Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Friday, 15 March 2013
Evaluation Notes
Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
·
Case studies and video (these are the elements
we used from case studies):
o Flatbush
Zombies – Face Off
§ The
use of tracking mid-shot used in which the main artist and the extras are
walking towards the camera as well as the camera moving back at the same
pace/time as the artist and extras.
§ The
use of a scene with the artist and extras moving along the same setting rather
than having them stationary in all of the scenes.
o Mos
Def featuring Talib Kweli – History
§ The
use of black and white and other colouring effects i.e. Prism to show key moments
of the video and song also to convey different feeling towards the viewer.
§ Using
depth of field so the viewer knows what the director wants them to focus on.
§ Filming
moving close-ups rather than a static close-up to keep the viewer’s attention.
It also keeps the feeling of movement in parts of the video with a slower
cutting rate than others.
§ Limiting
the number of settings used.
o Kendrick
Lamar – Rigamortis
§ The
cut rate of the video
§ The
range of shots used for the skateboarders being similar to that of the shots
used in this video of the trumpet players.
§ The
use of a constant house font and the font that they used is similar to the font
that we used for the title of the song in the video.
·
Case studies and CD cover:
o LONG.LIVE.A$AP
– A$AP ROCKY
§ Mid-shot
used
o Demon
Days – Gorillaz
§ Cartoon
on the front cover
§ Simple
image, not overly complex
§ Reference
to an old hip-hop album (Dr. Dre – The Chronic) in the same way that the
Gorillaz’s used The Beatles – Let it be.
·
Theory: Barthes’ codes:
o Action
Codes
§ The
main artist getting ready in the morning (he’s going somewhere)
§ Emphasis
on meeting the first extra (he’s going to meet his friends)
§ Spinning
establishing shot (time passing)
§ Lip
synching (it’s his song)
§ Eye
contact (addressing the audience)
o Enigma
Codes
§ No
enigma codes where used because the video is performance based i.e. no story
line
·
Representation:
o What
does our video portray / what message is there?
§ The
video portrays the average weekend for a young teen in London i.e. skating
round with your friends.
·
Props are also used to help show the
representation i.e. skateboards, clothing, etc. This all helps to connote the
skating life style
§ In
terms of a message it could be that not all teenagers are involved in drugs and
gangs because if this is a representation of the average black teenager then
the current stereotype is wrong and this video challenges the stereotype by
portraying what the actual norm is.
·
Other theories: Goodwin (1993):
o Moods:
Nostalgia, Grungy and Dark
§ Nostalgia
can be felt from this video because of the use of black and white and because
of the skating scenes which when combined with the prism effect feels like a
flash back. Another scene that gives this feeling of nostalgia is the scenes
done in the park setting.
§ The
mood of grungy is felt because of the urban setting i.e. the flats and the
bridge settings.
§ A
dark atmosphere is felt throughout the video because of the song and the
setting in which the lights are flashing and only close ups are used.
o Narrative
Structure:
§ There
is no sequenced story, as the video is mainly performance based. With that
being said I do feel that the idea that this is how the teenager spends most of
his day.
o Fantasy/Realism:
§ This
video is absolutely realistic if it weren’t it wouldn’t fully challenge the
stereotype of a teenagers.
o Theme:
§ Teen
lifestyle i.e. life in an environment and your social circle.
o Importance
of performance:
§ As
rap is a form of spoken word, the delivery is important and since body language
is an important part of delivery of lines performance in the video is
important. In addition, because rapping is considered a very hard skill to
master we felt that it should truly be appreciated in the form of performance.
o Sexuality:
§ Sexuality
is not addressed in this video. Despite there being no female actors in the
video, which was a non-intestinally done.
o Star
persona:
§ The
mix between the star persona i.e. the rapper and the actor playing a young
black male is both represented in this video. This mix of personas has been
done by the rapping done in one set of locations and the acting done in
another.
§ However,
this has be blurred at some points in the video i.e. the park setting has both
performance and acting.
o Music
and video relates:
§ With
a lot of the lyrics a movement or action is being done with it i.e. pointing up
in the lyric “We blowin' up like a ceiling fan”, etc.
·
Other theories: Postmodernism
o Mix
of old/new
§ This
has a mix of both old and new in all aspects of the product. This can be seen
in the video with the kind of filters that we used to give the video a more old
school feeling. In the song the sample is from the 70’s (not sure what song).
Also the album cover is inspired by Dr. Dre’s the chronic album. There is also
use of intertextuality because the title of the song is named after the Tupac
song killuminati.
Q2: How effective is the combination of your main product
and ancillary texts?
·
Explain the product package combination
·
Refer back to case studies as influence
Q3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?
·
After we showed our treatment to the class we were
told that the original idea for our music video was good but they were too
complex. The class didn’t like how as well as the skating that there was also
other parts into the same frame while it was going on i.e. the troubles he
would have to face in life. We were told that there were too many troubles he
was facing or that some of the problems would make it confusing to watch.
o One
of the suggestions was to scrap that idea completely but make the skating shots
more intense for the viewer.
·
In result of this we completely took all of the
“troubles idea” out of the video because we realised that instead of trying to
make it story based we changed to become a performance based video, which I
thought was a major part of the planning.
o We
were told that the locations for our video were good so I don’t think we would
actually have to change that aspect of the video.
§ This
meant that we didn’t have to find any new locations to shoot the video.
·
Survey monkey results
o Our
product looks quite professional
§ This
was our intended result so we achieved our goal of a high standard quality
product.
o The
product really suits the theme of the genre
§ This
is another achievement for the video that means we are achieving our goal
o Lip
syncing could have been better
§ We
could have improved the lip syncing if we had given our actors more time to
practise their lines but we thought that the month or so was enough to memorise
them. We could have also done more takes of the shot to give them more of a
chance to get it right.
o Looks
professional i.e. for and up and coming artist
§ This
again is a good result for our group as it shows that we have achieved a high
quality product.
o I
agree with the results of the survey, that the lip syncing could have been
better because it was apparent when doing the editing that there were a lot of
times when the actors were out of time.
Q4: How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
·
Research and planning
o YouTube
for the music video case studies
o Music
channels i.e. MTV base
o Prezi
presentation
o Production
schedule, recces and etc. all done on a word document via the college VLE
Moodle
o Blogger
·
Construction
o Photoshop
o Final
cut pro
o Camera
o Camera
equipment (tripod and shoulder mount)
o Flash
lights
o Internet
o Blogger
·
Evaluation
o Camera
o Final
cut pro
o Survey
monkey
o You
Tube
o Blogger
o Word
Documents
Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Saturday, 2 February 2013
Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Album Cover discussion
Our groups initial ideas for an album cover was to try
and use the same main effects that we used in the music video: prism and bad
TV. We also thought about whether or not to use a location background or to
take the photo in the studio. Other ideas we had to try out were if to have the
artist on the cover because many of the case studies we used didn’t.
The first attempt was the use of the prism effect on a
background without the artists. The kind of location we wanted was of a city
skyline or of a similar kind of location to that of the music video. After some
experimentation with photos we found from search engines we decide that the
best kind of image was of a derelict building or old estate. After choosing the
image we applied the prism effect intensively. We found that for this kind of
shot the picture by itself was to plain without the added effects.
Our second attempt was of editing a still image from the
video. For this cover we tried to create
the bad TV effect with the ASAP rocky album cover in mind. After we added the
distortion we decide to add a few other effects like changing it to black and
white and adding a glow around the main artist so that he stands out. We found
that after this was done that the other cover which used the prism effect was
more dynamic and eye catching.
In or final trial cover we tried to add both effects to a
studio image. By this stage we had also started to develop a logo so that also
features in trial cover. So we got a picture of Tyler the Creator from online
and began editing it with both effects and added one of the logos to the cover
once we had finished the editing. We found after we had finished it that the
logo should probably be on the back of the album cover because even if it is smaller
than how it is on the trial cover we thought that it would be too cluttered with text when the title and
artists name is on there as well as the parental advisory sign. Also we thought
that a studio image isn’t really the kind of setting that is coherent with the
music video.
In conclusion we have decided that the city setting is
more suited to our video and that the prism effect might not be used depending
on the photo we choose but we will try and use both effect. This is because despite
it not working with the studio shot we feel that in the right setting the
effects will work with the photo.
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