EVALUATION Part Two

How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (Digipak and Advertisement)?

It is important for the music video to match the ancillary work as they are both part of a particular house style. They have to work in congregation with each other as they should have clear visual and concept links.

In the planning for the music video, we made sure Sifan wore clothes similar to examples style. We had two costume changes during the video, but the over all style consisted of jeans, trainers and a shirt. In the Ancillary, Sifan wears similar black jeans with the baseball jacket he wore in the video, which is similar to the smart yet casual style that we created for the artist. It is important for the artist to have the same style across all pieces of work as we have created a grime persona for him that he will be judged on by people who have not yet heard his music, meaning his clothing also has to reflect the genre.

In the music video, we edited the clips brightness and contrast to make the images look more crisp and more professional. Whilst editing in Photoshop, I used the contrast tool after editing my images into black and white. This created a similar striking look, but the images are darker, as they have to work as a foundation for other texts and colours being placed on top of the images.

Music Video

CD Housing

The motif is constantly raised throughout the music video as something that the audience can be looking out for. I have extended the link to my ancillary work as an image of the motif is in the Digipak, behind the CD housing. This extends the metaphor in the music video as it will be hidden behind the disk and the consumer will find it when they remove the CD, so they are constantly finding the Motif.

An important feature of both the music video and print work is the use of close ups. In the music video we have various base tracks of different backgrounds which include close ups of the artist. This is the same with the ancillary work. The front cover has a close up of the artist, which is a convention for grime/rap albums as I have discovered in my research. The image features Sifan looking happy, which promotes the artist in  a positive light. I originally wanted the photograph of the mid shot of sifan looking down but my teacher said that it is important for the artists face to be visible, particularly on a debut album. I therefore chose a close up image, as it communicates the artists features across to the audience, making the artist memorable.

The over all character representation is illustrated through both the music video and ancillary. Both the CD cover and Music video shows the element of energy. In the music video, there are two scenes that feature people running. The first is outside in a park, when they run past the artist and the second is when some teenagers run away from a house party the morning after. This links with the image of the inside panel of Sifan jumping, and is captured mid air, which was inspired by the music video by Example, Stay Awake.

The title of the song, 'See the Sea' is a play on words, which inspired both the name of the artist (C Moore) and the title of the album cover (Word Play). The artist name is a play on words meaning 'see more,' which encourages the consumer to see beyond the surface meaning of the song and name and read into them, revealing that they are both plays on words. This links with my album name word place, which reinforces this idea.

The many different images in my Digipak reflect the large amount of base tracks we used in the music video. We experimented with different angles

My ancillary work shows visual links in the colour scene, typography and images used. For the advertisement, I used an image, taken straight out of the digipak, to keep the theme ongoing.The use of the album cover in the advert lets consumers know what they will be looking for, as it shows a direct link between both pieces of work.

EVALUATION - One

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

Towards the beginning of the coursework, we researched two theorists: Andrew Goodwin and Carol Vernallis, who both put forward ideas about the conventions of a music video.

ANDREW GOODWIN:

We have stuck to some conventions of a pop music video, according to Andrew Goodwin to create a realistic music video. Goodwin states that pop videos rely on repetition, which we have posed with the use of multiple base tracks with similar backgrounds. The locations are revisited, which illustrates the repetition of location often seen across most music genres. Also, our motif has been repeated throughout the video in different scenes, including the park, the house party and in Dalston East Curve Gardens. This use of the motif, I have extended even further into the ancillary work as I have used the image of the motif as the background for the CD housing, which pushes the use of repetition into something that the audience can continually look for.

The idea of women used as a sexual object to be looked at by the male spectator, is something that is explored by Goodwin, and is said to be articular in heavy metal and hip hop genres. As our genre is grime, an offspring of hip hop, we have decided to use this idea in the video in the form of our motif. By covering up her face, and only revealing her body, she is seen as a faceless object by the viewer. In the screenshot from the music video below, it is obvious that we have applied Goodwins theory to other parts of the video by hinting at a party scene, featuring young people showing skin, for the male view.

CAROL VERNALLIS

Carol Vernallis describes music videos as a separate genre to film and television. The music video is a genre that explores different aspects of the musicians lifestyle from class to gender. In our video, we have tried to reflect conventions of the grime genre so we used locations with urban backgrounds, such as the Dalston mural, which features street art, giving the music video a modern'street' vibe. This ties in with the graffiti background found in another base track, which connotes the unfortunate financial state of most grime artists in the music industry.

Graffiti Wall

Dalston Mural

Tour dates on advert

My house style correlates with my CD cover, black, white, red and blue. Album covers have a limited amount of covers, to avoid looking to 'busy'. I have stuck to neutral and primary colours to keep the advert simple, as it is supposed to be aesthetically pleasing and not take away from the purpose of the advertisement - to promote the album. I have used the same typography in both pieces of ancillary work to continue the house style. My choice of font is sans serif, which connotes an informal genre of music. The way that it looks written 

CD

The name of the artist is the largest font on both the CD cover and Advert. This is important to draw attention to the artist, as people often will notice the artists name before the actual album name. I have changed the colours to make the name stand out even further.

I have included some conventional details on the album cover to make it look realistic. The parental advisory sticker on the bottom of the album is common in rap and grime genres due to the explicit content of the lyrics. The name of the artist on the spine is also a feature across all digipak's and CD covers as it makes it easy for the consumer to find the CD, the code at the top is a conventional feature that I added for realism.

Tracklist

Tracklists are a conventional feature for CD and Digipak back covers as this is how the audience can tell what songs are on the particular CD in the shop before they buy it. I have included songs from Example's real album 'Won't Go Quietly' Including one of my own 'Word Play' as it is common for albums to be named after a song, for continuity. In rap albums, it is also common to make the Producer more noticeable then with other genre's. This is because important producers can affect the success of the album, particularly if they are also an artist, which is why I have chosen the artist, Labrinth.

My Digipak features many images of the artist. There is only one panel out of six that has an image of something other than the artist. This is important as my artist is up and coming, so is unknown to most of the public. It is important for the consumer to make a connection with the artists identity, so he will be easily recogniseable in the future.

Evaluation

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

We studied examples videos to get ideas for our own. We wanted to to create the same style of example who dresses very simple and plain. I wanted to create my advertisement black and white like examples video because i think that we focus more on the music then the images and colours. Also we studied the camerawork and this video has many close ups of the artists and we portrayed that in our video.

These screen shots show the close ups of the artist and the mid shots and long shots 
show the artists style.

We also looked at the video Nas 'One Mic' there was a scene where the artists is standing in the middle of the street and everything around him is in slow motion we wanted to use this as it helps the audience focus more on the artist.

Andrew Goodwin feels that traditional narrative analyses don't really apply to pop videos its just because they approach from a different angle to novels and films.He states that pop videos rely on repetition. The video repeats images in the way the song repeats lines of the song. It builds to a climax or to a constant repetition before fading away. Another feature is that women present themselves as being a male gaze such as Beyonce and Madonna.

In my music video C-Moore is always looking straight into the camera which is another convention of a music video. By using this the audience feel apart of the video and its promotes the artist.

Then & Now

I posted this blog to highlight the major difference between my initial ideas and the end result. The reason I did this was because I wanted to show how my ideas developed due to some criticism from people which was very constructive because I think it helped my work become better, and now I am really happy with it.

Photoshop

In my work I chose to use photoshop that I have at home instead of the one at college, firstly because I was used to it and secondly I did most of my work at home. This is a video I found on youtube to learn the basics some of which I never knew before, so I would say this was the foundation of my work.

Inspiration

These two adverts were the biggest inspiration for my final work, because the second one advertises the album aswell as promoting the artist next to it too.

Specific audience feedback on both ancillary productions

When it came to the ancillary products I asked a fellow student to give their opinion on it. After looking at both my digipak and advertisement Rephael felt it achieved its purpose of promoting the artist as he stands out the most amongst the whole thing.

More specifically, she liked the blend between dark and white on the advertisement as in her opinion it ‘catches the eye’, which is always a positive because advertisements are meant to promote the artist and his music.

When it came to the digipak, she like the whole concept of the ‘C’ being done by the artist’s hand, and felt the fonts were clear and easy to read.

Feedback on our music video was again positive, and from the video bellow we understand that one thing which worked really well was the lighting effects we did. In Stephanie's opinion, the black and white scene worked really well because it allowed the audience to distinguish that its a scene from the past (flashback of the morning after a party). This is great, because having black and white scenes is a characteristic foundin videos of the same genre as ours.