Evaluation

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

Our music video contains many typical conventions of a real media product. When looking at Goodwin’s points, our video relates to the points well.
Our video uses intertextuality as part of our video is inspired by the music videos of The Midnight Beast and Tim Minchen.This makes our video meet the conventions of a realistic music video.
Voyeurism is used in our video as you watch our spoof political party as they make an election video using a variety of shots and transitions that give you an insite into the characters whilst keeping in relation to the music and lyrics. I intentionally picked 'house party' as it had an upbeat fast paced rhythm which is extremely popular and can be easily marketed in the current enviroment. we are constantly bringing the lyrics and the video together through the choice of shots used in time with the lyrics as we are literally preforming the lyrics in the video. with have done this also with the music not just the lyrics for example in our close up shot of our hands clapping it is perfectly intime with the claps in the music. doing this makes the music video more visually intresting as the audience will watch the video and be able to understand the lyrics i believe this shows great understanding of how linking the lyrics and music to the visuals is. The genre characteristics we have used have stuck by the common genre characteristics of indie/rock. We have used an urban landscape for some parts of the video which is a usual to see in some indie/rock videos. Other aspects such as the instruments and effects used are what is expected to be seen in a indie/rock video. Therefore we have followed the conventions tightly. We have sold the group in the particular way in that it goes against a usual convention of indie/rock music videos as we’ve made the whole group the main focus not just one main singer in particualar.
Furthermore, we have sold the group in a quirky way to make it attract the target audience which is normal in an indie/rock video as this style is familiar in this of genre therefore it’s realistic to the conventions. we also challenge the conventions as our video doesn’t contain gig footage or backstage footage which is sometimes expected in this genre, we didn’t do this as we felt it wasn’t necessary and didn’t stop making our video obvious it was an indie/rock song.
Our Digi pack cover and magazine advert also fits quite well with the conventions of other media products. I feel the layout of our digi pack is similar to usual media products as we have the common aspects such as age certificate, release date, record label company, etc which makes the digi pack appear as professional and gives information any other similar media products would. The colour themes in both the digi pack and magazine advert is a typical colour range in our genres conventions as they’re bold and fairly masculine making it specific to the usual target audience of a alternative rock genre.

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

We have used different ideas to combine our products together so they take effect as a while. All the products have matching colours as the theme colour of the digi pack, magazine advert and music video all use oranges, green, black and white as the music video has some footage which is in black and white. Doing this made it easy for viewer’s to realise they come in a set and all relate. The images on digi pack and magazine advert strongly relate to the video as they show the two main members of the group who are heavily featured. This emphasises to viewers that they are the main focus as the digi pack and magazine advert, they are what the video focus around. Having pictures of footage from the band in the music video on the back of the digi pack, allows viewers to have insight on what’s in the video and what they’d be watching in the video. It also gives people an idea of what genre the video is by the costumes and surroundings in the pictures.
It also provides intertextuality as the pictures we have used are mirror images of pictures that the party leaders have used in there elcetion campaignes. Furthermore, the titles of the artist’s name and the name of the song on both the digi pack and magazine advert are fairly large which gives emphasis to them to make people recognise the artist easily and strike out to viewers. This also makes him memorable which therefore sells the artist better.
On all three products we have the group wearing the same costume; this makes the artists recognisable to viewers and sells all the products as a whole and usually the most noticeable thing on these products is the artists therefore people observe them first so people can easily see the three products come as a set. Our products working together attract the same audience as the style of all three is similar. The costume, colours, font style hint the genre of the video making people who have an interest in indie/rock music have an interest in our video by the choices we have used in our magazine advert and digi pack. The font styles we have used on the digi pack and magazine advert are bold, solid and don’t have a fussy style. This style allows people to realise the genre as the fonts reinforce the kind of music the video represents.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

Having an audience give us feedback on our video after the rough draft helped us majorly to see what people wanted to see and what they expected and helped us see what we needed to change to improve. We changed quite a few things since the rough cut which was mainly down to the audience feedback.
From the feedback we received, we discovered people enjoyed our transitions, 'transitions between scenes were well done and the effects we used to slow and speed up the video in time with the music'
After the rough cut I feel we felt motivated to keep our smooth transitions standard up when we continued editing after the rough cut feedback. Another aspect I learnt from the audience feedback was how important it was to keep the audience entertained throughout. When we started filming we made sure we had used a variety of locations which was fairly simple as we had the artist walking through several streets but when it came to editing we made sure it cut through all the locations we used and had the footage move quickly so people were occupied throughout. The audience emphasised to us that the video needed to engaging and keep them entertained so we added as many cuts, transitions, footage layouts as possible without it getting too fussy and complicated. I felt that had a good amount to keep the audience amused without the video becoming overly busy. Our audience told us that we sold the artist well, ‘The artist looked like he belonged in the video.’ This made us realise that we accomplished what we wanted of people understanding the style and personality of the main artist that we wanted to portray. This taught me that getting the costume, style, movement and what we made the main artist do in the video and helped us show the artist exactly how we wanted to get across the genre. This made me realise that we made our idea of the representation of the artist work.
Overall, I learnt that re filming areas we need to improve on helped us develop our work to make it appreciated by the audience and re filming makes you realise how much you can actually advance your video.

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

I used a number of different media technologies during the whole process of creating our media products. I used Windows Live Movie Maker to edit all our music video. Once I had roughly edited the video to make sure I had each clip in the right place with the right timing I tried out some effects to try and make the video look more professional and visually interesting. including a cinematic introduction feature the groups name and the song title. I added some fades to some of the clips to try and make them run smoother to fit with the timings. Also, I put more than one piece of footage on a clip to make a change in the video so people don’t watch the same continuous pattern of footage. Doing this helped liven up the video so there was variety in what people watch. We used the speed control on final cut to speed up some of the footage in some areas to give the video an upbeat and rapid feel which is usual in an indie/rock themed song.
We used Photoshop on the construction of our digi pack and magazine advert. Firstly, for the pictures of the group on these products we had to wear the same outfit from the music video. We changed the colour theme of orange, green, black and white on the magazine advert and digi pack which we edited on Photoshop to get the same style from the music video.i was already familar with this technology after using it is my photography AS level course.
We used blogger to record all our research, ideas, inspirations, etc which allowed us to blog to keep track of our development and to communicate all the ideas we had with our research. This became very useful because it helped us when it came to editing our video as well. For example, on the blog we posted things like our storyboard, call lists and shot lists which helped when we came to edit because we were able to organise our shots in to the right order so it made it simpler when we came to filming. We posted a few videos and screen shots of music videos that we then analysed on the blog which helped us research ideas and how to evaluate videos so we could take them into consideration for our video.

Narrative

Narrative is a text focusing specific participants. Its social function is to tell stories or past Events and entertain the readers.

Generic Structure of Narrative

A narrative text will consists of the following structure:

1. Orientation: Introducing the participants and informing the time and the place
2. Complication: Describing the rising crises which the participants have to do with
3. Resolution: Showing the way of participant to solve the crises, better or worse

We followed this generic structure very well in our piece as too begin we chose a selection of shots that would introduce all three members of the group. Starting with a tracking shot of myself "its election time for an election rhyme." In this shot I am holding a TMB poster which introduces our political 'party'. This shot then follows on to a mid shot of Alex "we'll welcome you with the cheese and wine." In this shot again we had a TMB poster in the background to self promote our group. final the sequence ends with a long shot showing Paige walking from the left side of the camera to the right side showing the comical satire of our work "we'll kill your kids if you decline". This follows the first generic step of orientation very well as we successfully introduced all three charcters and introduced what the music video would be about.

The rising crisis in our music video is not just affecting us in the video but everyone as the crisis faces the whole country. This links is into the time period because when we were making the video there was the polictical election with the three main parties labour, conservatives and liberal democrates. Each trying to get into power to solve the economic crisis. This is shown in our video well through a selection of shots starting with a close up of big ben to and how we will bring it into the future as to represent the outdated principles of the other parties. this outlines step two complication as it describes the crisis were facing.

Finally step three is resolution we followed this step extremly well as most of our video shows the way we can solve the problems facing the country again linking back to the 2010 elections. Several scenes show this with the a group shot showing all three members with me and paige saying what we will do to change the bus services "were making buses baby blue" this type of shot was influenced by the director of this is england the film and this is england 86 the tv series shane meadows who is famous for using shots that will include all members of the group to show a disfunctional family which is a message we try and create through our video.

other types of narrative structures we could have adopted from journalism and films are:

Basic structure

Writing Coach Dick Weiss summarizes the essential structure of narrative: a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, where action moves through time. Each of these descriptions that follow is a variation of this basic structure.


Martini glass

This story form, named by writing Coach Don Fry, starts out as a traditional inverted pyramid, giving the reader the most important news first in a straight lead, following with other news in decreasing importance, just like the inverted pyramid, which becomes the top of the glass. At the bottom of this triangle is an olive, the nut graph or set-up for a narrative. The narrative follows in a straight path, the stem of the martini glass. The story ends with a conclusion that wraps up the story, perhaps fulfilling a promise you made up in the olive´ paragraph or resolving the conflict lay out there. While an inverted-pyramid story can cut from the end, the martini-glass story needs this ending, the base of the glass. If you must cut, you probably will need to shorten the stem. This is a different description of what Roy Peter Clark of Poynter calls the hourglass, ´ structure, which turns from inverted pyramid to narrative with some sort of transition like It started with ´ this approach can be effective in using a narrative approach for a daily news story. You need to cover the news up high and give a few important facts, and then you launch into the narrative of what happened. Another variation on this is called the champagne glass the top before the narrative begins is a summary, but not necessarily in
inverted-pyramid structure.

Story arc

Jack Hart of The Oregonian coaches writers to plan their narrative stories along the story arc Exposition, rising action, climax, denouement. The exposition sets the scene and introduces the characters, or at least the protagonist. The plot begins to unfold with the rising action, when the protagonist engages the complication of the story. (This is the conflict Fuson says is essential to a story). The rising action will be the body of the story, the unfolding plot. It must build tension, or at least pique curiosity. The rising action leads to a climax, the resolution of the conflict. The writer ties up the story and any loose ends in the denouement.

Feedback

we have had both positive and negative feedback from our music video so i took it opon mysef to ask around people from our school to look at the video and give me there thoughts on what was good and what could be better. from it there were 3 reoccuring positives:

1. excellent use of differnt shot.
2. lip synching was intime.
3. shots were well transitioned together.

however there were also 3 negatives:

1. poor acting by some members (Alex).
2. some of the editing didnt flow together well.
3. poor choice of song

Overall im very happy with the feedback personally as only one of the critisms was down to me as i did all the editing for our group. However despite that the 3 reoccuring positives i can claim a major part in as i worked hard to include a range of differnt shots when i was putting our piece together and finding differnet ways to transition them whilst keeping the lip synching in time.

final cut video

digipak and magazine evaluation

I'm very pleased with how both our magazine and digipaks turned out. I believe our digipak and magazine advert worked well in several ways firstly as they display all vital information that they should for example the song name and band name the next way in which it worked well was through the way in which these details are displayed as we have chosen to use bright colours such as greens and oranges to contrast against the black and white background of the photograph this sets the composition of the piece perfectly as audience are drawn to the bright colours and take them in through the hypodermic needle theory (Adorno and horkeimer, 1970s)  as the model sees the digipak as injecting the idea and information of our piece directly into each individual who walks past and is drawn to the digipak. This is particularly useful in marketing our music as it will grab the audiences attention directly and make them want to buy the song. and finally i believe the digipak possesses great potential because we have stuck with our political them this is shown on the front covers as it shows me and Alex in our suits to stick with the mise en scene of our production but the inside covers have us all standing in front of our political parties colour for example i am in front of a yellow screen that has been photoshopped in and the yellow symbolises the liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg. This is particularly good as it fits in with what most people in the country are focused on as we did this piece in the 2010 elections The cultivation theory ( Gerber et al. 1986:37) fits in well with this analysis of our use of recent stories as it suggests that television and other areas of media such as music production and there repetitive pattern on stories begins to cultivate the audience to look into other media sources about this subject and creates a symbolic environment. This is good for us as with our political agenda put into the music video it creates a larger audience to consumer our music video through the digipak and magazine adverts.

star analysis

In earlier posts i have already looked at several professional musicians and described how they influenced our work, these have been musicians such as Rihanna and Fall Out Boy but I have decided to do a full analysis of two artists that have heavily influenced me personally for my piece the first of which is jay-z:



This is the video to 'run this town' in which rihanna and jay-z collaborated on the video shows a gang simingly lead by the two artist as they rise up to take over the town in which they live as they are pictured which bats and pieces of wood on fire and burnt down cars around them. This video in particular fits in well with our piece as this rising up is similar to the student protests recently as there have been pictures produced in the media of students starting fires attacking vans and carrying bats. The second way in which jay-z has influenced me is in the hand gestures he makes when rapping this is particularry helpful as i have to preform a rap using a variety of hand movements and through analying his work it has given me a better understanding of how to go about this task.

The second artist to influence me was eminem:


Although the video doesnt fit in with our choice of musis or issues in our piece i have chosen to anayse this piece because it taught me alot about the art and emotion behind the rapping which is shown through a simpistic mise en scene of a plain field which is symbolic of eminem going back to his roots as an artist.
Watching eminem taught me alot of how i should go about rapping in my main scene, through watching him it was clear that the movement of my body had to fit in well with the lyrics in the song to look professional another convention of rap music that i picked up from watching eminem is that i need to appear to mean every word i am singing this was best shown in how tense eminem looks when he is rapping about the couple shown in the video when there is violence shows it almost appears like eminem himself is boiling over with anger about what is going on like he is connected with the people in the video.

Windows movie maker

Windows Movie Maker is a video creating/editing software application, included in Microsoft Windows Me, XP, and Vista. It contains features such as effects, transitions, titles/credits, audio track, timeline narration, and Auto Movie. New effects and transitions can be made and existing ones can be modified using XML code. Windows Movie Maker is also a basic audio track editing program. It can apply basic effects to audio tracks such as fade in or fade out. The audio tracks can then be exported in the form of a sound file instead of a video file.


here is a review about windows movie maker i found at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/335710/windows_movie_maker_review.html


let's talk about the positives. Windows Movie Maker has a very easy user interface. Their windows are well place: collections in the middle, help bar to the left, storyboard at the bottom and video preview to the right. It has a simple look that is easy to adapt to for beginners.
Editing the movie is easy too. You can split the video via the video preview. To change the look of the movie, simply go to the tools section and select video effects or transitions.


However, the video effects are very basic; you can't change the options and parameters to make your movie look "just right." You are stuck with the preset settings for them. In addition, the program can only output .WMV videos. You have to convert with another program if you want another codec output.
Unfortunately, that's the least of the problems for Windows Movie Maker. When starting the program, it takes twenty seconds to load; that is a very long time for such a simple program.
The long startup can be especially annoying because Windows Movie Maker crashes frequently. In fact, it crashes ten folds more than any other programs combined in my personal experience. You would thought that Windows Movie Maker may still be in the alpha or beta stages of development but, unfortunately, it is fully developed; heck, even alpha and beta programs run better than this.
Basically, the program crashes every time you try importing an mpeg-encoded video. Even though Windows Movie Maker listed the codec as compatible, it just locks the program up every single time. Basically, you have to go through the hassle of converting your video files to either .AVI (non-mpeg encoded) or .WMV for it to work.


Since we have began editing our piece i can say although windows movie maker is ver y easy to use and does not take long to get use too i do have to agree with the negative sides of the review as it has crashed almost hundreds of times on me whilst ive been editing which is very tiring to keep redoing and saving every minute. Another down side we found was that windows movie maker does not support the grenscreen effect which means our group have had to replan the opening scenes of our media piece.

filming update and auteur theory

I'm happy to say we have officially finished filming and we are now well into our way on editing the piece together. we will be using windows movie maker as our editing software which i will expand on in the next post.


In 1954,  François Truffaut wrote an essay entitled A Certain Tendency in French Cinema. In this work he claimed that film is a great medium for expressing the personal ideas of the director. He suggested that this meant that the director should therefore be regarded as an auteur.  In fact, Truffaut once provocatively said that: "There are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors" (this can be linked back to my earlier easter egg post)
The worth of this theory has been questioned by some critiques. But, it is particularly useful as a starting point for the interpretation of some films.

Auteur Theory suggests that a director can use the commercial apparatus of film-making in the same way that a writer uses a pen or a painter uses paint and a paintbrush. It is a medium for the personal artistic expression of the director. The film theorotician, André Bazin, explained that: auteur theory was a way of  choosing the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard of referencce, and then assuming that it continues and even progresses from one film to the next.
Sometimes this theory is useful when analysing the works of actors who are working within the ‘star system’.  For example, it is possible to interpret Terminator 3 in relation to the canon of films created with Arnie in them.

Auteur Theory suggests that the best films will bear their maker’s ‘signature’.  Which may manifest itself as the stamp of his or her individual personality or perhaps even focus on recurring themes within the body of work. Alfred Hitchcock plays this idea up in most of his movies where he makes sure that he appears on screen in a brief cameo spot. This became a game that viewers would engage in, waiting to find out when he would appear.

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the first names who comes to mind when talking about auteur theory. His most famous films are Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and Rear Window. Hitchcock’s story telling techniques were renowned for their intelligent plots, witty dialogue, and the smattering of mystery and murder. He has been attributed with revolutionizing the thriller genre. The reason for his success, however, was not the genre that he was working in, but rather the skill which he exhibited in the film-making.  ie his treatment of the subject in terms of the shots he uses and how he combines them are more important than the genre. One of Hitchcock’s best-known screen moments is the terrifying shower scene in Psycho. This shot features 70 distinct shots in less than 1 minute. They are fused together in such a way that it is difficult to distinguish between the Montage and the Mise-en-Scène.

Moodboard

This is the moodboard that i have created to show both the groups and my own personal inspiration for our music video. As you can see in the centre of the moodboard it shows a picture of the three candidates to be prime minster at the time of the video being made this signifies our political theme behind our music video and it also gives me a chance to show how we will be taking on these three different persona's me being Nick Clegg, Alex being David Cameron and Paige being Gordon Brown. I have then added to this political influence by putting other pictures that link to the election and a very big political issue going on at the moment, i choose to add to picture that have been published in magazines and online as they show how the media is portraying the current political affairs this is an example of two step flow as the media is relaying this sort of information about the protests with there own political agenda and the audience receiving this are then going out and talking about what has happened in the media increasing the popularity and backing of the media hype. On the left hand side of the picture you see a student punching David Cameron this is symbolic to the current affairs as the students are currently protesting about the raising of student fees for universities as shown in the picture above it.

However the song has other themes in mind as it is also a comedy this is why i have put picture of the animated series the Simpson's and the channel 4 comedy the IT crowd as these are two very humorous programs that are shown regularly on the television at the moment.

My other influence and probably the most obvious is the The Midnight Beast themselves and in particular Stefan Abingdon as this is who i portray in our music video, since Stefan and myself are very similar in personalities this was easy for me to portray however i did struggle with the rapping scene i had to do and so for this i watched several jay-z performance and so i decide to include a photograph of him in my moodboard as he was my biggest influence in this particular scene as i gained the knowledge of how i should preform such a task by using his movements and hand gestures.

Easter egg

A virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program, web page or video game. The term was coined—according to Warren Robinett—by Atari after they were pointed to the secret message left by Robinett in the game Adventure.

 I first discovered this concept of an Easter egg in the film ‘dead silence’. The film is based around a young adult male who begins to be followed by the ghost of Mary Shaw who has died but lives on in her ventriloquist dummies. The director of this movie James Wan has also directed a selection of the ‘saw’ movies and so in the scene of dead silence where there is over 100 dummies all in the same room the director has placed the infamous jigsaw doll in the foreground of the picture when the focus is on the background. This is a common example of an Easter egg as it is the director connecting the piece to his other works.

ive managed to produce this shot in which you can see the jigsaw doll just infront of the pillar on the right hand side of the shot

This inspired me to discuss with my group about the possibility of putting in an Easter egg in our work. We decided as a group we would do this through changing the colour of my tie in most of the scenes as my tie is the least visible because of my costume e.g. waistcoat. So as we have been filming I have been bringing in different ties from the original baby blue to an electric blue and a black tie.

filming update

we are making very steady process in our filming and the group has really came together in the last few weeks to get this project done. i am proud to say as of tonight all our school scenes will be finished which then allows us to film on location in oxford on friday afternoon, weve checked the weather for friday and there will be grey sky with sunny intervals so we are hoping that we can film during these sunny intervals as the natural light is very prominate in the scenes we will be shooting in oxford botanical gardens. our filming may extent to the monday and tuesday afternoons and then our filming will be wrapped up and we can move on to editing which we believe we can get all done in a week after we finish filming.

final draft digipak

These are our final Digipak covers, the black and white outside covers contrasted with our colourful inside covers with depict us imitating the three political party leaders. Inside the Digipak will be our CD and our poster as bonus merchandise, the inclusion of our poster was influenced from Digipaks we earlier researched.

final picture for the digipak

This is Paige's Digipak photo where she immatates Gordon Brown. This will be added to the other photos and our final draft of the Digipak will be ready.

filming update 2

So far we have done four days worth of filming and are making steady progress we have about 60% of our filming done and we should have the rest done in the next week. what we have been focusing on so far is to make the scenes looks as professional and realistic as possible so far i believe we have improved on the original video by 'The Midnight Beast' by reframing our shots so not to cut half of a person out of the shot as we had seen was a common error in filming in our research.

filming update

we were unable to meet our planning expectation due to some technical problems with the cameras but we are happy to say tyhat we can begin filming again next week after school as we ahve planned to film all the scenes we can in the schools locations on monday and tuesday and then try to film all the location shots on wednesday and friday

My Contribution So Far

Firstly I have contributed largely to the research phase of our music video providing a range of differnt techniques and research that i have done such as:

1. researching digipaks
2. CD cover research
3. storyboarding examples
4. rules of framing
5. target audience research
6. growth of music
7. conventions of a music video

secondly, i have also had a large contribution to the planning phase as i have provided the group with various piece of work that provide a clear and consise description of how we can do our piece such as:

1. types of shots we will use
2. mark scheme
3. call sheet
4. locations
5. filming dates

thirdly, i have contributed greatly in analysing various piece of work by other artists and ameteur groups and analysing what the song is trying to say i have also done much more for example:

1. why we chose the midnight beast
2. TMB poster analysis
3. lyrics analysis
4. amateur vs professional videos
5. analysis of other videos
6. convention of music videos

filming dates

we believe that we have done sufficiant amounts of planning to begin filming so far we have three dates planned for our filming

20th october wednesday: during school periods 2,3 and 5 this will be used to shoot alex and paiges scenes together
21st october thursday: during and after school periods 4 and 5 and then after school we plan to film a large chunk of the scenes set in the office
29th october friday : day in half term we hope to film all of our scenes that take place infront of carfax tower and in the botanical gardens.

we believe that after these three dates we may have to arrange another just to gather up the left over scenes and the rapping scene which involves specilised lighting.

conventions of a music video that we will be using

1. Codes and conventions

• Narrative- which is a music video which has a story and theme to it, our theme is the political election 
• Performance- where the band or the artist is playing, we have a series of differnt locations 
• Mixture- with a mix of both performance and narrative qualities. both comical and topical 
• Cameo- Where the band or the artist is featured in the narrative

2. Camera

• The shots used need to be considered with care, i will be overseeing there use just like they would have someone do so with a film or programme. The shots used can convey messages and emotions.
• Some of the common shots used include Close ups, long shots and  low angle shots.
• Close up: when the camera is closely focus on one spot for eample a face to show emotion.
• Long shots: when the camera portrays a wide shot which could perhaps show a whole person. This could establish settings or characters which relate to the song. we will use this to introduce all three characters 
•  Low angle shots: The camera is at a low angle to make the feature appear tall and dominant. this is used in our piece to show importance of the characters 

3. Editing and sound

• The video we are doing  has been known to use cuts and jump cutting throughout the videos to portray the narrative or the performance.
• Jump cuts- where the camera cuts from one thing to another. this will be used alot to follow the pace of the song
• The editing is usually corresponding with the sound or the song, for example; the lyrics talking about a conversation, so the camera cuts from one person to another to demonstrate the occurrence.

• There can be the use of diegetic sound if those in charge chose to use it.
• Finally there can be a change in the levels of sound, perhaps to emphasise certain sections of the song. this will be used in the middle section of our piece to show the importance of my character and to emphasise what i say.

4. Mise-en-scene

• The use of props, colour, setting, costume, lighting to portray a time period or signifigance of a location
• All of these aspects can add to the way in which the video appears and is eventually presented to the audience.
• The props: the equipment or instruments and any other additional features such as microphones cheese and wine 
• Setting: where the video is set and how it relates to the song. ours has a direct link from the song to the location through the lyrics 
• Lighting: high key or low key can convey emotions and the mood. we will be using flashing red lights in one part of our piece to give a party feel. 
• Facial expressions: emotive and can relate to the narrative of the music. we use a variety of differnt expression from anger to relaxation 
• Colour: the colour used could reflect upon the age and gender of the people and occurrences in the song. this is particulary needed for our piece as we will be dressing in a stictly upper class fashion but through colour in the background we will be showing the chartacters real personalities.

research: growth of music

i had forgotten to put this in towards the start of the blog but i believe its a very important piece of research that i have done about how the music industry has grown and here is a timeline of sorts that ive made.

1960s
Music of the 1960s was characteristic of the revolution that was going on during the decade. It was a time of rebellion and counter-culture in which the younger people were questioning everything, including authority, corporations, the government, and other aspects of everyday life. It was essentially a revolution of the status quo.
The British Invasion was a movement during the mid-1960s in which several bands in the UK were creating a buzz in the United States.

• The Rolling Stones
•  The Who
•  The Animals
• The Beatles

were some of the prominent bands that defined this movement.
The Beatles emerged as the most popular and are now one of the best in commerical success,
They began a trend in the United States and the UK because of their catchy tunes. The Beatles quickly made a cultural impact with their lyrics and their tendency to experiment with different musical sounds.

1970s
The 70s created a trend of relaxing music as well as dance music. Out of this idea emerged the Disco movement.
Although its popularity was relatively short-lived, it created a great deal of songs and artists that are still widely listen to today

• Van McCoy’s “The Hustle” has often been referred to as the definitive disco track. 
• Gloria Gaynor also enjoyed disco popularity with her anthem “I Will Survive.”
• The Bee Gees also helped to define the disco genre with their hit “Jive Talkin’.” Their blockbuster “Stayin’ Alive” is often synonymous with the disco musical era.
•  The Village People’s “YMCA” and “Macho Man” also helped to add to the popularity of this popular style.

1980s
 In some ways, the musical genres during the 1980s redefined the way many bands and artists made new music and it still continues to influence music today.
MTV may have been the single most influential entity in music industry during the 1980s . Premiering in 1981, MTV gave bands and artists greater exposure for their music in a greater and more widely popular medium. The first video ever played on MTV was aptly titled “Video Killed the Radio Star” by the Buggles.
Duran Duran is one of the more popular 80s bands that enjoyed the exposure that MTV gave them.
New Wave and Synthpop was another genre of music that came about during this era. This form held on to many of the attributes of the popular Punk Rock genre coming out of the 1970s.

1990s
The musical era of the 1990s was one filled with a variety of pop, rap, and alternative music artists.  Many of the most popular acts that emerged in the 1990's were bands and artists who enjoyed a type of resurgence in the mainstream music scene after their popularity had dwindled for a decade or so.
The early years of the 1990s began with a surge in popularity for music genres like techno and hip-hop that continued throughout the decade.
Groups like Technotronic entered the Billboard charts with big hits like “Pump Up the Jam” and “Get Up. Similarly, the hip-hop music scene achieved popularity with artists like MC Hammer, Tone Loc, and Vanilla Ice. The subject matter that these artists chose to use in their music was as varied as their audiences. MC Hammer, for instance, sung about subjects including the rise of his career as well as songs about praying for the betterment of society. On the other hand, Tone Loc’s songs were riddled with sexual lyrics and innuendo that seem tame and conservative by today’s standards.

Present decade
With the increase in technology the music industry has grown expeditially through the invention of itunes, more music channels and the increasing intrest in the celebrity culture. musicians can now enjoy much more lucrative lives as they are always wanted to endorse some product aswell as making there music
our present day music woud be nothing without the previous decades and each of the ast few stil have a strong inprint on the music industry from the growth of counter-cultural and punk rock to disco and pop music it is irrufuitabe to say that this has not occured

analysis of examples

From the 3 clips that i have gathered i believe that at first glance you see no connections between the videos as example 1 is aimed at 17-21 demographic whereas example 2 is not aimed at a specific age demographic but at a social genre in this case rock/emo scene whereas example 3 is aimed at teenage specificaly girls however even though these three differnt cips are recieved by differnt groups and ages they are all marketed to the same group of 13-21 year old demographic this is the same as our target audience i believe our piece will be best picked up by peope age 16-18 of the social genre of indie however i also believe it will appea to others both below and above this bracet hence the 13-21 year old target audience.

example 3

example 2

some examples of other music videos aimed at the same target audience example 1

target audience

As a group we decided that our music piece was aimed at ages 13-21. we chose this age group because firstly we believed that the message the video is trying to get across is the importance of increasing knowledge about politics to a younger generation using the hypodermic needle theory.

secondly we believed the nature of the video and music will also appeal to students ranging from secondary school to universities as the groups ages are all in the lower 20s.

There is also evidence of the auteur theory as it was the directors aim to get younger people voting.This theory was created by Andre Bazin, a film theorist; it was a cinematic movement in the 50's.
It states the director has full control of their video, using their own creative ideas.

He's well known and respected in Hollywood, with Tim Burton religiously using this theory in his filming.

He has his own signature style of- inter-textuality
filming/editing techniques
certain artists
mood of the piece

ametuer group video

analysis

Amateur video vs. professional

The Midnight Beast cover by three teenage girls

·        Lip syncing was out of time

·        No clear storyline

·        Very unprofessional for example laughter over the video

·        Should have been planned a lot more

·        All filmed inside one house

Goodwin’s points

1.     Selling the artist- not really present only positive would be it seems relatable

2.     Voyeurism- we were able to see them being themselves

3.     Genre characteristics- fun, playful, enjoyable, indie and rap.

4.     Visuals and lyrics- lip synching all be it badly

5.     Visuals and music- editing very basic but evident and goes with the song

6.     Intertextuality- does not fit into any many genres the closest relation that could be made would be indie.

The Midnight Beast version

·        Uses a better standard of camera

·        Storyline follows the story very well

·        Good acting there acting allows us to relate to them as they are just 3 guys having fun

·        Better lighting and editing

·        Well planned out

Goodwin’s points

1.     Sells the artist - there view points through showing there comical side

2.     Voyeurism- you feel like you’re involved

3.     Genre characteristics – rap, indie, topical

4.     Visual and lyrics- lyrics followed the storyline fully

5.     Visuals and music- editing fits the music

6.     Intertextuality- fits the genre and makes light of current day problems

lyrics analysis

Here is some analysis of the lyrics that I have picked up on

• The song is easy to follow as it makes joke of a very serious issue of 2010 through creating almost a rap about the election
• There are no hidden meanings in this piece
• Follows a young group who have created a mock election party and are trying to get people to vote for them instead of the real candidates
• They give a fairly detailed outline of the story through going into which role each of them holds "I'm the chief secretary, to the Treasury".
• They also have smaller topical jokes in there work for example they have include the MPs spending in there work "I could have a mote around my estate".
• also use cleaver play on words that discuss present day issues in our political system "We could sit around, have a mass debate".

lyrics

Song Lyrics

We are the TMB party.

It's election time for an election rhyme,
Vote for us and you'll be just fine.
We'll welcome you with a cheese and wine,
Or kill you kids if you decline.

We have some things to promise you,
We're making buses baby blue.
Red's so last year and as for Big Ben,
It's time for you to join 2010.

Gordon Brown can't brake it down.
David Cam can't do the running man.
Who's the other one?; I think it's Nick Clegg.
Nick Clegg, Nick Clegg, Nick Clegg, Nick Clegg, Nick Clegg,
Nick Clegg, Nick Clegg, Nick Clegg, Nick Clegg, Nick Cleggy in the house.

We are the TMB party.
Come-a, Come-a, Come-a, F**k around with me.
We are the TMB party.
Come-a, Come-a, to our house party.

We are the TMB par-tay.
We're the only party that has a DJ.
Who's in the house? Weed in the house.
We in the house of Parliament.

F-f-f-So much spending tax payer's moneys,
We'll buy cars, cigars, and hot honeys.
I could have a mote around my estate.
We could sit around, have a mass debate.

The prime minister, ever so sinister.
Words like a trigger, I'm verbally bigger,
But not in my figure, go figure the size of my lunch.
The taxes I munch and the credit I crunch.

I'm the chancellor of the exchequer.
I write checks to make things better.
If you do wrong I'll write you a letter.

I'm the chief secretary, to the Treasury.
Got a second house in the Grand Canaries.
If you got probs then bitch be wary,
I could put you in the obituaries.

We are the TMB party.
Come-a, Come-a, Come-a, F**k around with me.
We are the TMB party.
Come-a, Come-a, to our house party.

We are the TMB par-tay.
We're the only party that has a DJ.
Who's in the house? Weed in the house.
We in the house of Parliament.

shooting distances

Alex ha been doing some research on shooting distances points to help with our music video.

Shot distances are very important to show different representations and themes within the video. Use of camera shots can change everything from narrative to mise-en-scene. By filming a close up an a character, we get a better insight into their thought and emotions, or by using a long shots we can make characters apear lonely or lost in a crowd.

Camera Distance	Used for….
extreme long shot (ELS)	Framing landscapes. Human figure is barely visible
long shot (LS)	A shot that shows a character at a distance, spanning their whole height but leaving an area above and below them This focuses the audience’s attention on the character and their surroundings
medium shot (MS)	Also known as a mid shot, this shows a character from the knees or waist up or a full length seated figure. Most effective for showing the interplay between two characters and bridging the gap between a long or wide shot and a close-up
close-up (CU)	Used to show extreme detail or facial expressions. A character is framed from just beneath the shoulders with space left above the head. This shot is effective for showing an audience a character’s emotions and reactions because it focuses their concentration on only one thing on the screen
extreme close-up (ECU)	This shows only part of the head, the area from the lips to the eyes, and is often used for highly emotional shots to increase dramatic effect
over-the-shoulder shot	A shot made from over-the-shoulder of a character, focusing on what he or she is seeing
point-of-view (POV)	A shot seen from the character’s point of view
two shot	A shot with two characters in it

The differnt types of shots will be important for me as im inchage of the framing of the music video so i have paid close attention and i believe by using this table it will provide me with a valuble resource to look back at when deciding on what sort of shot to use in our piece.

digipak final draft of outside covers

This was created by Alex. We kept an on-running theme with the poster that alex earlier designed. The proffesional black and white designed is contrasted with the vibrant colours represent the juxaposition in our music video between governmental business and youtful humour.

We used a range of shots on these covers, with a two shot for the front-cover, mid-shot for the back cover and a close-up for the middle cover.

final draft magazine advert

This is the magazine advert Alex has designed using Microsoft Publisher and PhotoShop.

He used black and white contrasts in the background photo of us, as it allows the audience to focus on the lighting and stand out features, such as our faces that give an element of mystery. This contrasted with the bright orange and green writing represents the contrasting themes of our whole video: the juxtaposition of suits and government themes with the humour of the song.
The information is prominent in its bright colours so stands out to the audience, while still getting the message across with minimum words and a large visual.
Inspiration for this has come from black and white photos such as old wedding photos that use the effect to create a classy atmosphere. we've given a modern twist to that effect in my design, which I am sure will attract our target audience of teenagers to young adults- who stereotypically challenge what they know to find new ways of representation.
I will experiment by using this design plan on our Digipak cover to see if it works as a running theme for the promotional merchandise.