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)
  

The aim of our pop video, magazine advert and CD covers was to show a clear band image in the group we were representing. We wanted to created an edgy, rebellious, anarchic, mysterious image for our band, Overdrive, so they would come across as elusive, anti-establishment, big city guys. We achieved this by developing and subverting a number of these conventions which are all used in real media products.



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:



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.

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.