Chloe Ward, Reepham High School and College (18333), 3219

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Dear Moderator


Research

Research into Music Videos - all posts relating to this can be found here
Research into Digipaks and Magazine Advertisements - all posts relating to this can be found here.
Research into Target Audience - all posts relating to this can be found here.

Planning

Planning Music Video - all posts relating to this can be found here.
Planning Digipak cover - all posts relating to this can be found here
Planning Magazine Advertisement for Digipak cover - all posts relating to this can be found here.


Final Constructions


Evaluation

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product with ancillary texts?
Question 3 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Question 4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Independent Study


I hope you enjoy looking through my blog and the work I have done this year.

Chloe Ward 3219

Tuesday 22 April 2014

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


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

My digipak and magazine advertisement were both closely integrated, as can be expected by an artist. They often follow on from one another in terms of aesthetic in order to help the audience know what to look for in the shop or digital store.
For instance, my digipak and advertisement both used the same font, which was white, and this was carried throughout both products. They both feature a phone box, and the predominant colour of the products is a dark blue.
I think the products themselves were also very in line with typical expectations of digipaks; for instance, the inclusion of a copyright message and a barcode.
I don’t think that I developed or challenged conventions in terms of my digipak. For this piece of work I tried to keep to digipak and genre conventions as much as I could, for instance with the title and band name, the direction of the text on the spine and the way that linked images featured throughout the product.
I have always enjoyed simple album covers and I think I have translated that through in my own work. For instance, there is one central image on the cover, and the images throughout the product make reference to this; the cover is the phone box, the inside left panel is the phone itself, the inside right is the view of the phone box from the floor inside, the back panel is another part of the phone.
This use of one image helps to attract people’s attention. I think the inclusion of the phone box on the front panel was a good decision as I think it is quite an eye-catching image.
The magazine advert is also easy to compare with other adverts; most adverts feature the band name and title of the album, as well as some kind of tag, maybe showing the release date, and often there will be reviews from well-known artists, newspapers or magazines. I replicated all of these features in my own work.
Similarly to the Foo Fighters advert for ‘Wasting Light’ that I looked at earlier on in my research, my advert featured one main image that captures the eye of my audience.  However, I develop conventions here in the sense that in most adverts, the image is central to the page, whereas mine is located to the right. There is a lot of dark, empty space on the advert, which is not typical – especially since the space is not surrounding an image on all sides and highlighting it.
In order to be able to follow these conventions I had to discover what they were. I did this by analyzing many different CD covers, for example those by Mikill Pane and Twin Atlantic, which are both artists I used when exploring music videos earlier on in the process. I also looked at Hyro Da Hero, though his covers are not entirely similar to my one.
I also looked at magazine advertisements for the Gorillaz, Alison Krauss & Union Station, as well as the aforementioned Foo Fighters. Magazine adverts are becoming harder to come by these days as so many artists choose to primarily market their work online, hence why I was limited. 
However, these helped me to identify themes that I ought to carry through all my work in this area. For instance, the variation of font sizes to make a product more aesthetically pleasing, and the similar themes that exist in both the video and the advertisement; for instance, in Alison Krauss & Union Station’s track, Phoner to Arizona, the location is rural and the colours used are sepia tones. The sense of rural life is carried on in the advertisement, with Krauss and her band all wearing simple clothes that remind an audience of days gone by, as well as being shown in a sepia shade. This helps to create a brand identity and it also tells an audience unfamiliar with their work that the band likely plays folk or country music, thus helping them to decide whether or not they want to listen to the music.
However, my research also helped me to see that an aesthetic does not have to be carried through as strongly as with Paper Airplane. The cover for Foo Fighters Wasting Light is very artistic and abstract, something which cannot be replicated all too well in a video. The band seem to be well aware of this and have gone for something almost opposite to what we saw on the cover for track Rope.
However, this still carries a message and some form of identity as the stark contrast makes them appear very interesting.

In terms of my music video, my product tells a story of some kind, as is expected and common in music videos. This is also very common in rock and hip/hop videos, which are genres to which The LaFontaines fit into. However, unlike many of these videos, the artist does not feature in my own video. This definitely challenges expectations of a music video.
Like other artists, I have used editing in order to convey messages across to the audience. For instance, there is a vignette effect applied to the outside of the ‘darker’ times in my music video, where the main character, Max, is facing pressure from his friends to be violent and drink alcohol. This creates a sort of ‘blur’ around the outside frame, which helps to portray that this is not real to Max and that this is not his permanent way of life.
Conversely, the effect I have used when he is reconciling with his family and riding his BMX is much lighter and brighter, conveying the message that he is happy in this situation.
I don’t think that many music videos use such a range of emotions and hence it is probably not common to see such different types of editing in a short period of time.

In addition to this point, it is fairly unusual to see an entire story told like this in less than 3 minutes, with a beginning, middle, climax and end, and especially for the genres I have identified The LaFontaines as belonging to.

These videos included Twin Atlantic’s Make a Beast of Myself, Middleman’s Spinning Plates, and Hyro Da Hero’s Sleeping Giants. These videos stuck out to me as not being overwhelmingly positive in nature; with ideas of being a social pariah and also about following the crowd throughout all the three videos. Since these three bands all fit into different genres, I was able to see that these are common themes in music videos, and I was able to include this in my own video without feeling that it might not be too well received.

I also looked at Goodwin’s conventions in order to help me develop my music video further. I found that I had used many of the features he identified in my own work.
The first I used was that there was a relationship between lyrics and visuals. I tried to take many of the lyrics in a literal sense in the early stages of my planning in order to help me generate ideas about the content of my video. For instance, I have a scene where the artist says watch them, yeah I said watch them, and on screen we are watching the main character, then we see what he is watching himself. It is therefore illustrative of the lyrics.
I can also identify that there is a relationship between music and visuals. This amplifies the images on the screen, in my opinion. For instance, when the chorus is playing, the visuals are quicker paced and more uplifting, as is the accompanying section of music.
As the song progresses and becomes more positive, with the lyrics having a more positive outlook, the video meets the climax and the story reaches a happy ending.
I tried to cut to the beat of my track, and I think I managed to get the video to change pace with the music. The shots get longer towards the end, when the song gets more uplifting.
However, I did not use close ups of the artist or develop any motifs which could then recur across the work. This is partly due to practical limitations but also because I wanted to develop a whole story, and using images of the band would have distracted from this.
I think I did use a notion of looking fairly often; for instance, when Max is watching the computer screen, a phone screen and when he is examining his face in the mirror.There is no sexualisation in my music video, which is partly because I decided not to include any element of sex in it. While I had originally in my planning intended to have Max feeling pressured by a girlfriend or relationship I decided to focus more on other areas instead. I also did not want to risk featuring a woman purely to sexualise her presence, as the other two females in my work did not receive this treatment, being his mother and sister.
I would say there are some small intertextual references in my work. One that we see early on is when Max is watching a computer screen featuring a cartoon named Mr Freeman. This is a popular Russian political cartoon with very striking images. The video encourages people not to let other people do their thinking for them and to take action against oppressive policies. However, the images are fairly contradictory and I think that this is representative of how the character of Max took the influences of his friends in a negative way.
I also included a short clip of the London Riots of 2011, which were viewed on a mobile phone. In my opinion, this helps to reinforce the idea that Max is dabbling in something negative; the riots were a low point for the youth of Britain, and it is well known that many of the events in the riots were ignited and worsened by the use of mobile technology.
This is a narrative-based music video, and this is evident in my work because the entire piece is a short story. However, this is fairly unusual for a new band to do because it reduces the amount of time allocated to showing them and getting their faces and image known.

I think that my music video was varied in how it followed, developed and challenged forms and conventions, as were my ancillary tasks.



Tuesday 18 March 2014

Final Draft of my Digipak and Magazine Advertisement


The LaFontaines A2 Media Print Production Tasks.

This is a compilation of the InDesign document (slide 1) and photos of the physical copy (slides 2-5). Following this is my magazine advert (slide 6)

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Theory Hunt

Althusser - Interpellation - the way in which ideas get into our heads and have an effect on our lives - we believe they are our own ideas.
We are interpellated from the day we are born into specific roles society has created for us.

Barthes - images reinforcing cultural myths - modern cultural phenomena often have a status and image built up around it, such as red wine → social equaliser, drink of the proletariat, drink of the French - but has negative effects on health.

Barthes - death of the author - argues against methods reading that rely on aspects of an author's identity to distill meaning from their work - readers must liberate text from interpretive tyranny by separating work from its creator to understand it fully.

Mulvey - male gaze theory - women are objectified in film because heterosexual men are in control of the camera. The male gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience in the male perspective and lingers on her body. Women are passive to the active gaze of men.

Winship - gender complicity - women see themselves in texts in the image which has been defined for them by masculine culture. We are prepared, for the reward of gratification, to recognise the ideal version of ourselves despite the anxiety it causes us.

Another version of this can be seen in the powerpoint below.