Evaluation - Question four

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
For this question, Simran has chosen to create her answer using the website Time Toast. This timeline is an effective way to answer a question based on technologies, because it allows us to look at all the different types of technology we have used during the stages of production during our music video. Embedded below is the timeline Simran has created.

Evaluation - Question three

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Simran has chosen to answer this question in the form of a mind map, using a website called Bubbl. She has created a mind map as it is different and interesting, yet it is still a presentable way to answer this question. Embedded below is her mind map.

Evaluation - Question two

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
This part of the evaluation was answered by group member Amy, she has chosen to answer question two by creating a prezi. The prezi is embedded below.

Evaluation - Question one

Now that our music video is finished and edited, we must look back at the process of our work and look at where we could have improved, and what we have done well.
Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?:
I have chosen to answer this part of the evaluation, by using screenshots from our final music video, as it conveniently establishes the conventions we have conformed to, and how they fit into the pop music genre.

• The first typical pop music convention that we have used is product placement. During research, we noticed that many leading pop stars make use of product placement during their videos, for example we noticed artists such as Jessie J, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj all use product placement in many of their music videos. I believe this is a convention of pop music because pop artists have the power to be highly influential in their videos and give their fans an insight as to what brands and logos they support.

• The next convention that that audience will see is a main one that appears during the whole video - performance. Pop music videos tend to be performance based, more so than a narrative, as the lyrics in our chosen song are quite repetitive, as a group we decided it would be more effective to base the video on performance, in order to give the audience something else to focus on and enjoy. The inspiration for this came from the original 'Domino' music video, the entire video is performance based, and is therefore a pre set success.
• Soon after, we see the character have an outfit change, as well as a change in the location. This is a pop music convention, as it can also be identified in other pop music songs including; Domino, Hot n' Cold, and Call Me Maybe. This convention is used so that the audience have something to keep them drawn into the video, also the settings are key in creating the illusion of the atmosphere of the music video.
• The next main convention that appears next is the use of an extreme close up of a facial feature, such as eyes or mouth. In our video we have included a close up of the character's lips, to connote phallic imagery, to conform with Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory. This is conventional because it can be seen in other pop music videos where the artist has been made to look seductive, for the pleasure of a male audience.

• Pop music videos are usually fast paced and upbeat, conforming to this convention, Domino is a fast paced song. Conventionally the cuts in the video must change with the beat. We have conformed to this in our music video, in order to please our target audience. Especially towards the end of the song, as the pace of the song increases, the cuts rapidly increase, so that the video works well with the song.
• Typically in a pop song, the bridge has a slightly different tone to the rest of the song, to compliment this, the video must have a different image to accomodate for the difference in the tone, even when it is for a couple of stanzas. In our video we have changed the setting of the video, to conform to this convention. The bridge can be seen as low lkey lighting, and a slightly more serious image than the rest of the song. The main image of the rest of the song soon resumes after the bridge.

Overall, our finished product conforms to pop music video conventions, as it would be expected to. We have done this in order for our target audience to be pleased with our video, and see the conventions they would expect to see when watching a pop music video. It was with thanks to our peer feedback and audience feedback that we have determined the main conventions of a pop music video, and have applied then to be as effective a spossible. Many of the conventions we have used, we have only been able to create through the use of technology. For example the use of close ups can only be achieved by zooming in with the camera, or the lighting used has been emphasised by filters available on Final Cut Pro.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
This question in the evaluation was based on how well the digipak, magazine promotional advert and the final music video, are linked together. To answer this group member Amy Smith created a prezi, that details similarities and differences between the three. Below is the link to her prezi. 

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Simran Takhar answered this question using a website called Bubbl, below is a copy of her work she completed to answer question 3 in the evaluation.

I chose to answer this question by using an online mind map, created on the website Bubbl, I have embedded the mindmap below. I chose to use a mindmap to answer this question because it is an easy to read and well organised as well as interesting to look at. Also I've never used Bubbl and I wanted to try presenting my work in a new and creative format.

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

This question in the evaluation was answered by fellow group member Simran Takhar, below is a copy of the work she completed to answer it.

To answer this question I've chosen to use the online timeline website called TimeToast. I've created a timeline that shows all the new and different forms of technology I have used through out this piece of coursework. Using a timeline was effective for this question as it makes it easy to see all the different forms of technology I have learnt to use over the time span of this project. I also chose to use TimeToast because is more creative and appealing to reader the information in an interactive unique format rather than a long written blog post.

Final Music Video

I have embedded out final music video in this post, the song we have created a musi video to is Domino by Jessie J. We chose to use this song as it simply conforms to many pop music conventions, that we could re-create in order to please our target audience. Some of the conventions we have conformed to include; colorful imagery, outit changes, product placement, extreme close ups of facial features and evidence of appealing to male audiences (Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze theory.)

During the creation process, my group member Simran Takhar had the main responsibility of digipak research and creation, and Amy Smith and I had the responsibilities of; directing, editing, mise en scene, camera work and cinematography.

Final digipak and final magazine advert

Shown here is my groups final digipak design, we came together to decide which conventions worked best, and which ones we didn't like, Simran then created the digipak using Photoshop and this is the final design. 

We used Jessie J's 'Who you are' poster to influence some of our ideas, so that our poster was conventional with a song from Jessie J's album.

• We aimed to use a similar font to this poster from Jessie J, as it is simple, yet suggestive of the mood of the album which is important in attracting our target audience. 
• We have also tried to stick to one colour scheme, we chose to use more brighter colours than the original, because we believed that the colour scheme we have chosen, is more in key with the mood of the song. 

Sketches of magazine advert design

Shown below is a rough outline of our intended magazine advert;

Comparison of digipak promotional adverts

The task for today's lesson, was to look at some magazine adverts for digipaks, and look at some conventional features and differences in the posters, to help influence us when we create our poster.
There are many distinctive features that can be seen in magazine adverts for pop music digipaks, the adverts tend to have features and conventions that are commonly found in pop music. Detailed below are the similarities and differences that are found in magazine adverts for pop music digipaks. 

• As can be seen here, there is usually a colour scheme that is followed in the poster, often vibrant, which can be seen in Rihanna's poster, or they are darkly lit with bright fonts so that the font will stand out, which can be seen in both Ellie Goulding's poster and Jessie J's poster. 

•  Often the pose used by the artist is serious and simplistic, as seen in Rhianna and Ellie Goudling's poster, the artists are looking away from the camera, making them seem more serious about their music, connoting there is meaning behind the songs.

• Often, pop music posters for digipaks, use imagery that is relevant to the name of their album, for example Ellie Goulding's album is called 'Lights' and she has used a bright font that looks as though it is illuminated, and streaks of her hair have been edited to look like she has small lights in her hair. Evidence of this can be seen in Rihanna's poster, as she has used loud bright colours, for her album called 'Loud'. 

• Digipak posters also tend to have small detail about the songs on the album, usually it is a small line that says if the album includes the 'hit song...' or any kinds of awards the album has been nominated for/won. 
• Another similarity between Ellie Goulding and Jessie J's poster, is that the name of the artist is bold and distinct, to immediately establish whose album is being advertised. However Rihanna's poster does not do this, perhaps because she is a more well established artist who does not need to put emphasis on her recognition. 

Sketches for digipak design

We have started planning our digipak, to go with our music video, as we discovered that it is conventional to create a four-panel digipak to go with the music video as a form of promotion. We have started to plan what we will put on each panel of the digipak, and this stage of production is important as it gives my group and I an indication of whether our ideas are conventional for our chosen genre, and it also allowed us to get some feedback before the final digipak. Shown below are the sketches we have created for each panel of the digipak;

Analysis of Digipak's

Our task for today's lesson is to look at some digipaks from popular artists. After spending some time looking at some digipaks and understanding how artists use them to promote a certain image of themselves, my group came together to take a look at some pop music digipaks and find some key similarities and differences between them. Below is some of the work we came up with, and justification as to why we chose these digipaks.

Below is an analysis of digipaks from Indie singer Marina And The Diamonds, and pop star Britney Spears. We chose to look at these particular artists because their target audiences are similar to mine - teenagers.

I chose to look at another digipak, from an artist who sets out a similar image and sits in the same genre as our artist - Katy Perry. The digipak is of Katy Perry's album teenage dream. Instantly the digipak promotes a colourful and bright image, suggesting this is a representation of the style of music that could be found on the album. 

The colours used on the digipak are quite visually appealing, and on inspection we can see that the CD's are imitations of sweet foods, also usually something appealing to most people, this possibly suggesting that her music is aimed at a wider audience. By having the music aimed as a mass audience, we are sure that this is a pop music album and that it conforms to conventions of a pop music digipak.

The images of Katy Perry posing almost naked in quite a provocative way, are contrasted by the child likeness of her album, as she has used a background image of candy floss as though they are clouds, and there are images of sweets which are generally associated with children. Conventions of pop music has been applied here, as Katy Perry is appealing to her male audiences, which is compatible with Laura Mulvey's male gaze. 

Rejected footage

Our original idea for our video was to use a green screen and put a background over it, as seen in Jessie J's music video 'Price Tag', which suggests that it is conventional of pop music videos. She used pastel colours such as pink and purple and we attempted to recreate the idea.



 













We chose two backgrounds from Google Images which we wanted to use our background for our green screen.





Simran has uploaded the video in which we experimented editing with a green screen in Final Cut Pro.



The reasons we didn't include the green screen was because:

• It didn't look realistic. It had a clear line around Beth making it look fake and like we had obviously put her over the screen, and not giving us the desired effect of her actually looking like she was there.
• It glitches and fades around certain parts in the video. We tried to alter this as best as we could but it still failed to blend in with the background. For example, Beth's hand.

Therefore, the reason we didn't include the green screen in our video was because we didn't want our footage to be bad quality as it doesn't look professional. This could have brought down the quality of our overall video so to replace the green screen we have decided to use a white screen to replicate a studio. We also chose to use a shadow effect for the bridge.

Music Video Preparations - Health and Safety risk assessment

In order for my group and I to demonstrate our understanding of the dangers and potential hazards of filming and creating a music video, we have formed a health and safety risk assessment, which will be presented in the form of a slideshare, which i have embedded below.

Music video risk assessment from simrantakhar

This activity has been particularly useful because it has made everyone in our group aware of possible dangers and hazards, and has given us reason to be more vigilant when filming our music video. By creating a health and safety risk assessment, my group and I will be able to continue filming for our music video in a safe and practical manner, which will ensure everyone's safety, meaning our overall filming process will go according to plan.

Music Video preparations - Filming Schedule

Today we needed to come up with times and dates that were suitable for all group members to be available for filming. We decided that it is likely to be more convenient to film during free time at school, or weekends. After going through timetables, we decided to split the filming into five parts. To ensure we will have enough footage to accommodate for any mistakes or unconsidered issues that may arise, we have decided we will film the character performing the entire song in each outfit we have planned. We have chosen four outfits, and this will account for the first four sessions of filming and the fifth will be experimenting with different ways to film the bridge of the song, as we noticed it is conventional to have a different atmosphere for the bridge than the rest of the song. Below are the listed dates and times that we are planning to film;

Monday 3rd March 2014 - 12.25 - 13.10

• Filming in costume one 

Thursday 6th March 2014 - 10.00 - 11.05

• Filming in costume 2

Sunday 9th March 2014 - 12.00 - 13.00

• Filming in costume 3

Wednesday 12th March 2014 - 14.25 - 15.00

• Filming in costume 4

Thursday 13th March 2014 - 09.00 - 10.00

• Filming the bridge part of the song

This activity has been helpful, as it has taught my group that planning is essential, as not sticking to a schedule can cause issues, as it is uncertain when another opportunity to film will arise Therefore we have noted that in order for us to stay on track and avoid falling behind, a schedule is essential and necessary. The impact of having a filming schedule will benefit our final video, as my group and I will have all of our filming done in time to start editing, so we are able to edit to the best of our abilities.

Music Video Preparations - Shot list

Today's activity was to come as a group and create a shot list for our final video, and we have uploaded it onto slideshare, as seen below.
http://www.slideshare.net/simrantakhar/music-video-shot-list-33444925

This activity taught me that it is crucially important to have a variety of shots in our music video, because shot variation is important for keeping the music video entertaining and upbeat. This will be useful when it comes to filming, because we will have something to guide us, to ensure we have used a sufficient amount of shots. Therefore our final music video should be enticing and entertaining because a multiple amount of shots have been used.

Music Video Preparations - Storyboard

Our task for today's lesson was to create a storyboard that outlined our ideas for our music video, detailing the timings of each shot, where the shot will take place, and the number of the shot and include a brief description explaining what is happening in each shot.
As a group we came together to sketch out the storyboard, and discuss the timings and order we will film and edit the shots.

Group member Simran has uploaded images of our storyboard using a website called PhotoSnack, as it is a simple and convenient way to view a slideshow of images. Below is the link to Simran's PhotoSnack upload.


http://www.photosnack.com/9D5EDCA6AED/ptpadfff

Music Video Preparations - Costume List

To prepare for our music video, I have decided on some costumes I think would fit well with a pop music video. Our audience feedback showed that bright colours and patterns were preferable for a pop song, therefore I found that these outfits will be ideal for this video.

Additional Research

As a group we chose to undertake some additional research, to ensure we could collect the most knowledge on our chosen artist, as this will help us to gain a greater understanding of the kind of things our target audiences would wish to see in our video, in relation to Jessie J.

One group member Amy Smith created an artist biography, detailing how Jessie J came to fame, and her previous work building up to her singing career. Below is a copy of the work Amy created for the Jessie J biography.

Jessie J - Biography.

Jessie J, real name Jessica Cornish, is originally from Seven Kings, Essex. Her first musical performance was at the age of 3 in a holiday camp where she forgot her words to 'Twinkle Twinkle'. She attended dance classes at the Wenn Stage school at the same age, where she started singing (the video below is of her playing Blousey Brown in Bugsy Malone) At age 11, she was cast in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End musical of 'Whistle Down the Wind' where she played the part of Brat for two years.

After going through high school, and keeping her talent quite secretive, she attended the BRIT school at age 16. She studied musical theatre, exceeding in music, dance and drama, as well as doing the subject Art. While at BRIT school she joined a girl group as a campaign 'Mothers against guns.' They released a single called 'Why' which is about mothers speaking out for their children that have been shot. The video below is of the group, Soul Deep, singing their campaign song. 

After being in the girl group for two years, and recovering from a stroke when she was 18, Jessie was back singing again, and managed to get signed by Gut records, an independent record label. While she was with them she did support tours with stars such as Cyndi Lauper, Chris Brown and Girls Aloud. She was ready to release her first single 'Sexy Silk' and had an album ready. Unfortunately, the  record label went bankrupt before she managed to release anything. During the time she was there, she put up youtube videos of her singing to build her fan base. 

After Gut went bankrupt, Jessie had to run around and try and get herself signed before she lost all her music. After not being able to get signed in the UK, she went to the US and managed to get signed to Sony ATV as a songwriter. After writing hits such as 'Party in USA' for Miley Cyrus and 'I need this' for Chris Brown, she got signed to Island Records. Following the release of her first single, 'Do it like a dude' in 2010, she topped the BBC Sound of 2011 list and won the BRIT Critics' Choice award.

Her first number 1 was 'Price Tag' which was released in February 2011. Her debut album 'Who you are' was released shortly after Price tag and sold 105,000 copies in the first week, reaching number 2 on the iTunes album charts. Below is the album 'Who You Are'. 

Jessie's career has blown up following the release of another 5 singles: "Nobody's perfect, Who's laughing now, Who you are, Domino and Laserlight, all of which reached the top 10. This made Jessie the first British female solo artist to get 6 or more singles from one album in the top ten on the charts. 

Jessie became an ambassador for Comic Relief and shaved her hair off for charity on Red Nose Day. She helped raised 100,331,808.

In 2013, Jessie released her second studio album, called 'Alive.' Her first single, 'WILD' debuted at number 5 on the iTunes single chart. Jessie is currently working on a new version of the album Alive, which is the American version.

References; 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_You_Are_(Jessie_J_album)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_J

http://www.rednoseday.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alive_(Jessie_J_album)
http://youtube.com

                                                                                                                                                              

The next piece of additional research that was carried out is linking viewing theories with music videos. For this research Simran Takhar looked into Laura Mulvey and the Male Gaze theory. Simran chose to create a prezi to depict the research into Laura Mulvey's theory of the Male Gaze. 

                                                                                                                                                               

For the last part of additional research, I carried out some investigation into the coming of pop music through the decades. All the way form the 1950's to modern day pop music, I decided to use Dipity to make a timeline that portrays the highs and memorable moments in the rise of pop music.

The coming of Pop Music on Dipity.

This activity was particularly useful, because it has given my group and I a greater understanding of why conventions are important to use, what kind of fans we are aiming our music video at, and how to create a music video relevant to the time period in which the song was made. This will impact our final music video, as it has allowed us to understand the importance of creating a music video that has all aspects of a pop music video that will please our target audience.

References
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pop_music
en.wikipedia.org.wiki/1970s_in_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/billboard_hot_100
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_in_music
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_in_music
officialcharts.com/music_charts/

Final Treatment

Todays activity was to review our feedback and decide where changes need to be made. One of the main problems we realised, via peer feedback, is that Domino by Jessie J is not a song that has a narrative itself, so in turn it would be hard to create a video with narrative to a song with no narrative. Therefore as a group we have decided to focus more on performance in our music video. Below is an final version of our updated draft.

Final Treatment For Music Video

Outline of ideas

My music video will be focusing more on the performance of an artist during their music video, as opposed to a narrative concept. The video will open with our character who is representing the artist, performing her song (Domino) in what appears to be a studio. There will be a shot of perhaps studio lights turning on, to indicate the beginning of the song. As the intro to the song builds up, we will use a variety of shots, mainly close to the actor, that put emphasis on things such as make up, clothes, shoes and setting. 

As the lyrics begin the video will cut to the artist who will be lip syncing the song, the shot will be perhaps a mid shot that shows the top half of the artist and some of the location. The shot will change every time a new line is intorduced into the song. As the shot changes, so will the location, costume and possibly lighting. This will conform to pop music conventions as the shots will keep up with the pace of the song, making the video more enticing. 

For the stanzas just before the chorus, we will aim to make use of extreme close ups of facial features, particularly lips and eyes, to connote phallic imagery, which is conventional of pop music videos. 

As the chorus is introduced, as will a new location, for example when the start of the chorus comes is; 'rock my world into the sunlight, make this dream the best i've ever known...'. This location/costume change will often be referred to during the chorus parts of the song.

The character will continue to perform the song, dancing and lip syncing in rhythm with the beat of the song, up until the bridge. At this part of the song, the location will change to an unseen one yet. The setting will be low key lighting, so that the characters silhouette is emphasised. This footage will last for the most part of the bridge, interspersed with the shot fading in and out of black. This will connote that the bridge is a different tone to the rest of the song, and the song is likely to be ending soon. Toward the end of the bridge, the shots will speed up as the lyrics overlap. For example the lyrics include the note 'yeah' repeatedly over the top of the usual lyrics 'oh baby baby, got me feeling so right, oh baby baby dancing in the moonlight'. The shots will cut to the character lip syncing the bridge and the yeah's back and forth until the bridge is over.

The character will not lip sync the entire song, the shots of the character singing will be broken up with body shots, and shots of the character dancing.

After the bridge the speed at which the shots cut will increase, and all of the 'scenarios' will be used, and the cuts will include all the settings that have been seen so far, but thespeed at which they change will be considerably faster. This will indicate to the audience that the song is nearing the end.
As the video ends the character will lip sync the last lyrics, and will walk towards the camera and perform Jessie J's artist motif of pushing the camera away, before the video fades out the music and it fades to black.

During research I discovered that product placement in a music video is a typical pop music convention, thereore we will try to include some product placement in the music video, preferably at the start of the video.

Resources:
Technical equpitment - Tripod, camera, artificial lighting, Final Cut Pro (for editing) and a white screen for the character to perform in front of that will reflect the lighting.

Actors/Costumes - Actor to depict Jessie J, bright coloured clothes - mainly dresses or party clothes.

Locatons/settings - 'studio' setting, we will use our schoold 'oracy space' to film as it is well lit and big, yet also has a place where darker lighting may be used.

Justification for my ideas:

There are a number of reasons for chosing this concept. My group and I underwent a lot of research in order to determine what our target audience wanted to see in our music video. 49% of responses said they would like to see us remake the original domino video, which is total performance, so we will bear this in mind when making our video. A vast majority of our audience are aged 15-17, so this age group are more likely  to want to see a performance of their favourite artist as opposed to something more low key. Also when we asked our audience to describe Jessie J, some of the words we got back included; fun and confident, therefore this must be incorporated into our video. Although 70% of our audience said they would prefer to see narrative in a music video, we have as a group concluded that in order for the audience to enjoy our video as much as possible, we should keep with a perfomance based video. In further research we discovered that performance is a key convention in pop music videos, therefore this supports our desicion to create a performance based concept music video. When our target audience were asked what colour theme they would appreciate in a video of the pop genre, they suggested colours such as pink, purle, gold and blue, which is why we have decided to have a bright colour theme to add some colour to our lighting. 
                                                                                                                                                                   

This activity has taught me that it is important to get feedback on your ideas, as you may be blind to some flaws with your original ideas. Recreating this treatment has been useful, because it has given up a detailed guide to follow when we begin filming our music video.