Tropes of my genre

A music video trope used in my own video is the use of animation. Although this feature isn't largely used in acoustic/pop music videos it is featured in a few such as Valentine by Kina Grannis and Take On Me by Aha. In both of these videos I feel that animation adds a lot to the story line but more so in Valentine as it shows how the girl at the end might be more suitable as she is visually compared to be a lot nicer.

My video also uses the the trope of having a Concept. Video Killed the Radio Star: Literal version I find is very funny and is, in a way, like my own. I listened to the lyrics of my chosen song and found literal meanings in a lot of them. For example, 'Taking blood and making art' where I had the Heart paint a picture using paint to symbolise blood. Although I feel I used this trope of having a concept, in some ways I think I took it a bit far by looking for literal meanings of the lyrics meant I was restricted to staying close to them otherwise it could've looked out of place. 

I don't believe I have subverted any tropes on my genre. As I have followed a lot of the conventions of my genre, I think that I have then followed the tropes in the same way. I don't believe this has hindered my work in any way but it may have helped it if I had looked at new tropes that I could've subtly placed in my work.

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

Also in my media work, I have used technical and symbolic codes in my work.
Some of the technical codes that I used were mise-en-scene and camerawork.
My location was an ordinary house but I asked to use the house of one of my talent because, she lived on a quiet road and so we were less likely to have dangers on traffic but on a more code reason, I wanted the location identifiable to the audience as a 'cosy' home and the base of the video. I chose camera work, such as the close up of the Girl singing the lines, to show that this was a literal message in the song from her heart and I believe I show this by showing the letter read out. I also used certain camerawork to help the audience focus on the story line and lyrics. For example, where the animated heart fills with red and the shots of the two girls are shown. I hope the use of mainly Mid or Long shots helps the consumer to concentrate more on what's going on and being a spectator rather than becoming emotionally involved with the characters.
I also used symbolic codes such as the colour red on the clothing of the Heart and a blue top of the Girl. I decided to use the red to symbolise the heart and love. As the meaning of my song is to love who you are I thought having this symbolic code would be appropriate and enhance the idea that the Heart is representing the Girl's heart and inner feelings. I asked the Girl to dress in Blue and light colours to convey the genre as happy and uplifting as well as being a intertexual link between the video and the ancillary tasks backgrounds.

Evaluation: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

In these 4 stages I used many programs and websites to complete my coursework tasks, which include Final Cut Pro, Paint, MyPaint, Picmonkey.com, Pixlr.com and Windows Live Movie Maker. My philosophy of technology is that it makes simple tasks a lot easier compared to have it would've been making films in the past, where they had to actually cut parts of film. In a lot of ways these programs helped me in my work but in other ways hindered.

Research
When I was in the research stage of my coursework I used Google and Youtube to find out conventions of music videos, digipaks and magazine adverts for music albums. I used Google to look at images of real life, professional digipaks and magazine adverts, which allowed my to learn the codes and conventions of how certain genres are promoted as well as portrayed in digipak design. I then used Youtube to look at music videos and find the typical conventions in certain genres to then decide what genre I would like to make.

Planning
Blogger was the only media technology that I used in my planning stage. I used it to note when I would film, my initial ideas and plot out the story line of my music video. I found it was good to use as I could see all of my posts and so all of my ideas together, which helped me to construct my work.

Construction
Final Cut Pro was used to create my main task as I was able to cut video clips and add on effects easily. For example, once I uploaded my footage it was easy to just brag and drop the parts that I wanted onto my video. It was also good as it had a lot of effects on it that enhance my video, such as Colour Correction which made the shots brighter. However, Final Cut Pro did hinder me in the editing process slightly. Sometimes the video would start before the sound when I was playing it and so I would think that the sound was out, edit it so that it wasn't, and then find that the music was out again when I played it a second time. I did manage to fix this issue but it made the editing process longer than it should've been.
When I used Paint it was for copying and pasting my Hearts ready for Animation. By pasting them onto Paint it meant that I could save them as a JPEG and could save the images to my computer whereas MyPaint wouldn't allow it to be saved as a JPEG. Paint also allowed me to highlight aspects of the individual image and move them into the correct position, eg the White Heart towards the other to make the illusion of the Red Heart walking to the White Heart. Paint was helpful in creating the movement in the animation but hindered me by not allowing me to flip highlighted parts of the picture properly. It would erase some of the image wanted and so I had to redraw the arms of the White Heart, after 'recycling' the legs from the Red Heart. To redraw the legs I used MyPaint, although this was annoying as I had to redraw them, MyPaint was very easy to use and allowed me to make my Hearts look as though they were hand drawn, which was an effect that I wanted to use since watching Take on Me by Aha. The tools on MyPaint also allowed me to erase any mistakes I made easily. However, as I couldn't save my images as JPEGs, it made it a lot longer to edit and make the animation because I had to copy and paste the whole screen onto Paint using Print Screen and the cut out the bits I didn't need.
A site that I used to edit my images for my ancillary tasks was Picmonkey.com. I had used this site before for my AS work and to edit my own images and so for me I found it easy to use and had good effects to add on top of my images, for example Boken Shapes which made small, faded hearts shapes on the digipak outside. I found the font that I wanted to use on Picmonkey and so downloaded it to a mac to then use on my final work. I had to download the font because the site saves the images as JPEGs and so I could not edit any aspects of the image after coming off of the site. I found Picmonkey useful in adding effects to my images but not so when I had to add writing.
Another editing site that I used was Pixlr.com. I didn't find anything about Pixlr hindering and used it mainly for editing the inside of my digipak. I used an effect to make the inside have a rainbow effect which was exactly what I'd hoped to find as it wasn't available on Picmonkey and tied in with my house style of bright colours. Overall Pixlr was very helpful in the construction on my digipak.
As well as using Youtube for my research stage, I used it to upload my music video drafts and final video. I thought it was useful in presenting my videos but when my Final Video was uploaded it lagged at certain points which I was unable to fix.

Evaluation
To make my evaluation I used Prezi, Blogger and Windows Live Media Maker. I used Prezi to make one of my evaluations as I wanted to make my blocks of writing look more interesting, I also liked the designs. I had never used Prezi before and so it did make the evaluation process a bit longer, however I do feel it enhances the visual aspect of my evaluation.
As I am right now, I used Blogger for my evaluation stage because it is easy to use and I can write as much as I need to and erase any wrong information I might have included. Whilst logged into Blogger, making my evaluation, I can also look back at my work and see what else I can include which is very helpful but not very interesting to look at.
Finally, I used Windows Live Media Maker to show specific examples of my work and to create one of my evaluations. I decided to use this to vary the forms of media technology used in my evaluation and entertain my lovely examiner with something different to look at compared to just blocks of writing.

I feel as though as I was most dependent on technology during the construction stage of my coursework as I wouldn't have been able to edit my video together or create my ancillary tasks without the use of technology, or at least not as well done, as they were all completed on a Mac using Final Cut Pro and Pages. I was least dependent on technology in my planning stage as I was writing down a filming schedule and thinking of an idea for my video. I mainly planned the post production filming and photos using pen and paper so that I could write down the best day for my talent and I to work.
I have learnt that to create a piece of media a lot of different technology has to be used, such as cameras, computer programs and online sites. All of the skills that I have learnt from making my tasks can be applied to the future, even if it's just making a poster for an event or editing a picture to look better than the orginal, I know how to use technology to make it. 

Post-Modernism in my work

My coursework has been pretty conventional for all parts, my main and my ancillary tasks. I believe this is because of the research that I conducted before starting my work as I found it inspiring. However, I do believe that there is elements of Post-Modernism in my work such as Hyper reality and a factor of randomness.

I used Hyper Reality in my work from the use of Colour Correction on Final Cut Pro. When filming for my music video the colours weren't as bright as I'd hoped and so I used Colour Correction to increase the saturation and and brightness of the shots that needed a boost, such as scenes that were inside and those outside that needed to have brighter sunlight. I feel this is a use of hyperreal because it made the shots look more real and glossier.

If the lyrics are not listened to or thought about, much the contents of my music video would seem random to the consumer, for example, the panning shot in the bedroom where the Heart is playing a video game. As the lyrics are 'Pounding away into the dark' I thought that having the Heart playing a loud game or instrument whilst the Girl trying to get ready for bed would be funny and connect with the lyrics. However, this could be misinterpreted as randomness, and so Post-modern, because it has no relation to the story line.

Reading of my text

I believe that my music video can be interpretated in more than one way depending on the consumers age and perspective. For example the younger age range of my target audience found the fact that the Heart was chasing the Girl and didn't get straight away the intended meaning. Some of the older individuals thought that the meaning was what I intended, to love yourself and accept who you are, whereas others came to a similar conclusion, such as 'You can't run away from who you are.'
My preferred reading would be to 'accept and love yourself' however I believe that some, perhaps outside my target audience, would misread or dislike my text. An example of oppositional reading I found from interviews where that they didn't understand who the Heart was supposed to represent and so didn't understand the meaning of the video, or have any idea towards it.
I am glad that most of my target audience understood the preferred reading of my text but disappointed that it wasn't widely understood by all individuals.

Evaluation: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Completed Music Video

2nd Music Video Draft

From the previous draft, I have added effects onto the sequences which are not part of the story line so that it is easy to distinguish. I have also added some animation and plan to add more to help my story line develop to my audience. 

Evaluation: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Above are examples in which I think I have been consistent with a house style and have linked all my tasks in different ways.
On my magazine advert and digipak front cover, the image in both are the same which shows clearly to my target audience that these products are linked. I feel this would benefit sales as the reader, of the magazine featuring my advert, will be able to quickly know that the CD advertised is the one feartured in the magazine. If a media consumer were to see my music video and then the digipak cover, they would be able to know this is the CD featuring the song played in the video as the girl is consistent in both.
The backgrounds in both my digipak and magazine advert follow a house style. This is used to create an automatic connection between digipak and advert for the reader. As its definition states, a house style is important for consistency in media products and can be crucical for keeping the readers attraction. The consistancy of having both backgrounds in my digipak and magazine advert as blue will help consumers of my product to associate the two style together. I also used blue in my ancillary tasks to create the theme of calm and denote a summers day sky, which usually is a happy connotation for my audience.
Another house style is my use of font. In all media texts that are connected in some way to advertise or promote a product, the same font is used. I already knew that my products had to be linked to each other but it wasn't until I looked at a previous students work that I saw that even the font, that I thought was just a small detail, made a big difference to the products. Kelly Chester, in her evaluation, mentioned that she automatically knew that her products had to have an underlying theme to each other, for example colour, font and pictures. The use of her font which she referred to as 'indie', because of her genre, made a big difference in creating the link as it was visually pleasing for her target audience. However, I knew that my target audience is a niche group and I couldn't have minimalistic attributes, such as only having the artist name and release date, to my magazine advertisement like Kelly Chester's because her target audience was much larger from her chose of genre being Indie and made by Ed Sheeran. Learning from her example, I made my fonts consistent and made them all white to stand out aganist the coloured background.
The brightly coloured design on the magazine advert and digipak is consistent of the bright colours used in the music video. I decided to use a hyperreal style in the video by making the colours brighter than the original shots to make it look nicer and more pleasing to the eye. By creating a glossier and nicer looking video clip it, it makes it consistent of the editing used on my digipak cover and magazine advertisement with which I made my original image look completely different in light and added make-up onto the face of my talent.
The genre Acoustic/pop usually has a nature sense to it where it may be set in a woods or park and would connote a calm atmosphere and a sense of freedom. This is why I used a long image of a tree on the inside of my digipak, that was edited to have bright colours on the top to be consistent of the bright colours on the front of the digipak. I also had shots of trees featured in my music video to tie in with the theme of freedom and calm created in my digipak inside. I feel that this is a house style and is an effective combination of my main product and ancillary tasks as it links the themes I wanted to connote and is a visual connection for my target audience.
The last effective combination of my ancillary tasks and main products is my use of animation in both my digipak and video. Two hearts are featured in my music video and were created as part of a message for the consumer, to love yourself. The Red Heart is to represent the Heart character and the White Heart for the Girl. By drawing these hearts in both my video and digipak helps reinforce the link between the video and ancillary task and allows a 'cute' aspect to both my video and digipak.
I feel that all of the links between my main product and ancillary texts are effective as they combine similar, or the same features, and will help my target audience automatically link the products together and show a house style.

Completed Digipak

In addition to my plans, I marked out the folds of the digipak and where the CD would be positioned to make my design clearer.
I created a plain blue background and then used MyPaint to spread the orange from the front cover to the back. I then used PicMonkey to add the effect 'boken shapes', which created small heart shapes onto the background, similar to the hearts on my front cover. Still on PicMonkey, I added the same text that is present on my first digipak draft.
I then used MyPaint to draw the two hearts onto my digipak. As I had already added the text I tried to avoid it when drawing the line between the two hearts.
What I like about this version on my digipak is that all aspects of it link with the music video- the trees which are featured in parts of the video, my talent who is acting in it and the animated hearts.

3rd Magazine advertisement draft

On this version, I much prefer the proportions of her face to the previous drafts and I like the font used for 'New album' and 'Out now on iTunes'. However, this writing is not the same as the font used on the front of the digipak and so does not fit a house style. I then applied the font, used on the advert only, to the digipak front but it didn't fit as well as the first cover, as it was too bold.

What I don't like on this draft is the large gaps of pink between the edge of the page to the writing and from the image to the writing. I tried to resolve this matter by making the writing bigger but then the spacing was inconsistent.

I plan to resolve this by applying the font from my digipak to my magazine advert and reviewing with audience feedback.

Completed Magazine Advert

 

After numorous shades of blue and green were tested, this was the shade that the majority of my target audience prefered.

I feel that the close up photography of my talents face reflects the sense of calm suggested by the background colour. I chose this shot for my Digipak front cover and Magazine advertisement as my talent seems as though she is gazing into the distance and is easily indentifiable, from the profile, of the girl in the music video.

The name of the artist is small and positioned to the left hand corner of the page because I didn't want the name to become a big feature of the advert. My intention of the advert is to showcase the release of the album and the genre of which is it. Because of my target audience being niche and my artist not being well known, I thought it best to not try and promote the artist largely as it wouldn't really be a selling point.

4th Magazine Advertisement draft

 

I much prefer the layout of this draft as there is little space between the picture and boarder. However, from audience feedback it was clear that the colour pink was considered "too girly" and didn't reflect the acoustic part of the genre very well. My target audience also felt that the pink would put off the latter of my intended age range because they may percieve is as 'for the younger girls'.

To improve this, I asked a small number of my target audience which colour background they feel would more appeal to them. The majority stated a 'blue or turqouise' as the best option as they both connote relaxation and a sense of calm.

2nd Digipak draft

Although not finished, this is the second draft of my digipak. I have put the digipak inside upside down so that when it folds it is the right way. I have also added the front cover on the right side for the same reseason. From what is completed, I personally like the way that the album inside and front cover both have bright, multi-coloured features of them. I believe this would appeal to my target audience because the genre is Acoustic/pop, which typically feature happy and uplifting songs. A lot of different colour and the lack of black also appeals to my audience as it shows that this is not a Rock album, as black is associated with that genre.
The next steps for my digipak are to create the back and middle, where there is currently an empty space, and to get feedback on my product from my target audience.
In my first digipak draft I drew on the Sad Heart and Red Heart featured in my video. I liked this feature as it showed a house style between the video and the digipak. On my final digipak draft I will have the same image as my first (the hearts communicating by string) but make it neater.

Making my animation

As you can see, it took a lot of separate shots to create my main animation. I started off by drawing out the body of the Red Heart using a program called MyPaint and then slowing dragging it higher onto the screen, to create the effect that it was moving upwards. I then changed aspects of the main image, the Red Heart, to create the part where it waves and walks.
Firstly, I erased the Hearts right arm and redrew it at, about, a 90 degree angle from the elbow. I then redrew this arm and had the hand up at about a 45 dregree angle. I put these two images together and repeated to create the waving animation.
Secondarly, I erased the legs and redrew the left leg at a a 45 degree angle, whilst leaving the right leg straight, and then repeating this but with the right leg at an angle and the left straight.
I wanted the Sad Heart and the Red Heart to be the same in size and limbs and so I erased the colour from the Red Heart and drew on a sad face to the white heart.
To show the Red Heart getting closer I copied both hearts onto Paint and moved the Sad Heart closer to the red by small steps. To avoid Paint saving the whole picture (with both hearts being present at all times), I print screened the image onto another Paint window and saved it there. After moving the Sad Heart closer and closer to the Red Heart I realised that I had only used the image of the Red Heart where the left leg was at an angle, and so ruining the walking animation. To fix this I opened up Paint again and replaced every other image, for the walking sequence, with the image of the Red Heart with the right leg at an angle.

Heart Animation

Used near the end when the word 'Everytime' is repeated 5 times

Used in the middle from 1.58- 2.06 and 2.22- 2.27

Although both videos don't last very long, it took me a long time to make them. Using MyPaint I drew the hearts and coloured them in red, for the happy heart, or left them black, for the sad heart.

2nd Magazine advertisement draft

With the new background I was able to change the colour at the bottom of the page and chose a one that may better appeal to my target audience, I chose pink as my target audience is mainly females that enjoy romantic songs and the idea of 'the heart' is largely used but red was too bold. In my first draft, I found that the blue and white seemed quite bland and they didn't catch the eye of my target audience. Feedback has shown me that this one is preferred but that the female face in the centre might be too large in comparison to the rest of the page. 

My actors, their costume and props

These are my actors:
Ellie- The Heart

Ellie is wearing red trousers and a white top with a heart drawn on to it. Love, in the music video case, is usually represented by red as a indicator of passion or lust. In this instance it's used to show the Heart as a loving character and the source of love for the Girl in the video. Ellie also has her hair tied up into a plat to represent a child like aspect to her character. As we get older we tend to become more aware of our self appearance and this can be a largely negative factor for some people. Ellie as the heart is to represent the child like time in the Girls life when she wasn't worried about herself or her appearance.

Hollie- The Girl

Hollie is wearing a plain blue blouse with high waisted, light blue jeans. I wanted to make Hollie look like Kina Grannis' target audience by dressing her in light colours. The lightness of the colours is to also contrast with the bright red that the Heart wears and compliment the gentleness of the song. Hollie hair is down to contrast the Heart's hair and to represent them as being different and to be opposite to the child like aspect of the heart.

Digipak inside drafts 1 to 4

4th Draft

I chose to make the inside of my digipak this way because I think it ties in with the theme on the front. The bright colours symbolise happiness and compliment the burst of colours on the front of the digipak. To create the rainbow effect, I used pixlr.com and then increased the contrast to make the picture brighter.

3rd Draft

2nd Draft

1st Draft

At first I was happy with these colours and liked the picture but as my digipak front cover developed I wanted to change the theme to fit.

Recce of filming locations

As you can see, in the picture I am using the camera and equipment to workout where in the hallway I have to stand to get the shot I wanted. To avoid being a hazard to my talents as they walk past, I will stay close to the wall and make sure the tripod legs are not in the way.

In a few shots for my video my talents will be running outside, on the street and across a road. To avoid any accidents I will insure no cars are close to us whilst filming and if any appear to make my talents quickly aware.