How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Q4

What have you learned from your audience feedback? Q3

throughout the whole process of planning, researching and constructing, I carried out numerous amounts of audience research to help me make my video the best it could be and to see what they liked about my own video. The audience researched really helped
Create line charts

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? Q2

Evaluation Q2 from emily whittaker

evaluation Q1

Evaluation question 1 from emily whittaker

digipak

construction of digipak

I started by making a blank template so that my picture was spread out equally. I used pictures that I took when I went to brick lane, I took an interest in the graffiti and decided I wanted to use it on my digipak. 

After creating the template I then got my picture and spread it over the three columns and then cropped the three different parts of the picture (side, middle, side) to fit into each box. 

 I knew what the album covers of my chosen band looked like so I decided to go along the same line and have something simple but also eye catching.

I like my digipak, I think it looks well structured and eye catching. Some people may not get the idea of the picture used, I will explain that I used this picture because it almost gives off that tourist vibe which is what my album is about and with the London underground logo it backs up my idea even more as you would get the idea that tourists are always traveling and going from one place to the other. 

magazine advert

evaluation question 1

Evaluation question 1 from emily whittaker

constructiion of magazine advert

When constructing my magazine advert, I used Adobe Photoshop to do this. I used a picture of my shoes by the edge of the train track, to me this represents living life on the edge which is how I imagined my album being about.

I filmed my attempts on photoshop where aI experimented with some of the features. I wasn't fully confident using photoshop so this resulted in me only filming the start of my construction and then took a screenshot of my final piece.  At first I wanted to make my magazine cover black and white but i thought the picture I took looked better without being black and white because of how nice the colours went together.

I used images from google such as the itunes logo so that I could insert it onto my magazine advert to make it look more realistic. I then put two comments from Kerrang and NME and gave it some ratings using some stars.

I used Kerrang and NME because I knew that from

my research that Catfish have appeared on both these magazines

and they are both rock magazines and they both have radio stations

so they are well known. 

final music video

audience feedback

audience feedback
Create bar charts

editing the music video 2

The second time I edited the music video, I was a lot more confident and able to do it on my own. Due to the setback from the first time editing, I was under a lot more pressure to edit the video as I had very little time.

I focused on getting all the shots into place and matching the lip syncing to the words of the song and began adding transitions in to make the music video flow. I used Quicktime player to film an example of adding transitions to my music video but the quality of the footage isn't the best.

The editing went a lot better than it did the first time which I was happy about and made it my mission to have this completed as quick as I can but also the best I can.

editing the music video 1

Before I began editing my music video, I re-watched the footage and arranged how the video would go in terms of the patterns of the shots. I then had to download the song I was using for my video and that took a while as a number of the mp3 converter sites were either blocked or wouldn't let me download the song with out subscribing and paying money. Eventually I was able to get the song and start editing properly, to edit I used Adobe premier pro which is what I used for other videos that required editing.

 I found using Adobe Premier a bit difficult as it had been a while since I used it so it did take some time to get used to using again, I got help from class members and teachers in order to help me get used to editing on Premier Pro again. 

Overall the first day of editing took a while to actually make some progress due to the decrease in my knowledge on how to use Premier Pro. although that was the case, I was still able to edit some footage which is always a start. I enjoyed editing and learning everything again as It has made me more confident in editing again. 

Filming the music video day 2

The second day of filming, we went to Southend to film some more shots that would look more interesting and fun as there is a massive theme park there which we could use to create some really fun shots for my music video. We were filming there for about 4-5 hours just choosing good places to film some shots and making sure that they were suitable, once again the weather was perfect for filming but it did get very cold which meant I wanted wrap up and stay warm which meant what I was wearing for the video was covered.

During the filming we did not encounter any conflict, we stayed very focused and wanted to make sure that we were doing our best to produce good footage. When we got back from Southend, we sat down and looked at the footage and deleted footage that we thought shouldn't be used or wasn't good enough and narrowed our footage down to about 51 videos from 106 videos.

Overall our second day of filming was very good, it also gave me confidence as I knew I had some fun looking shots for my video to liven it up a lot more so it wouldn't look so boring. It did take a log time to get good shots as we didn't want them to look like they were just done quickly whilst we were out. Instead we planned what we were going to do in each shot so it didn't look like a vlog.

filming the music video day 1

the first day of filming, myself and cameron (the person who is in my music video) set off to a park in order to collect footage of us both having fun and messing about. We filmed various different things including wildlife in the park and each other. The weather was great for filming in which meant we didn't have to cut the filming short due to bad weather, after filming in the park we went to my house and began to film the actual lip syncing part of the video. I had Cameron use an acoustic guitar and had him sit down infront of the camera, with the camera moving around him and even filmed him from the side so that i had a range of different camera angles in my music video.

 Cameron struggled with the lip syncing as he couldn't remember all the words to the song. This stressed me out a lot as I knew I only had limited time but it also affected Cameron as I was getting angry with him which resulted in him not putting 100% effort in. We soon resolved the conflict between us and were able to carry on filming without any major problems in the way.

Overall, the first day of filming was fun even though there was a bit of a rough patch towards the end. I was able to collect all the footage I needed on that day and also tried out a lot of new camera angles and movements.

editing to the beat

This exercise allowed us to get to know how to edit videos to the beat of the music.

rough cut

After the change of idea we began to film the music video, halfway through filming we looked at some of the footage and noticed the quality of the image was not clear and had black lines going through the picture due to the lights that were on during filming. After discussing this with my teachers we agreed I should borrow a school camera instead to film my music video.

 To make it asier for myself to pick specific parts of the clip that I wanted to use for my video, I used the letters I and O in my keyboard. I is pressed to start selecting sections of the clip and you will know because a green bar shows up and when I have the section of the clip I need, I then press O and it will look the same as the image above.

I chose to layer the clips as i could keep adding different parts of each clip onto the same row when I needed to, this makes the process a lot more easier that keeping all the clips on the same row. 

People said that the lip syncing was really good in my rough cut but because its only a short sample they couldn't say much about it. 

production meeting 4

for my 4th production meeting, I met with my friend to help him learn the lyrics of my chosen song as he was unfamiliar of it and to also talk about what I wanted from him when filming him for my video. To get him to understand my needs, I showed him the music video for my chosen song so he could get an idea of how he should position himself, move about and where he should look which he found a lot more helpful. we then took a few practice shots to see if he was comfortable and then arranged the dates that we would be shooting the music video.

audience research

audience research
Create bar charts

Audience reception

audiences all have different ways of receiving and responding to texts. the variety of effects generate a number of different responses. It is seen in a way that characterises and groups the audience interpretation.

Encoding Decoding Theory

• Stuart Hall, 1973
• The producers encode meanings/ideology into texts which the audiences then decode. 
• Audiences are known to be active when it comes to their interpretations and can either reject or accept the message the producer is trying to spread across.

Texts are able to be decoded through the use of body language  to understand emotions or relationships. they have multiple different meanings which are all able to be decoded in various ways. The message that is sent across will be interpreted in many different ways by different people. 

Preferred reading- Audiences will agree and accept what the producers are encoding

negotiated reading- Audiences will usually only partly agree with the encoded message

oppositional reading- Audiences will reject/disagree or decode the text in a different way

Example; 

Preferred reading ;

This is intended to encourage the feeling 

of hunger or craving for fast food. Audiences will 

get this feeling when passing by a McDonalds 

chain and want to go in and buy food. 

Negotiated reading; 

Audiences will usually go to 

McDonalds and enjoy having a Big Mac. Those

who are health conscious may tend

to respond with annoyance or anger, but they 

understand having it once a month isn't going to be damaging.   

Oppositional reading; 

"He is purple- the gay pride colour

and his antenna is shaped like a triangle which

is the gay pride symbol" 

"Tinky Winky also carries a magic pink bag"

"Modelling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children"

Grime 

a huge majority of audiences believe grime is about encouraging gangs, drugs and gun violence towards young people, this is more likely to be the oppositional readers. negotiated readers and preferred readers are more likely to listen to the music and realise that grime artists are not encouraging bad behaviour and instead they are telling people about their upbringing around gangs etc.  

This genre of music can benefit from being decoded as many people believe its used to promote negative things but if it were to be decoded properly people would find that they are rapping about drugs and violence but they are talking about how it affected them growing up. If anything grime has been used to send a message to young people about being streetwise and not trusting someone if your heart is telling you not to.

A model of the Media

The Media Practice Model is a media effects construction used within the main areas of mass communication. This model was developed by Jeanne R. Steele and Jane D. Brown in 1995, and it takes a practice perspective which means that it focuses on everyday activities and routines of media consumption.

Text: This is what media product is going to be produced by a company. It's the very beginning of the process where ideas are written down and they come up with what the product is going to be about. For example, if a film company wanted to bring out a film, they would need to start of mind mapping ideas, designing characters and so on. 

Audience: This is when the company thinks about how they are going to get the audience to watch/listen or visit their product. They thing about what they're going to do to get the audience interested, how are they going to do this, why they are doing in they way they have decided, where will they be doing this and what the outcome will be.

Financial transaction: This means that whatever media product has been brought out, the consumers will always have to pay for it for example if it was a film they would pay at the cinema, if it was a video game people will be purchasing it from GAME, HMV or on their consoles to play it. 

Produce, distribute, exhibit and market: media institutions such as Netflix, Sky, ITV and the Big 6 are the ones who produce the product, market the product and get it out to places it needs to be. They also receive money for their product and if it is a success, they will receive high figures that can be used towards their next product. 

Change of plan

I had a meeting with the band members and my team about having a day where we can shoot the video and it has been decided that I will no longer be doing the band version of the song as nobody can make it and instead I will be doing an acoustic version of the same song. This will be a lot more easier for me to get done quicker and shoot some more intimate shots to go with the speed of the song.

Alex Southam

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was known as one of the best music artists of all time, he was known for his artistic videos, amazing dancing and perfect singing.

“Rock with You”  1979

After being in the The 'Jackson5' Michael went on to being solo and released his first song called 'Rock With You.' This video is very sophisticated and uses he has focused on costuming and lighting for this music video. In terms of the theory of Andrew Goodwin, Jackson's video includes numerous close ups of his face that can develop a motifs which can recur across his work.

"Billie Jean" 1982
After 'Rock with You', people began to want to hear more from him which led to 'Billie Jean' being released. First interesting Pop Video that tells a story and does more than just Lip Syncing and everyone loved the song and especially the music video. In terms of Goodwins theory, this video makes an intertextual reference to a film as the set up of the music video looks as if it was a film set and the whole story of the music video is exactly like a film it contained buildups, excitement and suspense.





"Beat it" 1983
After 'Billie Jean' everyone was amazed by Michael Jackson and wanted to hear more from him as he was making his way to the top of the podium and music charts. He then released 'Beat it' which is different from his past music videos and this one showcases his dance moves. In this music video there is a relationship between the visuals and lyrics which is known as as illustrate, this is when Music videos can use a set of images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics & genre, this is the most common.



"Thriller 1983"
This was Michaels biggest song,  he music video is considered the most famous music video of all time, at least by the Library of Congress, which added it to its National Film Registry in 2009, the first music video in their registry. he long version of "Thriller" runs nearly 14 minutes, but had remarkable longevity, easily racking up over 100 million views when it showed up on YouTube. MTV usually ran the short version, which ran a little under five minutes but still contained about a minute of non-song content in a storyline that omits most of the movie the couple is watching at the beginning. In this video there is an intertextual reference to films, at the start of the video they are watching a film and during the music video the film at the start is brought to life almost.

“Bad” 1987

Following “Thriller” he was the biggest pop star in the world. His videos made the news. The video of “Bad” was a major event. Shown for the first time on BBC. Many people were so excited and wanted to see his new image and new dance moves. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close-ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

"The Way You Make Me Feel"  1987

Laura Mulvey’s theory relates to classical Hollywood cinema. However, we can apply some of her ideas to our work on the pop video.

The male gaze =

women viewed as the objects of male erotic desire – in film and audience

men active / women passive.

Women do not   have agency – they do not move the plot forward.

The audience is forced to identify with male gaze.

There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals which i believe is amplifying, the video does relate to the lyrics but not 100%.c

“Black or White” 1991 ($4,000,000 – Today $6,925,000).

• The pop video was very expensive and inventive.
• Used to try and resurrect his career (allegations of being ‘strange’)
• Problems with his image – white skin.
• Serious message.

the video is linked with the video which is known as illustration.

Scream  1995 Cost $7,000,000 (Today $10,834,000)

Jackson began to lose his streak of great videos and therefore led to him making a video with his sister Janet Jackson who was getting bigger at the time. this video has an intertextual reference to a film of some sort for example a sci-fi film.

Case Study 2; Emil Nava

Emil Began as a runner for film production companies in his early stages. He then went on to Work for Blink Productions and now he is working in freelances for OB Management.

After working as a runner he then graduated to Assistant Director where he would manage the video shoots. He signed to Academy who are the biggest music video production company and then worked for Between the Eyes and now works mainly for Pulse.

• Emil’s first budget was for the band Kid British and the track Our House
• Budget - £20,000
• Location – Manchester
• Cast – local people
• 1 day for filming
• 2/3 days for editing
• 10 days pre-production

Emil then went on to become a music video director and was interviewed by different companies where he would give advice on being a music video director. He then went on to direct Jessie J's music video 'Wild' and Rita Ora 'Shine ya Light'

• At his busiest Emil has made 24 music videos in one year
• When he began shooting videos for independent labels the budget would be as low as £5,000 to £10,000
• His most expensive video to date has been for Jessie J and the budget was £160,000
• Has now begun to make adverts, which generally have a far higher budget and production values but which allow for less creative freedom.

• Ed Sheeran 'Lego House'
• Client Atlantic - Director Emil Nava

Emil’s Top Tip

• Use Extreme Close Up on faces wherever possible
• Do not shoot whole of video in medium shot/long shot
• Example – Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares to U

Godley & Crème - Cry

• OB Management work as agents for music video directors. They describe themselves as, “ three straight up dudes who work out of Denmark Street London”.
• Their aim is to:
• Nurture talent
• Work with production companies
• Work with record labels
• Match the right director to the right artists

Case study 1: Jamie Thraves

• The name of the director I am studying is Jamie Thraves.
• He started off making short films at University
• Used award-winning short film as a ‘calling card’ to get a ‘foot in the door’ with the video production company Factory Films
• Began by shooting three very low budget music videos that cost about £5,000 each.

Thraves submitted two treatments for two of the best music videos ever.

• Radiohead- just
• the budget for the video was £100,000 
• shot in 3 days

• Coldplay- The Scientist
• £200,000 budget
• Shot in two days

Jamie used his experience in making music videos in order to get into the film industry and so far he has shot 3 features;

• The Low Down 
• The Cry of the Owl 
• Treacle Jr

Jamie's top tips were;

• Use the lyrics but try not to be too literal
• Most importantly, go with the emotion of the lyrics

Jamie Thraves also directed Katy B 'Broken Record'

The video is about her coming out of a relationship and him still playing on her mind and her not being able to get over him. 

and Tom Odell 'Another Love'  which is a video about a relationship between two lovers, the song exposes the individuals turmoil by showing their affection for one and other when being held down by lingering feelings of sadness from a previous relationship they had.

sexism in music videos

• In 2013 “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke and “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus provoked controversy.
• Lily Allen’s “Hard out Here” video parodied black music videos that reduce black women’s bodies to lurid props.

The theory suggests that the male gaze denies women human identity, relegating them to the status of objects to be admired for physical appearance. The theory suggests woman can more often than not only watch a film from a secondary perspective and only view themselves from a mans perspective

Mulvey states that the role of a female character in a narrative has two functions

1. As an erotic object for the characters within the narrative to view
2. As an erotic object for the spectators within the cinema to view

The characters that look at others are seen as the active role (male)

The characters that are to be looked at are passive (female) They are under control of the males gaze and only exist for visual pleasure.

Females often slow the narrative down, they act as inspiration for men to act.

Males on the other hand, push the narrative forwards and make things happen and are seen as active.

Female Objectification

Objectification is related to the gaze

The persons gazed at are objectified, treated as an object whose sole value is to be enjoyed or possessed by the voyeur

Objectified characters are devalued and their humanity removed.

A Patriarchal society means that the Men dictate all of the rules as they are seen as the dominate gender. Mulvey argued we live in a patriarchal society in which men set the majority of the rules and construct and represent the ideal visions, roles and male dominance over woman. The worry that the industry have is a passive audience will be influenced by this representation of reality and copy it and it will actually become reality if it hasn’t all ready.

The image seen here is how mulvey

 described how men see woman

Miley Cyrus 'Wrecking ball'

After Mileys contract with Disney ended she went on to make her own music, the change from being Hannah Montana shocked her fans as her music videos and lyrics had shown she isn't the same girl anymore. Miley had done this to tell people that she has grown up and isn't Hannah Montana anymore, she has found who she is and won't change. Sinead O’Connor warned Miley, “Not to let them prostitute you!” I believe Miley is being herself and letting herself go after so many years of being Hannah Montana who was sweet and innocent.

Lilly Allen 'Hard out here'



Lilly Allen's Music video in my opinion is a feminist video, although the video may not look like it the lyrics show that it is and the video is a mock of those woman that are objectified. The video does not defeat the idea of feminism, it instead shows what woman have to go through to be recognised and liked by others.

Robin Thicke 'Blurred Lines'



When Robin Thicke realised His single 'Blurred Lines' 20 Universities in the states banned this video because they did not agree with the lyrics nor the non explicit version of the video and did not want their students seeing this. The lyrics are said to be controversial and after having looking at the lyrics I got the idea that he was singing about trying to have his way with a woman by bringing her secret bad side out which some people found offensive. There are two versions of the video, one the girls are more covered up which is the one above but the other version the woman are topless. There are two versions because it would be inappropriate to be showing younger people an explicit video that would be played on music channels. In the video the woman are very revealing and pouncing around like they don't know any better which will indicate to some people that all woman are silly and have no respect for themselves.