Evaluation A2 question 2

In terms of the house style the music video and the ancillary text, my digipak and poster, have some common and strong links, though in retrospect I could have combined them more conclusively and effectively. One way the two media texts are combined is through the mise en scene location, in the video urban gritty locations are used and this is reflected through the graffiti art used in the ancillary texts. A majority of the locations within the music video are shot outside which links to the ancillary texts. There is no representation of wealth or glamour in any of the texts, which is to appeal to the primary audience being targeted, the young, working/middle class city dwellers. The prosaic commonplace ordinariness of the locations, have links to the primary target audience.
The star persona of the artist in both the music video and the ancillary texts are both represented in the same way, which is no representation at all in the ancillary texts and no promotion of the artist as a star persona in the music video. Star persona is not used as a selling point.
Women are not represented in a glamourous way in any of the texts, subverting the idea of the male gaze. The performer is androgynous which links to the image in the top right of the digipak, the image could be either male or female.
Though there some effective combinations between the music video and the ancillary texts, there are some weaknesses. One being that there is no link between the typography in the music video and the ancillary texts. This is also the case with the colour scheme, in the digipak and poster orange features heavily to contrast with the dull, darker colours. This is not represented in the music video and could have been incorporated in the clothing or by filming in the location where the graffiti art was shot. The owl graffiti is such a strong image and could have been used as motif to combine the main product, the music video, and the ancillary texts, the digipak and poster.
The genre is represented within the ancillary texts, though not that heavily, in terms of how it links to British urban youth culture rather than the more glamourous generic conventions of American hip hop/rap ancillary texts. In the music video there more subversion of rather than compliance of generic conventions.
Overall I think that the material works well to cross promote the album and the artist. As I have stipulated there are some weaknesses but given the main ideas about how I wanted to subvert the genre, through denying the male gaze and not using star persona, are represented I think that the strengths outweigh the weaknesses.

evaluation A2 question 1

My video is an interpretation of the Rizzle Kicks song Miss Cigarette, this is a hip hop/rap genre. Throughout my video there are mainly challenges of the genre stereotypes, which have more links to British hip hop/rap artists than American.
One way which I have used conventions of the hip/hop/rap genre is through the cinematography, in this genre it is stereotypical for close-ups to be used on the main artist, which has links to the development and retaining a star persona. In my video during the lip synching sections the artist played by Michael Godfrey is always show through close-ups which conforms to the genre. However the use of star persona is subverted within my video. With links to mise en scene and costume he is not shot in ways that promote him as a star, for example the lighting is low key and he is not always centred in the shots, with reference to the rule of thirds. This subverts generic conventions where the artist is usually promoted as a star within the video; this is particularly true of American hip hop/rap videos.
The video follows generic conventions by having a female performer but the way she is represented subverts the generic conventions of how women are represented and used in the hip hop/rap genre. The performer, Rachel Watkeys Dowie, defies conventions through her androgynous costume, her female form is not emphasised, which is generally how women are portrayed in hip hop/rap videos. An example of the conventional way the female form is exploited can be seen in Snoop Dog’s video ‘Sweat’.

This was a conscious decision to challenge the way women are often objectified in this type of video. Nicky Minaj defies being objectified in a very different way, one of the ways she defies the objectification linked to the male gaze is the way she uses costume to parody the version of the female form usually found in hip hop/rap videos. Whereas my video develops the idea of refusing to allow the female performer to be objectified through her costume and make up in a different way to Nicky Minaj.
The locations in my video could be considered urban and gritty which conforms more to British hip hop/rap videos such as Professor Green and Plan B.

These could be described as more working class, with links to realism, often reflecting the lives of their audience It goes against the more generic hip hop/rap videos where use locations that have connotations of wealth and success, often portraying a fantasy world which is mainly unobtainable for the audience, offering a sense of escapism.
A convention that has been used and subverted is the type of music video, the three types being conceptual, performance and narrative. My video incorporates all these types, in generic hip hop/rap music videos performance is more often used, sometimes with a element of conceptual. An example of the latter is in Chris Brown’s video ‘I can transform ya’ where he transform from a car into a person

, this links into the idea of intertextual references to popular media, in this case the ‘Transformer’ films. My video conforms to this as I have used popular media; the split screen in my music video is an intertextual reference from the film ‘500 Days of Summer’.

However looking at British hip hop/rap videos many combine the three music video types. Plan B exemplifies this in his video ‘End Credits’. In terms of performance, conventions of the genre have been used in the lip-syncing of the lyrics. A generic convention of the hip hop/rap genre is for the artist to be shown performing their own song. An example of this is in Snoop Dog’s video for ‘That Tree’.

Evaluation A2 question 4

www.wix.com/flash_ahhhh/media-evaluation

Evaluation A2 question 3

music video evaluation on Prezi

music video

making digipak and poster

 this is the completed digipak and poster with some of the examples of the proses that occurred during the making of them on photo shop. the main problem i encountered was that fact that it was the first time i used photo shop so i had to take the time out to learn the basics. the text used all have connotations to the genre hip hop and rap. the images all connote the star persona of the band that i am trying to put across, an example being all the graphite which was taken in urban areas around London

how the feedback was used

I acted on the feedback from the first draft by making changes to the music video final copy. Firstly, I used some newly filmed performances to cut up some of the longer clips, such as the sped up traffic scene. I re- filmed the section of me lip synching and switched with Michael to produce a better flow and continuity.

final music video

feedback from the first draft

On Monday 23rd of january the class watch the music videos and feedback was given. We were given a week to act on the feedback from the students and the teacher. I was also given a chance to give discuss the feedback on my work and the areas that needed improvement. I thought I did this well.

Generally the main feedback was that the music video had a good flow, with an easy to follow narrative arc. The main positives were the split screen throughout the music video and the use of spot motion through the use of cigarettes. Some of the negatives were that some of the clips were to long, and a bit repetitive.  Also mentioned was that my presence within the video during the lip synching was a bit random and did not fit within the narrative.  The performance had to be re-filmed due to due to bad mise en scene.

final first draft

music video schedule

15th-23rd January 2012

• Throughout all this period I have been doing the final editing for the music video as all the filming was complete.

10th-12th January 2012

• Tuesday the 10th and 12th were both filming days, through in the end only a small fraction of the 23 minutes filmed was used in the film, that was the areas of lip synching and performance, due to the rest of the filming being hard to place within the film sequence.

 14th-16th December 2011

• These days were taken up with doing filming retakes and filming the second half of the story arc for the split screen, which is a main feature throughout the music video. A difficulty that arose was due to the weather being so cold, the actors were being affected by cold and so to some extent the filming was shortened and rushed.

7th-9th December 2011

• this was the first shot with the female actor were the first section of the story ark split screen, cold was an issue throughout this shot but also the fact that the days were quick to darken, but in the end i used this to my advantage, and using the darkening weather as a meterfor for the mood of the character as she is separated from the male lead, this also was used on his filming in the 14-16 december 2011 shot as that day was bright as it was filmed at an earlier time and so i used this as a representation for him being relinquished of his addiction.

digipak and Poster drawn

These are the drawings of the digipak and poster, they closely resemble the first draft of my poster and digipak. They adhere to the conventional of the genre of hip/hop and rap.

group feedback

This is the feedback given by the class during the presentation outlining the key ideas for my music video and digipak. Most was positive feedback, mainly saying that there were very clear ideas in terms of genre, audience and the conforming and subverting of the genre. One negative response given during feedback was regarding the font on the digipak and poster, the feedback suggested that I change it although it conformed to the stereotypical style of the hip hop/rap genre.  In response to this feedback I changed the font on my digipak and poster to a cleaner looking font but with still a nod to the conventions of the hip hop/ rap genre. Another area for improvement indicated by the feedback, was that there needed to be a clearer use of props, I will consider this at a later date.

encounted difficults

Another problem encountered is the lip synching, the main male actors Micheal Godfrey and Callum Black. The problem that occurred was due to Micheal not exaggerating the words strongly enough, so even though the image and the music are in synch, the image does not look like its synched to the music. Another issue that has arisen is that the camera position, it is appears different for both the actors, this may be due to the fact that one of the actors is a lot larger than the other, which may have messed up the position of the camera. Due to timing restrictions there cannot be any re shoots; so to fix the problems I change the scale of the image so that the positioning appears similar to the other actor. However this caused another problem, when you zoom in the quality of the image is adversely affected. This is unfortunately an unavoidable situation.     

The picture to the left shows a section of the performance that is incorporated within the music production. This section has to be reshot because the lighting is not as it should be. The audience feedback indicated that this was necessary as this section was confusing as it is the only footage where I'm seen clearly throughout the media production. Also there are sections of the footage where it is clear that I am reading from a lyric sheet.

This section also shows some more footage that needs to be reshot, this is due to a less than satisfactory mise en scene, but also the camera angle is not great. This was due to some obstructions that were difficult to move, such as a dining table and the instruments were ether to hard to move or to expensive to be moved without supervision. To counteract these difficulties I will film multiple close ups from different angles.

difficultes encountered

 I encountered multiple problems through the editing of the clips thought the media project, one being that much like the image shows, on the left, I used split screen with clips that had their speed adjusted to over 1000%.  Due to the clip being incredibly long and for the clip to work for its purposes of showing a period of time, it had to be sped up. The problem being that when you speed up a clip it can become scrambled and/or lose quality. So to be able to use the sped up clip and split screen I slowed the clip to 500%, this allows all the processes to occur without compromising the clip. Another problem that occurred with editing, though not an editing issue, was the multiple stop motions incorporated within the music video. These were created through taking multiple pictures  and moving objects slightly in each photo, thus creating movement. The problem that occurred was that once the pictures were placed within Final , the clips were too large and had to be edited down. Each clip had to be done separately which was very time consuming.