A2 MEDIA STUDIES MUSIC VIDEO- WHAT NOW

A2 Music Video

A2 MEDIA STUDIES MUSIC VIDEO- WEBSITE (Wix)

Rihanna's Website 

http://raddltd123.wix.com/rock-music-1-1

Created by Demmy Abimbola

A2 MEDIA STUDIES MUSIC VIDEO- DIGI PACK

DIGI PACK

Front

Inside (Left Hand Side) 

Inside (Right Hand Side)

Back of the Digi Pack

A2 MEDIA STUDIES MUSIC VIDEO- MTV REVIEW

MTV REVIEW

 

Evaluation: Essay

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

During our research we spent a lot of time researching common conventions in music videos of the same genre we were planning on doing in order to create a music video which is similar in some aspects to gain understanding and see what is generally expected from this genre which would allow us to challenge, develop and use these conventions. When trying to come up with a narrative for our music video we gained inspiration from a variety of genres, we done this because we didn't want to limit ourselves to Rn'B , we wanted to include a variety of aspects which would make our music video stand out and be different in comparison to others . Most of our inspiration came from music videos by our chosen artist ; Rihanna. This is because Rihanna has a variety of videos based on different experiences and narratives behind each song , however for the song that we chose by her did not have a narrative so this gave us the opportunity to experiment and use our imagination to create our own interpretation of what we thought the song was about .Our music video involves common conventions of real media products such as camera shots and angles , narrative etc. We have shots of her singing (medium shot) which is a common shot seen in most music videos.Whilst doing research we saw that most music videos are shot in colour which is common for most and with the narrative our story had we thought shooting it in black and white will really set the tone of the music video and reflect the meaning behind the lyrics.


Aspects other than our music video do reflect the same conventions of real media products such as our digipack which has an eye catching photo of the artist on the front cover with the name of the artist in bold going across the top centre or the cover which is common for most that we have researched Also the back of the Digipack includes the track names and bar codes which is also a common convention seen on real media products We also develop on some aspects for example on our website we made sure we included more images of the artist herself as we found in our research that some websites lacked this.
We also got most of our inspiration from music videos by our chosen artist which we put together and created a narrative , we also got inspiration from other artists as well.

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

We made sure that on our website we kept the logo throughout each product for example the logo on our website stayed the same throughout the website also on our digipack we ensured that we put the logo as we want the audience to know that the product is from the same company.The music  video was set in a umber of locations which shows her isolation and on the verge to insanity On the digipack the photo was of the artist with with her head leaning back and smoke coming out of her mouth, this symbolises and automatically shows that the girl is going through a hard time. Also throughout the creation of this product we kept the colour scheme the same as black and white we done this because we knew this will be a good aspect to add. these products were predominantly black and white or saturated in colour. Which all correlated to the idea we wanted to create for our artist with "noir" aspects. I believe that we have done this successfully and the audience will easily be able to identify these products as they are very similar to real media products.

What have you learned from your audience feedback ?

We were asked to conduct a questionnaire for our target audience which was given to them after they have seen all three products that my group produced. This was a very beneficial part as we were able to see what people thought of our music video and what aspects of it they thought was effective and not etc. In our questionnaire we asked questions such as do you think the story line was clear? What d you think we can improve? etc. After we received the results of this questionnaire we realised that there was a difference between gender preferences, Males didn't particularly enjoy some aspects of the music video such as the fact that it was all in black and white as they thought it was "boring" by getting this feedback we thought if we could change it we would make some parts in colour and the depressive moments in black and white so it doesn't get boring to the audience. However, we did find that the girls did enjoy the black and white filter that we used throughout as they  understood more why we chose to do this, we also noticed that when asked to explain what the storyline was girls explained it better and knew what exactly we were trying to portray and the emotions of the character etc. Whereas the boys did know what the narrative was about however they didn't really know what the artist was going through and they found it difficult to describe her emotions. From this I learned that our video mainly appealed to females as it was based on the problems that females go through e.g. domestic violence. 

Moreover , we found that some people thought that we included too much of the narrative and preferred if we showed more parts of the artist singing and some people thought we should have added a scene of what happened to the boyfriend at the end to see what he was feeling at the end when the girl has committed suicide. Furthermore , some also said that we shouldn't have repeated the scene of domestic violence the amount of times we did as they felt it became repetitive and that time cold have been used for something else . I learned from this that if we could improve anything we would add more scenes of the boyfriend and involve him more as he was the root cause for why the girl was feeling this way.

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

We had to use a number of media technologies throughout each stage of our coursework as we needed to conduct several things into our coursework , we had to use Prezi to create powerpoints for step by step presentations and while doing research on our artist etc. We also used garage band for making our radio spot , Photoshop for creating our digi pack and album cover and for editing photos for our blog etc. Photobooth was used for creating podcasts and filming audience reaction etc. We also had to use survey monkey throughout the three stages as we constantly had to conduct research to know what we should include in our music video and what the audience thought of our film ; evaluation stage. Lastly we used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our music video which we have completely gotten use to as we ha the same software during our AS coursework , so sing this software wasn't really difficult for us a we have used it before , however we did learn new techniques which were quite difficult for us to use in the beginning as it was more advanced. 

For our research during the planning stage we had to use the internet to research our artist , and I used YouTube to research conventions of the Rn'B genre to gain ideas on what to do and what we should incorporate.For the construction stage, we most importantly had to use a camera to record our music video which we already knew how to use from last years coursework.Overall , I would say that my skills at using these media products ave improved as our teacher did teach us how to use them last year and this year it was easier for us to use these products and even teach ourselves new skills that we didn't need to include in last years coursework. However some products were harder than others to to get the hang of for example photoshop , this media technology was the hardest for me to use so tasks involving this were given to the advanced user of this product. In the Evaluation Stage , no new media technology introduced to us it was more a case of incorporating other products to this stage such as slideshare which was used to put power points on the blog. All of these products helped my group and I to produce our coursework to the standard that it is and I believe they all were necessary in doing so .

Evaluation: Essay

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

In terms of our media product, I think we made music video that could compete with "real" music videos out there. I say this because when watching rihanna's existing videos I feel as though we was able to capture her essence in our video. Rihanna is known for being flashy and over the top and I feel we was able to keep up with this in terms of the controversial story line and our camera shots and angles. For example with our close ups of her legs and body, and close up of drug and alcohol abuse. Even in terms of costume i feel we was able to use real media products to inspire what our main character would wear in the video. I believe we was able to develop on other media products out there in terms of creativity and our concept, because when we was deciding on what video to do we did some research to make sure that our idea was unique and we wasn't coping anyone and i feel like it worked for us as our video is a different concept from the original video but it works well with the song. 

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

I think that the combination of our main product and ancillary text is very effective because it was carefully thought about. I made sure that when editing that i made the whole video black and white so that it matches the website and the album cover. I also made sure that i was able to communicate with Ade who made the CD Cover to link it to the music video which she did when she added the smoke coming out of rihanna's mouth on the album cover, which links to the music video because of the drug and alcohol abuse. Also i terms of the website i made sure that when i was making it the font was the same throughout and even if it wasn't the exact same font it was like that font so that you can see that the website the album and the actual music video is linked all together. Also in terms of the images used in the website i made sure they had correlation to the music video and to the album cover, for instance we have pictures of the vulnerable rihanna which we see in the video and the hard rihanna and wild side of her which we see in the beginning of the music video when rihanna is shouting back at her boyfriend and trying to hit him.

What have you learned from your audience feedback??

What we as a group learnt from the audience feedback was that this video appeals to females more than males, as the boys were 50/50 on the concept where as the females loved the idea. Also the black and white idea doesn't sit well with everyone as some people like it and think it works well whereas some people don't as this is modern ages where everything is in colour. But overall what I learnt fro the audience feedback is that we did a good job as people loved what we did and the quality of our video and the editing. 

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

 I used a lot of media technologies in all stages to help me with this coursework. For example, the most used one, adobe premier pro, which was used to edit all the clips and make the movie, also in the planning stage to do the green screen test. Photobooth was used in the evaluation stage and the planning stage when doing the lip sync practice and to film the audience reaction when showing them our music video. Slideshare, prezi, powerpoint were also used in the planning and evaluation stages to do the coursework presentations. Celtex was used in the planning stage to do our storyboard, bubbl.us was used to in the planning stage to help us brainstorm our initial ideas which helped us toexpand into what we have now. 

Evaluation: Essay

Evaluation

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

In our product it uses different ways that develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media because my group and I thought deeply about this project as we did our research on how we could relate to our viewers as well as asking people what they expect to see in music videos as we also used survey monkeys to help us get a better result.

We developed our music video, by telling a storyline in a different structure. As we did not follow the rules as to have a beginning and end instead we started off as having an end to beginning in order to make the audience think deeply on what the storyline is portraying. This is how our media product developed in real media product as we worked backwards in order to achieve what we desired our music video wanted to look like.

I can admit that my group and I extremely thought out of the box as we were placed in our outrageous comfort zone for this project in order to make our music video the best.

Everyday we worked our butts off in order to get the points as we researched what people have done past years in their music videos and we were discussing what was missing within every music video's, which we noticed that in certain music videos there were lack of good concept for storylines, for example in our music video we used the idea of the bathtub scene as we filmed Rihanna pouring her heart.

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

The combination of the main product and the ancillary texts is extremely effective because we purposely kept the whole product consistent as I believe that consistency is the key to success as it makes the whole work look professional. What was particularly consistent was the colour because we kept the whole product the same in order to keep it professional, also, we use certain aspects of each product in relation for instance the idea of her smoking in the CD cover as well as the music video her being an addict in link with the website as she shows isolation in certain pictures. I believe that there is all a link to it as the audience should be familiar in each products.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I have learnt that there are a major comparisons in-between gender as different genders have different perspectives on their view from watching our media product. For example, the girls said that they liked it as it could relate to other girls out there as the use of black and white was very effective on the other hand, the boys view was that the use of black and white was not useful as it was quite boring but the concept of the video was interesting to watch. I noticed that the girls were much more sensitive towards the video as they were intrigued to know what will happen next. However, the boys were more concerned on the domestic violence. The audience feedback that we got mostly is that there was too much of the domestic violence scene, therefore we should have cut it down a bit.

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

My group and I used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages in different ways as we researched online on most of them because most of the things that we needed information's from was from the internet as the internet was a very useful tool for us especially when we needed information's about what makes a good music video. Also, what helped us was the use of survey monkeys for our research as we wanted to reach out to our target audience.

The planning stages were quite easy because our resources were from our heads as it was put to the blogger which was also part of the planning as the planning was very useful to me, as the blogger was like a diary to me. The construction part was quite easy because we used my camera, tripod, software's such as Photoshop, premiere as well as the iMacs for podcasts in order to complete our tasks, which really helped me. Finally, the evaluation stages were used for the blog as I accounted everything onto the blogger along with the use of slideshare for evaluation as it helped with the layout of my presentation.

Evaluation: Analysis of Survey Monkey

Evaluation: Audience interviews

Audience Interviews

 

Evaluation: Audience Reaction

Evaluation: Technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages

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

Evaluation: How All Media Links

How All Media Links Together

Evaluation: Forms and Convention of Real Media Products

Forms and Convention of Real Media Products

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

Construction: Editing- Day 4

Today I was playing about with different effects that I could use for the music video and I came across a strobe effect I though would be good. To incorporate this I had to click on clip I wanted to add this effect to. Then I went on effects and found strobe light effect and dragged it on the clip. The only problem was that it looked to slow and wasn't flashing that much, so what i did again was right click and click on the 'speed/duration' and sped it up so that it was flashing quicker.

I'm not sure if I will use this for the final cut but for now this effect isn't bad and it will do. So far the editing is going alright but I'm struggling to find the best clips to use and not making it look repetitive, as well as making the storyline show.

Construction: Editing- Day 3

Today I was having a bit of trouble when editing because there was clip I really liked and wanted to use but my group was complaining that the clip was too long to use so I had to find a way to speed it up, but when I did it didn't look nice and everything looked rushed , so I had to find a compromise which everyone would like. So what I did was slow down the beginning of the clip then speed up the rest , then i placed the clip on  the beat of the instrumental which matched perfectly so I had my slow bit of the clip that I liked and it matched the criteria of my group because I sped it up so that it wasn't too long.




To do this I clicked on the clip I wanted to change.



Then I cut the clip in half.





Then i right clicked and clicked on 'speed/duration' and slowed down the beginning of the clip then sped up the 2nd connecting clip with it.

Construction: Editing- Day 2

Today we decided that it would be a good idea to have the whole film in black and white because it would go with the theme of depression and the dark narrative we are aiming for in this music video, also it would match the website which is also black and white so to do this is clicked on the clip I wanted to change then I typed in black in the effect section then black and white showed up. So I dragged it on top of  of the clip that I wanted to change then it turned black and white. But then it started looking a bit fuzzy so i rendered the clip then I looked fine.

Construction: Editing- Day 1

This year we had to step up and do more advanced editing and incorporate more effects to make our video stand out and get more marks. Today I am editing the beginning of the film, so I'm editing the bit with me and Ade at the funeral where Ade places the flower down. When I put it together it looked a bit too fast like she was throwing it down so i wanted to slow it down but i didn't know how to, so I researched it and learn how to do it, it was hard at first because I couldn't get the right speed but then i found the right speed that both me and my group liked, so here is how I made the scene go in slow motion:

To make this happen I to click on the clip that I wanted to make go in slow motion. 

Then I right hand clicked and clicked on 'speed/duration'















Then I used the mouse to pull the speed to the right which makes the clip longer which then makes it slow motion. Then once i was done I rendered the clip because when you don't it makes the clip look funny and unclear.





I feel like at this point that our filming is going very well which in turn is affecting the editing because I'm working with good quality clips and I think it's going to come out well.

Construction: Day 6 of Filming

Day 6: Filming

our last filming, we filmed the part where Rihanna is being abused by her boyfriend, this is taken place at my house as my group and I demonstrated a variety of shots on how Rihanna is abused I thought deeply on the actions taken place based on her acting and where the camera should be filmed.

The filming went well as I was very proud on the outcome we have produced, especially the lighting, the lights that we used looked so natural as it helped our scene look like the scene is  . Also, the use of props taken place was very effective as it definitely looked like a home.

What did not go well is that we had a lack of communication as we were filming because we all are strong minds therefore we stand our grounds within our opinions, so we then had different ideas on one topic which was quite difficult to agree on but at the end of the day we decided to emerge our ideas together and it turned out well.   

Construction: Day 5 of Filming

Filming: Day 5

 

We filmed in a house, where Rihanna is just acting depressed and crazy, the reason why we specifically chosen her to act like this is because we want to demonstrate how upset, depressed she is feeling based on the story line. 

The filming went well because we were able to produced great shots and concepts from Rihanna's acting. I was inspired by one of Rihanna's music video where she there was an effect where there was more than one of her in a shoot, therefore I did the techniques that will help a create that effect, which went well.

However, what did not go well is the fact that we were not able to get a clear  meaning a plain background as we expected so we had to use our friends room which was the closest to getting a clear background which went well.

 The next scene is where my group and I film where Rihanna is an argument with her abusive boyfriend.

Construction: Day 4 of Filming

Filming: Day 4

We decided to film at one of our friends house, the scene we decided to do is where Rihanna is in the bath tub singing and acting, we used the bath tub scene in order to represent suicidal, depression and isolation. The bath tub is extremely effective because the use of water on her face is quite an interesting scene to look at as I can manipulate the filming in different ways through premiere adobe. 

It went well because we produced a good quality of work as we did different shots and angles and created interesting props. What also went well is the acting from Rihanna was very interesting as she was very passionate about the song which even made the filming interesting.

What did not go well is that some of the shots that we wanted to do was impossible because technology and water clash, therefore was not able to get shots under water.

For our next filming we are planning on filming where Rihanna is acting possessed and crazy.

Construction: Day 3 of Filming

Filming: Day 3

My group and I decided to film in a park this scene is where Rihanna is running away from all sorts of things as she is lost and confused in her mind.  The location she is currently in. We deliberately filmed in that area because we wanted to show an interesting scenario.  We filmed when the sun was just about to set in order to get a chance to record like a silhouette. The filming went well because we were able to film a variety of shots as well as filming during the day and evening.  We produced a great quality of shots, what helped us with that is the fact that the background/scenario provided us with beautiful lightings.

However, what did not go well is that the filming was quite difficult to record because there was areas where I tripped over while I was filming.

We are planning on filming at one of our friends house, we are planning on filming the scene where Rihanna is in the bath tub, almost as if she is drowning.

Construction: Day 2 of Filming

Filming: Day 2

For the second day of filming, my group and I went to a cemetery to film, the reason why filmed in a cemetery is because it is the scene where Rihanna's friends meet Rihanna at the graveyard as her friends put a flower on her to show some respect. We also filmed Rihanna singing in the cemetery because my group and I thought that it would be interesting if she sings where she was buried. The part we recorded went well as my group and I recorded good quality angles that we never thought we could record as I am extremely proud with our progress.

I must admit that everything went well in my opinion, I don't think there was any error or so besides one of our group turn up late to the recording because of other issues but other than that everything went well.

In our next filming we are planning on filming in a forest where Rihanna runs in the forest acting as if she is lost. Also, we are planning on recording where there are enormous landscapes.

Construction: Day 1 of Filming

Filming: Day 1

First day of filming went well as we kept to task on what we were planning on filming in the first place. We filmed the very first scene which was the part where Rihanna (Ralia) is performing in the studio. My group and I focused on the basic shots at first, in order to get the simple shots (medium shots, long shots, close ups etc.) out of the way. I must admit we filmed much more than I expected because I thought that the part where we wanted to film would only have a limit on what we wanted to do, but as we kept on filming we started having more ideas which took much longer that I expected it to be.

The whole filming went well. I was quite impressed by the lighting of the filming as the striking lighting upon Rihanna's face was more defining, brighter and prettier leading her to actually looking like she is a pop-star. What also went well is that we even successfully filmed more than I expected as we even filmed a variety of shots that I didn't expect to film.

What did not go well is that we were even planning on filming the next scene since we even completed the first scene which we had plenty of time, unfortunately my camera died which disrupted everything so instead we just worked on our blog.

Overall, everything went well according to our plan and we are hoping to record the next scene which is the cemetery part, where we begin to narrate the story line.

Construction - Step By Step CD Cover (Photoshop)

Step by Step CD Cover

step by step cd cover from RADDltd

Construction - Step by Step : GREEN SCREEN TEST

Construction : STEP BY STEP - WIX

Step by step wix from raliaaminu

Construction : Reflections 4

REFLECTION :

We are currently still in the construction phase of our music video , we are finding it difficult in keeping the continuity our film , when we film a scene of our video, as we take breaks in between and notice that something is different e.g. hair style. this makes it difficult for us to use the footage after as it may jeopardize the points we are rewarded , to solve this problem we have learned to keep a close eye on what should be where when filming and to run through a shot completely with the song before we take a break to make sure it flows and has continuity.