Year 13 Music Video Project

For my media project I produced a music video for Sara Bareilles’ ballad ‘Gravity’, a CD cover and HMV poster. I worked with Jennifer, Zoe, and Amy, although all three participants left half-way through the year. My target audience are females aged from 18 upwards. I starred in the video, and was chose for this role due to previous experience in acting on television and stage, and as part of my development in drama to assist me in my Performance Studies A-Level. I also edited the video, and Zoe and Amy shot most of the video with direction from Jennifer and me.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I think my project both uses and challenges conventions of real music videos. I think the effects are very like real media products such as ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay

, as in the use of slow-motion and the change in saturation and colour. I also included flashbacks like Alexandra Burkes single ‘Hallelujah’.

This video also builds up to a climax and the speed increases, like my product. Although, my media product does not have a singer miming towards the camera, I therefore based my idea on the artist Eva Cassidy, whose music videos didn’t happen to star her, as she died before they were made. So I used a model posing as the artist in the CD cover and poster who did not star in the video. My music video had a non-linear narrative whereby the flashbacks went from when they were younger to the present.
I based the mood and colouring of my CD cover (browns, yellows, deep reds) on Eva Cassidy’s single cover called ‘Time After Time’. It’s a very sombre mood, with Eva looking away from the camera, so I got my model to do the same.
I think my CD cover follows conventions of real covers such as the use of a large image, to identify which artist it is along with their professional name. With it being a single, I also included the song title ‘Gravity’, so that if it were being sold in a shop, a customer would know exactly what they are purchasing.

My poster also has a photo of the artist so that it catches the readers’ attention, along with the most important information in larger font such as ‘Gravity’ with it being the name of the single, and ‘HMV’ with it being the advertiser, therefore promoting the single and the shop. It follows the HMV poster conventions by using the image as the background of the poster, using just the artist’s face. The consumer is provided with information such as when the single comes out, who it’s by, what it’s called, and what it looks like so they can find it easily in the shop.

I believe my music video tallies with a quote from Joe Salzman (2000) “They now provide pictures for the songs in our heads. Goodbye, imagination… No need to think, to embellish, to create, to imagine.” I think this because my product is a narrative, and leaves little to the imagination (although it does not give away the full story or explain the illness which one of the girls has), but provides the images and story of the girls’ friendship. I think my video also supports with Andrew Goodwin’s theory that ‘There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics’, for example when the song lyrics read ‘you hold me without touch’, one young girl hugs the other girl in the video.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Considering the ways I have researched media products, and their techniques used to advertise and distribute their material, I believe both my main project and ancillary texts assisted each other and collaborated well to distribute my product in the right manner. Obviously, this is only one part of the promotional process of a product, if this were a real media product I would advertise on television, radio, and the internet, especially on ‘Youtube’ ahead of its release in shops, to distribute my product to a wider range audience.

The video would also be promoted and most likely sold on the artist’s website along with interviews and track samples. There could even be some kind of gimmick, for example, money off a tour t-shirt if you buy the single directly from the website. My poster would be advertised on the side of buses, in magazines, outside of theatres, on train interior windows to give it the best chance possible to be seen, before the release of the single in the hope to make it number one in the charts! Another important part of my advertising would be modern technology such as mobile phones as, in the age of Media 2.0, our world is promoted virally on the Internet and mobile phones, as my target audience is of an age range that favours this kind of technology, as well as the cast of the music video being of this age.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Initially, my audience were not emotionally connected to the video as they knew the actors were Jennifer and I, therefore knew it was not true. Also, my video was slow-paced which reflects the mood, and I therefore added the image sequence which is in high speed to increase the energy.
I took my audience ideas from the real music videos which I was influenced by, but felt I still needed to experiment due to the story being about two best friends.
I researched the audiences from videos from other young female artists who sing a fair amount of ballads, such as Leona Lewis, to see who the majority of her audience were.

To discover who our ideal audience were, we recorded various people of different ages watching it, and found that the reaction from boys aged between 16 and 18 found it humorous and felt no sympathy for the characters, for they could not connect with them, this could be because it is about two female best friends and it did not pull on their heart strings.
I had quite a significant reaction from the audience, which helped me decide the age range that my audience should be. The audience which were 18 or over, were quite taken back by the content of the video and some even had tears in their eyes, whereas the younger generation weren’t as emotionally attached to the video. A quote from a Performing Arts teacher Phil “...professional and heart-rending” and one audience member could not even watch the video till the end due to it being so sad. I did not expect the audience to react quite as sympathetically towards the music video, which I was pleased about. I believe feedback is one of the most important elements in producing a media product, as it is what makes your product successful by catering to your audience’s needs. It has helped me in the process of editing my product, as I asked the audience what they thought was more effective – de-saturation or the ‘Old World’ effect, and they agreed that the ‘Old World’ effect made more sense, as it makes the video look bleak and the actors pale, and if it were in black and white then it would look as if it was in the olden days, rather than just a few years prior.
The concluding reaction was that the audience thought the video was realistic, and that they could relate to the characters as they weren’t made to be over-the-top or profligate.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I followed the theory of ‘Uses and Gratifications’, which is an audience-centred approach. It is said that audience seek out media to gratify a need, as they could perhaps relate to a character in the video, to aspire to be them. In this case, I believe that an audience member could have possibly been through the same situation that the characters have been in, therefore becoming emotionally attached to the video. This could agree with Blumler and Brown’s theory (1972) explaining that one primary factor of an audience’s reason for liking certain music videos is:Personal Identity or Individual Psychology—Value reinforcement or reassurance; self-understanding, reality exploration.
My video is aimed largely at a female audience of around 18 and over. I constructed the video to appeal to them by using female cast members who are in their late teens, reminiscing about when they were younger, which I believe every girl does every so often. My product could be seen as having soap opera features such as the close up shots of the reactions, the emotional storyline and the female characters, which also attract a largely female audience, although unlike soaps, my video has a single narrative and closure. I wanted my audience to relate to the characters in the music video, therefore dressed them in everyday clothes, with them being the normal everyday people living a suburban life, rather than dressing them too formally or extravagant.

My video is very much based on Naomi Wolf’s idea, whereby I am critical of when a product uses images of attractive women to sell to a female audience, because they have been conditioned to aspire to stereotypical forms of beauty by a male, dominated society and they buy stuff to relate to them. My actors wear normal clothes and are not exaggerated in any shape or form, and relate to them more internally than externally.

With the CD cover I used a female on the cover, and a cursive font on the song title which could be seen as stereotypically ‘girly’ to attract my audience, and has connotations of femininity. My poster also had the image as the background of the attractive female artist, which could also perhaps attract males, and the accustomed HMV slogan ‘get closer’ to attract consumers.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used my blog to publicise my media product to not only colleagues, teachers, and examiners, but also the general public, of which many may be constructing their own media ideas on their personal blogs, and due to Web 2.0, I am able to view their projects. The idea of Web 2.0 means that I become a ‘prosumer’, meaning I can consume the work of others but produce my own with a potential audience of millions who can provide feedback. My blog being multimedia, consists of a combination of text and images, and includes ‘Youtube’ URLs for the reader to get a clearer idea of my project, as I used Youtube to researched music videos. A blog allows you to create various posts to show the different stages of your product, for example, image editing; I showed the process of the editing of the picture on my CD cover, and how and why I chose various colours and co-ordinations. I believe the blog made my planning more organised, as it was easy to use and you were able to save drafts of work that you didn’t want to publish. My posts were accessible so that I was able to edit them whenever needed.

Essentially, I was directing the film, therefore enjoyed the use of new digital Media, such as the video cameras. Due to previous experience in our ‘Get Carter’ project, I felt more comfortable advising the ‘cameraman’ on experimenting with various shots and angles to add different effects to the product. My role in the making of the product was Actor and Editor, therefore in the editing process I had a lot of important decisions to make in terms of effects, using iMovie.

Our music video is very sombre and sentimental, so I slowed a lot of the clips down to emphasise that mood, and added the ‘Old World’ effect to differentiate older clips from the more recent and adjusted the light balance when the girl is reminiscing about her past with her best friend. I lengthened the transitions so that they were the same pace as the music and the rest of the clips, and weren’t too sharp. The majority of my transitions were fades as they were the most relevant to the mood, and it symbolised her thinking about one thing to another. Musicality played a big part in my editing process, as I didn’t want to detach the music from the clips. Many of the clips related to the lyrics, such as when the lyrics read ‘You’re keeping me down’ one of the girls looks down in sadness. The lyrics were significant to the narrative, so as the song built up I increased the speed of the clips and did snap shots of the best friend’s life throughout the years, to build up the emotion and energy. I believe that in doing this, it would make my target audience more emotionally involved and really pull on their heart strings.

All in all, I enjoyed the production of my music video, although I had to work without my group near the end, I worked hard to make sure my product was finished and as good quality as anyone else with a full group.