The media has constructed many genres and sub genres over the decades, especially in relevance to the music industry. We decided to produce a music video for a popular and mainstream type of music; hence we chose a band which represented a pop/ rock mix. As we knew the specification required that we had to use an unsigned band we chose a popular genre, so that we could target a large demographic. We chose Tramp Etiquette as our band, not only for the genre reasons but because they where very good musicians who were serious about their career. As I knew the band it seemed wise to choose them, given the fact we knew we would probably need to make demands on them, but wouldn't have a budget to pay them with.
We did detailed research into the conventions of similar songs/videos in our chosen genre. The conventions of pop and rock music videos differ greatly, but this was largely in reference to the connotations of the song, they target audience and the band.
Some of the music videos and artists we resurached at this time included; Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco, Kings of Leon - use somebody, The Fray - How to Save a Life and Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend. We chose to look at these artists and video's as they incorprated the same genre that we are creating a music video based on, but also target a simular audiance.
We also looked at directors of music videos to get a feeling of diffrent styles. We resurched the malloy's, who are two brothers that produce music video's together, the have produced and directed videos like; Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend and Demi Lavato. We really liked this style of directing that the Malloys have embraced. Their producrions are very much aimed at teenagers, with an air of innorcence about them, they use emotion rather than sex to premote their videos and are very sutible for the target audiance we are also aiming our production at. you can see the Demi Lovato video "here we go again" below. This video incorprates many of the same techniques we do, icluding; photo's being destroyed to simbolysis a realationship ending, a storyline mergerd with scence of the band playing and lots of diffrent camera angles and indervidual shots of performance.
Demi Lovato - Here We Go Again - Music Video (HQ)
Demi Lovato MySpace Music Videos
Our analysis helped us in which song to choose. Tramp Etiquette's song ‘Cheater’ told a story to the audience. I have incorprated the synopsis we created for the song below to help give an idea of how we interprated the song. and our initual ideas about how we would represent it.
We also chose this band as their target audience was not only relevant to us but it had a wider appeal. They told me in interview that they see their core audience as 12 – 30 year olds, of all class brackets and gender. I have been to places to see them play and there are children of 11 and 12 and then my parents who are 40 odd, yet both groups are still very happy to be dancing round to the music, it really does capture a vast audience. I believe this to be because they sing about such a range of subjects, in different styles, although they have their own style they are not so head strong about it that it would discourage other listeners. examples of this would be there.
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Both these videos help to show case just what Tramp Etiquette are cabable of, they show them playing two songs which vary from the song cheater.
Both these videos help to show case just what Tramp Etiquette are capable of, they show them playing two songs which vary from the song cheater.
The generic connotations we took from the ‘Cheater’ song were ones of a character expressing their life story, often in relation to love and loss. In this sense, it was similar to the lyrics of other songs we textually analyzed, like Wham's ‘Last Christmas’. We also found that the pop music element of music video representation showed a very colorful portrayal, with a homely or normal setting, pretty people and often a range of close up and long shots to express emotion. The rock element, although colorful used slightly darker tones, we especially took this into account when showcasing the band, during the chorus of the video, for example we used a higher contrast filter and darkened the shot a little to give it not only a more professional feel, but also portray the rock element a little more.
Other ways we followed preexistent representations and connotations included; having teenagers to early 20’s in the video, as this not only mirror’s the ages of the band but thought the music video industry its very unlikely you will have older than 20 something’s in the video. We also chose to follow conventions in the way we told the story; it progresses over time and matched the lyrics, much like the award winning ‘You belong with me’ video by Taylor Swift.
We also decided to follow pre established conceptions by using post production editing effects like cube spins and having the images appear in succession to each other, then leading into the chorus.
We then decided to also challenge the conventions by incorporating our own take on this style of production. Unlike in some of the other videos we have studied our music genre was not strictly pop or rock, hence we could interpret and incorporate our own style of representation. We challenged the conventions by doing things like having the band only play in the chorus and not appear in the rest of the video, yes this was a brave choice as we could have chosen an unsigned band we didn’t know and just got them to allow us to use the song and get one of the actors to mine the lyrics, much like other productions did, but we thought it was very important to be able to showcase the band in the video as well. So this decision was mainly based on practical reasons, as well as creative ones. It was not feasible to have the band their for 2/3 days and shot for hours as they had rehearsals etc so we made the call that it was more important to have them in the video and only in the chorus than not in the video at all.
We also found during editing that it broke the story up really nicely, heightened suspense and created a more professional feel to the whole video. It also showed the band in the best possible light, their element, they're not actors, they are musicians. We also made two other out standing prominent challenges to the conventions the first was due to practical reasons, the location, it wasn’t ideal. As I have already discussed in my blog the disasters on filming day, the fact that our previous location was no longer available we had to move with a few hours notice, and the only location we could find was my grandma’s house, hence it didn’t represent he band culture and the target audience, it should have shown young decoration and a slightly edge colour scheme, instead of gold and cream. But it was all we had so we made the best out of it. We did this by only showing short sections of the house and by using filters on top of the shots to create a younger atmosphere. We also chose to have the main character, Eammon, at the end of the video, burning the photo’s of him and his girlfriend, rather than ending the story with him taking her back or it all being a dream, as many video’s have chosen to do in the past, we decide to do this for 2 main reasons, the first was to challenge the conventions, give it a more realistic feeling and it anchored the concept of him being left with the power and the ball in his court. We also chose to do this to abide by the conventions of creating the music video to mirror the lyrics, and the lyrics at the end say ‘you had the ball, but I scored the goal, if I wanna play again then baby I’ll let you know’ which very much left it open for interpretation as to how we where going to show that Eammon was left with the power. Another way in which we chose to follow conventions was by having a male band, male singer and representing this by having a male main character. As you may have noticed in many music ideas the lead in the story is often the same sex as the singer, of course there are acceptations to this rule, like the Nickelback song ‘Rock star’ where they have a mix of gender, sex’s and ages singer the lyrics, but usually the signer’s gender is represented in the video. This is another example of when we chose to follow conventions. Mainly the reason that chose us to either follow or challenge conventions centred around the idea that we would follow the conventions so that this un known band would achieve the widest possible spectrum of publicity as these conventions exist as they have been proven to work, and many independent sources have done years worth of market research figuring this out. Hence the main reasons we chose to challenge conventions existed because of practical or lyrical limitations, but all the challenges we made again the convention we made sure where still quite mainstream, yes something it’s a successful idea to shock and ore, but this usually works better with a pre established concept, genre, band or song.
How effective is the combination of your main project and ancillary tasks?
We decided to try and produce our ancillary tasks whilst still producing the video, hence they would be allot more relevant and we would be able to mix and match the media a lot easier. We also thought that it would be more productive, as we didn’t have long to complete the task, hence whilst one person was editing the video, the other 2 where starting on the ancillary tasks, although we all made sure we kept conferring and putting in our idea’s and helping each other out when necessary. When it came to choosing which ancillary tasks we were going to do, then we narrowed it down to where a poster, a magazine advert, an album cover or internet page. After allot of consideration we decided to brain storm idea’s for each of the ancillary tasks, this is when we decided to do some research into other ancillary item that accompanied related media, this is when we found the JLS matching collectable, CD case, poster and then personalised post cards, we liked this idea a lot because it appeals to the same target audience that we have, teenage girls being the majority of fans, although Tramp Etiquette does appeal to a vast range of fans, from the old to the young, male and female, of course this doesn’t take away, at the end of the day that they are a boy band, and teenage girls to swan over them.
We also came up with the idea that teenage girls, usually aged 11 – 18 often like memorabilia with pictures of the band on, because they often find the band members attractive, hence they want to be able to look at them on their merchandise, just like JLS concept, hence why this idea of collectable memorabilia would be such a marketing success. The other issue we had with this though is that we wouldn’t want to just copy the JLS concept, we wanted to make it our own, hence not produce identical products and we also where un sure of the way they had memorabilia for your favourite band member, we liked the idea of having the band as one collective item, so we chose to portray the band in two different colour schemes, these are the signature colours on their web site, purple and black, I believe this to be because the mise en scene of the band suggest, cool but edge, not one to follow conventions but not opposed to them, producing a style of music that shows main stream conformant but with a twist of originality, they also always perform in shirts and dress smartly, so the black and purple also help represent a sense of edginess but not to out of the ordinary, as well as smartness. We also incorporated the same shade of purple (which was very had to match exactly, but we did it) into the music video, when the band’s name appear and the title of the song at the beginning on the polorids.
Then after careful consideration we decided to choose the ancillary tasks of a poster and an album cover, we chose these because we thought they were the easiest and most successful to manipulate into the 2 colour collectable themes. We chose not to do a magazine advert or a web site as none of these where collectable, they were more vast media advertising, rather than the actual product, another reason for this is that after research we found tramp etiquette already had a very successful web page, that featured all their songs, band bio, a fan site, gig footage and their influences, so we thought we would chose the poster and DVD cover, this would also link much better to the video we were creating as we could link elements like the text colour and the band members through all 3 products. Then when our video was completed we could add it to their pre excising web site, so that we gain exposure. Another idea that we came up with, that wasn’t offered as an ancillary task was a design for the actual DVD itself. So we planned this as an extra task our selves, that we where to complete if we managed to produce the other articles in time. Fortunately we did work productively with tenacity and powered thought the video and other ancillary task; hence we then went on to produce the DVD design as well. This idea was a big success, as another group also produce a disk design once we had done ours. Once we had decided on our idea we started brain storming ideas, images, colour schemes, wording, titles and the content. We first decided on the formats on tasks, we chose In Design, an application of apple to produce out DVD cover, because it had the correct size template and it also incorporated the exact shade of purple that we wanted, as well as being very compatible with final cut express and photo shop. Which was incredibly important to merge the files and have obvious continuity between the products. We chose to show the band on each of the products as explained above, so when we shot the video we also did a photo shoot of the band, we photographed then in a sunny area on grass, playing around, then we went to a park and shot them all on the swings, then we shot them on green screen, we then thought we could developed idea’s using them as stimulus. We also got a one off impulsive shot of the bad walking away. We then started to plan our ancillary tasks, we first started by sketching out the templates, creating the colour schemes, we found that each collectable cover needed two colours present on it, so we chose the signature purple and then gold, and then the black and added white to it, we then added the titles, in the tramp etiquette signature way, then we images, we chose the posed image of the whole band on the front of the DVD cover, we used the green screen images, imported them into Photoshop, used the magnetic lasso to cut out the band, then replaced the green with the matching respective colour of the DVD cover, this looked very professional and gave an added continuity to the DVD cover, especially as the band where all in shirts and looking smart this co inside very well. We used the same image for both he covers, we then added an extra image on the back of the DVD, where the blurb usually is, we chose the image of the band walking away, this looked very nice as it’s welcoming on the front then closing on the back, and we then added the blurb just below the picture. Then for our poster we decide to complicate things a little more adding n the use of more extensive photo shop to have the picture of the band on the swings, all at different level on the poster, this looked fun and playful, we chose to maintain the connotation we had already established for the band by changing the back ground to the black or purple back ground of the poster, then we added in white or gold titles, then release dates of the DVD. When positioning the images, we made sure that we had Joe in the middle of the poster, as he is the lead singer and the front man of the band; hence he has the most recognisable face. We also made sure the band members where all at different heights on the swing, or off the swing in Tom’s case, but we did this to make it more interesting and eye catching. We also chose to use the same green screen photo shopped image on the actual DVD design, this then produced a professional simple but effective feel of continuity, having the same image on the DVD cover and on the DVD. The new media that we incorporated into the production of our ancillary tasks included the Apple and Adobe applications like; Photoshop, In Design, Live Type and final cut express, but we also used a Digital SLR camera to take top quality photos, as well as HD camcorder to film the band. We also used media such as YouTube, Flikr and issue to publish our documents and work, this is surely the most effective way of getting our message out, after all in February 2010, Twitter go its first 10n million posts, they estimated that it will be just over 300 days till they get their next 10 million, at this rate the internet and new media is definitely the way forwards for promoting out ancillary tasks. When considering the distribution we would chose for our tasks, we came up with, selling them in local shops, as the band is a well known local band, selling the DVD’s and memorabilia at their concerts, but also publishing the video on YouTube, due to the fact that they are not that well know, it would most properly be more beneficial to the word out there, rather than profit from the video and ancillary tasks immediately. What have you learned from your audience feedback? We found audience feedback to be one of the most useful evaluation and decision making tools whilst producing our music video, we found every decision we were stuck we would go and do audience research. As you can see our first initial questionnaire, the results after asking 30 people, 16 male and 14 female we found that Tramp Etiquette was a great band to choose, but also the brain storm idea’s we had put together seemed to be popular and favoured by the masses, this primary audience research proved successful, so we carried on with our idea’s. We also thought we would try out different type of research, hence we chose secondary research, meaning it was collected by other sources, we implemented this type to help us chose our ancillary tasks, and based on the JLS case study we chose to mimic this with our own twist. We also chose to do visual audience research, this tended to come allot later on in the production stages, but it involved showing different types of people, but especially the target audience, a few shots of the video and getting their opinions. The film when deciding on the type of music video we were going to make and deciding on the plot and song we decided to create a questionnaire with the following 6 questions; what is your favourite genre? How often do you listen to music? How important are the lyrics to you? When watching a music video what appeals to you? Do you like a story line in the music video? How often do you want to see the band in the music video? When looking back on these questions I have come to the conclusion that maybe not all of them where directly relevant, and that I would have been better to produce one questionnaire to find out what type of video the audience wanted, then a second asking about details of that video. Although this type of audience research we did find very useful and enjoyed being able to find real opinions from real people collected first hand. We also decided who better to get a real understanding of the song than to chat to the band its self, so we made a date and Charlotte and I went to chat t the band, we had some pre arranged questions, to get their responses on, as well as brining all the storyboards and planning we had done, to try and illustrate our idea’s as best as possible. We asked, what’s the message of the song? How would you want us to portray it? These are the idea’s we have already come up with, what do you think? Are there any sections where we have misinterpreted the song? The answers we got back from the band proved to be so useful, they explained to us that our original idea of having 4 or 5 guys she was dating was wrong and it was only meant to be one other guy, and also that the phrase “she had the ball, but I scored the goal” was meant to represent the boyfriend winning at the end of the day, not the girlfriend. We had not realised this at the time and this gave us a much more powerful end to the video, which was appreciated. The other idea’s we got from the band was to use Eammon as our main character, he is a friend of the lead singer, Joe, and we where struggling for a main actor and he was taking a gap year and did A level drama, so this was a perfect choice to fill the gap. The next time we decided to use audience feedback was after filming and during the editing stages, as soon as I had finished my first ruff edit of the video I burnt a copy onto disk, then asked a range of people, but mainly the target audience, we would then expand this and show clips from our semi finished video, or different effects we had used in the same frames, then we didn’t lead them in any questions, but simply asked for their comments, constructive and positive. Some of the quotes we received included; • “It doesn’t look professional enough” • “I’m not sure, but does the music match in places” • “It take you a while to realise that she is cheating on him, it’s not predominantly evident” • “Its missing something” • “the middle bit, where they are giving her gifts is a bit boring” • “I liked it, it’s just not amazing” So we then worked from this feedback and established solutions to the problems and re did parts and added filter and took allot more time over matching up the music to the video, using markers and very careful planning. We also made a point of adding the titles ‘cheater’ to the beginning of the video to make it more obvious, but we did this in subtle way, using a live type ‘ribbon’ effect in the bands d=signature colour once again to carry on the established continuity. After doing this visual research many times, often to the same group of people, so they could make a comparison, but then also to new people to get a fresh look, we decided on a finished article, then we decided the final piece of audience research we would conduct was to release the video onto YouTube, especially as this is one of the fastest growing new media’s on the internet, being created in 2005, selling for 1.65 billion in 2006 and now serving every region in the world, we thought there was no better forum to get public feedback from all variety of people, although we would not be able to then edit our video again, it would provide us with others options for the next project we created. We have had over 200 views to date, but still no comments. Ancillary task For our ancillary task, the DVD cover and the poster, we decided to first look into secondary audience research, we found that JLS had released a set of collectible memorabilia, to boost sales figures, although we were not trying to sell our ancillary task, we did like the collectable concept, so we decided to produce 4 ancillary tasks instead of two, with the idea that a colour theme of purple or black would be the collectable part, we also managed to ouch ourselves to add another 2 tasks onto that and create a design for the actual DVD. We also decided to do our own first hand research as well, we chose to ask people in our class and teachers what they thought of the concept, everyone agreed it was an original and interesting idea, that was sure to be successful, if we where able to find enough time to produce 6 ancillary tasks, and a music video, which luckily enough we managed to organise ourselves well enough to allow for this. How did you change your ideas in the planning stages after research? The main conclusion we drew form our audience research defiantly had to be that we wouldn’t have been able to make such a successful music video without all the information, opinions and comments we received from audience feedback. I believe with the great amount of audience feedback we put into our work we managed to conform to the majority of the audiences needs, we tried to avoid challenging conventions where possible as it is always a tossup as to whether it will be successful. We did attempt to break the mould thought by copying the collectible idea, just to make sure that our project wasn’t to similar to everyone else’s, we had to make it stand out. I defiantly think this appealed to audience needs as it provides a sense of excitement without the risk of challenging the conventions too much, the only main reason I could think of as to why it wasn’t as well received as it could have possibly have been was due to the fact that both our set and actors changed on the day of filming, all due to individual reasons, mentioned on my blog, but the 4 weeks of planning we had put into mise en scene, atmosphere and actor selection had all gone down the drain within 24 hours of our only chance to shoot the video. If I got the chance to re do the video, knowing what I know, I defiantly would have made some changes, I would have re thought the location, incorporated the band into the video more, but I also would have possibly chosen a more un known song so that we could have an actor sinning all the way though the video like the other groups did, as this did provide more stability and continuity. The use of media technologies featured greatly in the production, planning of our music video, as the first generation to have grown up with the internet, these new and expanding media technologies have become second nature to us, and hence we found the use of media technologies helped us allot. We used internet forums and social networking sites like Facebok, emails and be able to stay in contact with each other, especially over the October half term holiday, were non of us where at school. We made filming schedule, contact sheets, plan, props, actors and all other information not only in hard copies, but we also put soft copies online, so that no one would be unprepared. We also used MySpace and hotmail to communicate allot with the band, for instance the permission email they sent us, which is published on the blog. We also used websites like Blogger.com, flikr.com and issuu.com to publish our video, ancillary tasks, planning, production, findings and any other information we could get our hands on, we chose to do it like this, not only for reasons of simplicity, but also to support the new age media concept and to showcase how websites like this are changing the way we learn.
We also used other forms of media technologies with in the production of our video, we used allot of digital stills, for our ancillary tasks, actually video and our planning and devaluation, we shot these with ah mix of a hand held 10 megapixel camera and a digital SLR, we also used Photoshop to create the effect of a Polaroid camera, as otherwise it would have cost us £1.60 per shot. (POLORIOD) We also made a decision at the beginning of the task to shoot in High Definition, as it would give a much more professional feel and the difference in quality would be excellent, unfortunately we shot the band in HD 2 weeks before the rest of the film and due to un foreseen mistakes we were unable to shoot the rest of the video in HD, hence there had to be some very careful post shooting editing, to not make this mishap look obvious. Another challenge we had with the editing of the video was trying to sync the music to the band, none of us in the group where particularly musical, hence it was very hard to link the guitar and drum solo’s to the song, but we used markers on final cut express and after many attempts managed to get it perfect. Another syncing issue we had was aligning the Cubase directors commentary into the song and video, but this we found to be easier and easier the more we practised. Another new piece of media technology that we used, that none of us had even heard of before was a piece of equipment that you plug in to control the lights, we used this whilst filming the band, it changed the speed of the lights flashing to fit the rhythm of the music, this had a great effect on the ambiance. We used a RGB filter and adjusted the Gamma on most of the bands shots, we did this after as the video had allot more pop elements rather than rock in it, hence we added a slight purple hint in places which compromised and contrasted with this nicely. As well as playing with the contrast on the first bedroom shot as it came out very orange. We also added cube spin to the middle part of the song, quick time transition effects are very much a pop element so we thought this would fit nicely with the pop connotation. Editing gave it a much more professional meaning, the filters, contrasts as, transitions, text all gave the video its meaning of a pop rock genre, which would have been much harder to achieve if it wasn’t for the abundance of new media technology available
