Superimposed digipak

I have superimposed my digipak designs onto an actual CD case to display what it might look like in a real world environment.

Week Twenty Seven

Finishing off of evaluations, improvements to blog - finished products and details added to my planning posts, mostly a small paragraph for each post as a description.

ALL evaluation videos are now up. Evaluations 1-3 are vimeo videos whereas Evaluation 4 is a Prezi. They are accompanied by the written essay version.

Final Drafts

As the last music video to be posted about was the version with filters, I thought I would link the original version again, as the original is the version I intend use as my final draft. Here is the YouTube and Vimeo links respectively:

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

The Music Video

The media concepts of genre, narrative, institutions, representation, audience and overall media language can be applied to my media coursework – my music video for the indie band ‘Cults’’ single of ‘Oh My God’, as well as the digipak and magazine advert which accompanies it. In my music video, a girl dressed in an old-fashioned, white night dress is roused from her slumber by the sound of a ticking clock coming from outside. She leaves the constrains of her home to enter a world of revelry and magic, being led astray by a Carroll-esque ‘White Rabbit’ figure – the source of the ticking, to join with a band of nymph-like bohemians who party at the back of her unkempt garden. In a nutshell, it has been described as ‘Alice in Wonderland meets LSD’, and though it may appear relatively benign at first, the video could open up to discussions of voyeurism, corruption and debauchery and the effects of hallucinogenic narcotics. These topics are generally associated with a youthful, decadent style of living – often explored in the music videos and songs of current artists.

Essentially, my music video is in the ‘Illustration’ genre-category of music video, established by Goodwin. Rather than performance, my music video is entirely narrative and though the band do not feature, the music is linked to the visual action as the characters dance in sync with it and the lyrics tell of wanting to ‘go outside’ and ‘being stuck in the same ancient tradition’ - the monotony of every-day life, which is matched by the fact the protagonist escapes into the night with her new-found friends. Thus, the music video is an ‘amplification’ of the lyrics to the song and not a complete disjuncture. Therefore, my music video does not conform with Goodwin’s idea that lip-syncing is essential in music videos and mine does not contain a sense of repeatability either.

Nicholas Abercrombie describes genre boundaries as being ‘shifting and permeable’. My music video may adhere to this as on the outset is appears to be an escapist fantasy tale of a girl’s encounter with woodland nymphs. However, the genre can be blurred when the video is perceived as an account of a girl’s corruption into drug-taking and decadence, with the mystical factors actually being a representation of the hallucinations she envisages under the influence of drugs. Thus the genre is split between fantasy and social-realism – if perceived as a drug video. A moment where both the fantasy and social-realist genres collide is apparent during the protagonist’s ‘point of no return’ and her final corruption – accepting an unspecified drink from the persuasive nymphs. This could be viewed as either a homage to ‘Alice in Wonderland’s’; tea party scene and the ‘drink me’ bottle which causes Alice to grow to giant proportions. On the other hand it could be viewed as her rejection of a decent, clean lifestyle and the adopting of a reckless bohemian one. This is exemplified by the fact the nymphs regard her drinking from the tea with voyeuristic intrigue and perhaps triumph.

Music videos of a narrative format, conventionally follow a structure of beginning, middle and end – also known as Todorov’s narrative structure of equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium. I decided that I would conform to this structure as leaving the audiences without an end or climax may have made for an unfulfilling watch. However, there is not much of a strong equilibrium to start, as the ticking noise is the first thing to be heard, before the opening eyes of the protagonist, thus, the disruption of the ticking breaks the equilibrium almost immediately and establishes Barthe’s ‘enigma code’. The mysterious source of the ticking noise is the initial interest of the audience, also alluding to the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, who would often proclaim his tardiness. Disequilibrium occurs when the protagonist encounters the white rabbit who leads her off into the thickets. This is highlighted through the filter change in the video, which goes from a washed out sepia to a high contrast, glow. The new equilibrium occurs at the end, after the climatic dance of the nymphs which celebrates the protagonist’s integration with them, the music dies away to reveal a medium shot of snowfall over the protagonist. The confetti-snow then retreats backwards and the protagonist is left staring wide-eyed at the audience. This establishes the new equilibrium as it suggests that either the protagonist is now a nymph like her counterparts or that due to the retracting snow; she has either awoken from a dream or recovered from her hallucinogenic ‘trip’.  Unlike Propp’s character theory, the protagonist is in fact female and there is no romantic interest or reward. The corrupting force of the nymphs could be seen as corrupting though the lightness in my model’s expressions would suggest their actions as liberating rather than corrupting – thus they cannot be deemed the villains. Thus, the music video subverts the traditional roles of characters in accordance to Propp’s theory.

Laura Mulvey claims that the cinema positions the audience as male and that the ‘male gaze’ objectifies the female character on screen. This is true in my music video too, though there are elements of Mulvey’s argument which are subverted. Mulvey’s theory can be particularly linked to mainstream and hip hop genres which routinely portray scantily dressed and aesthetically pleasing females, often dancing behind the male performer in a suggestive manner. In my music video, females are not portrayed in this way, at least in not such a blatant and callous way – this can also be said for the majority of indie music videos, which often turn a blind eye to the desire for sex, power and wealth exuberated by hip hop musicians. It is evident that the protagonist in my music video is under some kind of scrutiny and of voyeuristic interest to both the audience and the rest of the characters. To start with, the music video begins with an extreme close up of her eyes opening. This is simultaneously an establishing shot, to portray the time setting as night through the fact she has abruptly woken up as if roused by a noise (the ticking). The next shot we see of her is her feet descending the stairs – clearly feminine feet with their red nail varnish and their bareness exemplifies her innocence. The camera then crawls upwards from a long shot, to reveal the rest of her body up to her head. Throughout the music video, the camera acts seemingly stalks the protagonist’s progress through the night and her joining of the bohemian-nymphs. A variety of close ups enhance the feeling of closeness we have with her. Whereas close up shots of her are intended to draw the audience more intimately to her, close up shots of the nymphs are intended to intrigue the audience and wonder at their strange masks and outlandish costumes. The Dionysian figure in the leopard shawl and crowned with a laurel wreath represents merriment and wine, just as the cult god he represents does. Greek mythology is also represented through the majority of the female figures, who are adorned with flowers, symbolic of feminism and fertility combining both Dionysian and Apollonian themes. Apollo being the god of music, this is also represented through the use of the tambourine in the video, an instrument often associated with gypsies and carnivals and other bohemian lifestyles. A male reveller in a ram mask is also present, representing the Greek mythological figures; ‘the satyrs’ – half men, half goat beings who were part of Dionysus’ cult. Other intertextual references are again aimed toward Alice in Wonderland, with the female protagonist, the white rabbit and the mad hatter character. The mad hatter in the music video subverts hegemonic norms due to the fact I cast the traditionally male character with a female. This was done to obscure the accuracy of Mulvey’s theory that the camera frames the male character watching the female. Though this does occur, it is evident that the female characters, including the mad hatter, are also framed watching the protagonist with interest, perhaps even more so than their mae counterparts. The female nymphs are the first to approach and apprehend the girl and can be seen tugging at her hair in wonderment. Gradually the male nymphs begin to do so also. This implies that in this bohemian world in which the protagonist has entered, patriarchal and hegemonic norms do not exist, with gender being completely irrelevant to power, painting the liberal lifestyle in a somewhat positive light. Though there is no power struggle amongst the nymphs themselves, there is one between the protagonist and them, a struggle in which the protagonist wins. At first, when she is fully surrounded, the camera shoots from a high angle to emphasize her vulnerability in a sea of bohemians. Towards the end however, in the final shot, she is portrayed from a slight low angle to indicate her victory through her liberation. Prior to her transformation, the camera establishes that a change is in progress by blurring the actions in front of the camera in order to portray both a light-headed and dream-like illusion. The fact that her costume has changed to a nymph-like dress which is shorter in cut and the fact she is now adorned with flowers is an indicator of her psychological change, she is also perhaps more glamorised to the male audience – indicating her corruption or integration (depending on how you look at it) into a freer lifestyle.

The Magazine Avert

The magazine advert conforms to conventional magazine adverts in the indie genre. Many of the real-world products I analysed either portrayed the band of promotion, or some kind of a conceptual message. I decided that due to the fact my band do not have a strong presence in the rest of the products, I would keep to my theme of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and use an image from the world of the music video. I also applied filters and edited a photo of my ‘White Rabbit’ figure in a way so that it looked retro – an aesthetic appreciated by indie audiences. I also conformed to other magazine adverts by providing outside opinions and star-ratings for the album. I provided a five-star rating from NME – a trusted source of indie music. I also included the new-technology features with mentions of iTunes and internet.

The Digipak

The digipak conformed to convention by continuing the theme seen on the magazine advert and in the music video – it had very much an escapist feel, with the use of photographs outdoors – and also a sense of the mystical through the foggy and retro-looking pictures. There was also a cover with a personal credits page, as well as all the necessary institutional details on the back. The front cover is typically the most visually attractive cover on a digipak and so I decided to conform to this by choosing a photo which conveyed the music video and album themes as well as show off mise en scene in order to capture shopper’s attention. 

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

The biggest change and challenge in terms of media technologies for me this year, was the hosting of work as an online, blog format. It was one of the first things to be set up and has overseen the project from start to finish. Though blogger was at first confusing to handle, the blog has proved to be a great way to display multimedia skill, an easy place to access work from anywhere and visually more interesting than showcases from projects before.

Due to the fact it was necessary to expand into web 2.0 for A2, it was essential that I find a variety of other online mediums to showcase work on my blog. I began to use video-hosting sites such as vimeo and YouTube to upload my music video, audience feedback, diary entries and also for evaluation videos. Blogger itself, proved useful for audience research and feedback through its  I also used soundcloud to put up short audio blog posts at times. I found vimeo was particularly good at hosting HD videos though both it and YouTube could be difficult to handle when uploading large videos to online. I would often have to put my YouTube videos into windows live movie maker as that was a speedy way of uploading videos online – with the movie maker automatically reducing file size. Other online mediums include the essential ‘prezi’ presentation-maker. I used prezi for my resource audit at the start of the project and for lyric analysis – both necessary parts of research and planning. When I did similar product research or research into my audience, I would often display my results on Microsoft PowerPoint, this would then be translated to an internet version via sites such as slideshare and scribd, which was particularly useful when uploading documents such as hazard checks and model release forms. After the completion of my products, I would also Facebook Chat to gather feedback or post my video there to garner comments and likes to measure audience approval. I found online social media to be the most reliable and efficient method of feedback due to its instantaneous response and due to the fact its users are so vast in number. Facebook was also a useful communicative device for my cast and crew. At first I created an ‘event’ page providing all the details of the first shoot and what they would need, as well as the general concept of the music video – a brief of sorts. When I realised I may need my cast and crew for reshoots and for administrative details, I decided that it would be easier to make a ‘music video group’. This meant I could communicate with my personnel concisely, efficiently and all together.

In production, I shot my music video and the photos for my ancillary tasks using a Canon 550D. The camera was also equipped with a cinematic shutter speed and the 1.8 aperture lens, allowing me to shoot in shallow focus for a more cinematic and artistic effect. As my music video was an outdoors night shoot, I used a large fill light to illuminate the location of the back garden. The light was connected to the house via extension cables to power them. Once I had finished shooting the footage, I placed them into Adobe premiere pro cs4 initially. I began to edit the footage off this, but technical problems occurred with the software, so I switched to the more reliable cs5 version. It was on this, that I did the bulk of my editing. I cut up my footage using the razor tool and used the ‘dip to white’ transition effect on the section where my protagonist enters her garden – to alert the audience in a change of atmosphere. I also manipulated the speed of several pieces of footage – at times it was necessary for me to speed up a shot to fit with the music. At many points the footage is slowed – most memorably in the ‘transformation sequence’, to maintain anticipation for the change. Once I had finished putting the music video together, I placed the exported video into Adobe After Effects where I applied three filters over them. In the end I decided I would use the original exported version as the filters gave off an ‘over-produced’ feel.

My ancillary tasks were produced on Adobe Photoshop cs4. For my back digipak cover, it was necessary for me to remove myself from an image I wanted to use (as my featuring would break the illusion of a film). I used the spot removal tool to blur away my presence and then refined it using the background erasers. I also manipulated my images by placing ‘clouds’ on them and decreasing the opacity so that I could create a retro effect. I also changed the levels of lights and colours and increased the contrast so colours were more striking by pulling or pushing the lighting curves. I added text via the text tool and used the same font ‘birch std’ on every piece I made, to create a sense of familiarity and continuity.

I also used Premiere Pro to create several of my evaluation videos, which I would then upload to my blog. The evaluations would start out as word documents, which would then be video-recorded or audio recorded. I would place these recordings into premiere,  edit out the unnecessary sections and then place footage and pictures over it in conjunction to the video or voice over. Once this was done, I uploaded my videos to vimeo and from there, embedded them into my blog.

My Magazine Advert appearing in NME

Below is a JPEG image taken with a Canon 550D. It depicts my magazine advert (printed out in it's actual size) and stuck onto one of the pages of the latest issue of NME. I did this to see whether my product would suit a real-world environment and look passable as a genuine magazine advert.

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

The target audience of my music video would typically be fans of indie music, more specifically to bands like Cults, in the noise pop genre. These listeners would also be attracted to music videos which did not necessarily show performance or even the artists – a notable trait in music videos by bands such as ‘Crystal Fighters’, ‘Boy & Bear’ and ‘Chad Valley’. This audience would typically fit within the 16-20s age range.

Without continuous audience feedback over the process of the products, it would be difficult to ascertain whether those you are targeting find your work appealing or not. Thus it helps to improve products and display development and the ability to improve.

The internet has proved to be a useful way of collating audience feedback over a variety of methods. Prior to creating my ancillary tasks of the magazine advert and digipak covers, I was eager to discover what my target audience would feel towards products which did not necessarily depict the artist. I also wanted to know how the concept of my music video would be received by audience members. Thus, I decided to create a poll of questions on my blog site on Blogger.com. I discovered from my survey, that 55% of my test subjects would rather a music video was visually striking than anything else – this then supported my trajectory -  as I was aiming for a visual piece rather than a special effect extravaganza or solely a narrative piece. 77% of my target audience also displayed an appeal for music videos with a narrative – however a small majority did display a greater appeal towards a narrative that involved the artist – thus I made an artistic choice against the majority of audience preference as my music video does not display the musical artist within it. 66% agreed that it was not important to see the artist on the digipak and magazine advert which provided me with the ‘all clear’, as it were, to create the ancillary tasks without the artist’s presence. I also learnt that the majority of those feeding back on my blog fell under my target audience, albeit from the younger end (77%).

Having completed the music video, I was compelled to create a version with filters on to enhance the visual appearance, though was uncertain of its effectiveness. I decided the best way to test its effectiveness was to screen it to a small selection of people - one occasion was recorded. This involved screening both videos alongside each other and having a discussion afterwards about which one my test subject preferred. I was careful to choose a test subject who fell under my audience age range and who also listened to some forms of indie music. It was unanimously decided that the music video without filters was better and thus I selected that version as the final and official version. The filtered version was deemed ‘of little effect’ and ‘over-produced’ and it was agreed the original version had enough visuals and mise en scene to create a mystical feel.  I also conducted an interview with two of my class peers, after screening the video to them. I asked them questions on the effectiveness of all my products and whether there was a coherent ‘house theme’. Their response was generally very positive, though faults were also highlighted. The interview was then placed on my blog alongside all other mediums of audience feedback.

Filming vox pops was anther useful way of ascertaining whether there was serious need for improvement or not. After my video was screened to my peers, three were selected to provide an opinion on tape. I also filmed the ‘screening night’ of my music video as part of audience feedback from the cast and crew involved in my music video. They provided their views on not only the finished product but my ability to direct them.

Internet social media was also an invaluable source of audience feedback. I utilised Facebook chat – an instant messaging service to garner information of how to improve my ancillary tasks. Response was therefore instantaneous and made use of limited time. I also posted the YouTube link of my music video to Facebook to see how effective my video was to a large number of my target audience. The video link gathered Facebook comments and likes which was a useful indicator of approval. I also managed to get one of my peers to broadcast my music video on their tumblr page so that I could reach a wider internet audience – the feedback was positive and praised the ‘magical’ feel of the video.

I hosted my music on the video-sharing site vimeo, as well as YouTube. Using YouTube statistics is also a good way to see the post-production audience response to the music video. Stats show that the video has been viewed by 453 people and there are currently 6 likes, with 1 comment which was from an unknown YouTube user. They provided feedback that the video was ‘good’ but would work well with more special effects. It is interesting to note that 53% of my audience are male, with 47% being female, meaning a higher male viewership. A vast amount of viewers have come from an embedded player – presumably the Facebook link, whilst there is a high level of viewers via Mobile apps. There is a high number of viewers from the 13-17, 18-24 and 45-54 age groups, meaning my video has reached my target audience.