Our music video uses conventions of real music videos. Our genre is hip hop so we have followed typical conventions used by hip hop and rap artists, for example the main focus is on the artist. The video goes between narrative and the setting. The idea of doing it like this was inspired a lot by Eminem and Rihanna's music video, 'love the way you lie'. In this video it is flicking between Eminem and a couple acting out what the song is about. This is also the main idea behind our music video, as we thought it is an effective way of selling the artist but without making the video boring.
We also used a conventional setting, this being urban settings. For example, places with graffiti in the back ground and parks. As we were in Cambridge we could not do it to the extent we would have liked to as Cambridge is limited with places like this. This setting is conventional as artists of the same style and genre use similar settings for their music videos. For example Rip Shop, 'A better day', also uses this style.
We also have Saul, the actor, wearing jewellery. In hip hop videos it is very conventional for people in the video to be wearing it. To make it more conventional we could have had Hakan, the rapper, wearing jewellery. Instead we had him in a flat peak, which is also conventional in music videos from our genre. It is often seen by the real artist of our song, Kanye West.
Our editing shows lots of conventions. We have used fast paced editing and the shots change to the beat of the music. We also used lots of the same shot but from different angles which is also a convention. It is done to make the videos more visually interesting. These editing techniques are used a lot in Eminem's video which was our main inspiration.
It is very conventional to have the visuals and lyrics matching. We used this a lot when we were showing the narrative side to the video. All of these shots are following what Kanye is singing about. For example, when he talks about a phone conversation, the audience see Saul on the phone.
In hip hop music videos there are usually more moving shots than still ones. We did try to add these in but due to the places we went to film, the ground was not smooth enough to make this work without the camera work looking bad. This is something we could have done to follow conventions more.
We also could have used Voyeurism in our video. This is something used by artists in music videos throughout many genres. Our original plan was to use voyeurism in the bedroom scenes, but in our final video these shots didn't work well. I think that although our song is from the hip hop genre, it is quite slow so it wasn't easy to get voyeuristic shots in the film.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
I think the combination of our music video and ancillary task is very effective. There is a clear link between the video, magazine advert and digi pack cover. This is partly because the images used are stills taken from the video, so there is a running theme throughout. The colours used are also all matched with the main image used so they all have the same colour theme throughout.
We have also used similar lettering on the title, 'Kanye West, Apologise' on both ancillary tasks. This is, having them in big bold lettering, with one letter on each word in a different colour from the rest of the word. For example on our DVD cover we have 'Kanye' in black with a white Y, and we have 'West' in white with a black S. We all thought that this looks more eye catching, and having such a colourful background meant that it was hard to find a colour that showed up throughout the whole of the title. For example on our magazine advert we used the yellow used on Hakan’s t shirt but it did not all show up so having one letter in black meant we could still use it.
In the hip hop genre a convention that is used very often is selling the artist as in this genre the videos are mainly focused on the artists. In all three of these tasks our main aim is selling the artist. This means that we have made the artist appears lots in the video and he is also the main image on both the magazine advert and on the digi pack cover. This will make the artist more recognisable as all of his products feature him a lot. This is something that is always important for somebody to be famous and to sell the music they create well, which is what being in the music industry is all about.
We do not use voyeurism at all and although this is a convention of hip hop, in our video we do not use it, so it wouldn't be appropriate to start in the ancillary task. This means that none of our products use voyeurism.
Our ancillary tasks use lots of basic conventions, for example the digi pack cover and magazine advert both have quotes. We used quotes from newspapers and also ‘hip hop magazine’. Using a quote from this magazine will make the music more popular as people that listen to the hip hop genre will respect the opinion of this magazine. Our digi pack cover has special features and a star rating as well as quotes. These are both used a lot in digi pack covers and magazine adverts, making our ancillary task look very professional. It will also make the digi pack sell better as there is more to it than what can be watched just on the internet.
3. What have you learned from audience feedback?
We do not have audience feedback for our final product, however, after our first draft of a music video we had lots of feedback. This feedback was from a range of people, we had it from all of our class, our teacher and the head of media. As we had similar feedback and ideas from this range of people it clear what needed to be changed.
We realised that we needed to shoot more footage as it was clear our shots were all too long and got boring for the audience to watch. So, from our first draft to final version there is a noticeably bigger range of shots and locations. When choosing these locations we went back to our story board and looked at ideas we had wanted to do but hadn't had time to film. For example we had planned to have some shots in a park, so we used this idea and shot lots of footage at the skate ramp in Arbury. We also used shots that we hadn't previously planned, such as the shot of the trees. Although this shot is slightly random in our video it added more of a variety for the audience.
We were told that we needed to perfect our lip syncing when Hakan is rapping. We think having it completely in time is a very important factor in a music video so we looked at the video very carefully to make sure it was perfected. However, this was mostly correct and the reason the audience thought it was out of time was because of the quick time conversion. However when we had made minor adjustments and improved the lip syncing there was an improvement, which is obvious when the video is watched in high quality.
We also learnt how we could improve our video from the positive feedback given. This was because we needed to add more clips to make the video go to the end of the song. With the positive feedback we knew what the audience liked to see, so we added more of this when finishing the video, for example they liked that the video switched between rapping and narrative. We tried to make sure that this continued throughout the song but the first half of our song does have more of the narrative than the second. They also liked the urban settings we were using, so when shooting more footage we made sure we used similar settings.
We have had audience feedback through a questionnaire we created. This involved seven questions and one person from each group in our class gave us answers. From this, we can see that what we have created will appeal a lot to people of our age. This is because the answers they have given nearly all follow what we have done. This involves mostly what they, as an audience would expect to see. The answers given were all very similar on each question so this meant that we were sure this is what our age group would like to see. We would have liked to have a bit more of a variety of people answering our questionnaire so we could make sure we appealed to the whole target audience and not just our age group that go to our college.
4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
When researching to make our music video we were mainly using the internet and our blog. This was very helpful as there is so much information on the internet about music videos. This was useful to us as we could make sure that our music video fitted the genre well and looked as professional as possible. Using the blog meant that we could record everything we found so we could go back and used it during the planning of the video.
When constructing our music video the main media technology that we used was final cut. We put all of the footage we filmed into final cut and selected the parts of what we filmed that we would use. We had to select carefully and make sure that we kept all of the footage that we wanted to use. After we had selected all of these we started the editing. Whilst editing we learnt lots of new techniques to make our video more visually interesting. For example, the clip where Saul is standing next to the road and the traffic is speeding past him. At first we just had all the cars sped up going forward but then we realised we could reverse the clip. So, this clip is switching from the cars going forwards and backwards which will interest the viewer and make people want to watch our video. Another effect we put in was to have Clara disappearing at the end, this is something that at the start of the construction not all of us would have been able to do. During the making of our video we all got a lot more confident using this software.
We also used photo shop when constructing our video. We made a digi pack cover and a magazine advert using this software. None of our group was very confident when using photo shop but by the end we had two good products. We did digi pack cover first so this is quite simple but I think it is still effective and does its purpose. In our magazine advert we used more techniques as we were feeling more confident as we had already made the cover. One effect we did was to make it look 3D by having Hakan’s head in front of the title. This makes it more eye catching and so it sells the artist and the video well. Using photo shop to construct these two tasks was a good piece of software to use as there are many different effects that can be put in. The text used was also one that is created effectively by photoshop.
When evaluating our video the main media technology we used was also final cut. We made a commentary to go with our video. We filmed ourselves evaluating our video and used clips from our video to give examples. As we had used it so much in the construction stage we were able to create a good commentary. We have managed to use a variety of ways to give the examples, for example having the pictures of the ancillary tasks over our voices.
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