Evaluation

There are many different conventions of a music video such as close ups, fast cuts, nicely lit shots, a range of different camera angles and sometimes a narrative. In my music video I have included many different camera shots such as close-ups. Using close-ups is one of the main conventions of a music video and helps to focus the attention on some of the most important parts of the video and parts which the audience would need to acknowledge in more detail. Close-ups are also used to focus of the artist in the video making them the centre of attention as the main point of a music video is the sell the song and to promote the artist. In my video I have included close-ups of an autograph, a heart drawn in the window and many close-ups of our lead singer Shaun. Below is a close-up of Shaun taken from our video :

I feel that we have slightly challenged this convention as we have not included as many close-ups that you would see in a standard music video because we wanted the main focus the be on the narrative. We felt that too many close-ups of our lead singer would break up the narrative too much and the viewer would be confused as to what was going on. We also used a wide range of camera angles and shots such as high angle shots, over the shoulder shots, medium shots, long shots and also some handheld camera shots. I feel that including handheld camera shots challenges this convention as you would not normally see handheld camera work in music video as it may come across ‘messy’ or ‘unprofessional’. The reason why we used handheld camera shots was because we felt it added a new dimension to the narrative as it seems like we are seeing part of the narrative from the characters point of view. I feel like we have used and developed and challenged the convention of using fast cuts. The use of fast cuts is used a lot in music videos as it helps give the videos at a steady pace and makes sure the viewer doesn’t get bored when watching the video. The track we used has an upbeat tempo therefore making it natural to include fast cuts to make the video flow. We challenged this convention as we did include some shots in slow motion which lasted longer than the average shot length. The reason why we did this was to help enhance the narrative as it added a good effect and helped to round off our narrative nicely. Most modern music videos have a narrative where the viewer can listen to the song whist watching a story. We have used this convention by having a narrative which links with the lyrics of the song and it easy to understand and follow. Below are two pictures , the first picture is a printscreen from the video 'Celebrity Status' showing the fun narrative and the second picture is from our video showing the same thing.

The band that we have chosen (Marianas Trench) is a Pop Rock band, the main conventions of a music video in this genre tends to be: performance from the band, an energetic and fun narrative, fast cuts, close-ups of instruments and lead singer. I think that we haven’t really stuck the main conventions of a Pop rock music video as we wanted to do something different and unusual although we did include an energetic and fun narrative. Be Richard Dyer said that ‘a star is an image constructed from a range of materials’, from this quote Peter Fraser said that music videos draw upon the image presented in each of the other aspects and that music videos will act as a showcase for their talents and a significant part in the construction and maintenance of their image.

My first ancillary text is the website which Shaneece and I designed on Dreamweaver. We first looked at the website of the band ‘Marianas Trench’, from this we look at the type of content on the website and the colour schemes. One of the main things we noticed was the colour scheme of black and red so we have made sure we used the colours black and red on our website we also decided to add the colour blue to make it more colourful. We have included a ‘recent news’ box which includes information on tour news, competitions and announcements. We also included our music video on the website, we placed our video in the centre of our website making it the center of attention as it will be the first thing which will the viewer see when going onto the website. It also helps to advertise the track. Dyer said that the ‘star’ image is made up of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences, according to Dyer the star is very important to the band and other things linked to it as they portray a certain message which they want to send to their audience. We took the image of the star of our video and made sure he was the main focus of our website, the main image of our star is in the top left corner. We edited the image to make it more eye catching and added text underneath advertising the bands new single. In the image the star of our video is holding a megaphone which is also used as a prop in our video linking the two together. We have repeated the image of the megaphone throughout all 3 texts making this a main feature of our texts. Below are pictures of parts of all three of my text showing the megaphone:


From these pictures you can also see the way the colour scheme flows throughout the products and the use of the 'star' image. The image of a person tends to be the main selling point of music , if people like the look of the star they will be more likely to take an interest in them and buy their music. Our second ancillary text is the digipack, this is a CD for the band Marianas Trench, on the front of the cd there is a picture of the star of our music video holding a megaphone which is a running theme throughout the texts and the music video. In the background there are red and blue hand drawn lines. The colour scheme of red black and blue is another thing which runs throughout all 3 media pieces and links them together this helps to make the texts consistent and to help them all flow together. All 3 pieces use the same person to represent the star which in turn helps to promote the band. On our digi pack we have used the image of the star a total of 4 times which should make it more appealing to the target audience. Overall I feel that the two texts have many connections and share the same features of my pain product , together they advertise and promote the band in many various different ways.

To get feedback for our video we arranged a screening of our video and then got feedback from our peers. After the screening we then asked our peers what they thought of the video and if we could make any improvements. This was some of the feedback we received: 'I enjoyed the storyline , it made the video feel fun and energetic' ,'The video had good pace to it and fit with the beat of the music' , 'I like the use of repetition of some of the clips towards the end of the video' , 'I like how you have made the narration fit with the lyrics of the song'. They also commented on how the lighting was better on this video compared to our first draft. Some improvements they thought we could have was that some of the lip-syncing could be clearer as it was hard to tell what Shaun was singing and to also add a performance element to break up the narrative. If we had a bit more time we would of filmed this and edited it into our video.

For the feedback on our Digipack we also asked our peers as they are our target audience and would be the type of people who would buy our Digipack. One of the positive points that was made was the fact they liked the 'zig zag' style stripes on the front cover as it made it look different and helped to catch their eye. Another comment made was how original the idea of having random lyrics on the inside panel was. It was also suggested that we changed some of the images on the inside as it is quite repetitive , Shaneece and I were going to do this if we had enough time. To receive feedback for our website we also asked our peers , they all seemed to like the many uses of rollover images as it made the website seem more interactive. Another thing they liked was the fact we hae used the same colour scheme throughout all 3 of our products as it made them all flow together. The use of the scrolling text was also mentioned as a positive as it made the website seem more interesting and modern. People also liked the font we used as it was stylish and modern instead of some of the plain fonts you normally see on websies. Some negative points were the fact that we could of added more things to the homepage as it looked quite empty. Me and Shaneece also thought this as there was quite a bit of blank space on our homepage.

Final Video

This is our final music video for the song 'Sing Sing' by Marianas Trench

Final Website

Below is a printscreen of our final website.



We made quite a few changes to our website , the first thing I did was add a scroll bar to the 'Recent News' box. Shaneece and I also made rollover images for each section of our navigation bar , Shaneece did four and I did four. Below is an example of the 'Home' part of our navigation bar.

Shaneece had an idea of having some merchandise on our website , Shaneece and I both designed the t-shirts and Shaneece made them. Another thing we also added was the megaphone (rollover image) this made it so people could listen to the band music whilst on the home made. I found out how to add scrolling text and added it underneath the megaphone which said 'now playing...'.

We also added links to the bands social networking sites such as Twitter,Myspace and Youtube through different rollover images that when clicked on led to the bands official social networking sites , this meant that the fans were able to keep up with the band.

Another thing we added was an inroduction of the band at the left hand side of the website which Shaneece did.

Final DigiPack

The first thing we changed on our digipack was the left panel , we thought it look boring and unfinished how it was and we needed something to go on it. Shaneece had the idea of putting lines of lyrics from the band's songs going across it. Firstly I made the lines less bright so the text was easier to read and then I researched some of the lyrics from the songs and put them on the panel. We also added more text at the bottom of the back panel to make it look more realistic.

Shaneece then edited the two symmetrical images on the insides panels and made them posterized , we felt this added an artistic feel to the cd case.

Filming and Editing

Filming


As I was now acting in our music video due to our actor being unavailible I didnt have the opportunity to film as much as Shaneece did. To make up for this I made sure I filmed most of the shots that I wasnt involved in and I gave as much direction to Shaneece as possible when I wasnt filming. Whilst filming we came across many problems such not having enough light , actors not wearing the right clothes , forgetting props and the weather. We had to over come all these issues whether it might postphoning filming to another day or just doing what we could.

Editing

When it came down to editing I didnt really know how to use Adobe Premiere Pro whereas Shaneece did , despite this we tried to divide the eidting between us with me doing more of the simplier stuff. Shaneece then taught me to do other things such as playing around with the sound and splitting clips into 2 and speeding up&slowing down clips, this meant that when Shaneece was ill or wasnt in lesson i was able to carry on editing our video without any trouble.

Website Draft Edit

To design and create our website Shaneece and I used Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. Dreamweaver was new to us both so we watched many tutorials on you tube to help us learn the basics.

The first thing we did was decide on a colour scheme , we decided on a colour scheme of white , black , red and blue to match our digipack.

Me and Shaneece both worked on the website equally with us discussing everything together before we did it. We decided on the main features of our website which were the banner , ‘recent news’ box , the navigation bar , a picture advertising the bands new single , and the music video we made. We also spent time discussing which font to use.

We decided to put the video in the middle of our website as it is our main product and we want it to be center of attention. In the top left corner Shaneece edited a picture of Shaun to make it look like a Polaroid with the writing ‘Sing Sing out now’ underneath. This is to help advertise the dig pack. Shaneece also made this image into a rollover image.



Me and Shaneece both linked up the different pages on our navigation bar so they go to different pages when you click on them.

I feel that we could add loads more to our website to make it look more professional , we are going to add a section for social networking , some more roll over images and a media section where you can listen to the bands music from the homepage.

CD Draft Edit

Me and Shaneece decided on a 6 panel dig pack , the template for our digi pack is below ,

To collect the images for our dig pack me and Shaneece took turns of taking different pictures of Shaun in front of the green screen. We then went through our images and decided on the best one for the front cover. The main picture on the front was took and edited by Shaneece where as the design behind the picture was thought out and done by me. I thought the messy blue and red stripes gave the cd a more rough and edgier feel.

Both of the images on the inside panels where shot and edited by me whereas the middle picture was shot and edited by shaneece. I had the idea of having a picture of an above shot of Shaun holding the megaphone for the middle panel as it has the same shape as a cd which is clever as this is where the cd would go.




I think this is a good for a first draft but we have parts we need to improve for our final product such as adding more pictures.

Music Video - First Draft

Research and Planning - Treatment and StoryBoard

Before we could start filming we had to design a storyboard, in this storyboard we included what is going to happen in each shot and what kind of shot it will be. Below is some pictures of our storyboard.

Research and Planning - Chosen Track

The track me and Shaneece decided to use for our music video is the song 'sing sing' by the canadian band Marianas Trench.



Before we could use the track we first had to ask for permission,shaneece emailed 604 records who manage the band and explained why we needed the track and if it would be okay if we could use it. The email shaneece sent and there reply is below.

"Dear 604 Records,

We are two students, aged 17, from England doing a College A-Level coursework project for Media Studies. This project requires us to do a music video.
Our College is George Spencer College in Nottinghamshire, UK. The requirements of our coursework states that if a band is signed we need permission from the record label of the artist and the track should not already have a music video. The music video would not be used for commercial means and would only be put onto Youtube and our blogs we make for our coursework project.

We are huge fans of Marianas Trench and would be honoured if you could please grant us permission to use one of their tracks that don't already have a music video.
The track we would love to do a music video for is 'Sing Sing' from the Masterpiece Theatre album.

We look foward to hearing back from you,

Thanks,

Shaneece Deep & Patricia Sheehan of George Spencer College - UK."


The email was as follows:


Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 03:34:41 -0700
Subject: Re: Marianas Trench
From: jonathan@604records.com
To: shaneece_deep@hotmail.com

Hi Shaneece.

On the basis of this note, the permission is granted.
Thanks.

JS


On 10-09-07 3:30 AM, "shaneece deep" wrote:

Hi Jonathan,

This won't be used for any commercial means as it is merely a school/college project for our subject of Media Studies in order for us to get a grade towards our qualification for A-Level Media Studies.

Basically the project outline is to make a music video to a track that we have permission for;
We would have to film a music video that we devise for the track and then after we have put it together we would upload it onto Youtube.com or another video streaming website for our examiners. It will not be used anywhere else for any commercial/promotional means.

As we need to document the permission to use the track for our examiners; if we could have your permission to use the track 'Sing Sing' by Mariana's Trench it would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Shaneece Deep & Patricia Sheehan

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 21:59:08 -0700
Subject: Marianas Trench
From: jonathan@604records.com
To: shaneece_deep@hotmail.com

Message body Hi Shaneece. This is probably OK as long as the video is not used for any commercial means whatsoever. Can you tell me EXACTLY what you will do with it?

Thanks.

Jonathan Simkin

Filming

Today me and shaneece started filming , one of our actors wasnt avalilable to film today so we had to film all that we could with our other actor Shaun who plays the band member. The location of our filming was at our actors Shauns house. The first shot that we filmed was in Shauns room, the shot was a high angle shot filming Shaun lying in his bed with a pillow over his head miming the lyrics 'its no wonder im not sleeping'. Shaneece filmed this while i directed and told Shaun what to do. We filmed the shot 3 times so we can chose the best one during the editing stage. The next shot we filmed was Shaun getting out of bed and noticing the camera hidden in his room , he then walks up to it and places his hand over the camera. During the editing stage we will make this clip look like its CCTV footage so it looks like the camera was place in his room by the girl stalker. The next shot we filmed was a shot filming from outside looking through a window into Shauns living room , this is to give the audience the sense that the stalker girl is looking through the window into his house. You see Shaun sitting at the table about to eat a sandwich when he looks to the camera and sings the line 'its no wonder im not eating' , when he looks to the camera it will be like he is looking and singing to the girl through the window , after he has sang the line he will walk away out of the shot. We realised after filming that we couldnt film any more footage withuot our other actor , we hope to film the rest of our footage by next week.

Research and Planning - Risk Assesment

Before filming our video we have to consider the risks that could occur and how we can prevent them from happening.

One risk that could occur when filming is making sure our characters our safe when filming near a busy street as there would be many cars passing by and we dont want our actors to get run over. To overcome this problem we will make sure all the roads are clear before we start filming and be extra cafeful when filming around busy roads to makesure no harm comes to our actors

Another risk is the protection of the equipment as it might get damaged or lost when in our posession. We will overcome this by making sure when we are not using the equipment we will keep them safe and in its case , we will also make sure we are careful when using the equipment and not to let anyone else apart from ourself handle it.

Research and Planning - Costume

Shaun - Band member:

Beanie hat
T-Shirt x2
Cardigan
Skinny Jeans
Canvas Shoes

We chose this clothes for Shaun to wear as it is a typical/stereotypical outfit that a member of a boy band would wear.

Jessie - Stalker:

Skirt
Shorts
T-shirt with a heart on it with the band members face in the middle
Any shoes

We chose this as it is quite casual but also girly. The t-shirt will also give the audience the immediate impression that the girl is obsessed with the band member.

Research and Planning - Location

For our music video we have chosen 3 different locations to film at.

The first location is a deserted street in stapleford, we chose this as it fits perfectly with our storyboard and the noise level will be a minimum as not many cars go down this street. This will be where we film most of the verses and have the meetings between the band member and the stalker.

The second location is a house , the house belongs to our actor Shaun. We will need to find inside the house for the bridge of the song. When the band member is inside trying to eat his food and when he is in his bedroom trying to sleep. We chose Shaun's house because when we film the scene in the bedroom the decoration of the bedroom would be already similar to what we want the room to look like as Shaun and our band member character are similar and have similar taste.

The third location is the high street of stapleford , this is where we will film the second verse our of video where the band member is coming out of the shops with his shopping bags and the girl makes him jump.

Research and Planning - Props

For our video we will need to use many props to help enhance our video and make it more realistic.




The first prop is a megaphone . The band member will need to use the megaphone during the video to grab the attention of the stalker. It also shows he has more authority other the stalker.

The next prop is a camera. The stalker will use the camera during the second verse to take a picture of her and the band member.



The third prop is a plastic bag. The plastic bag will also be used in the second verse to show that the band member is carrying some shopping.
















The last prop we are going to use is an autograph book. The stalker will have this during the first verse when she is asking for an autograph from the band member.

Research and Planning - Actors

For our video we need two main actors , a guy who plays a boy band member and a girl who is a stalker. For the role of the band member we have decided to cast our friend Shaun. We chose Shaun because he is our good friend and I know we can trust him to always turn up for filming. I also know Shaun will put 100% into the task and not let us down. Shaun also has the correct image and style for what we want our band member to look like so he fits the character perfectly For the role of stalker we chose our friend Jessie. We chose Jessie because like Shaun she is also our good friend and we trust her to always show up on time for filming and that she will try her best. She also has the right look for what we want in our video.

Website Analysis - Justin Bieber

(click image to enlarge) The webiste i have decided to analysis is Justin Biebers. The first thing i notice about this website is that the main colours are purple and grey , this is quite an unusual colour scheme for a male as the colour purple would normally be associated with girls. This choice of this colour scheme could be to catch the eye of his fans which are mainly girls.
Another thing i have noticed about this website is the repetitive use of Justin Biebers image. This could be because many of his fans are young girls who find him attractive will enjoy seeing his face all over the website.

The main banner is all in capitals with the name 'Justin Bieber' in capital letters and in quite a skinny font and next to it 'My World 2.0' which is the name of his album. This is in a dark purple font and is also in capital letters. The font used is jazzy and modern which would appeal to Justin Biebers target audience.

Underneath the main banner there is another banner with the title 'connect with bieber'. Here is where you can keep up to justin on all of his other social networking sites.

Research and Planning - CD cover anaylsis

This is the CD cover for a young artist called 'Justin Bieber'. The colour scheme for this is white , purple and grey. This is quite unusual as these colours are normally associated with girls. This could be because most of his fans as females therefore the colour scheme will catch their eyes and make them want to buy the cd. Justin has also used his image on the front of the CD trying to sell himself aswell as the the cd. Girls could be more likely to buy the CD as they might find Justin 'attractive'. In the background there as abtract pictures and lines making the cover look quite modern and unusual.

Research and Planning - CD cover analysis

This is the front of the CD for the band 'Biffy Clyro'. Unlike most CD's this CD cover does not have a picture of the band on the front , instead there is quite an unusual image of a man and a women in a middle of a field looking at each other with pieces of coloured cloths floating above them. This is a good thing as because it is quite unusual it means that more people will be talking about it creating publicity and advertisement for the band. The band name and the title of the album are in a quite small font in capital letters , this means that all the focus is on the picture instead of the band.

Reseach and Planning - Website Anaylsis

(click the picture to enlarge) The first website i have decided to anaylis is the website for the band 'biffy clyro'.
The background is plain black with a picture of the lead singer at the side , at the top of the page are the band name 'biffy clyro' in bold white capitals as shown below.

The use of a big bold font helps make it stand out and will catch the eye of whoever is on the website , the use of the colour white as the font is also good as it stands out against the dark black background.

Underneath the title there are little links that will take you to the different parts of the website. Examples of some of the links are 'shows' , 'music' , 'store' and 'gallery'. These links make it easier for you to navagate around to website and get to parts of the website quicker and easier.

On the main home page there is a video box where you can watch videos by Biffy Clyro , there is also an options to add your own comments on the video. I think the use of a video box makes the website more interactive and its more interesting than just having plain text and pictures. There is also a little music player which automatically plays when you go onto the website , you also have the option of changing the song. This once again adds an interactive element to the website.

Also on the website are links to the social networking sites which the band have such as facebook , twitter , bebo and myspace. This is there so that fans of the band can keep up to date with whatever the band is doing. There is also a section down the left hand side which shows all the upcoming shows that the band are playing.

Overall the website has many features that will help advertise the band as a whole , the website is very interactive and will give you all the information you need about the band.

Research and Planning - Treatment

The song that me and Shaneece have chosen for our music video is ‘sing sing’ by the band Marianas Trench. After listening to the song a couple of times we started to brainstorm ideas of the story for our music video. In the end we decided on something we decided on the ‘Stalker Story’. We are going to try to fit the story with the lyrics of the song.

The story is about a fan girl who followers her favourite band member everywhere he goes and even turns up at his house etc. The band member is trying to make her go away by doing various stuff such as running away, ignoring her and even slamming the door in her face. At the start of the video you will see the band member walking down the street casually and you see the girl following him the band member then turns around and sings the first line ‘can I have your attention’ trying to make her stop following him. The girl ignores him and starts bugging him for his autograph instead , the band member ends up running away from her on the line ‘you’re not making it easy to slow me down’.

When the chorus kicks in you will see the band member in his house sitting on a dining table eating his dinner with the girl peeping inside his window on the line ‘it’s no wonder I’m not eating’ and then it will cut to the band member in bed with a pillow over his head on the line ‘I’m not sleeping’. There will then be a knock on the door, when the band member answers the door the girl will be there singing the chorus after has finished singing the band member will then slam the door in her face.

The next scene is of the band member shouting out his window from a megaphone to the fan girl who is waiting below on the line ‘are you hearing me now’. It will then cut to the band member coming out of the shops with bags, you will then see the fan girl appear from round the corner and scare him so he drops his bags on the floor. The fan girl will then try and take a picture with him whilst he is on the floor trying to pick his stuff up. The band member will then run away from the girl again to try to get away from her.

The video will then end with the fan girl and the band member walking past each other and the fan girl not even noticing because she has given up chasing the band member.

I think that our idea will come across well as it is quite simple but also fits in with the lyrics of the song. We will use a range of camera angles and props to make our music video the best we can make it. As this is only our first plan of what we are going to for our video our final piece could be totally different as we might decide to change our ideas as we are filming.