Thursday, May 13, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
EPILOGUE
As with all media productions, when creating my pop video ‘Assassin’, we considered form and content. Content is the message given across by the video in terms of meaning and brand. In our case the meaning was one of anti-capitalism and anti-government attitude and the brand image of the bad was rebellious, anti-authority big city guys. The form of the video is how we put this message across, with a performance and narrative. Media languages, specifically the five main technical areas of production: Camera, Sound, Mise en Scene, Editing and Special Effects, were vital in creating and supporting our preferred meaning in the following ways:
Camera is perhaps the main media language as it ultimately produces the images we see on the screen, and as Khuleshov states: 70% of the meaning comes from the pictures. The pop video was made up predominantly of close up shots, these emphasise the star quality of the band members, especially the lead singer, and create intimacy to bring the video to life as well as highlight key moments. These are intercut with master shots, or wide shots, used to close gaps and establish the band as a team who work together. We used the camera at different heights to convey status, for example, the wide shot of the band and the mid shot of the guitarist as bassist are both at very low angles to connote dominance and power. In contrast, almost all the SWAT team shots are at a high angle to inferiority in relation to the band and to illustrate the difficult path they have embarked on. We used extreme close up shots of the SWAT team moving aggressively toward the camera in order to make the audience feel intimidated by them and stir up a dislike for them. We also used a pan and tilt in the section before the SWAT team burst into the apartment; this makes the audience feel involved, within the action and intimate.
Editing and Mise en Scene are the two other main technical areas because it is in these stages that the real meaning is put into the video; Eisenstein’s theory of montage states that it is not the individual shots that create meaning but instead the way they are put together. We subverted a major convention of pop videos by editing with continuity. We did this to establish as clear connection between the narrative and performance which intertwine at the end of the video. We cut to the beat at a very fast pace to increase the intensity of the video and match the urgency in the lyrics of the song. We used a blue screen (and after effects in the execution scene) in our video which added to the realism of the action. In terms of Mise en Scene, we used composition rules to get across a meaning. We used the rule of thirds in the shot where the SWAT team kill someone. We placed them on the second hot spot because, although we wanted the audience to see it quickly, we didn’t want them to feel too assaulted by it. We also utilised the x/y axis rule, the SWAT always moved from the right of the frame to the left, connoting them as the ‘bad guys’. In contrast to this the lead singer was always positioned dead centre or slightly to the left in all the static shots of the band. This made him come across as good and trustworthy. As far as costume is concerned, the SWAT team’s outfit cold have been much better. They should have been wearing standard issue black riot gear with Kevlar vests etc. also, they should have generally just been bigger and older. With respect to the setting, our blue screened city backdrop, which was loosely based on the opening shot of ‘Blade Runner’, was borderline realistic. This, however, added to the effect of creating a corrupt, unjust, warped view of the world. It wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if we’d used a real background.
Across all five technical areas, we looked at the final production and could evaluate. In terms of hold the audience, we succeeded in creating an interesting, energetic, pacing video which easy holds the audiences attention. In terms of getting our meaning across, Stuart Hall talks about an Encoding/ Decoding model, where a producing organisation makes a video with the intention of conveying a preferred meaning. The audience has three possible reactions: they can accept the preferred meaning; they can accept a negotiated meaning where they understand certain aspects of the video but not all; finally they can have an oppositional interpretation where the intended message does not come across at all. In this respect, we were not particularly successful as most of our audience took a negotiated meaning. They understood the core values of the video, of rebellion and anti-authoritarian attitude, but there were certain aspects of the narrative that confused them and they did not fully understand the connection between the SWAT team and the band.
Camera is perhaps the main media language as it ultimately produces the images we see on the screen, and as Khuleshov states: 70% of the meaning comes from the pictures. The pop video was made up predominantly of close up shots, these emphasise the star quality of the band members, especially the lead singer, and create intimacy to bring the video to life as well as highlight key moments. These are intercut with master shots, or wide shots, used to close gaps and establish the band as a team who work together. We used the camera at different heights to convey status, for example, the wide shot of the band and the mid shot of the guitarist as bassist are both at very low angles to connote dominance and power. In contrast, almost all the SWAT team shots are at a high angle to inferiority in relation to the band and to illustrate the difficult path they have embarked on. We used extreme close up shots of the SWAT team moving aggressively toward the camera in order to make the audience feel intimidated by them and stir up a dislike for them. We also used a pan and tilt in the section before the SWAT team burst into the apartment; this makes the audience feel involved, within the action and intimate.
Editing and Mise en Scene are the two other main technical areas because it is in these stages that the real meaning is put into the video; Eisenstein’s theory of montage states that it is not the individual shots that create meaning but instead the way they are put together. We subverted a major convention of pop videos by editing with continuity. We did this to establish as clear connection between the narrative and performance which intertwine at the end of the video. We cut to the beat at a very fast pace to increase the intensity of the video and match the urgency in the lyrics of the song. We used a blue screen (and after effects in the execution scene) in our video which added to the realism of the action. In terms of Mise en Scene, we used composition rules to get across a meaning. We used the rule of thirds in the shot where the SWAT team kill someone. We placed them on the second hot spot because, although we wanted the audience to see it quickly, we didn’t want them to feel too assaulted by it. We also utilised the x/y axis rule, the SWAT always moved from the right of the frame to the left, connoting them as the ‘bad guys’. In contrast to this the lead singer was always positioned dead centre or slightly to the left in all the static shots of the band. This made him come across as good and trustworthy. As far as costume is concerned, the SWAT team’s outfit cold have been much better. They should have been wearing standard issue black riot gear with Kevlar vests etc. also, they should have generally just been bigger and older. With respect to the setting, our blue screened city backdrop, which was loosely based on the opening shot of ‘Blade Runner’, was borderline realistic. This, however, added to the effect of creating a corrupt, unjust, warped view of the world. It wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if we’d used a real background.
Across all five technical areas, we looked at the final production and could evaluate. In terms of hold the audience, we succeeded in creating an interesting, energetic, pacing video which easy holds the audiences attention. In terms of getting our meaning across, Stuart Hall talks about an Encoding/ Decoding model, where a producing organisation makes a video with the intention of conveying a preferred meaning. The audience has three possible reactions: they can accept the preferred meaning; they can accept a negotiated meaning where they understand certain aspects of the video but not all; finally they can have an oppositional interpretation where the intended message does not come across at all. In this respect, we were not particularly successful as most of our audience took a negotiated meaning. They understood the core values of the video, of rebellion and anti-authoritarian attitude, but there were certain aspects of the narrative that confused them and they did not fully understand the connection between the SWAT team and the band.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
BLOG TASK 3
What I Learnt From My Audience Feedback
Having collected a variety of feedback from our pop video and ancillary products from members of the target audience, and from other audience demographics – via YouTube, a Focus Group and Questionnaire, and other sources, I looked to answer this question.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Our target audience was predominantly white, British males between the ages of 16 and 35. We aimed it at As, Bs and possibly Cs on the ‘JICTAR’ Scale (Joint Industry Committee for Television Audience Research). A’s are well educated and upper/upper-middle class and E’s are poorly educated, unemployed lower class. Category B tends to be people who are well educated but not necessarily wealthy, while C’s are normally people from families who are skilled but not educated. So, A would be people like Lawyers, Architects, Surgeons and the wealthy. B would be people like teachers. C would be people like plumbers and electricians, or people that would aspire to be such. We aimed for A’s, B’s and C’s because the song carries some fairly complex messages, including the New World Order conspiracy, and it is necessary to be reasonably well educated to understand a lot of these. It is aimed at British males because it is quite an aggressive style of music and song which we echo in the video. Also the band is British and sings about Britain in relation to politics and society.
YOUTUBE RESPONSE
To obtain audience feedback we uploaded our video onto YouTube. Over five weeks our video was viewed 534 times. We got some positive and some negative feedback, most of which was constructive and therefore helpful in enabling us to evaluate our production. Some examples are:
caz2435
Little bit samey, needed more of a narrative than army guys running around killing everyone, however the lead singer is a perfect fit and personally i think he makes the video. . .
- 9InchesOfNoMercy (in reply to caz2345)
@caz2435 well with most muse songs it's about corrupt government so I'd assume the army going around and killing unnecessarily would fit right in
ZiggyStardust85
It´s a very good selfmade project. I really like it, but just the connection between the band a these army guys is not clear. The army guys want to find them and kill evryone in their way, but why?
FallenCoffee
NICE...wonderful song 5/5 and great video performence
Fluemmel
Marked as spammy respect guys, nice work
FOCUS GROUP
We also organised a Focus Group of 9 seventeen to ninteen year olds (5 girls, 4 boys) we wrote up a questionnaire and let them watch the video a couple of times during which they filled in the questionnaire. After this we went through the questions orally, allowing them to expand more on what they had written. Here is a list of the questions we gave them:
1. What is your general opinion of the video?
2. What, in your opinion, is the overall message of the song?
3. What does the video sat about the band’s image?
4. What do you feel the SWAT team represent?
5. What do you think of the performance?
6. What would you add/take away from the narrative to improve it?
7. How are males and females portrayed in this video?
8. Where you satisfied with the ending? Why?
9. How do you think the violence works in the pop video? Does it fit or not?
We aimed for the questions to be open ones and to get progressively more difficult as we went along. The most popular responses for the questions were:
1. Good, well edited, liked the tempo, good camera angles, good balance of performance and narrative, engaging, mixed opinions on clarity of narrative, good contrast between static nature of performance and shaky effect of narrative
2. Rebellion, violence, destruction, against law and order, rage against authority, serious universal issues like war
3. Youthful, rebellious, anti-authority, strong, serious
4. Harsh reality of modern society (big brother), destructive, bring violence, war and dominate women, law and order putting a stop to rebellion, government
5. Too static, band doesn’t look challenging enough, lots of energy and passion, background was effective and realistic
6. Take away apartment – don’t see the point, more lead up to girl being shot, have SWAT team preparing at start to build more tension
7. Males are clearly dominant, females are weaker, men have typical patriarchal dominance but take it too seriously to the point where its almost comical
8. Satisfied that band escaped the government at great odds, challenged what you thought was going to happen (expected the band to be there and more action to ensue), anti-climax but in a good way, (one person wanted a massive fight between SWAT and band)
9. Too gratuitous, fits with genre of music/image of band, lack of violence may make the video appear dull, keeps audience interested, shows clearly who is good and who is bad.
STUART HALL AND HIS ENCODING/DECODING THEORY
Our pop video took account of two Stuart Hall theories. The first was his concept of social mapping, which argues that media texts must address the areas of thought and concern for their audiences if they are to get a top response. So, young people in our target audience may feel indecisive, threatened by authority, and lacking in freedom and rights. Our song and our band aimed to address precisely that way of thinking. From our YouTube responses, one said:
9InchesOfNoMercy (in reply to caz2345)
@caz2435 well with most muse songs it's about corrupt government so I'd assume the army going around and killing unnecessarily would fit right in
While our focus group confirmed the same with Lottie, 18, saying ‘I understood the band were being rebellious as I often feel like’.
Stuart Hall’s other theory of encoding/decoding and preferred meanings really helped us evaluate our final product. He argues that the producer, us, had a preferred reading that we wanted the audience to get. This was that the government did not want young people to listen to the song and would kill them to stop them doing so. Our SWAT team executes a young woman for this crime in our pop video. But, most of our audience did not understand this. One comment on YouTube was:
ZiggyStardust85
It´s a very good selfmade project. I really like it, but just the connection between the band a these army guys is not clear. The army guys want to find them and kill evryone in their way, but why?
While our focus group concluded that the pop video was about:
The harsh reality of modern society (big brother), destruction, violence, war and domination of women, law and order putting a stop to rebellion, government control
But they too did not understand the relationship between the SWAT team, the song and the execution. In Hall’s terms this is a negotiated meaning rather than a preferred one as the audience take in or accept only part of the message. It may be that some of the audience gives what Hall calls and ‘oppositional meaning’ by rejecting the idea that the government would execute a girl for listening to music.
BLUMLER AND KATZ AND THEIR
‘USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY’
Blumler and Katz’s Gratification model states that the audience consumes media in order to satisfy their own special needs. These special needs are categorized into 4 sections: diversion, personal relationship, personal identity and surveillance. Diversion means that the audience has the chance to escape from everyday pressures by watching something which allows their minds to wander. The personal relationship means that the audience is able to feel a companionship via media personalities and characters and explores sociability through discussion with other people about the media texts. Personal identity means that the audience compares their lives with those of the characters and their situations within the media in order to explore personal problems and gain world perspective. Surveillance means that the media supplies the audience with news about what is going on in the world. In my pop video the target audience watches the video in order to satisfy their special needs of personal identity and personal relationship. The target audience, 15 to 35 year old white males, can feel a sense of companionship with the lead singer in the video as at this age they still have a strong feeling against authority and have maybe been in a different situation where they have had to decide whether or not to make a stand.
Having collected a variety of feedback from our pop video and ancillary products from members of the target audience, and from other audience demographics – via YouTube, a Focus Group and Questionnaire, and other sources, I looked to answer this question.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Our target audience was predominantly white, British males between the ages of 16 and 35. We aimed it at As, Bs and possibly Cs on the ‘JICTAR’ Scale (Joint Industry Committee for Television Audience Research). A’s are well educated and upper/upper-middle class and E’s are poorly educated, unemployed lower class. Category B tends to be people who are well educated but not necessarily wealthy, while C’s are normally people from families who are skilled but not educated. So, A would be people like Lawyers, Architects, Surgeons and the wealthy. B would be people like teachers. C would be people like plumbers and electricians, or people that would aspire to be such. We aimed for A’s, B’s and C’s because the song carries some fairly complex messages, including the New World Order conspiracy, and it is necessary to be reasonably well educated to understand a lot of these. It is aimed at British males because it is quite an aggressive style of music and song which we echo in the video. Also the band is British and sings about Britain in relation to politics and society.
YOUTUBE RESPONSE
To obtain audience feedback we uploaded our video onto YouTube. Over five weeks our video was viewed 534 times. We got some positive and some negative feedback, most of which was constructive and therefore helpful in enabling us to evaluate our production. Some examples are:
caz2435
Little bit samey, needed more of a narrative than army guys running around killing everyone, however the lead singer is a perfect fit and personally i think he makes the video. . .
- 9InchesOfNoMercy (in reply to caz2345)
@caz2435 well with most muse songs it's about corrupt government so I'd assume the army going around and killing unnecessarily would fit right in
ZiggyStardust85
It´s a very good selfmade project. I really like it, but just the connection between the band a these army guys is not clear. The army guys want to find them and kill evryone in their way, but why?
FallenCoffee
NICE...wonderful song 5/5 and great video performence
Fluemmel
Marked as spammy respect guys, nice work
FOCUS GROUP
We also organised a Focus Group of 9 seventeen to ninteen year olds (5 girls, 4 boys) we wrote up a questionnaire and let them watch the video a couple of times during which they filled in the questionnaire. After this we went through the questions orally, allowing them to expand more on what they had written. Here is a list of the questions we gave them:
1. What is your general opinion of the video?
2. What, in your opinion, is the overall message of the song?
3. What does the video sat about the band’s image?
4. What do you feel the SWAT team represent?
5. What do you think of the performance?
6. What would you add/take away from the narrative to improve it?
7. How are males and females portrayed in this video?
8. Where you satisfied with the ending? Why?
9. How do you think the violence works in the pop video? Does it fit or not?
We aimed for the questions to be open ones and to get progressively more difficult as we went along. The most popular responses for the questions were:
1. Good, well edited, liked the tempo, good camera angles, good balance of performance and narrative, engaging, mixed opinions on clarity of narrative, good contrast between static nature of performance and shaky effect of narrative
2. Rebellion, violence, destruction, against law and order, rage against authority, serious universal issues like war
3. Youthful, rebellious, anti-authority, strong, serious
4. Harsh reality of modern society (big brother), destructive, bring violence, war and dominate women, law and order putting a stop to rebellion, government
5. Too static, band doesn’t look challenging enough, lots of energy and passion, background was effective and realistic
6. Take away apartment – don’t see the point, more lead up to girl being shot, have SWAT team preparing at start to build more tension
7. Males are clearly dominant, females are weaker, men have typical patriarchal dominance but take it too seriously to the point where its almost comical
8. Satisfied that band escaped the government at great odds, challenged what you thought was going to happen (expected the band to be there and more action to ensue), anti-climax but in a good way, (one person wanted a massive fight between SWAT and band)
9. Too gratuitous, fits with genre of music/image of band, lack of violence may make the video appear dull, keeps audience interested, shows clearly who is good and who is bad.
STUART HALL AND HIS ENCODING/DECODING THEORY
Our pop video took account of two Stuart Hall theories. The first was his concept of social mapping, which argues that media texts must address the areas of thought and concern for their audiences if they are to get a top response. So, young people in our target audience may feel indecisive, threatened by authority, and lacking in freedom and rights. Our song and our band aimed to address precisely that way of thinking. From our YouTube responses, one said:
9InchesOfNoMercy (in reply to caz2345)
@caz2435 well with most muse songs it's about corrupt government so I'd assume the army going around and killing unnecessarily would fit right in
While our focus group confirmed the same with Lottie, 18, saying ‘I understood the band were being rebellious as I often feel like’.
Stuart Hall’s other theory of encoding/decoding and preferred meanings really helped us evaluate our final product. He argues that the producer, us, had a preferred reading that we wanted the audience to get. This was that the government did not want young people to listen to the song and would kill them to stop them doing so. Our SWAT team executes a young woman for this crime in our pop video. But, most of our audience did not understand this. One comment on YouTube was:
ZiggyStardust85
It´s a very good selfmade project. I really like it, but just the connection between the band a these army guys is not clear. The army guys want to find them and kill evryone in their way, but why?
While our focus group concluded that the pop video was about:
The harsh reality of modern society (big brother), destruction, violence, war and domination of women, law and order putting a stop to rebellion, government control
But they too did not understand the relationship between the SWAT team, the song and the execution. In Hall’s terms this is a negotiated meaning rather than a preferred one as the audience take in or accept only part of the message. It may be that some of the audience gives what Hall calls and ‘oppositional meaning’ by rejecting the idea that the government would execute a girl for listening to music.
BLUMLER AND KATZ AND THEIR
‘USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY’
Blumler and Katz’s Gratification model states that the audience consumes media in order to satisfy their own special needs. These special needs are categorized into 4 sections: diversion, personal relationship, personal identity and surveillance. Diversion means that the audience has the chance to escape from everyday pressures by watching something which allows their minds to wander. The personal relationship means that the audience is able to feel a companionship via media personalities and characters and explores sociability through discussion with other people about the media texts. Personal identity means that the audience compares their lives with those of the characters and their situations within the media in order to explore personal problems and gain world perspective. Surveillance means that the media supplies the audience with news about what is going on in the world. In my pop video the target audience watches the video in order to satisfy their special needs of personal identity and personal relationship. The target audience, 15 to 35 year old white males, can feel a sense of companionship with the lead singer in the video as at this age they still have a strong feeling against authority and have maybe been in a different situation where they have had to decide whether or not to make a stand.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
BLOG TASK 1
In What Ways Do Your Media Products Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?
The common generic conventions of a pop video are:
- The explicit and unashamed promotion of the artist’s “image” (aesthetic/generic/ideological) as a specific product with a brand identity, ready for mass consumption
- The featuring of the artist (almost without exception)
- Repetition of reoccuring thematic elements and generically specific iconography (one key element often being dominant and providing the skeletal structure for the promo)
- A possible narrative structure
- A possible performance element
- The flexibility to disregard Realism!
- Shots cut tightly to the beat of the track
- Use of special effects (lighting, annimation, CGIs, in-camera effects)
- A carefully constructed Mise en Scene appropriate to the content and tone of the track
- High impact instantly! (Don’t forget that competition for airplay on the main music channel outlets is intense)
This shot conveys the guitarist as a classic rocker with the Gibson SG electric guitar and leather jacket. This all connotes manliness and strength, and is complemented by the slightly low angle shot. The fact that you don’t see any of the bands’ faces for the first few shots shrouds them in mystery creating more allure, this subverts the convention of introducing the band early in the video. Following one of the main conventions of pop videos there is also potentially suggestion of sex in the phallic symbol of the guitar. The wire coming out of the guitar could suggest power and industrialisation, solidifying their image as big city guys. Finally, we also, employing another pop video convention, lead the eye to the next shot which is of the guitarists hand on the fret board:
In the shots of the lead singer we utilised the x/y axis rule to try and give the audience an idea of how they should feel towards him. The x/y axis rule concentrates on where a person in positioned in a frame; if someone is on the left, the audience will perceive them as ‘good’. If, however, this person is on the right hand side of the screen they will be interpreted as ‘bad’.Like the first shot I spoke about, this one creates makes the singer seen mysterious and rebellious because he is not necessarily situated on one side of the frame but switches frequently. This means that the audience isn’t sure what to think of him and makes him come across as quite edgy and even anarchic. This subverts pop video conventions as a lead singer would normally be positioned on the left of the frame so the audience instantly take a liking to him.
The first time you see the whole band in our video is in a tracking shot. This challenges a very widely used convention of pop videos. Usually the band would be first introduced with a static wide shot, we, however, don’t use a single wide static shot until the last 15 seconds. This is similar to the music video for ‘Kids’ by MGMT (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIEOZCcaXzE) which only ever shows close ups of the bands’ faces.
The narrative of the pop video is all shot in close ups. This was intended to create tension and suspense. The audience doesn’t actually realise how many members of the swat team there are until about half way through the video when they storm the apartment. This added an element of threat to the video. It also adds to the anarchic and rebellious image of the band, they must have done something fairly rebellious to attract the attention of the armed forces. The fact that at the start of the video we don’t concentrate too much on the armed units’ faces suggests that, rather than being seen as individual people, they represent the government as an organisation. This echoes the meaning of the song. We used the x/y axis rule of composition to provoke a hostile feeling towards the armed unit from the audience. The x/y rule states that protagonists should travel from the left of the frame to the right, this matches the direction in which we read a shot and therefore are encouraged to support this character. We used the opposite. In the majority of shots, the armed unit moves from the right hand side of the frame to the left. This unsettles the audience and persuades them to dislike the unit and interpret them as antagonists.
This reverse POV shot is very aggressive, the gun pointing out at the audience sparks fear and a dislike for the armed unit and, therefore, a more positive feeling towards the band. The shot utilises the rule of thirds. The swat member is positioned on the right of the frame and is subsequently seen as an antagonist. This shot also leads the eye down the barrel of the gun to the bottom left corner of the frame where the guitarist is positioned in the next shot:
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This is the `CD cover we constructed for our band’s premier album. Using various composition techniques, this accurately depicts the bands chief values. We utilised the rule of thirds so that the first thing you see is the A of assassin. This has been formatted to look like the symbol for anarchy which the band clearly stand for. The line and shape of the text leads the eye to an image of the lead singer, positioned on the right of the frame which, according to the x/y axis rule, means he is daring and rebellious. The fact that only half his face is shown adds to his mysterious and elusive image. The stencil style font of the band and album name and the poster edged skyline in the background reiterate the fact that the band are big city, industrial guys.
This magazine advert shows the industrial, city image of the band. It achieves this through the city skyline in the background and also the font and colour of the text. The band name is made to look like a graffiti stencil and the other text use a fill effect called ‘brushed steel’ – all pointing towards industrialisation and city life. The band are stood in an informal manner to seem more personable to encourage audiences to like and relate to them. We chose to put this advert in Kerrang, as it is a magazine that specialises in rock music and is aimed at our bands target audience of 16 to 30 year olds.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
BLOG TASK 4
HOW DID YOU USE NEW MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONSTRUCTION, RESEARCH, PLANNING AND EVALUATION STAGES?
Under analogue communication, data is in blocks and needs a lot of frequency space. However, digital is based on binary code (0s and 1s) and compresses strongly into minute packets of data of much higher quatity. This makes it faster, smaller, better quality and is interactive. For example with digital TV you can buy things, play games or choose an angle at which you watch a football match. With analogue TV the information just comes at you and you can’t send anything back. Digital technology has made cameras (both still and video), sound recording, editing and viewing higher quality for all. It has also allowed the invention of PCs, the internet and mobile phones.
New media technologies I used in the production of my media product include:
- Digital cameras (still and video)
- Internet
- Mobile Phones
- Final Cut Pro
- Adobe After Effects
- Photoshop
All these technologies were used extensively at all stages of production from: research and development; planning/pre-production; construction; post production; distribution and evaluation.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
I was able to use the internet to aid my research into music videos. By accessing YouTube, I was able to observe and study pop videos and came to the conclusion that most pop videos follow a similar form: colour, fast editing, lots of shots, suggestion of sex and discontinuity editing. Using this knowledge I was able to start thinking about my own ideas for a video.
Using my PC I listened to numerous songs from a selection of genres until an idea really hit me. I was able to narrow my choice down to three songs. Using Microsoft PowerPoint I created presentations of my three ideas and showed them to my class. We then took a vote and ended up settling on ‘Assassin’ by Muse. I was then able to move on to the next stage of production.
PLANNING/PRE-PRODUCTION
In this stage we drew storyboards, wrote up a timeline, and constructed a call sheet. Due to digital technology we were able to Word Process all these documents on a Computer, or at least digitally scan sheets of paper into the PC. This was useful when it came to producing multiple copies of our twenty page call sheet. If it were not for digital technology we would have had to write each one by hand. We were also able to film our story boards and edit them together on Final Cut Pro. We then put it to the song so we had a good idea of which shots would or wouldn’t work and how well it would cut. This was particularly helpful as it made us realise we needed a lot more shots and faster cuts for the video to have our desired effect
We looked at a number of locations for the stairwell. Naturally not everyone could always visit them; we often had to send one or two people by themselves. Luckily, using digital cameras, we were able to take high quality and easily accessible stills of each location so whoever hadn’t visited it still got a good idea of what it was like.
We were able to utilise the internet to look for a number of our props and costume. For the SWAT team outfits and replica weapons, we looked on lots of army surplus stores. This, however, proved too expensive and we ended up borrowing camouflage gear and guns from the school theatre department and a friend.
We were able to secure a location to film the SWAT team section of the video in a Guildford car park. We did so through email, this made the process so much faster than having to find time to talk on the phone or send a letter.
CONSTRUCTION – SHOOT
My pop video, because of its pace and action packed narrative, contained mostly 3 second shots. The video was 3 minutes long and therefore had a total of 60 shots. In film making the average ratio of shots filmed to shots used is 10:1 respectively; due to this we had to film a total of 600 shots to achieve a good edit. This was possible with digital technology because the cameras were light weight, small and easy to use allowing us to work quickly to get lots of shots in a short space of time. Also due to the camera we were using the quality of our footage was very good, it is said that the picture from a digital is 1000x than that from an analogue camera.
We used the JVC1500E camera to film the pop video, this is a fairly high tech camera and allowed us to be very creative with shutter speeds and focus pulls ect. One shot where this is evident is a mid shot of the singer with the bassist behind in soft focus, when the bassist starts to sing backing vocals there is a focus pull bringing him into focus.
The Camera’s weight and size allowed us to much more, than would have been possible with an analogue camera. This is demonstrated in some of the stairwell shots where the camera man literally had to sprint up a staircase following a SWAT team, for example:
When we were filming in the studio we had two large overhead screens linked to the camera. From a directors point of view this was very helpful as it allowed me to see exactly what the finished product would look like without having to squint at the tiny screen on the camera or a small monitor. For example, in this shot of the drummer’s hands, it was important to see the fine detail to know whether we were achieving intended outcome (drum sticks blurring).
CONSTRUCTION – POST PRODUCTION
Using Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects we edited one afternoon for 3 to 4 weeks and managed to produce a final cut, complete with special effects which we did ourselves. This was made possible with new media technologies. If we had been editing linearly, it would have taken at least 6 weeks of full time editing and we would have had to send it off for after effects to be put in. Also, every edit of the video you produce drops in quality slightly; digital technology allowed us to maintain high quality.
We used a blue screen when filming in the studio. New media technologies allowed us to create a digital backdrop on Adobe Photoshop using images of cityscapes taken from the internet. We collected as many pictures of big cities at night as we could and started to layer them on top of each other. First we created the back layer which would act as the skyline with lots of distant buildings. We then built up a slightly closer layer with fewer, but larger, buildings. Finally we topped it off with a couple of very large buildings in the foreground. This layering effect gave a 3D feel to the picture and made it look more realistic, especially in the tracking shots.
DISTRIBUTION AND EVALUATION
The internet was an essential media technology in the distribution and evaluation of our video. We used Blogger.com, Youtube.com and Facebook.com to showcase our product and give others, predominantly our target audience, a chance to comment and give their opinion on the video. This allowed us to improve and make a video that our target audience would enjoy more.
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