Evaluation

For this project, we had to each make a music video, and create a digipak complete with artist brand identity that had a linking theme. I decided to make a music video for my song which I wrote. I started out with a basic knowledge of video editing, on Adobe After effects. This project has pushed me to learn more about how to use the software, to a higher standard. For example, in my foundation project we had to do a movie opening sequence. This was the first time I had ever used after effects, I had to learn how to make basic to intermediate effects, such as radial blurring, colour balancing, editing, fading in and out, overlaying two pieces of footage. Now as I have gotten used to the programme, I can work faster because I know what to do, also I can now add a lot more effects properly, because I have been practicing with them, effects such as noise and grain, fractal noise, and making the footage pulsate and swirl around. I decided I wanted to use a green screen in my music video, I had no prior experience with using one, so I taught myself using YouTube tutorial videos, and researching on Google. Through this I gained a good level of knowledge of how to do it. I also had a very basic knowledge of how to use Photoshop, so I had to learn how again with internet tutorials, so that I could edit the photos that will go into my digipak to a professional looking standard. I researched music videos of a similar genre for inspiration, to get ideas for what sort of story I should have, and what types of locations to film at. I also researched marketing and branding of artists, I learned about how artists use certain hooks to attract an audience, for example you find your target audience, mine is university students that would be into phsycadelic things, like hippies, so my whole brand identity is based around phsycadelia. I used colour heavily to give my work that phsycadelic effect, enhancing colors and adding more, I also distorted the images and video footage with swirls, and pulsations, and laying footage over other footage, this created a trippy effect that links in with old school phsycadelic music videos and artists from the 60s and 70s. Artists such as the wooden shjips, Jefferson Airoplane, Pink Floyd etc… One picture I edited it to look like it was hand drawn, and like I was melting into the wall behind me, I was wearing round glasses, so I made the glass green, to give it the notion of looking in, ie the artist sees the world in a tripped out way, and that my mind is a strange place. It added a sense of mystery to the artist. I also learned about logos, and how artists always have one or 2  logos on all of their albums, posters and merchandise. To create mine I used a font website called dafont.com, my text has two tones in it, this helps to make it stand out more against any back ground, and will create a bigger impact on the audience.

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

My product uses conventions that you would find in rock videos, and the style is phsycadelic, which is integrated in many other artists in the music industry. For example, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and the Wooden Shjips. It challenges mainstream story lines because of the final chase scene, where  the coked  up character is chasing a girl through the woods at night, it challenges the scope of what can happen within the phsycadelic style – because that’s all about peace, and taking life easy, not going crazy and chasing people. Also the drugs in the video don’t really fit into the phsycadelic category, but I think it’s this binary opposition that makes the video work well. The artist is a really laid back, chilled out guy – this can be representative of LSD, and the character in the story is a crazy hyped up person with no self control – which is representative of cocaine.  It challenges the convention of costume and artist appearance – because he’s not really wearing such nice clothes, or 8 different costume changes – this is a message to people that they need to get back to the music, not like an artist because of the way they look.

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

I think that my main product and my ancillary task work really well together. They have a continuous theme running through them, and the style is all noticeably the same. They complement each other well, and I think they would create a strong visual impact on the audience, and they link each other very well. They are linked by the artwork that is layed over the pictures, the colour editing and the text are all the same. The costume i wear in them is also all the same so its quickly identifiable as a part of the purple epidemic project. 

. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I had a screening of the video at my house, and a few other places for a bunch of friends, and a few teachers at my school. I’ve learned that audiences like it when a video has a strong narrative that they can understand, because if its too confusing they don’t like the song so much, and it detracts from the artist credibility. I have also learned that it is not good to show explicit scenes, because then not many people will want to see it, and there then becomes a parental guidance aspect to it, so the value of the video is decreased. Some of the older people i showed were quite shocked that i portrayed drug and alcohol use in the video. One of the comments i got was, "this shouldn't be seen by kids". I decided to leave the end scene ambiguous to the audience, because it also leaves the audience to think more about possible endings. Also because i have filmed it with boys dressed as girls, the video now has a tongue in cheek feel to it, like i find female abuse funny, but id like to confirm that i do not find sexual abuse funny at all. I had no choice in using a boy, because all the female actors i had cancelled on me. So because it was boys, the acting naturally had a more playful flow, where as if there was a girl, it would be serious. 

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

Construction – I learned a lot about how to use Adobe After effects and Adobe Photoshop. I gained skills in video editing and photo enhancement and editing.  I learned how to use a green screen and how to edit it in to look believable.

Research and planning – I used YouTube videos to gain knowledge about music video theory, and to find inspiration for what I want to do. I also used YouTube to learn how to use software’s that I was unfamiliar with, for example how to use green screen and Photoshop. I learned how to use prezi to make more visually interesting presentations, i also learned how to embed the prezis into this blog. 
I used Sound cloud to find a target audience for the music i write, i also learned from sound cloud about how to market music, with tags and sharing other artists music.

All in all, i like the way the video turned out. I set out with the intention of trying to make the video more mainstream than my previous works, which were really weird. But some innate force within me subconsciously took over me, and i couldn't help it turning out non mainstream. Im happy that that happened though, however, its in the middle between weird and mainstream, so i don't think its reached its full potential.