see Danny taking the guitar off the wall in preparation of singing and strumming which gives an initial view for the audience representing that the genre is acoustic and this is what to expect throughout. We cut in and out of shots showing Danny playing the guitar in various locations however during the chorus and recognisable scenes we made sure to have a master shot in which includes Danny is perhaps sitting on a bench or in his bedroom singing. We also made sure that there was a clear distinction of timings during the video, for example by showing Danny at the beginning singing indoors and then near the end showing him outdoors helps give the viewers the signification of the day from beginning to end.

Our Video

As you can see from the screenshots taken from our video and from Joshua Radin's 'I'd rather be with you', we used different angled shots of the guitar from the neck downwards to the strings giving a different take on the guitar but in a more interesting way which hopefully keeps the audience's attention. Joshua Radin's music video helped give us this idea as it helps to introduce the performance scenes and sometimes the way the guitar can be filmed can be effective especially is the light is bouncing off the gloss.

Mise En Scene -Costume

Inspiration

Another convention that we used throughout our music video was the clothing of the male singer where we tried to provide an Indie feel to the mise en scene. In order to create this constant look we researched and planned what Danny should wear when filming which is shown in previous posts on costume at http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/maleartists-costume-ideas.html and http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/artist-in-test-costumes.html where we eventually chose the right costume to suit our music video. We decided to select a parka coat, black skinny jeans and brogues for our outdoor clothing and indoors, a grey jumper and black jeans. I think

Our Video

this combination of clothes really accentuates the indie genre as this is the typical style and seems casual/laid back that acoustic artists would go for. When researching we looked into the styles that the original artist Mike Dignam would where and it came up with similar clothing of our choice. I selected a screenshot from the band Two Door Cinema Club's 'Sun' as although this shot shows a band performance, it shows the similar clothing as casual/laid back and seeing as this band is known as Indie pop it is a great example to relate to.
Overall I think this is an important aspect of Indie that we all kept throughout during the music video and our other products that our audience can recognise and symbolise as Indie.

Both of these conventions definitely define what we have used throughout our music video as we stayed within them and as you can see the decisions were made early in the planning stages.

Developed

Camera -POV Filming

Inspiration

In our music video we developed the camera use by incorporating the technique of point of view filming which involved Danny holding the camera himself and pointing the lens at the characters and filming representing a home video approach. We first discovered this technique when we watched Calvin Harris's 'I Need Your Love' however he uses this approach nearly throughout the whole video, although I think this works really well as it gives the audience an insight as to how the relationship was really like before. See http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/pov-filming.html During the progression of our narrative of the relationship of the boy and the girl, we developed the POV filming to an extent that the audience will understand the past and present of it all. We made sure to relate the lyrics at parts to the POV filming to present a visual demonstration of the love story and show the memories of the singer. For example we filmed a scene in a coffee shop where the couple are naturally sipping coffee which demonstrates an everyday situation but sometimes out of routine. I think this technique definitely made the video seem more realistic to the audience and also allows them to view the lost love which is a key convention in the genre therefore overall, the POV filming has managed to build up the story without making it seem that predictable. 

Our video

Camera -Lighting

Inspiration

 We developed lighting throughout our video in different ways to ensure the audience keep their satisfaction upon the video. When editing we made sure to adjust the colour by altering the exposure, contrasts, colour correction which then provided a vintage like filter to our video, giving an Indie feel to the video. As I researched into various music videos in the Indie genre, I noticed that portraying the sun as an image was an aspect that was appropriate and common in most of the videos. Such as in the video 'Ayla' by the Maccabees (shown in screenshot), they filmed a majority of the scenes at the beginning of trees with the sun shining from them which then gave me the idea that this would be a great idea for some of our scenes. Lighting is an important feature to focus on when filming and editing a music video, whether it's Indie or not; it helps to provide depth and colour to the artists image.

Our video

We wanted to bring across perhaps a metaphor, especially at the end indicating that the artist has a new life and beginning without the female and that there are happier times ahead. We made the shots of the sun more interesting due to the zooming in and low angles of the sun through the trees, also at the end panning down provided a darker feeling which we then transitioned into a finish.



Challenged -Overlaying

Our video

We challenged the overlay technique as our convention in our music video as we tried but couldn't get completely what we wanted in the end. We first found the idea when researching music videos with this similar effect that we had in mind, we then came across a music video by Olly Murs called 'Dear Darlin' which is a great example of what we originally wanted. In order to see whether the overlay is possible, I organised a day where we could test it out- see http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/overlay-technique.html and http://nfgsannahigginson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/overlay-test-run.html which then proved that you couldn't get the most realistic viewings of the shots when editing with the resources we had at School. Although we managed to figure out another way of using this effect by split screening the image and then combining into one which came out more subtle that we initially thought. This worked well but we could still see a feint line where the two parts had been joined together.

Inspiration

Whilst filming our real product, I thought of another way of producing the overlay, inserting transitions when editing, which turned out well as you can see Danny on one side of the tree and then the female role and him walking along through the same image but Danny has disappeared. I think this turned out well although it could have been more smoother and better but we definitely challenged this convention to an extent. 

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





I created this video showing the various technologies that I used and encountered during the construction, planning, research and evaluation stages and uploaded it onto YouTube for people to view it. Technology was used heavily throughout these stages in which we gathered more knowledge as we used some more and more. These technologies were all very helpful as they gave me the ability to research more into our chosen artist and song through the social media platforms, edit and film our video in high quality standards and also search into genres similar to ours.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
In order to gain feedback about our music video, we asked our audience of the ages 16-19 about our product by playing the video to them. Whilst watching our video, they answered a hand out which included 5 questions about our product. 
In our music video below we added in comments about the scenes and responses from our audience about what they particularly liked. I think this has made the responses clearer as the answers can correspond to the scene discussed.

As there was a mixture of answers received, we thought Wordle would be a clear and effective way to present the responses which can highlight the most common ones.
What do you think the storyline is about in our video?


Would you say our video is an 'authentic' indie music video?


What do you think stands out in our music video?


Are there any alternate locations that you would have included in the music video?


How would you improve it?


From this audience feedback we have gathered together, you can see we have gained a positive response and if we were to remake the product, minor changes would be made.
In my opinion I think most of the audience loved the flashbacks we included from past to present, where we showed the relationship of the two and then fast forwarding to how the mystery break up has resulted in the lyrics which Danny is lip syncing to the camera. I felt the video consisted of different features throughout which definitely helped to keep the audience interested by allowing them to relate to the storyline easily. Overall I believe the music video was perceived as an 'authentic' indie video because of the costume, filters, locations, props and the style in which is was filmed in. Another response I noticed came up a lot about the location was that we used a variety of indoor and outdoor locations as well as including some urban and natural areas which I think definitely helped to represent our genre of indie as its known to present a deep and natural feeling to the viewers. To conclude I think the most discussed topic from the audience feedback was about the flashbacks we featured in the video. It was a relief to see that the flashbacks have worked well as we had doubts about whether they would be effective or not, although by inserting cross dissolves and other transitions between those scenes helped the audience to realise the difference between the past and present of the music video.
I found all this audience feedback helpful as it has given us a real insight as to what our targeted audience think of our music video and whether it is an 'authentic' indie video.

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

To answer this question we recorded and discussed the various aspects to do with our three ancillary texts, the music video, digi pack and magazine advert. We first made some individual general notes and then recorded our discussion. Afterwards we edited it on Final Cut Express and inserted images that corresponded to the topics discussed.