Evaluation: Jessica Knights

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

The song we chose for our Music Video is Rita Ora’s Song ‘Love and War. This song categorises into the genre of R’n’B. Therefore, we had to incorporate and take into account the genre of conventions to use in our own music video, our Album digipak and magazine advert.

Green Screen

As this shot was filmed using the green screen it enabled us to play around until we chose our desired background. We found that in a lot of R’n’B music videos, the location is set around an urban area, and a lot include brick walls as a background. Therefore, we used this same idea to use a brick wall as a genre convention for our R’n’B music video.


Furthermore, using the Green screen challenges some R’n’B music videos as they tend to be seen as realistic something for the listener and audience to relate to. Therefore, the use of our green screen may challenge this as the abstract appearance may be seen as unusual.

In addition, in the following screen grab, there is clear indication that we had created this shot using the green screen and there is still green surrounding the artist. Although, we tried our best with final cut we couldn’t completely get rid of the green in all of the shots. Obviously, this doesn’t help our music video doesn’t appear as professional as this challenges the use of green screen in music videos.

Also, our use of Green screen may be a challenge to professional music videos due to the line down the left hand side of the screen. When filming our music video we didn't notice the light out of the window behind the Green screen, which the camera obviously picked up on. Therefore, this doesn't help the professional appearance of our music video.

Colour corrector and filters

When looking into the conventional use of colour correction and filters within other media products, we realised that by using these technique made it appear more original and professional when watched. We wanted to create an interesting and engaging music video, and using bright colours, and editing them with jump cuts helps to keep the audience watching.

Although this, the genre conventions of R'n'B may challenge our music video due to the use of the colour corrector. For instance when using the colour corrector on Final Cut the artists face changed colour as well as the background. The use of colour on the artists face isn't very realistic in terms of everyday life, and a specific convention and ideas surrounding of R'n'B normally is about events, relationships in the artist's life.

As well as colour corrector which is a dominant feature in our music video, we also included a sepia tone, which we placed over a narrative section, to show the artist is reminiscing about a previous moment of her relationship. This shot is also is edited using an overlay technique to help further present this idea.


Split screens

Andy Warhol's Art

Although we used the inspiration from Andy Warhol to create this look, using split screen and colour correction to make each of the colour background this may slightly challenge the forms of R'n'B conventions as it is not realistic in life. However, this experimental techniques creates an original look to our music video, making it appealing and visually interesting to the audience's eye. Although this slightly develops some music video conventions, for instance we have seen in Rihanna's music video that a projection is used to change colour, although our colours are bold and not as subtle as Rihanna's music video, we are using and creating a similar idea.

Furthermore, this shot includes a close-up direct address to the camera and audience is an significant genre conventions in music videos as it helps the audience relate to the artist.

We have also used the split screen technique to show the narrative and between the the two artist's love and hate relationship.

Lip sync

A large percentage of music videos contain the artists performing/acting and then the music is added through editing software and lip synced to a more professional sound quality which we used this convention in our own music video. Although most of our lip syncing clips are a convention of professional music videos, we have included some lip syncing of the artist which her singing starts fine but speeds up and doesn’t precisely fit in with the words of the music, therefore, this challenges the conventions of music videos.

Jump cuts

From watching other R’n’B music videos we noticed that a lot of cuts were used to fit in with the fast and dominant tempo of the music. Therefore, we chose to use a series of jump cuts throughout our music video so that the visuals can fit in with the genre of music and the fast accented beats which each cut fell on (in some sections). By using this technique it keeps the audience eyes engaged. When completing the rough cut we realised that the more we used the jump cuts, and the more precise they fell on the accented notes made the music video appear more professional.


Camera Angles

Another convention of most music video genres was to use a variety of shot and angle types. For instance we used close-up, long shot, mid-shot, high angle shots etc. The most frequent use of shots were the mid-shots as we wanted the artist to be the  main focus as well as being able to see background interest. This allowed the music video to look more professional and interesting as there is more variety to the video.


 Direct address

From researching professional and student videos we noticed that a dominant convention of most music genres included direct address as the creators used a range of close-ups of the main artist. Therefore, we took this into account when producing our own music video as included close-ups we believe that by using direct address helps the audience relate to the artist. Furthermore we used this convention in all three of our products: the music video, album digi-pak and the magazine advert, as we wanted the main artist to be the focus of our products and by using close-ups of the artist directly addressing the camera can help the audience to relate to the artist.



 Depth of field

For the majority of our music video we used large depth of field so that the audience can get a sense of where the artist is situated and get a feel of where and who the artist is. However, we did include small depth of field when creating the abstract background.

Taken from Ellie Goulding's 'Lights'

This shot challenges some R'n'B music videos as we sometimes see the location set in an urban area whereas we used a green screen and filmed and added an abstract background. Although this, we were influenced by Ellie Goulding's 'Lights' music video as she was filmed with lights behind, but filmed with a small depth of field to enable only focus on to the artist. I liked this technique a lot as it was abstract but different and made an unusual look. As we didn't have big lights to use behind Leksi we filmed her part against the green screen, then filmed some fairy lights using small depth of field against the green screen added a black background and placed it behind Leksi in Final cut. Overall, I think that this technique works well as the background goes well with the tempo and upbeat of the R'n'B song.

 Relationship between the lyrics and the visuals

Although most of our music video is extremely abstract particularly due to the use of the backgrounds and use of colour corrector. We felt we should add a small narrative to show that there is some relationship between the two artists. We used the title ‘Love and War’ and the lyrics as a representation to how we perceived the song. We believed that the use of the lyrics and the title 'Love and War' suggested that the song was about the artists love hate relationship and it is repeated that they 'don't wanna fight anymore'. By using the artist and showing the ups and downs of their relationship we were able to use a narrative that can be seen as a convention in some but not all music videos. By using this split screen we can show both sides of their relationship the 'love' side and 'war'. For instance, we saw a similar love, hate relationship in Rihanna’s music video 'Love the way you lie' (screen shots from her music video are below).

 Location

Abstract background using the Green screen

As we mainly used an abstract setting/background for a large percentage of our music video, we wanted to use a variety of visuals. Therefore, we thought that we shouldn’t use the green screen for all of our music video, but show a realistic setting, especially for the narrative scenes as we wanted a realistic and imaginable approach that the audience can relate to. However, as we chose a woodland/ nature setting this may challenge R’n’B conventions as they tend to be set in an urban area. Although, this we have noticed that in some R’n’B music videos where the mood of the artist is sad and subdued they tend to be situated in an isolated location (e.g a beach). Therefore, we wanted to create a similar impression and appearance for our own artist.

Clothing

Screen shot taken from our music video showing the clothing we used for our artists.

J Cole (male artist in the song)

We chose our male artist to wear casual clothes yet appropriate to fit into the genre of R'n'B we told him to wear jeans, leather jacket, t-shirt, a large cap and 'bling' as we found that all of these were examples of clothing that we found in R'n'B music videos which is a specific style to what J. Cole wears. Luckily he already had large glasses which we used as they are in fashion at the moment and fit in with the genre conventions. All these items of clothing fit in with today’s society which helps the audience relate to the artists.

Rita Ora

Furthermore, when researching Rita Ora's clothing, we came accross this photo taken from her music video 'How we do Party'.  Rita Ora is wearing a lot of denim including denim shorts and a denim jacket, this is a casual but stylish style which we too wanted our artist to wear. By wearing items of clothing like denim can help the audience to relate to the artist as it is an everyday item, and young people, those of her target audience, can look up to her as a role model. Therefore, we chose our female artist 'Leksi' to wear a similar style dress sense to that of Rita Ora.

 Magazine advert

From looking at professional artist's magazine adverts such as Ellie Goulding's 'Lights'. We can see that the main conventions of an album magazine advert  that must be included are...

• The artist's name that can easily be read and is clearly seen.
• The Album name which must be in an easy to read font and size.
• Picture of the album so that when people want to and go to purchase the artist's CD they can easily recognise the Digipak.
• Reviews and star rating to help to promote the album.
• Date when the album is released.

Our magazine advert:

 I believe that our magazine advert follows most of the conventions of a magazine advert, as it is bold and attractive for customers and followers of the artist. By using the spilt screen, Andy Warhol influence helps make the magazine advert stand out as it is original and different from using just a photo. However, our magazine advert may challenge magazine adverts as our advert doesn't include an album release date, which would not be helpful to customers if they wish to purchase the album as the album may not yet be out when seen.

Album Digipak

From looking at professional artist's digipak  and from looking at Katy Perry's Digipak album 'Teenage Dream' we can see that specific genre conventions are used. For example....

• Highly edited photos of the artist to help capture a style for the audience.
• Motifs which have been used throughout their work. (e.g how the artist is portrayed through their image, the use of backgrounds, font etc.) In Katy Perry's digipak we can see that her albums are quite abstract and brightly colour which helps to attract a particular target audience (e.g young teenagers)
• The Album name
• The artists name
• Barcode for use when purchasing
• Producer's company
• Track list

Our Album Digipak:

I feel that our album digipak definitely includes many significant Digipak genre conventions. For instance, we have included lots of edited photos of the main female artist to help the audience relate to the artist. By using a range and editing each image helps make the Digipak look more professional as it follows the same conventions as seen in real album digipaks. We included a track list, which we made up, but we related the track names to the typical R'n'B conventions refering to the artist's life events, the ups and downs of relationships etc. 





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






3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

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

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