My A2 Media music video evaluation.

1. Evaluation A2 Music Video

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

3. My music video both uses and develops conventions of real media products available on the media market; research into the artist whose song I chose (ColbieCaillat) and also research into similar artists allowed me to apply certain music video features to my own work. Using Andrew Goodwin’s theory of music video analysis it is easy to see that my music video complies with many of his concepts. The first being that the music video demonstrates genre characteristics; videos under Colbie’s genre of acoustic/bluesy pop often feature instruments played by the artist, for example an acoustic guitar, and also frequently include summery locations with focus on the weather and romance. My video features my actress Susie playing a guitar in a field on a summer’s day and she is also seen on the beach and in the sea. Although she is the only person in the video, from watching it the audience understand that it is a boy holding the camera, filming her while she plays in the sea/enjoys her holiday thus portraying the romance side of this genre.

4. Secondly, Goodwin states that there should be a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals. Although this relationship is not highly distinctive in my video, it is still apparent and the overall meaning of the lyrics is implied throughout the video as opposed to actual things happening on screen as they are mentioned in the song. However, I don’t feel this affected the appearance and structure of my video since through research I discovered that similar artists also do this and so my video still reflects real media products in this way. Another of Goodwin’s concepts that I believe is depicted appropriately in my video is the rule that there should be a relationship between the music and the visuals. I deem my video to fit this aptly since the length of my shots and arrangement of my editing corresponds well to the song; the pace of my chosen song plays a substantial part in the timing of my shots. For example, the introduction to ‘Bubbly’ is fairly fast paced and so to reflect this, I used a different shot after every 2 seconds, much like Colbie’s video version of the song.

5. Next, Goodwin considers the demands of the record label to determine the types of shot used throughout the video. To conform to this concept I researched Colbie’s record label ‘Universal Republic Records’ and discovered that many of the artists are soloists and so the majority of the shots in their music videos are close ups to promote them as an artist. Consequently, Susie features in nearly every shot in my music video and a large percentage of these shots are close ups so to determine her as an artist and make her recognisable. Goodwin’s theory also includes the view that there is a reference to the notion of looking in the video. Given that the camera in my video plays a person and acts as a point of view for most of the footage this highlights the notion of looking since the camera is looking at Susie! Shots in my video also feature her admiring her surroundings and this is a reference to Goodwin’s theory. Female voyeurism is also an aspect of this but since my actress was a minor I could not develop on this as a concept.

6. Goodwin’s final theory is that there are often intertextual references to film, TV and other music videos within a music video. However, through research I discovered that this was not relevant to Colbie’s video style or genre so I decided not to include any references in my work. Overall I believe that my video fits in suitably with real media products and uses conventions that a large majority of music videos do. My video is a replica of similar artist’s videos and so does not particularly challenge conventions of media products. It also mostly fulfils Goodwin’s concepts and so for this reason I believe it is legitimate as a music video.

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

8. I believed it to be important that my music video, digi pack and magazine advert had a strong visual link so that my target audience could relate the video to my magazine advert and digi pack whenever they saw one or the other. Thus, the digi packs front and back covers are images of Susie in the same field we filmed the guitar shots in. She is also wearing the same outfit so my audience can link the two together. To make my audience familiar with the digi pack, I included a picture of its front on my magazine advert. This was to ensure that if they saw the advert and decided they wanted to buy the pack, they would know exactly what they were looking for; by ensuring that there are strong visual links between all 3 of my products my target audience can make comparisons between them and link one to another.

9. The look of the digi pack relates back to the songs genre since Colbie features on the front which makes her recognisable and promotes her as an artist. Research of Colbie’s own CD covers meant that I found out she always has a small flower by her name as a symbol of her. To make my digi pack authentic I recreated this and produced my own flower to go with the rounded font similar to the one she uses. Using Photoshop allowed me to put together my digi pack and magazine advert. Since I am familiar with the program, using it was not a difficult task and I believe my ancillary tasks look professional. By including the digi packs release date, outlets where it could be found and Colbie’s website address on my magazine advert, I believe I integrated all the necessary information to make my advert successful since advertisements only work if they are selling the media product and giving out all the necessary information.

10. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

11. Without getting a substantial amount of audience feedback from my rough cut, final edit and ancillary tasks it would have been impossible for me to judge how well my work had been received by audience members. Although I was already very much aware of the fact that without the guitar shots in my video it wouldn’t look quite right, after getting feedback on my rough cut it was clear that I was correct on this and the only negative comments I received were connected to the lack of instrument shots. The rest of my rough cut feedback told me that my choice of location was extremely good and I had a good range of shots. A few audience members commented on the lighting and told me that they had concerns over my shooting of the guitar shots since I was filming them in Greece. However, feedback from my final edit shows that they thought that the continuity between the shots was perfect and they said you could hardly tell that I had filmed in two very different countries.

12. In addition, audience feedback proved that I had targeted the correct audience although there were a few exceptions since some members of the opposite sex and older people also enjoyed my video which I had not predicted. By asking people to fill out a questionnaire for me it allowed me to find out what people liked about my video and also why they liked it. Various people said the locations made them feel summery, warm and happy so my choice of setting was proved a great success. Others commented on my narrative choice; they said they liked how the video wasn’t depicting a big story and that it simply showed a blossoming romance between Susie and the unknown boy behind the camera! I think by doing this my video was more accessible as there wasn’t anything to follow, you could just watch it and enjoy the song/locations/general video!

13. As I made the final touches to my video I asked a small selection of people what they thought I could do to improve it. A couple of these people told me that although they thought the shots were lovely, they thought they looked a little washed out and could do with darkening. So to improve my video I went through all my shots and applied a slight sepia filter which made my footage look more visually striking; I was very pleased to have asked for my audiences opinion on this as my music video as a whole looked better because of this minor alteration! Whilst producing each of my digi pack drafts and magazine advert drafts I asked for feedback from other media students so I could make them look as good as possible. Lots of people commented on my choice of picture for the front cover of the digi pack and they said they liked the creativity of the shot. They then went on to approve my magazine advert since I used the cover of my digi pack on the advert so to link the two together and make all three connected. Feedback is particularly helpful when you are unsure how something appears; on the first draft of my advert, the picture of the digi pack’s cover was very big and took up a large proportion of the ad. However, comments on it’s size influenced me to decrease it’s size and by doing so, the advert as a whole looked more coordinated and effective.

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

15. If I did not have access to a wide range of media technologies, I would have been unable to produce my media product. I used various programs and equipment during each of the stages - pre-production, production and post-production. Firstly, during the research period I used the internet mainly to find out about Colbie’s particular style: to do this I used web pages such as Wikipedia and Youtube. During planning I also used the internet in order to look up certain things about ColbieCaillat such as the locations she normally films in and what type of shots she uses. During the construction of my music video and ancillary texts I used many different programs. For example, Final Cut Pro on the Mac’s allowed me to edit together my video and also the first part of my evaluation. Using final cut meant that I could use various transitions and effects in my video to make it look more professional overall. To construct my digi pack and magazine advert I used Photoshop, a program I have used multiple times before and so was familiar with. Using Photoshop rather than some other program was important to me since Photoshop is a program that allows you to alter extremely fine details and move text, images and such around with ease. I obviously also used a camera to film my music video and first part of my evaluation. To present all this information I have made this Powerpoint presentation as well!