Evaluation - Keri Meadows

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



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



Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

 

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

Throughout the project of creating our music video and 2 products, we have used a variety of different technology. We have used it to research into real products and music genre conventions to understand how and why these products are made in the way they are. We have also used it to plan and produce our music video, digipack and magazine advert, and lastly to show our work to the audience and make an evaluation on all 3 products.

Blogger

During our journey of making our 3 products, we have been able to use Blogger to record all the research, planning, work and evaluations we have done through blog posts to create and look back on our music video and 2 ancillary products. This allowed us to store our work in one place and present it neatly to an audience who are interested to discover how we came up with our 3 products. It is an easy way for us to easily access our work to look back on as blogger is a free site that has an easy and simple layout with posts clearly layed out and easy to make.

Youtube

During our research stage of finding out more on music videos in different genres, we used Youtube to watch student music videos and real music videos. We analysed genre conventions, micro elements and macro elements used to create their work, and try to understand how they affect the audience. Being able to view other people’s work helped us to understand the how and why music videos are made the way they are, and inspired us with our own ideas for our music video. Youtube was also useful while we were editing our music video to give us tutorials when we needed help with Final with things like editing backgrounds into the green screen and cropping footage.

PowerPoint and SlideShare

For our research we also used PowerPoints to record information we researched, and present it in a simple and tidy manner for us and an audience to understand clearly if we were to present it. Powerpoint has also helped us to present our information in an interesting way to keep an audience engaged by using different slide designs, transitions between slides and using different colours. It has come in useful to use as we could bring up different and detailed points on separate slides, with the ability to use pictures and add hyperlinks to videos to illustrate and back them up. The internet site SlideShare was of great help to enable us to upload our powerpoints to our blog for us and the audience to easily find and look at.  

Flickr

When making blog posts on Blogger, sometimes we had the problem of photo’s/images being too big to upload through Blogger, so we used the website Flickr to upload big photo’s/images such as our digipack and magazine advert. Photos could then be easily shared to our blog posts by embedding the photos and pasting the link into a blog post. This gave us high quality images in good size and format.

Google

By using the search engine ‘Google,’ we were able to easily find specific research or websites we were looking for by just typing it in the search box and scanning through the suggestions. Google also provides many images that we needed of things such as other artists, album covers and logo’s of websites or other companies to support our points made in our blog posts. We also found Google maps helpful to take a closer look at locations we could film in, and then used the Mac to take a snap shot picture of the location, so we could post it on our blog and use it to illustrate our points on why we choose the location for our music video.

Twitter

When it comes to using another person’s song, the artist who owns the rights to the song must give permission first to allow anyone to use it for copyright reasons. By using twitter, we were able to contact Rita Ora by sending her a message to ask her if we could use her song to create a music video with it. Many famous artists from around the world have a Twitter account as a way to advertise to fans and allow them to follow their activity as a means to make the fans feel more involved with them. Twitter makes it easier for people to get hold of the artists.

Camcorder and tripod

Without the camcorder, there would be no music video. The camcorder we used was a HD camera to shoot high quality footage to make our music video look professional. It also has a light weight to enable us to easily carry and move it for shots like handheld movement or pans. All the footage then saves on an SD card which we could easily put into the computer and copy the footage onto Final Cut. However, there was the risk of the battery dying during filming which could have interfered with our work. Thankfully this did not happen, and there were spare batteries for the camcorder incase this was the case.

To make our work even better, we used a tripod to get neat and steady shots. This was one of the technologies we used that were not digital, but it was very helpful to make our camera work look professional by attaching a screw mechanism onto the camera, and then locking that into place on the tripod. It held the camera very still for basic camera shots, and then produced smooth movement for things like dolly shots when moving the top part of the tripod that the camera was attached to.

Green screen  

This was the first time that any of us had used the green screen before. Before using it, we watched a tutorial on YouTube and asked someone who had used it before to demonstrate to us on how to use it. After finding this out, we starting filming with the green screen with lights either side of it to ensure the footage would not be too dark and would work properly when editing images in the background in Final Cut. After filming the green screen footage and reaching the editing stage, we found many problems with editing images into the background. In some shots there are green outlines left around the artist that we could not remove properly and sometimes the images in the background came through in patches on the artist that were also hard to get rid of. The green screen was the most problematic aspect we faced when producing our 3 products.

Fairy Lights

In part of our music video, we used footage of pink and blue coloured lights by placing it on top of green screen footage. We used the camcorder to zoom in on the lights, and we recorded them against the green screen so we could add a black background to make the lights stand out. They contributed as a background of our idea on using lights and colours for our music video.

Camera

For the Digipack and magazine advert, we used a HD digital camera to take high quality photos to give a professional look to these products. Having high quality photos would also allow us to blow up the images to bigger sizes without the image pixelating (the magazine advert would rely on camera quality as it has to be made into A4 size or even bigger if it were printed on a poster). It is also easy to transfer photos from the camera to the computer, as the photos store on an SD card like the camcorder which can be easily inserted into the computer via an SD card slot.

Final Cut

This program is very important to actually put the footage for our music video together, but put it together in an interesting format be cutting it to the beat of the music. It allows anyone to take pieces of footage and manipulate them in my many ways using things from transitions, effects, text etc. In our music video, we used these 2 tools a lot to change the appearance of our work: colour corrector and chroma key. Colour corrector allowed us to change our clips to many different colours to make them vivid and engaging, and chroma key was used to put backgrounds onto green screen footage. We also used a transition called dissolve a lot as it softly faded from one clip to another to add to the soft tone of the sad R’n’B we worked with. However, this software isn’t the best for creating professional green screen backgrounds, so this affected our music video’s quality. Despite this, what was helpful about it compared to other software like Windows Movie Maker, is that you could have a lot more timelines to add more footage without having to move the parts you had already edited. This saved us some time to complete our work, but we still struggled for time in the end due to sudden idea changes during the project.

Photoshop

Photoshop was another major program we used to make our Digipack and magazine advert. Like Final Cut, it gives you lots of different tools and effects to manipulate or create images to create professional and eye-catching pieces of work. For our Digipack and magazine advert, we used it to change the colour of photos into bright colours, sepia and black and white. We also created designs on top of the photos for both products by using an easy line tool to create our Andy Warhol inspired look with the square shapes. Photoshop has a great range of different text fonts to suit different moods, genres or ideas. We choose a bold and modern font to connote the artist’s youth and vibrant personality to attract our teenage/young adult audience. It also has advantages with the way it allows you to use as many layers as needed. If something goes wrong during designing, the layer can simply be deleted and not affect the overall image. Having used it before, I was confident with using it so time was not wasted trying to find out how to work it.

Word

During our research, we used word to type down research or write our evaluations on our 3 products before putting them on the blog. This was useful to use to create first drafts and enable us to easily transfer our work to memory sticks or by e-mail to work on. Word also has many tools to change the presentation of written work to make it more formal, engaging and understandable. These include tools such as underline, bold, different text formats and the ability to include images to illustrate points made.

Prezi

Lastly, I used the website Prezi to present part of my evaluation on the music video and ancillary products in an interesting and easy format for the audience to understand. Prezi is a website where you can create brainstorms and mind maps of ideas and thoughts in a digital way; you can change the designs of them to appeal to the audience the information you’re presenting. I had never used this software before then, but I quickly learnt the tricks and tools to using the software by asking someone who has used it before. I think the website is very useful for presenting information professionally.

Possible Magazine Advert

This is my design for our magazine advert that I have linked to the Digipack and our music video.

Album Covers in Different Genres

From looking at different album covers in different genres, there are certain differences between how covers are made for different types of music.

In Pop and R'n'B, the main artist is the focus on the cover whether it be female or male. In the photo's, direct address is used to make the audience feel involved. Examples of this include Lady GaGa's albums 'The Fame' and 'The Fame Monster.' The artists have something that they are known for or relates to a song included in the album. In Lady GaGa's 'The Fame,' she wears the same designer sunglasses she did in her music video 'Just Dance' (of which is her number 1 hit on the album). 'The Fame Monster'  on the other hand displays her quirky and unique fashion style with the unusual designer clothing and haircuts. She appears in many unusual outfits in her music videos, as well as in public to set her own star icon for the audience to recognise her with.












Many other star icons such as Beyonce, Katy Perry and Jessie J also use direct address in photo's, as include elements in album art work that they are recognised with (Beyonce with her curvy figure and her message of strong independent woman in her songs; Katy Perry and her abstract music videos, with bright, colourful and voyeuristic costume and Jessie J with her short black bob with straight fringe, and her designed or bright lip make-up).

However, some also have the artists looking in a different direction or away such as in Rihanna's 'Loud' album and Adele's '21' album cover where they are looking down. In the album art work for Rihanna, she appears to have red hair and red lipstick as she has the same red hair and lips in her music videos of the songs that are in her album. Also, most of the songs on her album are about love (with the red hair and lips creating symbolism of love) of which some of them are negative such as 'Love the Way You Lie' being about partners lying and abusing each other in relationships. This may be why she is looking down as she is feeling insecure and hurt by love as she is experiencing different emotions towards it. This is the same with Adele's album cover and songs on her album '21,' where most of her songs are about breaking up with her partner. Her famous song 'Someone Like You' is expressing her best wishes for her ex and the idea she'll find someone just as good as them. The album art work is in black and white to express Adele's sadness of being hurt by love.















In Rock music, I have been looking at a few examples of album covers of this genre too. I looked at an album called 'Riot' by a band called Paramore and an album called 'What Separates Me From You' by a band called A Day To Remember. These two albums both use artistic ideas of album art work for the cover rather than the use of pictures of the band. However, the art work represents their attitudes or ideas expressed in the music included in the album. This could be a good idea for our digipak cover as our song 'Love and War' was about the artist getting frustrated over the fighting involved in their relationship.

On Paramore's album, the word 'Riot!' is repeated over and over again to emphasis the word of the album. It looks similar to when teenagers 'doodle' in class with the scribbled pen look of the words, and the scribbled look creates edge and attitude to the album. The band were still in their late teens when they created this album which suggests the choice for the album art work, but also attracts a teenage audience, specially those who are rebellious and are into the 'emo' scene. The band themselves are regarded as this, so these type of teenagers will look up to them for inspiration.

With A Day To Remember's album, there is a picture of a man in a sand timer, who is most likely watching his life pass by without him (as the man is watching people walk by without noticing he's there), hence the sand timer connoting that his time is running out. Most of the songs on the album have a negative subject within the songs, such as the song 'Better Off This Way' is about leaving someone because they are being treated badly by their partner. This suggests the reason for the negative album cover as the songs and cover link together to show the audience that the songs are about more depressing subjects. The colours on the art work are dull and dark to match with the sad emotions brought up in their music. The text on the album is in capital letters to make it stand out, with more focus on the band name by using bigger font and bold text to catch the eye of fans much easier.

However, I found an album cover by the alternative rock band 'We Are The In Crowd' which differs from the two above and many other rock album covers. This one features pictures of the band on the front cover, with pictures of the band socially getting along well together and messing around like stereotypical carefree teenagers who like to have fun and party. This relates to the band's target audience of teenagers by making themselves relatable so that other teenagers will look up to them. The colours used on this album are bright and engaging to catch the audience's eye and make it look appealing. The band name is the text that stands out the most with bigger and bolder font than the album title to attract fans like with A Day To Remember's album.

Evaluation on our Music Video

The final cut deadline for our music video has just passed, and with our final cut produced and having watched it back, there are things I expected and didn't expect to what the outcome would be.

Firstly because of limited time to create our work and our change of plan for the style of the music video, we were rushed for time to film the footage and edit the video together, which meant we had less time to realise all our intentions for it. Many things proved difficult through filming and editing. The biggest problem that I think we had to deal with was the green screen. 

Never having used it before, we relied on Youtube tutorials and instructions from tutors, but otherwise we didn't have any practise with it. We expected to film in front of it, go back to the computer and edit images and footage easily into the back of it. This proved more frustrating than thought, as the image that came through the green screen tended to create patches on the actual artists which we didn't want. Sometimes it left a green outline around the artist, but this was due to the editing software we were using as it is not a professional program. When actually filming in front of the green screen, we found that a line of light from behind the green screen (most likely light coming through the blinds of the window) came through it and could be seen in our video and could not be hidden with an image.
The images we used behind the artists were good with the idea we wanted of lights shining in the background, but I think it would have been better if we filmed footage of lights to go under them to create movement, and make the shots more interesting. We used one shot like this, but felt it would make the video boring using it over and over again. 

While on the subject of editing (which proved to be the hardest obstacle to come by), we also had problems with lip syncing. We found it very difficult to fit the lip syncing by our artists in with the words of our song choice. If we had more time, we could have used tools to speed or slow down their lip sync. However saying that, both our artists gave a great performance and added 'swagger' or 'attitude' into our video, which is found in may R'n'B music videos. I also thought the costume choice was good as they were subtle and were dark colours to connote the worried and sad feelings the artists had about fighting in their relationship. It was also casual clothing, which is common in most R'n'B and Pop music videos to capture the latest fashion trends popular with teenagers and young adults (which is our target audience we were aiming for, hence the choice of costume).

I believe the camera frames of the artists were neatly framed, and we used a variety of effects in our editing such as the jump cuts in the beginning, rapid shot reverse shots to fit footage to the beat of the music and split screens to show the audience 2 different sides of the artists' relationship. The variety of editing effects made our video eye-catching to engage the audience for longer. Saying this, I believe we could have edited more footage into the editing and created more cuts to make the editing more faster and youthful to fit with our target audience. However, we had a short time period, and did not get around to achieving this.

During our experience of filming a music video, I have learnt how to use a green screen and more in depth tools of Final Cut such as chroma key to get images on the green screen and colour corrector to change the colours of shots. I have also learnt from the problems encountered during editing such as the demand of cuts and footage to make a music video interesting, as we could have filmed more footage with our artist's in different costumes and locations to add more variety, thus more for the audience to appreciate about what they are watching. 

Micro Element - Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene is basically everything you can see on screen visually. This includes location, props, costume, hair, make-up, props, set design and lighting. Mise-en-scene is important to set a scene to make films more believable of where the scene is set, and suit the location. It also has to suit the narrative, or in this case, the lyrics and mood of the song. For example, with a slow and sad song, there would be hardly any colour and dim lighting to make the place look depressing and drained. A happy mood though would be represented with cluttered props, set an maybe a bigger cast, with bright lights and vibrant colours to create a youthful and uplifiting feel. The mise-en-scene can also represent ideas and messages to communicate with the audience, such as the colour red to connote anger, or fancy props such as chandeliers and golden objects to suggest a person has a rich social status.



The video above is a song called 'Emergency' by Paramore. Their videos have very dull colours and a ruined location where the walls are filthy and decaying to represent the artist as broken and falling apart. The costumes are baggy and loose to show they are down and uncaring, and the lack of colour suits the location and the depressing mood of the song. The band members also have scars and scratches made from make-up to represent them as scarred and hurt about the idea of love being abused by others. A red rose is used as a prop to connote love, of which is thrown to Hayley (the main artist) as if it were nothing important. This represents the idea of love being abused and being taken advantage of.



Compared to Paramore's 'Emergency,' this song is fun, excitable and youthful. The video is about a house party, where many young adults and teenagers are used as cast as they are steroeotyped for partying. In the young generation, there are groups such as the popular crowd, the 'emo's' and the 'dorks/nerds.' The narrative is a very basic one where the main artist Katy Perry is dressed up in typical clothes you would associate with a 'nerd,' such as the braces, big glasses and clothing that is quite baggy and covers most of the body. The mise-en-scene is colourful to connote the youthful energy within the party where there is a lot of dancing and drunken behaviour. The props such as plastic cups and streamers help to set the scene of the party. Katy Perry's nerdy character approaches the party in disgust, but get transformed by the host of the party (Rebecca Black) to fit in with the popular crowd: short skirts, tight fighting clothes, make-up and heels. The outfits are quite casual on the cast to suit teenage fashion that may inspire them on their style.

This shows that mise-en-scene is very important to get messages and the character's/artists identity across to the artist. It also introduces many stereotypes which the audience can identity easily to understand a character better.

Micro Element - Editing in our Music Video

When we have the footage for our film, we will be uploading it to the computer and then editing it together to create our music video. The footage will be edited to the rhythm of the music 'Love and War' so the video flows with the music and represents and illustrates the lyrics to make the song more engaging. 

1) Continuity (Action match) 

This is to make the edited footage fit together by matching movement from one scene to the next. An example could be a person jumping in the air with their face to the camera, then the second shot of their feet, with their feet off the ground and just about to land on the floor to create an illusion of one sequence of action . This will allow our shots to flow together to make the editing smooth and the scene more interesting with different shots of the artist's movement to suit the pace and beat of the song.

2) Shot reverse shot

A shot reverse shot will be used between the artist, and the rapper who is parts of 'Love and War.' While The artist is singing, another shot will go to the man in the video whether he is singing or reacting to the lyrics, and then back to the artist when it comes back to her singing. This makes it easier for the audience to follow who is singing, and to capture reactions from the artist and man as they conflict together about their relationship. 

3) Jump cuts 

Jump cuts can cut out unnecessary footage that will not contribute to representations or illustrations of the song of lyrics. It will also be necessary for the pace and beat of the music to cut up a single bit of footage to the rhythm, as well as creating rapid editing to suit the youthful R'n'B genre.

4) Cross-cutting (cutting between two scenes of action that happen in two different locations. The characters normally meet up at the end)

This will be used between the artist and the male in the video as the scenes change from the artist to the man when they are singing. Eventually they meet at the end to talk about their relationship and make-up. Cross-cutting will allow us to show the audience both sides of the relationship to show that they are both sad and depressed about how the relationship is going. 

5) Slow motion 

This editing feature will highlight important parts of the video to emphasis key moments, which will let the audience appreciate them and analyse their meaning for longer. It will also suit slower parts of the song such as the beginning and the end where the music slowly kicks in, building tension towards the pacey chorus.  

6) 180 degree rule

This rule will make sure that the audience will not get confused to where the artists are placed in a scene or location, so it make the music video more believable and easier to follow; therefore more effective to convey emotional or intellectual ideas from the audience without distracting them with mistakes. 

7) Text (Title, actors, credits) 

This will not really be necessary to introduce the music video, but text may be used in our piece for background images to either emphasis the lyrics or make it clear to the audience what ideas are being raise such as 'love.' 

8) Transitions and effects (dissolve, screen wipe, etc)

For camera footage that does not flow together naturally without transition effects, we will be able to use transitions to fix this by using things such as dissolves to go into the next shot, screen wipes or graphic matches. However, different transitions have different effects, where dissolves are slow and smooth, where screen wipes are quick to suit fast songs. We have also been discussing about using a spilt screen so we can see both the artist and male at the same time to show and compare how they are both reacting to their relationship together. We are also going to use blur near the beginning to represent that the artist is breaking down by making her look like she is fading. It also looks similar to an aftermath of an explosion to reference the war aspect in the song. 

Micro Element - Cinematography in our music video

In our music video, we want to use a variety of camera techniques to create an interesting and effective video that will engage the viewer. Also, each camera technique has a purpose to either film something simply in the detail needed, to follow action on the camera and to create meaning. 

Camera shots

For camera shots, we will be using close-ups to film the artists face as it is essential to get close-ups of the artist anyway to make it clear who is singing. Extreme close-ups and big close-ups can also be used on the artist, props or other characters to show high detail for the audience to see clearly. This will focus on particular objects that could have symbolism or  create tension, such as a close-up on an image of a broken heart to symbolise heart ache, or a shot of the artist's eyes to make her glare into the eyes of the audience to make them feel uneasy. 

We can also use medium close-up's, medium shots and medium long shots to view the artist's body as well. This will allow the audience to see the artist's costume and figure, as well as the background where props and setting can be seen to set the mood or create representations. We will also be able to see gestures or body language (made by the artist or other performers) that relate to the lyrics or beat of the music to emphasis or fit the move. Medium shots will also allow more movement with the camera, such as tracking the artist. 

Long shots, very long shots and extreme long shots will be good for establishing a scene or showing the audience more of the background and location that relate to the song. In our video, we are planning to use projections and green screen, which means we will need to use a shot that is further away from the artist to see the images in the background. The images and footage will narrate the couples relationship to convey memories they have had, while the artist is the focus, singing to the camera. 

With these variety of shots, we will also take shots around the artist instead of just one place, so we do not deter the audience by using a dull sequence of shots in the same position. 

Camera movement

For movement, we are going to be using a tripod to get steady shots, but will be also using handheld at times to create tension in the video, and represent the artist's frustration with how her relationship is going. We will also be using handheld for the footage that will be used in the background to represent memories (such as holding hands and hugging) as this will make the camera look like home footage that is personal to the artist: this reflects her looking back on her memories. We can also use dolly movement and tracking shot to follow the artist so the focus is on her, but we also plan to keep the artist in a certain position in the centre of the camera using direct address, with effects in the background to emphasis the narrative of the lyrics and emotions from it. Zoom in's can also be used to emphasis a moment in the video that is important for the audience to notice, or to allow the audience to see more detail of a part of the mise-en-scene that has symbolism or meaning (such as images of hearts to symbolise love). Zoom out will help let the audience see more mise-en-scene in the video to understand what is going on around the artist and relate to the song. In our case, we have a song on heartbreak, so the mise-en-scene will be sad and depressing. 

Camera Angles

For camera angles, we were thinking of using high angles to make the artist look vulnerable as she is wounded from her heartbreak. Dutch angles can also be used to create an edgy look to the video, and communicate to the audience that the audience is feeling nervous and sad. 

Theoretical Study into Audience: Uses and Grafitications

Blumler and Katz argued that audiences are ACTIVE not PASSIVE and approached and use media products for the following reasons:

Diversion (a form of escaping from the pressures of life of every day)

Personal Relationships (where the viewer gains companionship, either with the television characters or through conversations with others about television)

Personal Identity (where the viewer is able to compare their life with the lives of characters and situations on television, to explore, re-affirm or question their personal identity)

Surveillance (where the media are looked upon for a supply of information about what is happening in the world).

Using this criteria - for what reasons would an audience appraoach/use your media product?

1). Are they going to be entertained? 
Editing of footage will work with the music, with cuts been made on the beats of the music to make sure the video flows with the song. We are also thinking of including many effects to make the visual elements of the video engaging. We are also looking for strong performance/acting from the cast we have picked to lip sync the music we have picked. We will include direct address with the artist to make the audience feel involved in the video, and make the emotions expressed by the audience more believable.

2). Personal Relationships
The song 'Love and War' by Rita Ora is about the fights within relationships, which will spark a debate between the audience on whether the artist is actually having any problems with their partner. A lot of artist's express their feelings and their experiences in songs to release the thoughts they have locked in their minds. They share their problems with the audience, and therefore we feel closer to them as they are basically sharing their problems with us like they would to a friend.

3). Personal Identity 
The song's subject matter raises questions on the artist and the issues they are raising. In our video, we will raise awareness of fighting in relationships, which will question the audience on their own relationships and the importance of them. Anyone else who is also facing hardships within their relationship will watch our music video and relate to it. They will feel every word of the lyrics and take it on board to express their own feelings. The video will help to emphasis the meanings of relationships in the song by using different micro elements to create symbolism, mood and representations, such as low angle shots to make a person look vulnerable. The video is also used to show the artist is also in the 'same situation,' which makes people look up to them as they believe that they are facing the same problems they are.

4). Surveillance
The media is hot on many artist's heals to get juicy stories and gossip, but also to find out more about them: whether it would be their musical career or personal life. When the media get news on their personal life, the audience feel closer to them because from this, they can see that they do not have perfect lives either like everyone stereotypes them to be. When it comes to their musical career, the artist has their own unique image that the audience can recognise them by and take inspiration from to influence their own style (therefore, advertising the artist's image). In our music video, the artist's image will be casual, but fashionable to attract a teenage audience: the fact that the artist is female will attract males. The issue of relationships is also similar to those faced by teens, so they will listen to our music video as the subject can relate to them.

Lighting Ideas Inspired by other Music Videos

Due to changing our plans on the style of our music video, we have had to think of alternative ideas. We discussed that we didn't want a narrative, so we are going to create a video that has more effects and focus on the artist.

I have had a look at many different music videos that do not have a direct narrative. Last lesson, we discussed that we liked the ideas of using a lot of lighting in the music video, so I tried to get videos that had effective lighting effects. I came across 3 videos that I thought had effects that could be good to use in our music video:

We Found Love - Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg00YEETFzg

In this video, a projector has been used to project filmed footage in parts of the video throughout on top of Rihanna. The footage is of clouds, buildings falling and isolated land which connotes the idea of feeling depressed and breaking down. It reflects well off Rihanna and creates a unique way of using lighting to connote furthur ideas and emotions of the artist. We could use this to achieve the same effect.

Airplanes - B.O.B. featuring Hayley Williams 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn6-c223DUU

In the video, lighting is used to create silhouettes of Hayley Williams, the artist who features in the video. This makes her figure stand out, but the dark lighting also hides her identity like she doesn't want to anyone to see the state she is in. However, it could connote that she is in a dark place as well, which is similar to the mood we want to express in our music video.

There is also overlays used in the video of lightning over the top of footage which I thought would be effective to create a dream-like feel that represents the artist is being thoughtful and thinking about her relationship.


There is also flashing lights in the video to create tension with different light filters. This picture shows a blue light filter over the artist to make the atmosphere look sad and cold.

Ring the Alarm - Beyonce 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_mrU8MPfI

In Beyonce's video, she also represents herself as hurt and broken as her partner is cheating on her with another woman. They use red lighting in this video to represent her anger. The light moves like a search light, which could be good for our videos as search lights are used in war, and could reference the war aspect in 'Love and War.'

Beyonce is also filmed in the corner of a room with only a little light. It looks similar to a spot light which would also be good for the war reference. The location of film in this picture makes her look cornered and vulnerable, which is the macro element we would like to express as the song has depressing lyrics.

Micro Elements - Editing

Editing is the stage where the camera footage has been shoot, and is cut and manipulated with effects and transitions to create the final product. There are many techniques within editing to create a film, which can be used to create an effective music video:

• Graphic match
• Eyeline match
• Continuity (Action match) 
• Shot reverse shot
• Cut away
• Jump cuts 
• Cross-cutting (cutting between two scenes of action that happen in two different locations. The characters normally meet up at the end)
• Parallel editing (similar to cross-cutting, but edits between two different shots of action around the same location). 
• Slow motion 
• Ellipsis (when unnecessary action is cut out because it is not needed to tell the story)
• 180 degree rule
• Text (Title, actors, credits)
• Transitions (dissolve, screen wipe, etc)

Amateur Vs Professional

In this post, I will be analysing the differences and similarities between a students music video, and professional one by a famous artist. I will be analysing group 13Q1-50 video on the song 'Thinking Man's Session' by The Nextman, with a professional video from called 'Dilemma' by Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland.

Student Video



This video does not have a particular narrative, but amplifys the song with the micro elements fitting to the beat. The genre to this music video is Hip-hop, and stereotypes of it have been put forward into this video with the mise-en-scene, cinematography and editing, so the music video can be identified easily of it's genre.

Professional Video



Nelly is known for doing music mainly in Hip-hop, pop and R'n'B, and is a famous male singer and rapper. The song above can be considered as R'n'B or Hip Hop, which means both video's have music video's set on the same genre. Unlike the top video, this one has a narrative about a new girl who moves into town, and Nelly sets his eyes on her. They get together after a few complications, and it turns out to be just like a happy ending, like in the films. This has elements of film with the romantic narrative, and the use of text in the beginning to introduce the stars and the title of the song. It's similar to how actors and the main title are introduced in films. There is also film techniques used in the camera work and mise-en-scene to make the video look more professional. This gives the music video a Hollywood effect where the song narrates the video and the character's feelings.

 

Micro Elements	Similarities	Differences
Camera	Handheld camera movement.	Movement looks smoother in professional video.
	They both use different camera angles such as low angles.	The student video uses dutch angles to create tension whereas the pro doesn’t. The pro also uses high angles, where the student dosen’t.
	Variety of shots.
	They both use camera movement.	There’s more variety of camera movement in the professional video compared to the student, such as cranes. It is also smoother in movement.
	Both videos have the artists talking to the camera.
	The camera quality is not as good as ones used in professional videos as they are on a lower budget.	The quality of the camera is more professional in Nelly’s video compared to the student.
Editing	The camera footage is edited to the music.
	No text.	Text is used in the professional video to introduce artists and song title.
	Parallel editing is used to go from different locations and time periods.	There are more locations and settings in the professional music video compared to the student one where it is based around a housing estate.
	Dissolves
		Student video uses fast motion at times, while the professional one uses slow motion.
	They both use effects.	The student video uses more effects such as reversing and repeating movement
	They both use jump cuts and match on action.	The professional video uses more matches on action, while the student video uses more jump cuts.
Mise-en-scene	Costumes are very similar with the baggy t-shirts and trousers, with hats and ‘bling.’	There are females in the video, so girly and tight fitting costume is used to highlight their figures.
	Both videos are shot in a neighbourhood which will relate to the audience as we do not live the life of a celebrity.
	There are no definite female characters. One is seen in the music video, but is wearing clothes similar to the boys rather than tight or girly clothing like in the pro video.	There a female characters in the video.
	There is a duet in the video that take turns singing.	There is also a duet in the professional video, but one of them is a female. Both people in the student video are boys.
	There is a difference of location variety and characters in both videos. In the student video, they do not have many locations or cast as the professional.	There is more and bigger location in the professional video as they have a higher budget. This includes the amount of cast members because of the same reasons.
	There are gangs of men/boys in both videos.