Final Music Video

Final Music Video

Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 3



Evaluation Question 3

 

 

Final Individual Ancillaries

Final Individual Ancillaries

Evaluation - Question One

Question One

For this brief my task was to produce a music video, a magazine advert and a digipak of the genre of my choice. In a group of four we had to construct all elements of the product on multiple software in order to make our product look conventional and professional. The chosen genre for my music video and ancillary texts was the indie genre. I chose this genre because it was relatable for the target audience and could easily narrate a real life situation which makes it easier for us to produce a realistic and professional approach to our video which will have an impact on the target audience.
In my product I mainly followed the mise-en-scene conventions of the indie genre such as lighting, costume, location and cinematography although I also challenged the conventions with my chosen narrative.

The first convention that I followed was the use of filters from the micro-element of editing and incorporated this in the editing process of Final Cut Pro X where I edited my music video. The use of filters is conventional to the indie genre as indie artists usually use these to portray a certain emotion or event to symbolise some type of meaning to the audience and to make the certain scene with the filter stand out from other scenes. One of the filters that I used for the happy memories in my music video was a light filter called "Dreamy". This filter was used for the happy memories in the artists relationship to represent the positive light the filter have the audience a immediate insight into what the memories were and how happy the artist was. This helped to build a relationship with the audience as they understood how happy the artist was and therefore feel sympathetic for her when this all started to breakdown. It was also conventional as the audience may have also experienced a similar situation which would make the artists situation much more relatable.

One convention that I followed was the use of location which is included within the micro-element of mise-en-scene. Throughout all of my products my main location is an open field. This is conventional to the indie genre as they usually film in low budget locations in order to portray themselves as more relatable to the target audience. This is because the audience could imagine themselves in these easily accessible locations which would therefore portray them as an ordinary girl. This is also how I portrayed my artist within my music video through the use of cinematography and editing to show her as isolated and vulnerable which anyone would feel like in certain situations. The target audience are mainly females from the age bracket of 15-25 year olds. We found out this information from my research which included of questionnaires with multiple open and closed questions referring back to the narrative, style of video and locations.

Sharna Rae in the field location

Another indie convention that I followed in my music video was the use of a performance style music video. This is conventional to the indie genre as indie artists usually produce low maintenance materials in order to maintain the focus on the artists talent and performance rather than the use of high maintenance special effects and locations to also portray them as ordinary yet also an approachable artist. This is evident in my music video when we include the scenes of the artist singing towards the camera whilst she is alone in the field, this is focusing mainly on the talent as the location and other elements such as costume, hair and makeup allow no distractions for the audience maintaining a level of attention on the artist and their talent and performance. My inspiration for a performance style music video came from Lana Del Ray's music video "High By The Beach" where she is in a obscure beach house on her own singing and roaming around whilst a hand held camera technique follows her around the house. The location was very bland which kept my attention on the artist and what she was doing. It made me look deeper into the artist and her feelings which helped me to see what she sees in her own perspective and this helped me to relate to her, which is conventional to the indie genre.

Sharna Rae singing towards the camera in a performance style music video

A third convention that I followed from the indie genre was the use of costume from the micro-element of mise-en-scene. I followed the mainstream indie fashion style of grunge to make my artist look like a conventional artist of this genre. For example, I dressed my artist in layered jean jackets with a dress and tights to create an overall layered look, which was conventional to an indie artist. This look was used in the scene where the artist is standing in the field whilst she is singing and reminiscing on the memories of her broken relationship with her girlfriend. I got this inspiration from Birdy's music video "Light Me Up" where she is seen wearing tights, shorts, a jumper and jacket. She looks unique and an artist with her own sense of style.

The jean jacket layered look we used on our artist Sharna Rae

The final convention was my music video narrative which challenged the conventions of the indie genre. This was a challenge against the genre conventions as my group and I decided to have our music feature on a lesbian relationship and how their relationship broke down. This was unconventional as most of the relationships that are showcased in music videos are between a male and female. However, we decided to use a lesbian relationship as in modern day society these types of relationships are much more acceptable and relatable for many more people in the indie genre and the target audience. On the other hand, this was also conventional as most indie artists who are females sing and write material on how their relationships with their boyfriends failed and how they dealt with their heartbreak. I decided to follow the style of narrative of a failed relationship, however I made it a lesbian relationship to challenge the conventions and make our artist seem very honest and relatable to the target audience of 15-25 year olds, as this is a narrative they wouldn't be completely used to.

The final convention that i followed from the indie genre was the theme of isolation. This is conventional to the indie genre as indie artists usually write material on their own personal experiences which they have had to deal with. The theme of isolation is also a common issue for my target audience of 15-25 year olds as they are still dealing with relationships and friendships which can result in breakdown like the situation in my own music video. I portrayed the theme of isolation through the use of long shots of my artist alone, open locations such as a forest and field and also jump cuts to show the artist partner walking out of the door to the artist then crying against the door. This helped for the target audience to build a relationship with the artist as understanding that she is alone will help for the audience to empathise with the artist as they could probably imagine themselves in this situation and therefore will be inspired to be more like the artist as they understand that they can get over this sitaution much like the artist can.

A long shot of my artist in the forest location alone to represent the theme of isolation 

The conventions that I followed and challenged overall gave my music video a successful outcome. This is due to having conventional elements of the indie genre which was easily recognisable to the target audience, yet it also had a diverse narrative which the audience could enjoy as they aren't used to seeing this in a conventional indie music video.

Rough Cut - Miss Miller

Rough Cut

Youtube Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-is9Dan8Yo

Audience feedback is important to a production because it allows the audience to give constructive criticism  the producers and give different strengths and weaknesses on the product. This then enables the group to make positive changes and improve their product as best they can and to make it look more conventional to their chosen genre. 
A rough cut is also essential to carry out as it gives you an idea on what your end product will look like. This is beneficial as you can then see what needs to be changed and what could work better to make the music video look more conventional to the chosen genre. It also enables you to understand how the music video will make the audience feel when watching it and whether or not they will understand the narrative and if it will easily flow together as this is one of the most important elements of the music video. 
The ways in which we received our audience feedback was through audiences comments on our youtube video of the rough cut, classroom screenings of our production, focus group and questionnaires. 
This feedback benefitted our production in many ways as we discovered comments from the audience which we hadn't noticed ourselves as we had become so used to watching the video repeatedly in our editing process that we hadn't noticed it ourselves. These were things such as the lighting being too low key to fit in with the other shots and not having enough negative aspects in the video. For example, the couple arguing and breaking up from the relationship. 
One of the positive comments that we got was from one of the Youtube commenters which stated that "I like the usage of the slightly sped up clips to narrate the flow of time". This comment made me pleased that the audience understood that we had included this effect to narrate the time flow of the relationship. We were unsure if the audience would find this clear and easy to understand so when this comment was submitted it was encouraging to find out that this was clear to the audience and they understood that the whole duration of the music video was narrating the couples relationship.

Another positive comment that we received on our Youtube video was "the use of the out of focus then focused shots". I really appreciated this comment as my group had payed specific attention to including this feature as we believed it look professional yet also conventional to the indie genre. We felt as though this was conventional as the lighting aspect is very natural and doesn't include any filters or extra effects to make it look in the magical way we wanted it to look. When we came out of focus on the lights they would look like small balls of light which gave it a magical effect with also reflected on the good memories that the couple had in their relationship. This is conventional to the indie genre 

The last positive comment that we received from our Youtube commenters was "I am so impressed at the close attention payed to the 5 mise-en-scene aspects especially lighting and costume.". When recieving this comment my group and I was extremely pleased as we had planned out the specific costumes we were going to dress our artist in for each scene. We researched the specific fashion style for indie artists to understand it was mainly a grunge style. We then incorporated this style into our music video to make it look more conventional and professional and portray our artist as a more relatable indie artist. For example, a layered look including a dress with tights and two oversized jean jackets to give an unique and independent style. We also made effort to get the lighting correct for each piece of footage that we filmed. This included us leaving earlier for filming to ensure we had many hours of natural light to film our footage with. This is so that the footage had a good base light for us to edit and add filters too.

A constructive comment that we received from our Youtube video was "the video did not have enough negative aspects and therefore was less dramatic". When we received this comment we wasn't too surprised as we also felt as though the positive memories outweighed the amount of negative and this would confuse the audience based on the narrative being joe the relationship ended. We also agreed that the lack of negative aspects made the video less dramatic as it only showed happy and positive memories that would give the audience the impression that everything was ok and in order which is the wrong impression we wanted to give. When we received this comment we decided that we would change the amount of positive memories we had included and change them to more negative ones to show the audience how the relationship began to deteriorate and break down. We would do this by filming more scenes of the couple arguing and pushing each other away.

Anther piece of constructive criticism  that we received was "the negative aspects of the relationship used are sometimes unclear why they have happened". When we received this comment we was quite shocked as none of the participants in our group had noticed this when editing our video. We felt as though the negative shots that we had included was quite a clear aspect of our narrative as they gave the audience a clear understanding of why the relationship was weakening. This comment urged us to go over our music video and figure out what effects we could add to make the negative memories more clearer as to why their relationship ended. We then added darker filters and a slow effect on to it to portray the scene as if the artist was reminiscing on this and thinking about the negative times of their relationship. This was shown through the use of the dark colours and filters and also the slowing effect to narrate flow of time when they would argue.

Lastly another constructive comment that we received on our rough cut was "you could have filtered some of the indoor scenes to change the colour". When receiving this comment we understood looking back on our music video how it could have made an impact on the audience if we had added a filter. This is because the colours of the bedroom was quite bland and didn't give much away to the audience about the artists personality. We also understood that by adding a filter and changing some of the colours within the shot that this would look better to the audience as they would enjoy more to look at a colourful shot than a bland one. They would also understand more about the artists personality and situation if they could connote feelings with the colour of the bedroom. For example red to connote the emotion of anger. We decided that we would add more filters and mess about with the different saturation levels to find the most realistic and natural colour for the bedroom.

Audience feedback is important in a lot of different industries, especially the music industry. This would benefit the music industry because there are many different yet specific genres and industries which have their own elements which make them successful. For example, the indie genre makes low key budget music videos to maintain the focus of the artists talent and this is what promotes the artist the most. Whereas a genre like pop genre may make use of special effects to make the artist look futuristic and this may promote the study to pop genre fans. When working in small specific industries the audience feedback is imperative to refer to to understand how they can tweek the different elements of the video to make it appeal more to their target audience. This will then help to make the music video more successful and more likely to make a profit. If they portray the artist in a way that the target audience enjoy then this will give the artist a good representation and will increase he sales of their material and make them a more successful artist.

(Other screenshot has disappeared, will have to re add on the Mac computers.)