Research into fonts

Preparation for Final filming day

I have written a detailed plan to follow for the final filming day which will make it easier to follow as I know what i'm doing from shot to shot.

The story behind my music video

Final Filming day

After receiving feedback from members of my target audience, myself and my group member decided to add some new footage into our music video. These shots will be added into our existing rough draft or used in our new music video if we are not able to incorporate the new shots.

This last piece of filming was done over 2 days, the first day I filmed with Nikita, our female actress and on Sunday I filmed the last fire shot by myself.

After receiving feedback from members of my target audience and my teacher we have decided to have the female in our video sing some of the lyrics to break up the narrative and make our video more enjoyable and appealing to watch. The picture on the left was taken during the performance part of the video, I decided to vary the location and have the female sing various parts of the song in different locations, once all the footage is uploaded myself and my group member will be able to sort through what shots should be used in our music video,

Lastly, I filmed the fire scene, in this scene the female is burning the scrap book which has picture of herself and her boyfriend, This shot will be used at the end of the music video and will be used to signify the end of the relationship, this was done so that our audience are able to easily understand our narrative.

Research into Indie genre (Indie Pop/ Indie Folk)

Indie Pop/ Indie Folk

Our chosen song  'Wild Horses' by 'Birdy' comes under the indie genre, more specifically indie pop with elements of indie folk. However, myself and my group member have decided to portray more indie pop music conventions than indie folk music as I believe it is more current, popular and would appeal more to our target audience. 

Conventions of Indie Pop music

- Settings

Indie music videos are usually low budget, they are likely to be in parks, filming studios and cities. These locations are easily accessible and allow more focus to be on the artist and allow the audience to focus more on the meaning of the song.

-Narrative

Narrative indie music videos are very popular as they tell a story which may be relatable to the audience. 

-camera shots and types

A variety of shots are used to allow the audience to see everything in great detail. Close up are used to draw the audiences attention to certain objects or props. Wide shots are also used mainly to establish settings.

Analysis of Birdy Wild Horses

Research into magazine adverts

For my first research into magazine adverts I chose to analyse Florence and the machines magazine advert for the album lungs.

 This advert included all the necessary information a person interested in buying the album would need, it is also very simple however it contains a strong link between the title and the imagery of the lungs outside the artists' chest.

Research into costumes and make up

After watching numerous music videos from our chosen genre it is clear to me that the most of the females wear natural makeup and some wear none at all.

Above is a screenshot of Ellie Goulding from her music video ' Your Song ' , its clear that the female either has no makeup on or very light, natural makeup. After watching many indie music videos whilst conducting my research I found that it was a recurring theme that females had little to no makeup on, which may be because it takes the attention away from the actual lyrics of the song or the narrative being shown,


We have decided to follow this convention and have our female actress wear very little makeup during the bad stage / end of her relationship. However, we chose to have her wear much heavier makeup during the end of the video as we want to portray her empowering herself and taking care of herself rather than others .

Females within the indie genre usually wear casual clothes, nothing too dramatic compared to other genres such as pop. Nikita will be in very plain clothing, a mixture of dark clothing and light clothing to reflect her different moods as the video and narrative progresses.

Filming Day 7

Today I filmed with Nikita and her boyfriend, we decided that it might be a good idea for her to also perform some of the lyrics to the song.

Evaluation question 1

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

From research and planning myself and my group member decided to follow Todorov's narrative theory. 

There are five stages the narrative can progress through:

1. A state of equilibrium (All is as it should be.)  - The female protagonist and her boyfriend are in a happy relationship

2. A disruption of that order by an event. - Her boyfriend begins to ignore her, not show up to dates which makes her feel worthless.

3. A recognition that the disorder has occurred. - The female becomes aware that the relationship is not going to work.

4. An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption. - The protagonist tries to contact her boyfriend to meet up, he fails to answer her texts. She finds the strength to end the relationship and move on.

5. A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium -  She is happy walking away from her failed relationship and decides to be single and start a new chapter of her life.

In researching narrative videos such as 7 years by Lukas Graham and ...... I identified this, in order to stick to our indie pop genre, I did follow Todorov's narrative theory, however I had to tweak some elements in order for our narrative to fit with the song and allow our audience to understand what was being portrayed.

When researching real media texts, I found the music video ' If you let me ' by Sinead Harnett. I liked the idea of broken glass, ripped paper and feathers on the floor. Although this music video is of a different genre myself and my group member decided to do something similar to illustrate to our audience that the female protagonist is over her past relationship. In this particular part of the video we used conventions of real media texts however developed them in order for it to fit with our genre.

In Indie music videos I found that female artists or female protagonist wear very little makeup, we decided to conform to this convention as we didn't want the makeup to hide the females emotions or mask her feelings when showing her strength or in particular when she is heartbroken removing the photos off the wall.

After receiving audience feedback, most of our audience didn't quite understand the narrative. I decided to include the female protagonist using the a prop ( scrapbook ) to tell the story, I found that this helped give my audience a clearer understanding. Most importantly, when the book and pictures were burning at the end of the video it allowed my audience to identify that the relationship had ended. The idea of the fire came from watching  ' Lana Del Reys - Born to die ' , although our video was on a much smaller scale I took the idea of the fire and decided to burn the book instead of a car.

What did I learn about the real media conventions for the Indie Pop genre?

In my research I found that, within the indie genre as a whole things are kept quite minimalist and simple. To be more specific, in music videos, things are kept simple so that the audience can focus on what story is being told/shown and what meaning is trying to be put across within the lyrics. Most videos tend to not include performances as it draws the audiences attention away from the lyrics. 

What did you learn about digipak conventions what have you included and why?

In my research I found that artists are more likely to use the same picture for their digipak cover and magazine advert. Digipak conventions included a bold image of the artists on the cover and same font used across the digipak. All digipaks include:

- Artist name

- Album name

- Song list

- Record Label

In order to conform to this I included all these elements and added a thank you message from our artist which I didn't find in my research. I included all these elements as I found that every artist included them as it gave their audience information.

What did you learn about real magazine advert conventions, what ones did you include and why?

I learnt that most magazine adverts were simple, they included all the relevant information about the album release such as; the album date and where the album can be purchased. I included all the main elements of what digipaks consist of, the album date, the main songs and the sites and app that can be used to listened to the album. However, I decided to change the image used on the front cover of my digipak to show different sides/ emotions of the protagonist.

Evaluation question 4

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

Evaluation question 3

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

During the production process I ensured that I received feedback from my target audience which allowed me to make sure that my final products appealed to them whilst also following the conventions of indie-pop genre, subverting and challenging them to make sure that our products were unique. This truly helped to shape most of our decisions as a team and had a huge impact on our final products. We received audience feedback from the planning stage of our products right through to the completion of all three of our products, which include the music video, magazine advert and lastly the digipak.
Audience feedback firstly allowed me to identify my target audience, females aged 16 to 25. From conducting research using questionnaires I was able to find out what my audience expect to see or look for in music videos, magazine covers and digipaks. Once my main target audience research was conducted I carried out smaller in depth research to gather more detailed and specific information so that I could create products that were effective and appeal to my audience. My audience feedback was gathered on a mixture of social media and small focus groups where i was able to gather more qualitative data in comparison to using a questionnaire.

This feedback from my audience showed me that I needed to pay more attention to smaller aspects of my products so that I can get my message across to my audience whilst creating products they like and appeal to them. It was evident that each of the rough copies of our products did not link very well together and all displayed different themes, this allowed myself and my group member to make these necessary changes in order for our final products to show a true picture of the image we wanted to portray which was strength and love.

Ultimately, audience feedback taught me that I needed to take time to plan what shots I was filming and take into consideration the different aspects of mise-en-scene to make my production work more effective. Also, I should have been asking more open ended questions to gather more information and improve my products instead of asking "  Did you like my magazine advert?  " .  Audience feedback on my earlier products taught me that there were no strong links between my 3 products and in relation to my ancillary texts, everything seemed to be all over the place and not fitting very well with my genre. I took was said by target audience into consideration and made the changes to my products whilst paying more attention to the conventions of the indie-pop genre. Rough copies of each of our three products were shown to members of our audience which allowed changes to be made before submitting our final products. Once our products had all been completed I continued to ask for audience feedback as I believe that when creating a product is important to know peoples thoughts and ideas of what they liked/disliked and what could be improved in the future.

Evaluation question 2

Editing

Whilst I took on the job of sorting through the footage I was able to see what footage we wanted and what we wanted to re-film. I was also responsible for editing the digi-pak and my group member, Jamie-Lee, had the task of editing the video. We split the task of editing the magazine cover as this was the easiest job to do.


Digi-Pak : 

My main role was to create and edit our digipak, I chose to have a pink theme throughout the digipak. The front cover is an image of our artist with clouds in the back, I chose to do this because I wanted her to be shown as lost ( head in the clouds) and due to nature being used heavily within the indie genre I chose to use a picture of a tree from my garden as the background for the album cover.




Magazine advert:

Here I am in the process of reconstructing our magazine advert from scratch, taking into consideration the feedback we received on our previous magazine advert.

Filming Day 6

After looking back at the footage we had gathered on previous days, due to various reasons some of the footage was either missing or unclear.
Today, at home, I filmed some medium wide shots and close ups of the female, Nikita.

Rough cut - audience feedback

In general, I recieved positive feedback from my audience. I asked my friends and family to watch the music video and tell me their thoughts, they all mentioned similar aspects of the video which they liked and disliked. I also recieved some written feedback on social media from people who didn't want to be filmed.

The majority of my audience mentioned that they didn't like how the screen cuts to black in between shots at the beginning of the video so myself and my group member will be changing this.

They all understood the narrative ( relationship ending ) however, they recommened that we should add more footage of the female and her boyfriend so it is clearer to understand.

It is extremely vital that our audience give feedback before we submit our final product. Therefore I have decided to continue editing the video and make these necessary changes.

digipak shooting

We used the filming studio inside our college to shoot the front cover, inside cover and the image used for our magazine.

Research into narrative videos

lukas graham - 7 years
james arthur - safe inside
ed sheeran photograph

Rough Cut

Research into record labels

Birdy's last album 'Beautiful Lies' which includes the song in our music video 'Wild Horses' all came under Atlantic Records. Myself and my other group member decided to also use this record label as it was a

Final Digipak