Monday, 6 May 2013

Contents Page


The blog starts at the bottom, the earliest date is the bottom of the page.
You can also view each blog post by the blog archive on the right.

Introduction: September 2012

What Is A Music Video? : Septmeber 2012

Genre/Target Audience: Septmeber 2012

Music Video Theorists & Theories Reasearch: Septmeber 2012

Existing Music Video Research
Bombay Bicycle Club: Septmeber 2012
Kasabian: October 2012
Coldplay: October 2012

Ancillary Text Research
Album Advert Research- November 2012
Album Cover Research- November 2012

Planning
Planning Ancillary Texts-December 2012
Planning Music Video- December 2012

How my filming is going- January 2013

The production of my ancillary texts- March 2013

Final Products
Final Digi-Pak- March 2013
Final Album Advert- March 2013
Final Music Video- April 2013

Evaluations
Audience Feedback- April 2013
Media Technologies- April 2013
Main Product & Ancillary Texts- May 2013
Conventions- May 2013







Conventions- Evaluation

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

The first convention I used was extended narrative. I decided to use extended narrative from one of my researched videos by Kasabian called Fire. I think my extended narrative is very good, I liked Kasabians because it made the music video interesting, it gave more narrative to the story. I feel mine has done the same, it not only sets the scene but introduces the story and song into each other. When they start playing the game RockBand the song starts, I thought this was a clever way to merge the narrative and when the song starts especially as the song lyrics and no relevance to the narrative.

My music video features the band members as the characters in the narrative. This was done by the Paradise music video and Fire music video. I felt it was important to feature the artist in the music video because they are not a well known band and need to gain popularity and become recognized. 

I decided to develop the convention stop frame animation in my music video. The music video Shuffle I researched has no narrative and only used stop frame animation to show the lyrics on screen in interesting ways. I was really inspired by this convention and I decided to develop it further by in fact reducing the amount of stop frame animation used, Instead of making a whole video out of stop frame animation I made only my titles out of stop frame animation. This was a risk to put both camera footage and animation into the same video because of how they would transition together. I felt it worked really well, It makes the titles look very interesting and realistic, I think it looks much better then if I had used your general which transition on and off screen. The titles were something my audience liked very much too.

Another convention I decided to use was the use of a costume for comical use, like in Colplay's video with the elephant costume and in Kasabians video with the cowboy western theme to the costume. I dressed my characters in nerdy outfits with nerd props like glasses, calculators, books, bowties and braces. I feel this emphasized my characters nerd stereotypes and had a big comical effect on the audience.

In Colplay's music video paradise a section of their video is live performance footage. I felt this showed the seriousness of the band as well as having their comical entertaining video. This is why I used the convention of contrived performance in my music video. I was un able to get a live performance because I couldn't find a big enough audience for it to look effective. So I settled with a contrived performance, I think it looks really good especially the shots and editing I have used give it variety and entertainment just like a real performance.  I feel by using this convention the audience feel that the band are a good band who can perform live and write their own music. I think it also advertises their music and tour, by having a contrived performance which looks good and lively people want to go to their tour.

Main product and ancillary texts- Evaluation

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

I think I have created three very good products which link well together and reflects the bands image. Firstly, I wanted overall to get across  the main band image which was they are a very fun and young band who are very individual and have great personalities but are also very serious about music and what they do. I feel I have got the very fun and young side across in the music video, and the more professional serious look and feel to the digi-pak and album advert. I felt it was important to keep the advert and digi-pak professional because this is what the consumer is potentially buying, you buy a CD for the good quality music you like. I felt you watch a music video more for entertainment and to see what the band have done with the music video and song together.

I decided to create a Art Deco feel to my ancillary texts, I think this is a professional style that is attractive and works with the mahogany drum artist name. The word Mahogany is very decorative just like the style Art Deco.

From my research I concluded I wanted to keep the text of the artist name "Mahogany Drum", the same in each of my texts. In the future If I was to make another ancillary text or next album I would keep the text of the artist name the same so the audience recognize it instantly for being a Mahogany Drum album. I feel I have done this effectively by choosing a unique text, keeping the same text on the album and advert has linked them together and you can clearly tell they are by the same band.

In my album cover I wanted the picture to link with the album title. I have a picture of an guitar pic frozen in a block of ice. The album name is called "Ice" so I have effectively linked the name and image together. I feel the guitar pic also represents that they are a band who play all their own music. You associate the guitar pic with artist who play instruments and perform live.

I think I have combined the album cover and the album advert particularly effectively by having the same image of the pic in the ice cube in both ancillary texts. By having the same image in both you associate them with each other, and because the advert is suppose to be advertising my album it makes sense to have the album front cover image in the advert so the potential consumers know what it looks like.

In my research I decided to not to put an image of my artist on the album cover, the artist imagery features in my music video and on my album cover. I felt these were the best places to have the image of the artists. I felt the album cover is too small to have an artist image, I wanted to keep the album cover simple and not full up or busy. I think having an artist image on two of my three products works well and promotes their faces enough for them to become recognized by fans.

On reflection I am glad I went with the Art Deco more serious album advert then the antarctic penguin advert, I think this because I believe my album cover and advert work so effectively together, to have a jokey advert wouldn't of fitted my album cover.