4).In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My music video uses many conventions and codes of a music video. Firstly my video is focused around the breaking down of a relationship of a boy and girl. These romantic but sad narratives of a couple’s journey together are used in many music videos and films of this genre. Examples of where this is in use is in films such as; `(500) days of summer` which is referenced within the music video, this narrative is also shown in many female folk artists music videos, such as Laura Marling. These videos also portray a sense of loneliness. In my initial research, I decided I would not use a performance element, however once I had finished shooting, I then decided to include a performance aspect, because like many other videos within the folk genre they focus on the storyline, and adding a performance aspect would add vairety.

In my research of performance aspects within music videos, I looked at performances by Laura Marling and Marina and the Diamonds, they were both fairly similar because they were filmed within a house, and neither of them had an audience present, making the performances relaxed and intimate, therefore allowing the audience watching to feel as if they are part of and involved within the video, having been invited into the home to her the artist rehearse. It also allows audience to relate to the artist, and become familiar with them, I applied this, to my own music video, because although I used a performance aspect, it was just showing the artist playing the piano and singing, in a room by herself, which creates an intimate feel with the audience. Although the audience are not within the performance, so you can not directly see who the audience are, you can identify who they are because of the location, costume and mood. The performance element to the video, creates more variety and adds diversity to the video, it changes the pace of the narrative in the video.

Below are screen captures from the music videos by; marina and the diamonds and laura marling, which i used as part of my research into performance aspects of music videos. These images demonstrate the intimacy the audience feel towards the artist, and the way that their surroundings represent who the audience are.

This image, above shows the performance aspect of the music video, and shows how the location, costume and mise-en-scene, represent the audience.

“The grand narrative structure”, is conventionally discarded within music videos, according to Goodwin’s theory. The music video may tell a story, but the problem will often remain unresolved. My music video complies with this convention, abandoning the grand narrative structure, because although it implies of story of heartbreak, there is no clear ending, where the problem has been visibly resolved. Goodwin’s theory the, abandonment of the grand narrative structure, suggests intertextuality within the video, because of the way that the codes and conventions relate to other media texts, the audience construct their own narrative.

The use of split screen is a vast part of the narrative structure, because although the narrative is focused around the boy and girl`s relationship, and how they are falling out of love, the narrative structure is also focused around the journey of the couple, both the literal journey on the train to the beach, and the metaphorical journey that their relationship has taken. The way the split screen has been constructed with the use of movement and varying sizes of frames within the split screen, creates a rhythm within the music video and adds a varying pace. It adds a musical feel, as well as just telling a story. The structure is reflected, through the movement of the frames and the pace of the music video, this makes the structure evident rather than telling a story. The shots that were used within the video; some were used to tell the story and others were used to show the structure. The structure was shown more through the construction, in the movement of the frames, however the shots that could be said as evidently showing the structure would be shots such as; the shots of the close ups of the girl with her hair blowing in the wind, and the movement shots of the sea and the birds, and also the shots of the sun through the train window.

Many of the codes and conventions that I have used within my own music video, comes from the genre of the music and the conventions that are used within the folk genre. I have used some of the codes and conventions within the folk, acoustic genre, as well as using these codes and conventions of this genre. I have also gained inspiration from art films, therefore using some codes and conventions from the artistic genre. The art genre, works well within the folk genre as a type of sub-genre because their target audiences have similar interests, although I may have challenged some of the conventions in genres, it has enabled me to create a production and ancillary texts that will appeal to more than one target audience.

Within the research stages, the various researches that I carried out identified the codes and conventions of the folk genre, in which I could apply to the music video. I have challenged some of the typical conventions that are used within this genre, as the artist is usually used throughout the whole video, in order to tell the story, however I wanted to use actors for the narrative of the music video so that the audience could relate to them being very ordinary, everyday people. I then used short clips of the artist throughout the video, so the audience could identify with her as a person, and become familiar with whom she is. It also allows the audience to understand the concept of the narrative through the artist’s viewpoint, and connect with the artist. I used some of the conventions that are typically used within this genre.

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

A vast variety of new technologies, were used within the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of my production. I used new technologies in a variety of ways to create different effects. In the initial research stages, I used websites, which enabled me to understand the genre and its conventions and concepts, I did this by looking at the websites of artists who had a similar style of music to the artist I had chosen, therefore allowing me to state which genre my piece of music was. I also used youtube, in order to find music videos by artists who comply with the same genre, as the music that I chose. By, finding videos by artists of the same or a similar genre, it allowed me to understand the codes and convent ions that were used, as well as looking at music videos I also looks at films, that were within this genre, and used youtube to look at them and upload them on to my blog, so I have a record of research. I used these devices, youtube and other websites, during the target audience research section, as they enabled me to understand who the people are behind the genre, and understand the stereotypical lifestyle, of the audience of this genre. I used various websites, to find album covers from the artists that I had used within my earlier research of music videos, I also used music magazines such as, NME and Q, to find advertisements for the release of albums. I used my blog, blogger.com, to display all of the research that I carried out. One of the main conventions of my music video was the, split screen, I researched other films, music videos and short videos/advertisements, which used this convention, to see and understand how they used it to tell the narrative of the video. I started my research of split screens by finding the definition, on wikipedia, which lead to me reading a list of some of the most famous videos that have used split screen, leading to me watching, cibo matto`s music video, sugar water, which although it is not the same genre as Shannon Hurley’s, sunrise, it does show a great example of split screen, in which it focus’s on the movement of the two characters in either side of the split screen, and how the movement of one characters leads and is synchronized to the movement of the other character. I then uploaded the videos, which displayed the use of split screen within them, on to my blog. The use of technology was slightly less within the stages of planning. Within the planning of the music video, I used a digital SLR camera to photograph the location shots, a scanner so we could scan in the storyboard, and then use blogger to display it. Within the planning of my print productions, I used a scanner, to scan in my designs so I could upload them onto blogger. I also used, datont.com, which is a website, where people design and display fonts that they have created, for others to use, I found a variety of fonts on this website, and used my favourite which was displayed on my ancillary products. Although, I did not use technology very frequently within this stage, the use of a scanner helped greatly, as it allowed me to display documents on my blog, and include them in my print productions, as I could upload them digitally onto the computer. The construction of both the music video production and ancillary texts used the most technological devices, enabling me to use and experiment with a vast variety of new technologies. Within the construction, shooting and editing, of the music video I used a digital video camera, tripod, SLR digital camera, and SLR film camera and adobe premiere elements.

Within the construction of my print productions I used a digital SLR camera and adobe Photoshop elements. I used blogger to upload both of these productions; I also used youtube to post the music video on. We had to do a vast amount of shoots, to get all the footage that we needed, because we encountered some problems. When we planned our shooting schedule, we decided we would use two cameras, one to film the girl and the other to film the boy, because this would make it easier when editing because of the split screen, however on the first day of shooting one of cameras stopped working, therefore having only one camera to use, this did delay us slightly on the day, however we overcame the problem. It was needed for us to re-shoot the scenes of the girl on the train, because of the tape that we used to film this scene breaking. The camera was very easy to use, and allowed us to achieve most things that were needed or that we wanted, however it would have been better if it focused, and it had a larger zoom. The use of a digital video camera, allowed us to take a vast amount of footage, giving us lots of raw material that we could then edit and cut, this worked very well because of the different locations that we used, and the amount of shots that we wanted to achieve in each location. This also worked well, because of the use of split screen; we wanted a variety of shots of both characters. In post production, we used adobe premiere software to edit the footage, there is other editing software such as windows that is available, however we opted to use adobe software, because it gives a larger variety of tools that can be used. Adobe, also made it easier when creating the split screen in the video, the process of creating the split screen, involves placing two lots of footage onto the canvas, making sure they are directly underneath each other on the timeline so they will play in unison, then you just have to resize the shots to fit the canvas size. The split screeen, opened decisions when creating the split screen; of the size of the individual frames, and if they would be the same size of different sizes, i also needed to decide if they would start moving at the same time and stop at the saem time or one frame would be still and one would move. One of the biggest decisions was what shots to put in the frames and which ones would work well together, and if they would complemente each other, also needed to thikn about how the co9lours and movement in each frame work together, for example; the shots of the girl and the boy at the train station and on the train where the frames are positioned horizontally and they both look at the same time. I used photoshop, to create the ancillary products, because although there is other editing programmes, photoshop gave me the most variety of editing tools, out of the various edting programmes that are avaliable to use.

1).How effective is the combination of your main production and ancillary texts?

My main production, the music video, and ancillary texts, link to each other because they are appealing to the same target audience and use the conventions of `folk genre`. The use of ancillary texts helps to reinforce the main production, because they reiterate the artist`s brand and the way this was presented in the music video.

The purpose of the main production,the music video is to sell the product and that particular song, the ancillary texts; album covers and adverts are produced to advertise the release of a new album or single. In this set of products, in order to show the branding of the artist, as well as, the artist and album name, other factors, such as the font type, colour palette and muted images are kept the same across the video and print productions such as the font, images and general style, this use of repetitive features creates a strong brand identity. These products aim to appeal to audiences who are females in the age range of around 16 to 24 years of age, and people who like the folk/acoustic genre. The production appeals largely to females, because of the narrative, of a relationship breaking down, it also appeals to female because they enjoy the romantic narrative.

The mise-en-scene, also contributes to the appeal of the music video to women because of the locations, costumes and genre. The genre of music largely determines who the target audience is, and how therefore we needed to appeal to them. It also represents them as being young. The characters in the music video, do not feature, neither does the artist, on the album cover or advertisement, because I believe a sense of mystery about the artist. This makes a point of creating ancillary texts without images of the characters or artists on them enables the audience to focus on the genre more, because this space can be filled using background images of the locations used in the music video, therefore creating a sense of familiarity brand identification without revealing the artist or any characters. Laura Marling uses this convention on her album cover, Ghosts, which can be seen within my album cover research. Her album cover consists of a yellow, beige background with a black outlined design in the centre, which surrounds the album name. I have used this convention because I believe it creates an artistic feel to the production, and creates mystery as to who the artist is. These images, would be geared towards the genre of the music and appeal to the target audience because they would be a reflection of the type of lifestyle that this group lead, this would have audience appeal because they can relate to the images that are shown.

The images included in the print productions would reflect the lifestyle that this particular group lead because, it would show the places they live or like to go, it would also reflect the type of things they enjoy doing in their spare time. In the ancillary texts, the audience are represented as creative, artistic people who have a sense of individualism; this is because of the use of muted images reflecting the narrative portrayed in the music video. The creative artistic feel in the music video, is shown by the use of the split screen technique, the appeal of the narrative that particular age group and how they can relate to the narrative.

The music video, for `bad day, by Daniel powter`, that I looked at for my initial research, reflects the feel in my own music video best, because of the use of the split screen convention, the characters and location being very ordinary and everyday, and the narrative in `bad day`, was about a boy and girl falling out of love. The sense of individualism that is portrayed is reflecting the use of everyday characters that present the production with a very ordinary and everyday feel. The ordinary and everyday locations, are also presented in the ancillary texts, because I use the beach and train as the locations for the images on my anciallary texts, which are the same as in the video.

The research that I conducted where I analysed different album covers of a similar genre to my own, which gave me ideas for how I could appeal through this genre to my target audience. I looked at the codes and conventions that had been utilised within these cd covers, and how they complied with the genre. The codes and conventions that I used within my final production were influenced by the music videos that I had researched.

The main convention that I used was the split screen technique, I also adhered to the soft lighting that was used in my research videos, and also within the print productions I applied the same type of font. I took certain aspects from the album covers I researched and was influenced by them whilst in the process of creating my print productions. I liked the font that was used on Laura Marling`s album cover for, Ghosts, therefore when designing and researching fonts I used the influence I had from, Ghosts, to allow me to create or find a similar font, which would create the same connotations. Kate Walsh’s album cover for, Tim’s House, features an image of herself on the back and front cover, with the artist and album name to accompany it, although my album cover does not include any photographs of the artist, it does use the same washed out muted colours technique, which adheres to the genre of the music. I used soft lighting , in both the music video and anciallary text, which is another factor that i kept the same, i used the soft lighting in the images on the front cover of the album.

The planning aspects to both my final production and ancillary texts, involved a variety of tasks to enable the shooting process to run smoothly. Whilst carrying out the planning for the music video especially, myself and my production team needed to discover the mood and how we would create this through a mixture of; imagery, colours, mise-en-scene, audience, costumes and location shots. These aspects are very important as they set a mood and create the feel that is needed in the video in order to appeal to the target audience and apply to the genre.

The mood of the music video is creative, soft and romantic, this mood was achieved by the use of soft lighting within the video and print productions, and the way the objects and settings around the characters are bathed in light. The costume of the artist within the video, because the colours of her clothing are light and the blue top links to the beach location, the clothing is soft and include muted colours. The mood that is created is also very reflective, because of the lighting, the emphasis of sunlight and the use of a piano in the live performance, which therefore gives the music video a creative and artistic feel. I applied the lighting effects, in the ancillary products by using adobe photoshop elements and adding shadows, and adding strobes of sunlight and moving the light around to cast light on different objects.

The creation of the storyboard is a key part in the planning process of the final production, because it gathers all the angles, shot types and movement in one area, that will be used in the video, research can help to decide shot types and angles, as we can take how we portray something because of the angle or shot type and apply this to our won video, because of the way we would like a certain aspect to be portrayed. The planning process allows us to have a record of all our initial thought out ideas and plans, which can be used to compare to the final production and the changes that have been made between planning and research process to the final cut. It also helps us to understand why these changes took place, the problems that we were faced with and how these could be avoided if this task was undertaken again. In conclusion to this question, I believe that the combination of my main production and ancillary texts work effectively as a package, because of the links in codes and conventions that have been used within them, but also the running similar themes that appear in both sets of products.