Evaluation Activity 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our media product has used, developed and challenged different kind of forms and conventions of real media products. We have researched into existing music videos that have gained numerous views and recognition. We developed these ideas and compare them with successful music videos. I have gathered nine screenshot from our final music video:

1. Relationship of lyrics to narrative/visuals: This shot is on the line of "I'm just a musician on the rise" is a key lyric as it reflects the state of the artist of being a new, and upcoming musician doing all he can to rise. We presented this by showing the artist in a recording studio singing the current song. This implies that she is striving hard to achieve her dreams. As this was in the rap part of the video, we didn't want to confuse the audience so we edited this shot into black and white to present it as a narrative.

2. Relationship of music to visuals: This shot is on the line of "End of the line". The music and the visual links well through the connection of the hard beat of the music. This shot changes from close-up to long shot, colour to black and white, which aids the strong beat of the music.

3. Representation of artist with reference to record label's expectations: Our record label company is "DefJam Recordings". It is one of the biggest recording companies in America which has made fame to a variety of RnB artists such as Rihanna, Kanye West, Ne-Yo and more. We researched into the artists' music videos and have found out that they use a lot of close-up. This presents, and promotes the artist to the audience which helps gain recognition to the artist. As a group, we have decided to use this to show that we can present the artist well as how the record label present their artists. We also aided this by the mise-en-scene, and setting of the music video. We have thought about this carefully on what costume the artist would wear; we linked the costumes to the RnB, Hip Hop culture and how they dress, and how the culture changes into the modern society.

4. Genre of music and how it is defined: Our choice of song for music video is RnB, Hip Hop based, so we thought about how we are going to define and present our music video in a style of RnB and Hip Hop. We have researched into existing music videos and found that most of them use urban location such as cityscape, skateparks, grafitti locations and more. This shot shows a part of location on our music video; it shows the artist dancing in front of grafitti wall to show urbanization, as well as the culture of the genre. We strengthen this by showing different types of camerawork: camera angles, distance, and shot types which complimented the idea of the genre.

5. Setting/Location: Our settings and location relates to our music genre of RnB and Hip Hop. We chose to feature the London Eye in our music video as a lot of people knows this as one of UK's top attraction (this could also imply that the artist is representing his country to his audience) and this is one of UK's modern features.

6. Camerawork and Editing: As RnB and Hip Hop grows overtime, changing and blending to upcoming modernity, we decided to make our music video modern with cityscape urban locations, that is complimented by the editing, and the mise-en-scene. This shot shows one of the dancers in our music video "jumping" to the camera (which relates to the lyric: "And I gotta jump to the next step") which presents the camerawork in this music video. We implemented different shot types such as Establishing shot to present the locations to strengthen the verisimilitude of the music video, Close-up to present and promote the artist, Long shot to show the artist with his group, and Low angle to give the artist authority and power.

7. Lighting: Lighting is one of the main constraints we came across while making the music video. We have shots at night which has very limited light so we had to find a place where there is at least some light that will allow the artist to be seen. This is important because RnB, Hip Hop artist are always being presented and promoted. Artist who fails to promote themselves will eventually lose their contract with their recording label which is the biggest downfall for an artist, so for an upcoming artist, presenting and promoting is very essential. We chose to shoot under a car park light  which gave us enough light to be seen. We wanted to create verisimilitude as we didn't want to suddenly change from daylight to nighttime. We did this by presenting an establishing shots between them to show introduction on what scene is coming next.

8. Mise-en-Scene: Mise-en-scene is very important in any kind of films. In a music video, mise-en-scene helps depicts the purpose of the visuals and the music/lyrics. Costume is a very important feature to be considered, so in our music video, as a group we had a good discussion on what costume is the best to wear. We tried to fit it into our genre; we are pleased that our genre has a lifestyle behind it; people are living through RnB and Hip Hop. The clothes these people wear are not just any ordinary urban clothes but have been recognized as part of the culture. This made it easy for us to decide on what costume is the best to wear. The main artist wore a snapback hat, a large sunglasses (Raybans: which is famous and well-known by a lot of people especially those living in urban cities); this props gave the main artist authority, and presented him in a confident, determined artist.

9. Intertextuality or influence of other music video: This shot was influenced by a music video we research back when we were in planning stage. This shot caught our eyes so we decided to capture it and modify it in our own version. The music video we got it from presented this shot as a long shot, and for our music video we made it close-up so that it is more effective, as well as recognizable. We also used this as a transition which made it very useful and very effective to our music video.

Evaluation Activity 2 - How effective is the combination of your Main Product and Ancillary Texts? - by Group

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our main product and ancillary text link well with each other.

Why do you think that?
Our group started by discussing and brainstorming different ideas into existing RnB products. From this discussion, we learnt that RnB artists image is important as they want to promote themselves, and to be recognised. We took this into account and made our music video and ancillary products with the artist's image as the main focus.

What features have you placed in your products that are effective?
One of the features we included was the blue colour scheme we carried throughout our products. The colour blue symbolises optimism which relates to the main single of the album this implies that the artist is determined to reach his ambitions. The colour blue also symbolises wealth and business which also links to our products. Another feature we used was the close-up of the artist. We used this on our music video and ancillary products as this is important to promoting the artist as well as showing his authority and personality. 



Finally, we carried a modern theme for our music video and ancillary product by our choice in mise-en-scene, location, costume and editing. This is important because it relates to our music genre, R&B as it reflects the continuous growth of the modern society and the music industry. 


What was the idea behind the album cover?
We researched into existing album covers and found that the artist's image is the main focus as this is important to up and coming artists. This builds their image and promotes the artist and his music. We chose the album title, 'TakeOver' because it relates to the album's theme of being determined to reach recognition. This is supported by the effective use of font that fit our music genre and the modern theme. 


What was the idea behind the magazine advert?
We analysed existing magazine adverts from different genre and see the difference between. For our inspiration, we chose Rolling Stone, XXLMag and RWD as they promotes our music genre well to the target audience. We presented a close mid-shot of the artist as we want to attract the audience's attention to the image to promote the artist and his music. 



This is also effective as the artist is only starting and the artist needs recognition. The white background is effective as it makes the artist stand out, and it symbolises strength, wholeness and completion. 


Are you happy with the final outcome?
As a group, we feel that we have done a great job and we have achieved our initial aim of creating product to fit with our music genre whilst making it look professional. Our products are eye-catching and interesting from the ideas our group had. 


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is our ancillary product that we produced:

This is our magazine advert. The magazine advert clearly shows a close up of the artist, which is very important as to promote himself as well as his album. The advert shows the artist's name 'J.REYEZ' in a futuristic large font which is effective as it reflects the modern music society. 'OUT NOW' is also featured in bold large font in which the audience would see it easily and get the idea that this album is the 'hottest' album and that if they don't get the album, they will be missing out on experience.This is also strengthen by the image of the album beneath the text, in which the audience will see and recognize it.

 

Our Album Front Cover

Our Album Back Cover

Album Booklet (Front)

Album Booklet (Back)

Album's CD placement

Evaulation Activity 3 - What have you learnt from Audience Feedback - by Group

Questionnaires

I uploaded our music video into my Facebook to see how people would react. After few hours I gain around 20 likes which I thought was pretty amazing. I was already pleased that people like our music video. After a day, the likes went up to 60+ which was very overwhelming. I asked some of the people who liked it for feedback.

Sam is a 17 year old male student. Bairavi is a 14 year old female student. Jethro is 19 year old Film Studies Uni student.

Evaluation Activity 4 - How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Hardware/Software	What is it?	Purpose
Hardware	Apple Mac	We used this to create our music videos as well as for research.
Hardware	DSLR Camera	We used this for taking high quality photographs that we used for our Ancillary Products.
Hardware	USB	This is important as we used this to back up our work as well as used this to transfer files.
Hardware	Tri-Pod	We used to help make our photographs/films still.
Hardware	HD Camcorder	We used this to shoot High Definition shots which made our music video a high, and better quality.
Software	Photoshop	We used this for our Ancillary Products. As we have experience in using this program; it gave us a good advantage and made our ancillary product look professional.
Software	iMovie HD	This is the program we used for our Animatic.
Software	Microsoft Word	We used this for Documentations such as creating the questionnaires.
Software	Microsoft Powerpoint	We used this for our group pitch on our chosen song.
Software	Blogger	This is where we recorded our progress as well as for our evaluation tasks.
Software	YouTube	We used YouTube to view existing music videos that helped us gave ideas on our music videos.

Software	Slideshare	We used this to add to our Blog. This was an easy way to upload documents into Blogger.
Software	Final Cut Express HD	We edited our music video here. We were inexperienced at first but we managed to learn new skills by working together to create our music video.
Software	Go Animate!	This is where we created our Evaluation Activity Task 2. This gave us unique and fun way to view on how effective the combination of our main product and ancillary product.

Software	www.dafont.com	This website gave us numerous ideas on fonts that we used for our ancillary products. We downloaded the font and used them as the fonts in the computer are limited and not much variety.
Software	Facebook	We used this to communicate, as well as uploading our music video and gaining views and feedback from people who lives far away.

Software	Timeglider	We created timeline of history of music videos. This is much easier to view and upload to Blogger than creating on Microsoft Word.
Software	Prezi	I used this to create my research into Unsigned artist, as well as using it to create our Evaluation Activity 3. This is effective as it is fun, and easier to view than seeing countless text on Blogger.

Software

Survey Monkey

We used this to create surveys that helped us understand our target audience better. We added question relating to our Genre.

R&B, and Hip Hop Music Video Conventions

As we have chosen the music genre, R&B / Hip Hop. We decided to do some research on R&B and Hip Hop Music Conventions, and why they are important:

R&B/HipHop artists tend to use Performance with hybrid of Narrative and Spectacle as their music video genres:

Performance

In an R&B/HipHop music video, performance is important. This is because this allows them to be recognized which then also markets themselves to their audiences as well as other opportuinites.An example of an R&B Hip Hop music video is by Jennifer Lopez ft. Pitbull:

In this music video, we can see that the mise-en-scene is clearly urban and nightlife which is also an R&B Hip Hop convention. We can also see props such as the cars, the look (make-up, clothing and accesories), and alcohol. This music video is performance based showing a lot of close-ups of the artists as well as long shot to show the artist's choreography.

Narrative

Narrative is often used as a hybrid to make the audience remember the artist's music. This narrative can be inspiring (it can be a reenactment or an abstract version of the artist's previous experience, or a story that can relate to the audience). An example of an R&B Hip Hop music video that has the music video genre of Narrative is by Lil Wayne:

In this music video, we can see that the mise-en-scene is different from the previous example; the location is hospital and alleyway which audience can see as more "sad" feeling rather than partying. The Narrative shots invite people to sympathise with the story. This is effective because the audience will remember the music video.

Our Music Choice

This is our music choice; "I Wanna Be A Star" by J.Reyez, Maribelle Anes, and Traphik. This song is about how the unsigned artists of the song wants to pursue their career and get into the mainstream industry, and how they really want to progress their career into the next stage and gain more audience.

We chose this song, as it is upbeat, fast paced, catchy, and also different genre to take on this year. Emily is going to be the Cinematographer, Ana is going to be the female lead singer and I'm going to be the two male rappers. We have also requested a permission to the artist if we can do his song for our music video project:

Star Study: Kanye West

Kanye West is an american rapper, singer and record producer, born on June 8, 1977. Kanye West was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where he lived with his parents until his parents divorced when he was around three years old, and he and his mother moved to Chicago, Illinois.

Kanye West attended Chicago State University where he produced music for locaql artists. Through this, he later gained fame by producing hit singles in the music genre Hip Hop and R&B for artists such as Jay Z, Alicia Keys, John Legend and more.

1996

Kanye West gained the opportunity to produce tracks for Chicago rapper, Grav for his debut album. Although, the album did not attract much attention, in 1998 to 1999 Kanye West's career grew and gaining more opportunities like producing for higher profile and well known artists such as Jermaine Dupry, Foxy Brown and more. After gaining much success as a producer, Kanye West decided to take on the role of a solo artist and as a rapper. However, he struggled to find a record label to make a contract with him. This ended when his verse on Jay-Z's album 'The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse' allowed him to sign to the same record label.

2004-05

Kanye West's success progressed even further when he was involved in a near fatal car crash while driving home from recording studio. This influenced him to write songs, that became his first single, which also won the Source's Award for Best Music video in 2004.

In 2005, MTV aired All Eyes on Kanye West in which Kanye spoke out against the Homophobia in the Hip Hop industry. He claims that hip hop has been discriminating the gay community; he even admitted that he has been discriminating that community until he found out that one of his cousins is gay in which he said that this was his 'turning point'. He said: "This is my cousin. I love him and I've been discriminating against gays"

After gaining much success with his albums, Kanye West decided to launch his own clothing line, Pastelle Clothing line in spring 2006.

Contemporary
Now, Kanye West has a total of 47 awards and 147 nominations from different award ceremonies, including the Grammys. He has a total of 6 albums from 2004 to 2011.

Johnny Cash Case Study

Johnny Cash, born on February 26, 1932 was an American country singer-songwriter, actor and author. He is acknowledged as one of the most influential musicians in the 20th century.

Cash has achieved numerous honours and awards as well as creating his own legacy. His rebellious image and anti-authoritarian stance influenced punk rock genre. In 1999, Cash received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He also received in his own spot in the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well as debuting in numerous Halls of Fame.

Cash gain recognition through his songs: Give My Love to Rose, Solitary Man, God's Gonna Cut You DOwn, At Folsom Prison and more which has won various awards including Grammy Awards.

His cover of 'Hurt' originally by Nine Each Nails sparked the media gaining numerous awards from Counrty Music Awards to the Grammys.

Johnny Cash - Hurt (Official Music Video)

The music video was directed by Mark Romanek, an American director known for his notable work such as this music video, Scream by Michael & Janet Jackson and Closer by Nine Inch Nail.

The music video portrays Johnny Cash's days of youth and in his older years. This msuic video is one of the most important work of Johnny Cash as this is the last music video he has done before passing away in September, 2003.

Nine Each Nails - Hurt (Official Music Video)

This original music video by the original artist, Nine Each Nails is much different than Johnny Cash's.Their music video genre is whole-performace live based whereas Johnny Cash's is hybrid of Performance and Specticle.

"Hurt"
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

[Chorus:]
What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

The lyrics portray depressive mood through the line 'I hurt myself today', however this could change into a phase of moving on through the lines:

'If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way'



However, in Johnny Cash's video; Mark Romanek displayed his life from his younger years to his older years. This changed the view of the song giving it another definition: "capturing both his past and the stark reality of the present."

Case Study: Unsigned Artist - JRAquino

Goodwin's Rules

 1. Music video demostrates genre characteristics.

2.   There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

3.   There is a relationship between music and visuals

4.   The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work

5.   There is frequently reference to notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

6.   There is often intertextual reference

(to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc)

History Of Music Video

[zoom out and start from 1965]

This timeline shows the history of Music Video starting from the Beatles in 23rd November, 1965 to contemporary (2010) such as Lady Gaga. 

Music Video has changed throughout the years creating various Genre such as:

• Performance - The Artist/Band is the main focus of the Music Video singing all the way through.
• Narrative - There is a storyline presented.
• Spectacle - Using special effects and such.
• Concept - Abstract Idea, Theme
• Intertextual - Makes conscious reference to other texts
• Brand Image - Strong focus on artists and representation

Music Video also has affected media creating numerous accounts such as music video television programmes like MTV, VH1 and more, and also awards to recognise the produce of music videos.

Example Music Videos

My task was to search a good example of a music video that fits its genre perfectly. I chose two music video that is an example of two different genre.

The first one is "Good Life" by Kanye West ft. T-Pain:

This music video by Kanye West ft. T-Pain is interesting as there are various effective techniques that makes it an interesting music video to watch:

• The use of colour is quite effective; throughout the video, the performers are presented in black and white whereas the CGI effect are presented in colour.
• As this is R&B, Hiphop Rap genre of the song, various things that you expect to be in a R&B music video is presented such as accessories like Sunglasses, Women, and more.
• The camera is much faster than a trailer and the transitions works effectively.
• The lyrics are being shown to the audience which is really interesting as it gives the music video more interactive as it allows the audience to either sing along with the lyrics or read them as they go.
• The song fits well with the music video as it introduces you to the 'Good Life' which the song was talking about, and this is presented with the colour graphics.

The second one is "Mystery" by Aïrto:

This one interests me as Aïrto is a local Youtuber in the Netherlands. I found him through surfing songs in Youtube, and he posts videos of himself singing. Recently, he has managed to produce a music video for one of his originals, 'Mystery'. The genre of the song is more Pop; it is lively and upbeat. This music video interests me because:

• The lighting in the music video reflects the upbeat, and happy volume of the song.
• The camerawork is really effective; the use of close up such as at 0:03 and the constant close up on the girls face which links to the definition of the song.
• There are no CGI which makes the music video more 'clean' and natural looking. 

Overall, this two videos are effective in their own self genre. I thought that they are a great example as they interest me and it also entertains me which is one of the purpose of a music video.

Starting A2 Media!

Finally, AS Media Exams are done; now, I'm starting A2 Media in which I am going to focus on studying Music Videos as well as producing my own like in AS where I produced my own opening scene of my own film.