Monday, 12 December 2011

Homework xmas break - evaluation & audience feedback

Hi All
We are entering the final stage of the coursework which is the evaluation. You have 4 questions which must finally be presented as a digital media format (ie not an essay)


We are changing to a new blog for the evaluation: http://leighmediaa2eval.blogspot.com - there is a link on the right


This task to begin with is individual but you will work in teams to finally present these.


Before you leave for the holidays:
1. Export your video and post to youtube/then to your blog


2. Upload your Digipak & Website images to your blog


Then over xmas finish your website...


3. Collect audience feedback using social networking sites


Build a questionnaire for Facebook & Myspace and circulate to members of your target audience - *IMP USE THE PAGE YOU CREATED FOR YOUR ARTISTS RESEARCH/MARKETING STRATEGY - IF YOU HAVEN'T DO SO NOW & INVITE YOUR AUDIENCE



  • Facebook - http://www.quibblo.com/facebook-quizzes-surveys
  • Myspace - http://tjshome.com/survey/





4. On your Individual Blog, add a post of preliminary notes/answers for each of the evaluation questions - they do not need to be full sentences just blog thoughts.
Look over the previous year' students examples for guidance (click on the links to see Sean's grade A example)


5. Look over the mark scheme (following post on the blog)  - why did he get L4?

Evaluation Question 1

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

 

Capture 9 frames to demonstrate this

Evaluation Question 2

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


Include visuals (print screens etc)

 


Evaluation Question 3 

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Include print screen evidence of comments/questionnaires from Facebook - Youtube - Myspace & The bands website feedback

Evaluation Question 4

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation?Include images from your work in development on your blog to back up your comments

Please be ready to present these when we return in January

Merry Xmas & well done!


Mr.B



Friday, 9 December 2011

Characteristics of Music Video

Characteristics of Music Video

Characteristics of Music Video

Ultimately we will advocate using cultural models for the rhetorical analysis of music video. To fully understand how a cultural model facilitates rhetorical criticism of music video, it is first necessary to explore the unique features of the genre. Music, particularly rock, has always had a visual element. The album cover, the "look" a band strived for in performance, concert staging, and promotional publicity have all helped create a visual imagery for rock (Goodwin, 1992). The use of video to stimulate album sales and the birth of MTV as a continuous outlet for viewing simply served to enhance the visual potential present in rock.

Viewers typically do not regard the music video as a commercial for an album or act.Aufderheide (1986) describes the connection of viewer to video."With nary a reference to cash or commodities, music videos cross the consumer's gaze as a series of mood states. They trigger nostalgia, regret, anxiety, confusion, dread, envy, admiration, pity, titillation--attitudes at one remove from the primal expression such as passion, ecstasy, and rage. The moods often express a lack, an incompletion, an instability, a searching for location. In music videos, those feelings are carried on flights of whimsy, extended journeys into the arbitrary." (p. 63)

That music videos present compelling mood states that may claim the attention of the viewer is not a matter of happenstance.
Abt (1987) states that "directors of videos strive to make their products as exciting as the music. In the struggle to establish and maintain a following, artists utilize any number of techniques in order to appear exotic, powerful, tough, sexy, cool, unique" (p. 103). Further, Abt indicates a video must compete with other videos.

"They must gain and hold the viewer's attention amidst other videos; help establish, visualize, or maintain the artist's image; sell that image and the products associated with it; and perhaps, carry one or several direct or indirect messages . . ." (p. 97).

Music videos may be further characterized by three broad typologies: performance, narrative, and conceptual (Firth, 1988).
These types describe the form and content selected by the director or artist to attract viewers and to convey a direct or indirect message.

Performance videos, the most common type (Firth 1988) feature the star or group singing in concert to wildly enthusiastic fans. The goal is to convey a sense of the in-concert experience. Gow (1992) suggests "the predominance of performance as a formal system in the popular clips indicates that music video defines itself chiefly by communicating images of artists singing and playing songs" (pp. 48-49). Performance videos, especially those that display the star or group in the studio, remind the viewer that the soundtrack is still important. "Performance oriented visuals cue viewers that, indeed, the recording of the music is the most significant element" (Gow, 1992, p. 45).

A narrative video presents a sequence of events. A video may tell any kind of story in linear, cause-effect sequencing. Love stories, however, are the most common narrative mode in music video. The narrative pattern is one of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Action in the story is dominated by males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen (Schwichtenberg, 1992).Conceptual videos rely on poetic form, primarily metaphor (Firth, 1988). The conceptual video can be metaphysical poetry articulated through visual and verbal elements. "These videos make significant use of the visual element, presenting to the eye as well as the ear, and in doing so, conveying truths inexpressible discursively" (Lorch, 1988, p. 143). Conceptual videos do not tell a story in linear fashion, but rather create a mood, a feeling to be evoked in the experience of viewing (Firth, 1988).

Conceptual videos contain the possibility for multiple meanings as the metaphor or metaphoric sequence is interpreted by the viewer.
"Thus the metaphorical relations between images structured according to musical and visual rhymes and rhythms play a suggestive role in soliciting multiple meanings from us, the viewers/listeners, that resonate with our experience--something we can feel and describe" (Schwichtenberg, 1992 p. 124).

A given music video may actually have elements of more than one category. Goodwin (1992), in describing Madonna's videos, suggests that the essential narrative component of a music video is found in its ability to frame the star, "star-in-text," as all Madonna's videos seem to do. A story exists solely for its ability to create, or in Madonna's case recreate, the star's persona. This blending of elements can also enable a type of music such as rap to have cross-over appeal to a wider audience.Although we may profitably interpret the message potential of music video using these three categories as a basis for content analysis, certain limitations exist if we remain on that path. "Analysts of music video narrative have been all too eager to freeze the moment and study videos shot by shot, but here the problem is that this generates not too much but too little knowledge, because the individual narrative is highly intertextual" (Goodwin, 1992 p. 90).

As a blend of video technique and imagery from film and television, music video offers us a new perceptual agenda by providing allusions to and incorporations of old iconic imagery from film, allowing us to reconstitute the pieces of the 20th century information explosion (Turner, 1986). The brevity of the music video has created a new grammar of video technique particular to this miniscule video form.

"Visual techniques commonly employed in music videos exaggerate . . . Interest and excitement is stimulated by rapid cutting, intercutting, dissolves, superimpositions, and other special effects, that taken together with different scenes and characters, make music videos visually and thematically dynamic." (Abt, 1987 pp. 97-98)

Born of an amalgam of commercialism, television, and film, for the purpose of selling rock albums, music videos frequently employ well-established verbal and visual symbols in telling a story or making a point. If no such symbols exist, music videos coin their own which, given the ubiquity of the medium, quickly find their way into the vernacular.How then to best understand the rhetorical properties that such a media form has for the audience? Schwichtenberg (1992) suggests that what critics should consider "is how music videos are woven into a complex cultural context that includes performers, industries, and diverse audiences who attribute a wide variety of meanings to the music and visuals" (p. 117).

These characteristics suggest that the most methodologically appropriate approach to understanding how music videos might function as rhetoric is to view them as cultural acts, intertextually located in the viewer's own experience. We define culture, with a little help from Bruce Gronbeck (1983), as a complex of collectively determined sets of rules, values, ideologies, and habits that constrain rhetors and their acts. This complex leads a society to generate meaning through various message forms to establish a series of societal truths. The extent to which any form of communication such as a music video plays a part in the process of truth-making is what the rhetorical critic attempts to discover through criticism.

Karyn Charles Rybacki and Donald Jay Rybacki Northern Michigan University

Thursday, 8 December 2011

Audience feedback - (6 (work) days remain to deadline 4pm Friday 16th Dec

Time to start thinking about the next step. Your module result is based on the progress you have made on your video & ancillary tasks against the marking criteria. As your video has til next week til deadline this is a prediction on THE PROCESS and time management as well as what I have seen of your footage and editing progression and what you have evidenced on your blogs of the construction (photos from the shoot, during the edit, your reflections on your individual/group blogs..)

Next step - audience feedback


You should already have set up pages using social media to identify your target audience. If you have used an actual band use their website and collect feedback from them - this is 'client's feedback' and is valuable.

Facebook - Twitter - Myspace - comments on website

All ways to collect audience feedback on your work. Ensure you have an audience profile (photos) of your typical audience member.
Consider:
Age;
Gender;
Subculture (Punk, Emo, Scene Kid, Skater, Nu-Raver);
Region;
Outlook - values (facebook useful for this)

Collect the feedback and post to your blogs.

Evaluation is dependent on your analysis of the feedback - this includes each other.

If you are ahead please feedback on each others rough cut.

Thanks
Mr.B

Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Digipak planning

http://www.topalbumcovers.com/98to91.html

show what has influenced your draft designs from existing examples from your genre

Photos
Artwork
Designs
Effects

As a mood board show where your ideas for your drafts have come from & how you have been influenced by existing examples of album covers and digipaks.

Monday, 7 November 2011

Digipack analysis tasks: video commentary

See example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUOlOmNDMu4

  1. What are the conventions of the form and layout of a digipack? 
  2. Discuss the Design of the: front, back, spine, what the images represent, how it relates to the artist, is it following conventions (feature the artists etc).
  3. How has it been photographed/drawn/colours/photo-effects - what could this mean/symbolise? 
  4. How does it re-enforce/continue the construction of their Image?
  5. How do they contain conventions of the Genre of music?
Student example:


Looky here...It's a digipak analysis!

This is the debut solo album from Babyshambles front man, Peter Doherty. Released March 16th 2009, the album did not sell as well as was predicted - only reaching 17 in the top 40 album chart. However, rock/indie magazine 'Q' stated the album was impressive and awarded it 4/5. The Guardian also gave positive reviews and claimed that this album says "Goodbye to Pete Libertine the Rehab King, and say hello to Peter Doherty, outstanding singer-songwriter and charismatic poet-vagabond. It's a pleasure finally to meet him". Pete Doherty has always excelled himself with lyrics, even with former band 'The Libertines'. Being a fan of Doherty, i may be bias in saying that i think the album exceeded my original expectations and even though Doherty’s voice has been damaged by drug use, these tracks are poignant and meaningful. This digipak consists of the audio CD, DVD of extra performances, and a booklet in the centre with illustrations and lyrics. It is made from a rigid glossy card material.

Here is the front cover

Photobucket

We are initially struck with this imposing graphic design image of a woman with a burnt orange/brown/yellow colour scheme that runs throughout the digipak. This is also the design sold on t shirts to launch the album and his solo career, using this deisgn will allow people to realise it is from this album!

Photobucket

The fact that Doherty isn't on the front cover i would say is slightly inconventional however, more recently i think it has become more common for artists to do this, but then have some kind of image of themselves inside the package. (which we then go on to see) His name is in capitals but the font is quite small and therefore your eye is not drawn straightway to this, underneith is the name of the album 'Grace/wastelands' which is in a fine handwritten style font (handwritten being the style we have also gone for) but could be easily missed at a glance! The parental advisory sticker on the front along side the informative 'CD/DVD special edition' is recognisible with regard to CD packages and therefore know there will be strong language either on the CD or DVD.

Photobucket

This is the backcover of the digipak, once again keeping to the graphic design colour scheme and the handwritten names of the tracks particuarly stand out to me, because this is a key feature i think works with this individual artist - it creates more of a personal touch! :) Another thing i think we haven't mentioned until now is the barcode!....we need to include that! otherwise how would people buy our wonderful digipak!...here it is at the top right, slightly inconventional (as it is usually in either of the bottom corners) BUT i like it!

Photobucket


Here is the entire digipak opened up, and the front cover of the booklet inside which has song lyrics (handwritten) and further graphics. Each panel inside commits to the recurring colour scheme but has 3 images of a ballet dancer, which is relevant to one of the songs (and could also be relevant to the dancers her had at his live shows) Some lyrics from the tracks are also written across these designs again in a handwritten manner which i think works well!
To either side of the centre panel you can see the slots for the CD and DVD and at the bottom of the centre panel there is a long slot where the booklet goes, i think this is a very neat and well processed design!

Photobucket

This digipak has an extra panel (similar to ours!) which has yet another illustration, this time of Doherty himself (even though slightly distorted!) i like the black jigsaw pieces that make up part of his torso, its kinda quirky! :)

Finally, here is a photo of the spine - this is a very important aspect of the digipak design because most CD/DVD holders only show this part and therefore needs to be easily accessed and recognised

Photobucket

This one clearly displays the artist and album name, overall i think this is a good example of a digipak for an individual artist, my favourite features being, the handwritten fonts and the general layout :)
Thanks for reading, Lorna.




http://www.virginmedia.com/music/pictures/toptens/best-album-covers-ever.php?ssid=18

PLEASE LOOK!!! SENIOR EXAMINERS BLOG WITH EXAMPLES

http://ocrmediastudies.weebly.com/g324-a2-coursework.html

Tuesday, 1 November 2011

Goodwins Analysis - Research






see example of how to present your analysis covering the 7 areas

Download the video from youtube (same genre would be useful!)

You could add titles over the stilled relevant sections with your analysis

or you could use the green screen to present to Camera with the video behind you



or 
 you could record a commentary freezing over the relevant sections

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQJlWbjndp4




Class examples we have looked at













Call sheets example

call sheet example

shot list template

http://www.filmcontracts.net/contracts/form.php?id=1207

risk assessment example

http://www.reelfilmlocations.co.uk/files/Risk%20Assessment%20Form.pdf

ensure you have a production company name please for your team - make sure this is on your blogs!

Thanks
Mr.B

Monday, 31 October 2011

Target Audience Research

Using social networking sites for the ARTIST  (Facebook & Myspace)  collect research on who your target audience is (The friends - age, gender, culture, interests, their profile, discuss their values etc)

If your artists has no page, use a well known artist in the same Genre.

Consider:
Fashion
Appearance
Values/Interests
Opinions

Show that you have considered how you will reach them in your ideas for the video, their expectations of the genre - collect any relevant comments from this Fanbase - post influences & existing videos you have researched to get their opinions along with the track.

Print screen the comments and link to events/pages etc

Remember make reflective and analytical

Examiners feedback & assessment

Examiners’ Reports – June 2011 

G324 Principal Moderator’s Report

General Comments Most centres responded effectively to the electronic nature of this Specification; many presented work through blogs and in the best practice candidates’ blogs were accessed through a central blog hub. Blogs allowed centres to present all five elements of each candidate’s work (the research and planning, the main construction task, the two ancillaries and the evaluation) in a dynamic and flexible manner. The blogs that worked best were labelled with candidates’ names and numbers and permissions were set so that the moderator could access the blog with ease. 

RESEARCH & PLANNING The best research and planning was evidenced through ongoing blogs, demonstrating the real processes undertaken by the candidate. Such blogs included embedded video, such as work they had analysed or of audience interviews, experimental footage, perhaps with an audio track explaining the process, or animatics. This was uploaded via providers such as You Tube (often using the annotation facility), Muzu or Vimeo. The best blogs also included audio such as podcasts, audio commentaries or audience interviews (which could be recorded on or uploaded from their phones via Soundcloud, for example). The most effective blogs had images of a wide range of things, including drafts of print materials, storyboards, mind maps, recce shots, make up tests, permission request letters for the music video brief, risk assessment forms. The best ones were thoroughly hyperlinked to the range of sites visited and referred to. Blogs also allowed teachers and classmates to be able to comment on the work in progress, giving invaluable feedback and suggestions for further exploration at every stage. 

All the best research was focused, relevant and analytical, rather than descriptive, and looked closely at a range of similar products which then informed the candidate’s planning of all of their own products. It proved vital that candidates researched and planned all three of their products carefully, the main task and the two ancillaries. Audience research was done well in those centres that did more than just questionnaires and graphs. Social networking sites were used to good effect by some candidates undertaking both audience research and audience feedback. Others used online survey sites. The most detailed audience research produced more effective productions, in terms of being genre products, and were more appropriate for their selected target audience. 

Drafting is essential for all productions, not just because the assessment criteria says it needs to be there – but also because it produces the best constructions; storyboards or animatics all help identify potential problems before production starts. This can also help in more effective deployment of the Centre’s resources – less time will be needed re-filming, for example, if an animatic shows early on that there is a gap in a narrative that needs to be filled. Storyboards completed after filming have no use. All three tasks benefit from careful research and planning. Stronger candidates also included shooting schedules and call sheets. Risk assessments were undertaken by a small proportion of centres. Several centres demonstrated very worrying health and safety issues that must be addressed in future sessions. The best blogs were also well labelled, tagged and titled so that the moderator could easily identify each of the relevant entries. 

CONSTRUCTION

In the Music Promotion brief this session, there was an increase in the proportion of lip-synched performance over a purely narrative approach. This development is to be encouraged, as the narrative videos look more like short films and tend to lose function as a promotional tool for the artist. Some of these responses, as in previous sessions, have shown real flair and imagination combined with technical control; more candidates seemed to show more of the visual aesthetic with some excellent shot choices and mise en scene. 

Digipack: 
A greater number of candidates submitted the required number of panes to be a digipak (ie at least four) and had clearly been taught the technical skills to be able to manipulate their images and combine effectively with text, although a surprising number did not include basic institutional elements such as a barcode and copyright information. 

The magazine advertisements and web pages were generally less successful. Many web pages were not online with working urls (WE ARE USING WIX SO IT'S OK) but were just jpegs of a design for a site. This is not acceptable under this Specification. Not all candidates evidenced the requirement to ask the rights holders of the music track for permission to use it in their video. 

Monday, 10 October 2011

timeline analysis

Break the song into sections - identify what visually you are going to put where in the song

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

The result of constructing an Image for an artist

Hi All

Please have a look at www.youmeatsix.com

Notice that they have the following shared themes of criminality running through their music video as well as their webiste.












So what Image has the label constructed for them?

Criminiality?
Anarchic?
Libertines?
Outlaws - this one has particular romantic and attractive connotations which could sell.

Also notice the uniforms and mugshot cards 'LAPD' = Los Angeles Police Department (in California, USA)

Which market are they selling to - British or American? Do they have a British or US Rock sound?

Finally this is the reality of where this band comes from -



So how far removed from the truth is their Image? So what is the process of constructing this 'stage persona' for a band struggling against the law?

Recap

The webiste, video and album cover all share the same Image & concept

The Image is an attractive work of fiction to sell to an audience.


How can you apply this process to your own artist?

Thanks

Mr.B

Sunday, 2 October 2011

Institutions, Marketing & Campaign Strategy



Task 1: Institutions & Marketing Methods (thinking task)
Research into this

annotate the list Desirable, Expensive, Lucrative

Task 2: Campaign Strategy (Collage & Screen shots with annotations)
a) Identify how last years student's Music Video, Digipack and Websites have a CONSISTENT STYLE & UNIFIED PURPOSE 
  • Themes
  • Image
  • Visual Style (colours, fonts, effects, iconography)
  • Mode of address to appeal to the target audience

b) Apply - using your Research into existing Promotional Campaign & your Research into Websites create an overall plan of how your 3 forms will work together to promote your audience - create a Collage of INFLUENCES of how the webiste will look, designs for the digipack & Music Videos visual style (effects, colours etc) to communicate a consistent:

  • Theme
  • Image
  • Visual Style
  • Mode of address to appeal to the target audience
across the 3 forms

Task 3: Institutions & Marketing Strategy (Prezi & Collage)
Present question 1 as a Prezi with a Collage of images of the specific Institutions - record company, magazines, channels, festivals you will be using - include release date for album, dates for tours/festivals and when your campaign will start

Question 2 requires you to justify why you are spending the marketing budget on each method - why this channel/magazine, what benefit/function - reach to your target audience?



Task 4: Annotate your post
Mr.B

PS - make sure you identify which which music tv stations, radio stations, magazines, websites etc you will advertise on - provide images. You are spending my marketing budget on this so i want to know where it is going!


Include dates for the release, single, festivals, video/advertising - how many weeks before the album release date - is the tour the money earner or the album, which is promoting which and which would come out first?

Thursday, 29 September 2011

Post Modernism - self reflexivity

A music video that is aware of its own construction

Check out this video as an example of post modernism

- the video uses captions at certain points to demonstrate what section of the somng it is - this is self reflexivity.  The music video is 'self-aware', it is not covering up the fact that it has been constructed for advertising purposes to the song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38by00DGid0&ob=av2n

Song structure & timings with lyric analysis

Layout the structure of your song including timing of the different sections

Include an analysis of the lyrics and mood of the music attaching ideas for your visuals - what part of the narrative (what scene, what plot point and when in the song)

Highlight the key words you are using to interpret the visuals.

See other student examples for help with this on previous posts 'Lyric analysis'






Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Image & Concept IMP

Hi All

Just a quick reminder about your ideas for your music video

By now you should have researched IMAGE of artists. In lesson 1 we established that your job in making a music video is to SELL the artist & their music.

Your target audience must be attracted to and identify with the values and identity that you are creating for the band. So who are you saying that they are - what do they personify? SEX? REBELLIOUSNESS? INDEPENDENCE? TRAGEDY?

Setting is of paramount importance as is having a CONCEPT or THEME for your video.

Shooting in the following locations will NOT sell an artist to the international or British market

Dartford
Your house
In the high street
In a park

You are looking for aspirational or hyper-real locations that generate MEANING - there must be a symbol reason for their performance being in this place - a high street says nothing about an artist.

PARIS is a location that symbolises LOVE, not a awkward scene shot in Nandos

LONDON is the capital of this country and a world-wide recognised skyline of landmarks - it is the centre of the 2ND BIGGEST MUSIC MARKET IN THE UK.

AMY WINEHOUSE lived & died there, PUNK started there, GRIME came from there.

The audience for the artists music will include your age as part of the audience but is likely to extend to 30 year olds - that is a over a decade between you! You wouldn't speak to a 5 year old the same as a 17 year old, so you need to be thinking about mature themes that this audience can relate to for your content

Genres have expectations
AGGRESSION, REBELLIOUSNESS & ANTI-AUTHORITY = PUNK
SEX, DRUGS & ROCK N ROLL = ROCK
SENSITIVITY, ARTISTIC EXPRESSION, UNIQUENESS = ALTERNATIVE
BEAUTY, SEX, RELATIONSHIPS, PERFECTION = POP
REALITY, MASCULINITY, URBAN CULTURE, POWER = HIP HOP
FEMININITY, SEX, RELATIONSHIPS, URBAN CULTURE = RnB

These must be satisfied in order to successfully construct an IMAGE that will SELL the album to the audience.

Think outside of your own lives & the everyday locations

These Videos need DRAMA, IMAGINATION, SYMBOLISM, MEANING, HYPER-REAL (exaggerated, distorted, surreal) FILMLIKE not what is accessible to the experiences of the everyday teenager.

Your key resource is Ideas from films, adverts, games, tv shows, cartoons, and other music videos, so get thinking.


Good luck
Mr.B

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

RESEARCH & PLANNING - layout of your group blog