Evaluation

A2 Media Portfolio Evaluation

I was given the choice of 7 briefs to choose from at the beginning of the year to use for my advanced portfolio in media. At first I chose to create a package for a new film, including a teaser trailer, together with either a website homepage for the film, a film magazine front cover featuring the film or a poster for the film. Initially I chose to create a film trailer of the horror genre as I am a horror film fan and have watched many films of this genre. This meant that I could easily recognise the codes and conventions of the genre and include them in my trailer. I started my planning and research by analysing film trailers of the horror genre. After analysing two film trailers I decided that creating my own film trailer would mean I would need to get lots of people willing to act for me. As I missed the first two weeks of term, this proved difficult and I was already falling behind. Changing my original brief I decided to create a promotion package for the release of an album. This had to include a music promotion video, together with two of the three ancillary texts; a website homepage for the artist/band, a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package) or a magazine advertisement for the digipak. The two ancillary texts I chose to create were the magazine advertisement and the digipak.

In comparison to the brief set in the foundation portfolio in media, this is very different. At AS I again had the choice of creating a media text relating to the music industry however it only required one media product – instead of 3. I had to create a music magazine consisting of a front page, contents page and double page spread. Similarly I had to invent my own artist, yet at AS I only had to take original images of the artist(s) not video footage. For both portfolios I had to recognise codes and conventions of different genres of music and carry out research on the music industry its self. At AS I also had to post my research, planning, product and evaluation on an online blog which included analyses similar to my advanced portfolio. In both my foundation and advanced portfolio I had to use Adobe Photoshop to edit my main images and headlines for my music magazine at AS and Magazine advertisement and Digipak at A2. Doing my foundation portfolio helped me create my ancillary texts (magazine advertisement and Digipak) as I had previous experience using Adobe Photoshop therefore made it easier and quicker for me to produce a higher level media product. Different skills I had to use for my advanced portfolio were the use of video editing using Adobe Premier Pro CS3 on the editing suite. I also had to learn camera skills to video the footage needed to create my main media product – the music video. The research needed for my advanced portfolio had to be deeper as I was researching 3 different types of media texts therefore had much more work to carry out.

After asking my cousin Lucy to be the artist and main focus of my music video, we decided on the song ‘My Immortal’ by the gothic rock band ‘Evanescence’. This song would be a challenge to me as it isn’t the sort of music I would usually listen too therefore had little knowledge of the genre to begin with. I was also up to the challenge of making a video of a song originally performed by a band, work as well when performed by a solo artist. 

I created an audience research questionnaire consisting of both psychographic and demographic questions to identify my target audience. After asking people to fill in the questionnaires I photographed the most common answers and uploaded them to my blog to show what I learnt from the research. The majority of people thought that a performance video would be most appropriate for the rock genre. This made it easy to decide what type of music video I am going to create. Almost everyone who filled in the questionnaire said they listened to music everyday. This shows just how important music is as part of their lives. The ages of people asked to fill in the questionnaire varied, but the highest amount of people was from the 16-19 category. This told me that this is the age group that listens to the most music everyday therefore should be my target age group. Although the majority of people asked prefer the Alternative genre of music I didn’t want to change my song as I wanted to create something different to other popular music videos to make my video stand out amongst the rest. I created a tally next to each question on one of the filled out questionnaires to show which answers got the most points. This showed me important things such as the fact that narrative came in second place to performance making me decide that including narrative in the music video is a good idea. The audience for my music video would also be people who dress similar to my artist and don’t want to listen to mainstream pop music.

Web 2.0 allowed me to access music videos on the video sharing website ‘Youtube’ where I could watch other music videos from the gothic rock genre. This included other ‘Evanescence’ songs such as ‘Going Under’ which I chose to analyse in my research. From my research I found that it was conventional for the gothic rock genre to use a mixture of performance with some narrative in their music videos. I also found that the gothic rock genre of music videos is similar to the horror genre of films in terms of codes and conventions meaning that I could relate to it in this way. For example in the music video for ‘Going Under’ CGI was used to distort the faces of the crowd and band members to make them look like monsters that would usually be found in horror films. Music videos are conventionally performance, narrative or abstract media texts. Mine is largely conventional as it uses both performance and narrative throughout. From my research I decided to use both performance and narrative as this was conventional for this genre and I started to plan the mis-en-scene of the video - where the setting of the video will be and what the artist will look like. I decided because the chosen song ‘My Immortal’ has a narrative about death the most appropriate setting would be a graveyard which would usually be seen in horror films, therefore making this a conventional setting for the genre. This made the location easy to choose as there are many graveyards nearby that I could easily access to film my video in. The artist had two costumes; one mainly for performance, and the other for narrative, this is again conventional for the genre and music videos in general. During the performance parts of the video the artist is wearing a plain long black dress with a cross around her neck, I chose this outfit as its conventional for the genre and the cross links with the graveyard. I also decided that the artist had to wear light coloured makeup with red lipstick in the bright lighting and black lipstick in the dark lighting. Again this type of makeup is conventional for the gothic rock genre and is similar to the style of makeup the female lead singer of the original band ‘Evanescence’ would wear. The red lipstick really stands out in some of the coloured shots and it has connotations of love which reflect the lyrics of the song as it is about the death and spirit of a loved one. The black lipstick and the dark setting of the close up performing shots reflect the pain in the lyrics. The outfit in the narrative sections of the video is again conventional for the gothic rock genre as everything she is wearing is black, yet this time the dress is lighter therefore can blow in the wind making it look ghostly. The artist is also wearing a conventional leather jacket and leather gloves. Again she is wearing black lipstick; all of this costume reflects the painful narrative and sticks to the codes and conventions of the genre.

Music videos are a postmodern media text as they borrow from other music videos as well as being pastiches of other media texts for example a narrative music video is a pastiche of other media texts such as movies and television dramas. As narrative music videos are often mixed with performance, this becomes a pastiche of a live concert for example in the music video for the song ‘Going Under’ which I have analysed. This technique is used in many music videos usually portraying the artist as the hero in the narrative of the film for example in the ‘Usher’ music video I have analysed of the song ‘Yeah’, the protagonist (the artist) gets the girl. Other music videos, magazine advertisements and digipaks often include intertextual references for an active audience to recognise, they can also be self reflective as the artist is often singing to the camera showing that they are trying to connect with the audience therefore indicating the music video is aware of its form. My other two media texts; the magazine advertisement and digipak could also be seen as postmodern as they often borrow from other media texts too. For example in the ‘Plan B’ magazine advertisement I analysed he borrowed the ideology from the Motown revival music genre by using the same mis-en-scene that would be seen in that time (1960’s). This is an example of eclectic borrowing. In my magazine advertisement for the digipak I included the digipak front cover meaning this is an intertextual reference to my digipak.

I stored all of my pre-production, production and post-production coursework onto the free, easy to use blogging website www.blogger.com. I had already set up a ‘Google account’ for this web 2.0 online blogging website previously to publish my foundation portfolio production work last year. This website is highly customisable and allowed me to publish my work instantly for my teachers and other students to view and access. ‘Blogger’ keeps your posts in order of date and time making sure that everything is well organised and easy to navigate. As this is an online blog, it meant that my work could never be lost or accidentally deleted as it is stored securely on the internet were only I can edit it. Another Web 2.0 site I used during my pre-production stage was www.youtube.com. This helped me during my research stages of production as it allowed me to search and instantly stream music videos of different genres to help me identify the codes and conventions needed for my chosen genre. I was able to embed music videos from ‘Youtube’ onto my online blog by copying and pasting HTML links into my posts. This was useful as it allowed me to analyse and write about music videos in the same window. Other Web 2.0 sites such as www.wikipedia.com the online encyclopaedia, was also very useful during the research stages of pre-production as it allowed me to find information regarding certain artists/bands of different music genres and the history of music videos. It allowed me to access information needed for my analyses of music videos, Digipaks/album covers and magazine advertisements. I made sure all information used from this website was put into my own words before posting onto my online blog. www.interactimage.com was also very useful in the construction of my ancillary texts as it allowed me to choose from a large selection of fonts to use as my artists made up name and the name of the album.

During the pre-production stages of my work on the music video, I found the lyrics of the chosen song ‘My immortal’ to analyse to understand the narrative. This gave me an insight into how emotional the song is and allowed me to generate ideas to get that emotion across in my music video. After listening to the song many times I created a 15 page hand drawn storyboard consisting of 59 shots. This was a plan of what shots to use when filming and how long each shot would last. Creating a storyboard helped me plan how the shots were going to fit together and how I would use the mis-en-scene to my advantage and what props I was going to include in my music video. I was able to use a scanner to scan in each page of my storyboard and save them as a JPG file making me able to upload all of the images onto my blog. Using a digital camera I was then able to photograph each shot of my storyboard and upload it via a USB cable onto the laptop, saving the images again as a JPG file. I did this so that I could make an animatic (a series of still images edited together and displayed in sequence with the sound track) to give a better idea of how the scene will look and feel with motion and timing and also to show how my video is going to look through the hand drawn images from my storyboard. I made the animatic on Adobe Premier Pro CS3 – the same programme I used to create my music video. This media technology was readily available on the editing suites in college. I kept the hand drawn storyboards so that I could take them with me when filming my video so that I had a plan of what different shots to use and how long the shots were going to last.

Perfecting the shot.

I then decided how I wanted my artist to look and what props were going to be needed. I decided to keep my artist conventional for the genre costume wise and decided to keep the props to a minimum to keep the video simplistic. The conventional gravestones in the video could be seen as props as they help to reinforce the gothic horror genre and represent death and afterlife therefore reflecting the lyrics of the song. I used Christmas lights as a prop during the performance shots to create a ghostly effect and to represent spirits in the video. This again is reinforcing the gothic rock genre. I would say that the candle is the main prop used in the video and I used it because the lyrics of the song have elements of religion attached to them. I used the candle effectively by editing it together so that the candle gets blown out at the start of the drum sequence. This candle is conventional for this genre of music video and the flame getting extinguished represents the disappearance of the spirit.

After first creating a risk assessment explaining the hazards and control measures to put in place to keep me and the artist safe, I went on to start filming my music video using a ‘Canon 5D Mark ii’ camera. We drove to several different graveyards to find the best one possible to use as the setting for the music video. Playing the song out loud off my iPhone, my acting artist was able to lip-sync the lyrics of the song whilst filming which is conventional for a music video. After getting some footage I uploaded it onto my laptop which was very time consuming as the footage was in HD (high definition). Putting this footage onto a portable memory stick and uploading it onto the editing suites at college was also very time consuming. Because of this problem I decided to use a lower quality video camera the next time I went to shoot my video. Although I was able to upload the lower quality footage a lot quicker, it looked out of place with the HD footage. After editing the footage I had so far, I created my first edit of my music video and uploaded it onto youtube via my Google account and embedded the video onto my blog. When getting audience feedback for my first edit, the comments made indicated that I needed to film some of the footage again in HD to show continuity to improve my video. I was also told that the lip-syncing wasn’t perfect therefore needed to re-edit some shots. I found from the Audience Feedback that I needed to break up more of the performance with some narrative scenes and add some editing effects to the frames for example brighten/darken some, to make my video more conventional for the genre.

Whilst re-shooting my music video to improve it, I decided to have the artist wearing two different outfits to make the narrative clearer than it was in the first edit. I also wanted to include a more varied amount of shots to show off all of my abilities. After re-shooting I uploaded the new HD videos onto my memory stick and again uploaded them to the collages editing suite. Using Adobe Premier Pro CS3, I increased the brightness and contrast to make the coloured shots brighter with more statement colouring. By decreasing the coloured hue I was able to make some – mainly the narrative shots, black and white. I then used the contrast tool to make these black and white shots darker to make the black bolder and contrast with the white to reinforce the gothic genre of music. Adobe Premier Pro CS3 also allowed me to slow down some of the scenes making them more fitting with the slow pace of the song. I used other editing effects such as cross fades to make the shots blend together at a slow pace again fitting with the song. Additive fades also helped create the illusion of spirits to reflect the lyrics and I occasionally edited these into the video. Using the ‘Canon 5D Mark ii’ camera I was able to out focus the shots with Christmas lights in to create a ‘Bokeh’ effect which looks like orbs. These orbs have connotations of spirits and afterlife again reflecting the lyrics. I also out- focused parts of other shots to create a ghostly effect at times to stick to the conventions of the genre.

I introduced the artist at the beginning of the music video using a close up shot of her face with her eyes closed as she is the main focus of the video. I then decided an establishing shot of the setting (the graveyard) would be appropriate to give the audience an idea of the genre. As it was autumn when I was filming, the colours contrast together very well, the red colours in the leaves really stand out as they match with the artists red lipstick. My video mainly consists of long shots and medium shots of the artist which is also conventional for a music video as the artist needs to get recognised in order to sell as many albums as possible. I used continuity editing throughout the music video during the performance scenes and the narrative scenes, this again is conventional for music videos as it helps to make the shots blend together naturally and creates a sense of realism. The medium shot of the artist looking at the candle is used to reflect the lyrics ‘you used to captivate me by your resonating light’ as the artist is seen to be captivated by the light of the candle. I used other shots to reflect other lyrics for example the close up of the stone angels face reflects the lyrics ‘your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams’. This is again conventional for music videos and I think helps to move the narrative along. Using a panning shot around the artist stood at a gravestone, I was able to show that the artist is not alone reinforcing the idea that the spirit won’t leave her alone. When the drum sequence begins and the songs tempo becomes faster, I edited the video so that the shots were edited to the beat of the drums which again is conventional for music videos and changes the pace of the video. The artist blows out the candle on the first beat of the drum as part of the narrative to show that she wants the spirit to disappear and leave her alone. One of the last shots I used is a long shot of the artist running away which again reflects the narrative as the artist is trying to get away from the hurt of her loss, therefore creating emotion.

I started my pre-production work for my Digipak by analysing other Digipaks from multiple genres. During this analysis I considered things such as the media language, audience, ideology, institution and representations. From these analyses I was able to recognise the conventions of digipaks as a media text and what is conventionally included in them. For example the track list, main images, name of the artist, text on the spine, CD images and barcodes. From this I found out the different codes and conventions of each genre of digipak including my chosen genre – gothic rock. This gave me ideas of how of I wanted my digipak to look. I hand drew a plan of what I wanted the layout of my digipak to look like and scanned the image in to upload onto my blog. The image I drew showed a rough idea of what I wanted the main images to look like and I included the codes and conventions of the horror genre for example the graveyard and gravestones. Using www.interactimage.com I was able to generate different gothic fonts that would be suitable to use for my artists name and name of the album. After uploading these fonts onto my blog and asking my audience which font they thought was most effective, I edited the font on Adobe Photoshop were I was able to use the paintbrush tool to create a black shadow effect around the text. This is conventional for the gothic rock genre and has gothic connotations. Using the ‘Canon 5D Mark ii’ digital camera I took some original images of my artist in the graveyard. I edited these images on Adobe Photoshop to make them black and white as this is conventional for digipaks and for digipaks of the gothic genre. I uploaded both colour and black and white images onto my blog along with coloured stills from my video footage that I thought would be appropriate to use as main images for the digipak. Using the college intranet I accessed ‘moodle’ which allowed me to get a template of the digipak to import onto Adobe Photoshop. I then imported my chosen images onto the template; at first I was undecided about having the images in colour or black and white as both were used in my music video. I decided on black and white as I thought that it had more connotations relating to the song and the genre for example, death, spirits and religion.

I chose the images for the front and back cover as the artist is looking at the camera therefore connecting with the audience and included conventional gravestones. I decided to keep the gothic text black and white to show continuity from the music video and to make it easily recognisable. Putting the name of the album and the name of the artist on either spine is conventional for digipaks and the black and white colours again reflect the gothic rock genre. The audience would be able to recognise the genre of music from these images and texts because of the conventions I have used. As the colour red stands out within the music video, I chose to continue the theme running onto the digipak by leaving the lips red on the close up images of the artists face. I also chose to have the track number in a red font, this was done to give connotations of both love and blood which has further connotations of death therefore reinforcing the genre. The track list appears twice in my digipak which is unconventional as usually it only appears on the back cover. I thought it would be a good idea to put the track list inside the digipak on an image of an old gothic gravestone. I tried to create the illusion by using the touch-up tool on Photoshop and erasing the original writing engraved in the gravestone and putting the track list onto the empty gravestone using an old fashioned gothic font. I did this to show what the theme running through the tracks on the album is. Leaving the image of the orbs (bokeh) in colour was to again show continuity from the music video as that colour was the background throughout the performance scenes making it recognisable to fans. I conventionally put a barcode on the back cover of the digipak to make it look realistic, along with the Sony record label logo. This could be used as an advertising technique as fans of other artists on this record label may want to purchase this album because they usually enjoy the music of other artists signed to this record label. Using Adobe Photoshop I edited my artists album onto the iPhone iTunes store as this is what would be used in real life to show what it would look like to the consuming audience as iTunes is were the highest percentage of music is downloaded. Artists often use their album cover on iTunes when releasing a single to show which album the single is from, therefore promoting the album.

The pre-production work for my magazine advertisement was similar to that of my digipak. After looking at many magazine advertisements, I analysed them to find out the codes and conventions of this form and hand drew a plan of how I wanted my magazine advertisement to look. I found that it was conventional for magazine advertisements to have a main image of the artist and of the album cover, including a bold headline, subheadings, reviews and the release date. For some advertisements it was also conventional to include the record label the artist is signed too and what singles are included on the album being advertised. I included many of these conventions in my hand drawn draft. Similar to my foundation portfolio work, I created my magazine advertisement on Adobe Photoshop as it was quick and easy to use as I already had the knowledge of how to use it from previous work. I chose to have the main image of my magazine advertisement as the same image from the back cover of my digipak, but in colour. This was to show continuity from the coloured scenes in the music video and to link all three media texts together. As this is an advertisement of the album I had to conventionally include the front cover of the album along with the release date. I included intertextual references to other media texts such as Q magazine, The Independent newspaper and The Guardian. Another intertextual reference used was to HMV as this is a music distributor meaning my target audience may buy the album from here. A website was also included as most artists also distribute their music from their websites along with samples of their tracks. The red theme again is used in this advertisement to again link it together with the album and music video.

After the completion of my music video and both ancillary texts, I created an audience feedback questionnaire consisting of many questions regarding all three of the media texts I have created. The majority of people who filled out the feedback questionnaire were from my target audience category ages 15-17 and 18-20. Regarding the music video every person asked thought that the music video reflected the lyrics of the song, everyone recognised that the genre is gothic rock, said they enjoyed watching the music video and most said that they would buy it on iTunes. My target audience recognised that the song is about the loss of a loved one, and one person said the narrative is ‘a dead spirit what isn’t leaving her alone’. This tells me that I succeeded in getting across the narrative of the song through the video. Everyone thought that Lucy’s (the artists) performance was very realistic and most people wouldn’t have changed anything about the music video. Others wrote that they would have included more black and white scenes and darker colours in the graveyard scenes. Regarding my digipak, everyone thought it reflected the music video and lyrics of the song and could recognise the genre immediately. This was the same case with the magazine advertisement. The negative feedback I received was that the text on the digipak could have been better and the price could have been included in both digipak and magazine advertisement. Most people thought that the images were the highlight of both magazine advertisement and digipak and were consistent throughout. One person even recognised the ‘bokeh’ effect used to create the orbs. After asking if the music video, Digipak and magazine advertisement all show continuity and reflect each other, everyone answered yes which made me very pleased with my finished product.

Words 4,895