Here is a short video with an example of how we edited our Music video:
My Evaluation
This coursework has challenged and inspired me a great deal. I now feel comfortable using software that I hadn't even heard of before starting my A-level media course and also feel more confident in my camera and editing skills. I believe that we made products which would attract our target audience and promoted The xx as a band as best we could considering our amateur positions. I thoroughly enjoyed creating our products and hope it is not the last time I do something like this.
We didn't have a rough cut of our music video as there was an issue with time but we showed a few people at various stages in the process of making it.
One general criticism we were given was for our lack of narrative near the beginning of creating our music video the people we showed wanted to see more of a story within the fast edits. Another criticism was the fact that there was not enough space between each of the clips of the protagonist, Jade, spinning round.
Here is a video from a few months ago of our music video unfinished:
As you can see from the video, the second criticism was right, the clips of Jade spinning were far too close together. The background and the dark image of Jade contrast so much with the other, slightly more colourful clips that it is very obvious to an audience just how close together the clips are. To resolve this we filmed more, so we were able to include more clips in between each spinning clip.
Another criticism we got near the beginning of creating our music video was that the video overall was too colourful and therefore cheerful to be linked to the music underneath it. Contradictions can work really well, especially in Indie music but there was too much contrast between the song and the video. We decided we preferred the video in an almost monochrome effect, apart from certain images that we wanted to stand out. So we applied the video effect Bleach Bypass on iMovie to almost all of our clips. This made the video seem really edgy and made the clips that we wanted to, stand out.
The criticisms we received really helped us in creating an overall better music video. If they hadn't have been pointed out to us we probably would never had noticed. The criticism's benefited our video incredibly and made it seem more professional.
Digipak
We created our digipak on Photoshop.
Our digipak was slightly more organised than our music video and so we had time to make a series of rough drafts and ask a group of people, varying in age, to tell us what they thought of each draft.
Here is the breakdown of our final few drafts:
ONE
TWO
THREE
and finally FOUR
As you can see, there is a clear thought process in the deciding of our album cover.
The people we talked to said that number ONE was too dark to be an album cover and that it looked more like a promotion for a horror film.
They said they preferred TWO to ONE but that it was too detailed to be an album cover for The xx. They told us we should either have a crystal effect or an eye, but not both together.
That led us to number THREE, everyone we asked said that this was the best one, as it was both simple and detailed at the same time. The one thing they did mention was that it didn't look like a CD as it was rectangular and didn't have a margin down the side as is conventional to CD cases.
Number FOUR was our completed album cover, it includes everything that our audience feedback required.
Audience feedback was especially beneficial in the creation for our album cover as this is the task where we were getting familiar with Photoshop and didn't understand the little things we could do to change our product. The audience feedback pushed us to find out these things and helped us to create an even better digipak magazine advertisement.
Digipak Advertisement
The digipak advertisement was done very late on in the A2 media process due to a misunderstanding of our brief. This meant that we had to create our digipak predominantly through research and the opinions of our media teachers. We researched both digipak advertisements of well-known artists and also those of previous A2 media students, we also briefly looked at the past students' audience feedback to see if any of the comments could apply to ours.
The main points made on previous students' digipak adverts were:
There should be an association with or a picture of the album cover
It should be clear when the album is coming out
The main songs from the album should be shown as a way to pull an audience in
We applied all of these aspects to our magazine advert.
Although researching previous A2 media products was a good idea and very useful finding general feedback, a more personal audience feedback based on how our advert looked as well as what it contained would have been far more valuable.
The music video we decided to do was for the song "Crystallised" The xx's debut single from their debut album "xx".
We have a simple but vague narrative of the protagonist, Jade, losing a crystal at the start then going insane in search for it, shown through various clips of her feet and of her walking. The insanity is shown through the shots of her flipping her head round in slow motion. At the end she finds the crystal which is shown through a simple shot of her hand catching it.
Although it is an unclear narrative and not everyone will understand that there is one, i don't think it detracts the effect of the music video. This is because all of the shots depicting the narrative have the same or similar image effects on them and so if the story line isn't noticed the clips depicting it will blend in with the standard and ECU shots of the protagonist singing along to the music, the various shots of cars and the brief clips of drums.
The xx's original music video was a series of clips showing them simply with their instruments. This implies that they want the main focus to be on the music and so we thought it was appropriate to include clips of Jade singing along with the music and a drum kit reflecting the persona of the band.
Digipak and Digipak Advert
The digipak and digipak magazine advert were our ancillary tasks.
We decided to use a picture of an eye for our album cover, linking to our music video which starts and ends with the opening and closing of an eye respectively. This is relevant because "Crystallised" was the first single off of their album and so it is more likely to have an effect on the presentation of the album as a whole.
There are clear links between the back cover of the album and the advertisement, one of which are the fonts, here is the font from the back cover of the album:
and here is the font from our advertisement:
As you can see, we used the same font, Minion Pro, for both but changed the colour to contrast slightly.
To Conclude
Overall, the similarities between three products make the combination of them quite effective. Although there is only a small connection between the music video and the digipak advertisement, I don't think it matters too much. This is because the advert is promoting the album and not the music video. One could argue that the music video is an advertisement as well. Promoting an understanding of what the band is about and the kind of music they play and in doing so, hopefully increasing the sales of the album.
Initially we had to find the original conventions of music videos in our chosen genre, "Indie-pop", and the conventions of music videos in general. We also had to find the conventions to existing album covers and digi-pak adverts.
Music Video
First of all, I can compare our music video to the General Theory on music videos:
Lyrics establish a general feeling/mood/sense of subject rather than a meaning. Meaning is presented more through visuals.
Tempo of music drives the editing
Genre might be reflected in types of mise-en-scene, themes, performance, camera and editing styles.
Camerawork impacts meaning. Movement, angle and shotdistance all play a part in the representation of the artist/band (close-ups dominate).
Editing is done in fast cuts, rendering many of the images impossible to grasp on first viewing, so ensuring multiple viewing.
Digital effects often enhance editing, which manipulates the original images to offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience.
Here is a video explaining the ways in which we believe our music video used, developed and challenged real media conventions and thereby challenging the General Music Video Theory:
Lyrics: "You've applied the pressure To have me crystallised And you've got the faith That I could bring paradise
I'll forgive and forget Before I'm paralyzed Do I have to keep up the paceTo keep you satisfied..."
These lyrics aren't particularly visual and so we had room to do almost anything we wanted, in terms of story line, within our genre conventions.
We decided to have a continuous theme of sparkly things such as crystals and glitter contrasting with the more gritty side of things such as gritty pavement and broken glass. We also challenged the conventions of music videos in the indie-pop genre (particularly by The xx) by including a vague story line.
Music and Editing: Looking at our music video you can tell that the editing really came down to the beat of the music. The beat fluctuated from fast to slow depending on what part of the song it was, and this is shown through the various fast-paced and slow motion edits.
Camerawork: All of our filming was done with the intention that the clips would later be edited into a series of various short clips. The mixture of camera shots such as, ECUs, tracking, low/awkward angle and still shots created a distorted view of the music video conforming to the conventions of the indie-pop genre.
Intertextuality: We didn't base our music video on any lyrical references other than the title "crystallised" we took this word and created our continual theme of sparkles contrasting with darker edgier things from it.
Andrew Goodwin's Theory on the Conventions of Music Videos
"Visuals either illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics and music. Genres often have their own music style/iconography. Close-ups should always be included. The artist/ band might want to develop their own star iconography, which becomes their star image. Voyeurism is a common theme within music videos. Intertextual reference are also popular. The female performer is frequently objectified principally for display purposes, often through a combination of camerawork and editing with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star."
After comparing our music video to Goodwin's theory there are some clear similarities and differences. For example, I would say that our adaptation of "Crystallised" by "The xx" contradicts the lyrics and music by involving a slightly more upbeat theme in the clips than is depicted in the lyrics. Another similarity is that our video involves a vast amount of close-up and extreme close-up shots focusing mainly on facial features. This links to the part of the theory that says "The female performer is frequently objectified..." as close up shots of eyes and red lips creates an image for a male audience. Also red lipstick has sexual connotations and it is often used to make women look more attractive to the opposite sex. We didn't develop a star image, apart from the previously mentioned 'red lipstick' voyeurism wasn't involved and an intertextual reference would be difficult to involve as different people will interpret our music video in different ways.
Our Digipak
Here is our digipak
The front cover
and the back cover
Our album cover was created using Photoshop. The front cover inspired our use of eyes in our music video as we thought it would be a good way to open and close it. We initially used the eye because we wanted to challenge the conventions of "The xx"s usual theme of simplicity while also conforming to the same convention on the back cover. Due slacking time-management skills we were unable to find the time to create an inside cover for our Album, however if we were to it would be plain black with anX where the CD would be placed, to continue with simplicity theme.
Our Digipak Advertisement
Here is our advertisement
After researching for real band album advertisements we found that they were all fairly similar. From the adverts that we found, we realised that there were certain aspects included in all of them that we would have to include (and therefore conform to). These were:
Band name and album title
When the album is released
A couple of hit songs on the album
We also realised that a lot of the adverts in one way or another resembled the album cover of the album they were advertising so a customer would know what to look for. The adverts that didn't have a resemblance to their album included a picture of the album in the advert. As you can see, we did this. We did it because we thought a picture of the band "The xx" was relevant as it is their product that we are advertising and therefore the background picture of the band does not resemble the eye on our album cover. The fact that we put a picture of our artist as the background both conforms and challenges media conventions depending on which genre you look at. If you look at the indie-pop genre of advertisement it rarely shows the artist in the background and therefore our advertisement has challenges our particular genre's conventions.
We also thought we needed to include information on where customers could buy the album from and so we included two of the most well known icons associated with purchasing music, HMV and iTunes. Furthermore we included the websites of these two stores and the bands website so as to notify an audience of where they can get more information. Only one of the adverts we found did this, however we thought it would be a useful attribute and so we included it, developing and also challenging the usual conventions.
Because of our huge mistake in thinking we had to create a Magazine cover instead of a magazine advert we have had to do some late research into magazine digi-pak adverts and create our own accordingly.
We looked at famous singers' as well as previous A-level media projects for research on our digi-pak. Here are some we found:
This is an advert made by a previous A2 Media Studies student. It is an advert for "Florence + the Machine"s album "Lungs". We really liked this advert and drew some inspiration from it. Such as, having a picture of the artist in the advert and also involving the icons of the shops in which you can buy the album. We also liked that they involved links to websites where an audience could get more information. Florence + the Machine is a very flamboyant artist and this is depicted in the way the person in this advert looks and is dressed. Her facial expression is neutral if a bit sultry which enhances her femininity appealing to both men and women.
This is a digipak advert for the rock band "The Killers". It is straight to the point and shows exactly what it is advertising, their album "Day & Age" and the single from that album "Human". Someone reading this advert could assume that the album cover has a similar background to the background of the advert and so it would be easy to find when looking for it in a music retailer such as, HMV or Itunes. However, it fails to tell an audience when and where they can buy it. This is something we will add to our digipak advert.
This is an advert for rap artist "Wretch 32"s album "Wretchrospective". The sideways, open stance of the artist suggests that he is relaxed and this may make an audience feel comfortable and more likely to buy his album. The jewellery hanging out of his pocket suggests wealth and makes the advert seem glamorous attracting an audience who aspires to this type of lifestyle. The fact you can see him and his stage name means that previous fans will be attracted to the advert. This magazine digi-pak advert tells an audience exactly what they need to know: *The name of his album *When and where someone could buy it *What is featured on the album *A picture of what his album looks like * A website link where people can look for further information
We will be involving all these aspects in our digipak advert.
