Question 1 Evaluation

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

To make a music video you have to consider the basic codes and conventions of a music video. These codes and conventions would be along the lines of Goodwin’s theory for instance such as; thought beats, Narrative and performance, the star image, relation of visuals to a song and Technical Aspects. To create the right music video we had to do a lot of research. This meant figuring out what kind of style of genre for the song "Silver Lights" by Drew Tabor was. This meant we had to kind of analyse the style which was mainly folk/acoustic. After researching into the different genres and styles we then had to research into the main focus points of the genre and see what kind of codes and conventions are involved to create the folk/acoustic genre music video. The reasons for researching into these codes and conventions were so that we could create the right style/symbolic video for the genre that different target audiences would understand.

Looking at the advert that we designed. You can't straight away see the use of rule of 3 by the photograph. When Erica Hall took these photographs we were constantly making sure there was the use of rule of 3 and that the images were as clear as we could get them and with great quality. Personally I think the photographs for our ancillary texts have all be strong. We carefully researched and thought into how we were going to portray the same conventions from the music video into the ancillary text to keep the professional feel and flow throughout our work. Using the rule of 3 helped us a lot because it gave us more room to add text and play around with the image a lot more. Stereotypically using the rule of three and lining up the picture with the lines on the grid when taking the photograph tend to make it more focal and eye catching for an audience too look at, this is one of the many reasons why we wanted to use the rule of three because for our kind of style of genre we needed it to look as eye catching as possible.

When researching into the advertisement we had to think of certain things that would make the audience think straight away and know that it was a folk/acoustic style genre. For example within our advertisement you can see myself holding a guitar straight away from this you can tell that it’s going to be an instrument/acoustic based genre. The setting we are located in is very natural, with the natural lighting from outdoors, for instance the fields, sun, trees and hills in the distance combine together to create the genre of folk. For instance when looking into the girl band

“Cimorelli” – (YouTube Artist) –

We noticed the use of sun in their surroundings and how much that effected the attitude towards the whole song/ EP altogether. This is something that influenced us a lot when taking the pictures because we wanted this happy upbeat energy brought through with the music video then continued throughout our ancillary texts. We made sure our location fitted in well with the folk genre of the song because we knew straight away the acoustic would be shown as an acoustic genre. Furthermore the use of lighting within our advertisement shows the conventions to an folk style genre music video. However decided to challenge these conventions. Folk style genre codes and conventions involve a lot of lighting and shadow play. We didn’t want to make the ancillary or music video to dark so instead we went for more of the brighter lights/sunrays and a little bit of shadow in different sections of the images we took – There is a pacific part within our music video where the use of shadows and lights is shown, I shall be commenting on this later on in this essay.

Linking in with the mise en scene you can see the outfit in am wearing is a dress, leggings. Converse and a denim jacket. We wanted the style of the outfit to bring out the happiness or bright atmosphere of the song “Silver Lights”. In the music video I am wearing the exact same outfit as I am in the Digi Pak and the Advert. This is because it has a good use of flow and is consistent throughout making it look professional. We wanted the outfit to link in with the certain codes and themes too. For instance for an acoustic style we challenged it and decided to go for brighter coloured outfits which bring the whole “In your face” or “Eye catching” look. Its bold and it screams out summer because of the floral patterns. The converse I’m wearing can clearly relate to teenagers because that’s something they would find appealing being a worldwide known brand. It’s also recently becoming very big over in the UK to. The denim jacket I’m wearing can be related back to the artist I have researched into for instance Eliza Doolittle, and then if you’re thinking acoustic style based the band “The Script” or something like "Tom Odell" the star image focal point is always seen wearing denim jackets which comes across as being “Acoustic” style. Going into my facial expressions are very silly and kind of fun which could appeal and make audiences smile and laugh because it’s not something you would see often on a Digi pak. Touching of the hair also adds to the femininity of the ancillary texts/music video. The use of colours within my dress there’s a lot of pinks can also

relate that our target audiences is based around females. For example looking over to “The Script” album cover you can see that the lead singer is wearing a leather jacket – however in our costume choice we challenged this convention and went for a “Denim Jacket” to link well with the acoustic guitar and the whole surroundings and themes. Comparing "The Script" with "Tom Odell" - he also wears the denim jacket but has more of an urban surroundings. This is something we decided not take on however we liked how "The Script" were standing in fields to link in that "Boy Band" - "Folk/Acoustic" style music. What we wanted to do for our Digi-Pak would be to create the Folk/acoustic styles with touches of femininity on the way. Our overall Digi-Pak had the codes and conventions of Good-wins Theory, and then 

Things that we challenged when making the digi paks would be the different styles. For instance I did a lot of research into Eliza Doolittle because her style music is very similar to our kind of theme and it makes you smile. It’s also very upbeat however looking at Eliza Doolittle’s album cover – It is very bright and it does look upbeat with a lot of energy. It’s a very busy composition. When you come back to our ancillary texts, We didn’t want it to be a buys composition. Also having that style of composition would not of fit in well with the whole Folk/Acoustic style genre. Eliza Doolittle's Work was something that inspired us a little however not so much with the ancillary texts, it inspired lots throughout the music video... However when we come to the ancillary text it was more of a way of "how are we going to make our target audience catch this?" "how will we know this suit our target audience" this is why we kind of left all of the details to be genre, colour themed and symbolic basic. That way teenagers picking up the Digi-pak would understand that its aimed at "folk/acoustic" lovers. Going back to Eliza Doolittle, her music videos and her characterization was something that influenced our work alot throughout the research and planning. I researched into videos of hers like "Big When I Was Little". Straight away from the first scene we are given an upbeat personality. This is something myself and Erica thought could work well, However we didn't want to film our video this way. 

What we noticed was that Eliza uses bold big colors which stand out and capture the eye. We noticed that she walks down the streets alot within her music videos which relates it back to this "Local, nature" aspects of our ancillary texts which links in with the actual music video. "Big When I Was Little" Really helped influence our work by the local settings, For instance once scene we see Eliza Doolittle as the star image using Goodwins Theory walking down a street, That's colorful and it almost feels summery. This influenced our work alot. We decided to take ideas like this and use them within our own music video. For instance you get a shot of me walking towards the camera - exactly like Eliza Doolittle does, in a natural setting of trees, roads and houses in the background. You can see from these two photos, and its surroundings how the codes and conventions of folk/acoustic/pop links in with Eliza's video... and also influences our video too. 

There were alot of these scenes within our music video which were similar, however we mainly used them for the verses. walking down the roads to create this nature, outdoors look which relates to that summer feeling. in our music video, Part of this which also influenced us would be the girl "Lenka" who sings "The Show". She influenced us to make the music video very quirky and cheesy. This is good because Lenka also had the same surroundings as us. Green areas and trees to create that natural nature aspect. In the first scene of Lenka's music video we see her seated on a park bench. Somewhere locally possibly. In our music video you see our first scene of myself sat against the sign that is posted. This is due to the fact that we liked how the camera angle would be from this part. Lenka's music video influenced us to start from sitting down. This is also due to the fact that the first verse isn't upbeat its rather cool and chilled which creates this smooth calm vibe. However the more you go into the song it gets up tempo. So we decided to start by sitting like Lenka did in her video. Also The fact that i'm sitting shows that its a more natural aspect towards the video which links in the codes and conventions of folk and acoustic. Also the lighting plays well with the genre of folk music because there are light beams throughout creating that summer sunshine feeling.

When we got to the chorus, we noticed alot of the time chorus numbers within music videos from research we had found out that they tend to be the most upbeat part of the music videos which makes it whole. The chorus in actual fact should be the part that is emphasized the most and creates the whole message overall. This is something that we wanted to do. We decided that we would keep the verses quirky and then build the chorus us to be fun and energetic which will create that happy upbeat atmosphere. To bring this across to the audience it would mean using the facial expressions and having the brightness of our costumes being big and bold. That's another influence. Eliza Doolittle uses alot of bright colours from alot of her music videos to create this happy atmosphere. We have done this by using the sun to create beams against the camera and glares and then we have decided to use the costumes as floral patterns which are bright and stand out against anything. Bright costumes link with the mis en scene of the teenage girl audience that we want to target our audience at. 

Going back to the advert that I and Erica Hall created you can clearly see that we researched a lot on how adverts should be presented. For instance we added in the twitter logo, YouTube logo. This is because from AS research last year we could clearly see that technology is something that teenagers use a lot of nowadays. This is why we decided to use the logos of YouTube and Twitter because of “Active Participants” or “Active Audiences” having that control of being able to speak freely with fans and letting them interact with the music video and the overall advert. It’s good because its advertising the user in a teenager style way which is why we choose this way of advertising overall because its simple, easy and fast. All teenagers have to do is search the twitter name and find them, follow them and then there’s a new fan. When you look at the normal adverts within magazines for perfume companies or film companies they usual add in their twitter names or Facebook pages this is why we decided to add in the YouTube artist – because the singer is an actual YouTube Artist that makes covers frequently.  Furthermore or target audience is aimed at teenagers this is great, because social networking sites normal aim for teenagers and up that’s exactly the kind of target audience we have gone for which means we are more likely to gather teenager audiences and create a bigger audience base because the use of distributing it onto these websites.

Our Digi-Pak is something that we wanted to make look as professional as we can. Ways we did this would be by keeping up the codes and conventions throughout the advert and the music video and bringing them too our Digi-Pak. Our Digi-Pak has a strict color theme and we made sure that it looked professional enough. From the start of the year myself and Erica Hall remembered the rule of 3 when taking photos for media, this is to create focal points for the audience. When looking into Digi-Paks we realized that Ellie Golding might be the best influence for us. We saw Eliza Doolittle Digi-pak and decided that It wouldn't work as a busy composition for our song that we have chosen. It would be best to make it as close to genre base as possible for the target audience benefit. We liked how Ellie Goulding's album has that use of an acoustic guitar, plus the Goodwins theory of star image used throughout. Also showing the guitar the location in one picture basically shows that its "Folk,Acoustic" style genre based. Exactly the same as ours.

This is Ellie Goulding's Digi-Pak for "The Writer" - we decided that this kind of style would be best for our Digi Pak. It has a suited color theme, that could be easily applied to the Advert. To keep that consistent flow throughout. However our Digi-Pak really did go with the codes and conventions. We challenged the colours with the costume choice because they were bold choices, however this did link really well with our chosen target audience being mainly aimed at teenage girls. We liked the way Ellie Gouldings Digi-Pak mainly focus on her and there's a picture of her with the guitar which says that she is a songwriter and comes up with alot of her songs acoustically. Knowing that the YouTube Artist We have choosen "Drew Tabor" is a pretty well known on YouTube it's good because it means we can use the acoustic guitar and be influenced by Ellie Goulding's Digi-Pak because Drew Tabor Is an artist on YouTube that Covers songs and writes songs too.

Codes and conventions of folk and acoustic music is usually rather dull. Thinking into artist of Ed Sheeran with "A Team" - His hole video is acoustic but his effect on his video is black and white which makes this depressing feeling. We challenged this throughout our music video by having it in a normal colour and not always using the acoustic guitar. when You're thinking folk they tend to say they focus alot more on close ups of their instruments. We have done this within our music video because we expressed the way how the artist "Drew Tabor" is an acoustic singer songwriter with a add of folk. We have made sure the guitar is a symbolic theme throughout all of our work being the Ancillary texts and also the music video.

Another part of Goodwin’s theory that we used would be the lyrics and visuals. This is something that we wanted to make stand out a lot throughout our video. In our research and planning stage we

decided to use white card and write the lyrics of “Oh Oh Oh” on them this. Its good because it’s bold and a quirky choice. This is good because whenever the chorus start we used the teansition of sliding doors effect. So it slides open onto this “Oh” cards which makes it stand out. Also the audience will be able to sing along to the lyrics when watching this part. Overall the song is rather catchy and when playing it to the audience they all started to sing the lyrics back which is great because it means that the song we had chosen and the lyric’s and visuals are working.

In The music video however we stuck with the codes and conventions of folk style music having close up shots of the guitar in some of the little instrumental parts.

The transition we used for this is effective because it opens and suddenly there is the card with the lyrics. It stands out, it’s a creative choice not a lot of music video for the genre of folk/acoustic pick this kind of thing to do so in some way you could say we challenged the codes and the conventions at this point. By  making a bold choice and making it effective for the audience watching.

Not only are lyrics and visuals important throughout our music video but the music and visuals are also important. At the beginning of the song we get a guitar picked chord which is bold and loud. In our music video we have applied this to a lot of the intro parts of the song where you can hear the guitar being played. Showing the guitar picking the strings of that chord is symbolic and makes it stand out.

Going back to the vibes of summer. We tried to show this by the different angles/lighting choices within our music video. Sometimes when we caught the sun right it showed through the reflection of the camera creating sun rays or beams. This is exactly what we wanted because when we were researching into different songs a lot of the upbeat happy emotions and vibes created that summer feeling by just certain camera angles. – On one of the verse we get given the lyrics of “It shines between the spaces of the trees and finds its way right back to me” – This plays on all of the lyrics, visuals, and camera angle also themes. It’s literally one shot take. It circles around which creates the sun rays effect through the trees – this also links in with the lyrics and visuals and vibes of summer. When the camera spins around it lands on the star image being me… and it lands on the lyrics of “Finds its way right back to me” – almost like the camera is spinning and that camera has to find me. It plays on the whole of that lyric.

Drew Tabor Silver Lights Music Video - By Erica Hall and Chloe Watret

I think overall when you look back at our video you can see that we have challenged some of the conventions of our chosen genre, However we have also stuck by alot of the conventions too. We have been influenced by many artist that are based in the acoustic, folk also some pop genre. Most of the stuff that we have added within our music video had alot of playful, upbeat, quirky character, The facial reactions, the silly laughing slow motion clips. The editing that has been done on purpose to create the emphasis on certain parts. Goodwin's theory with lyrics and visuals and narrative story line. The props that we also used added into the characterization and mis-en scene of the performance. Overall if you compare our work to any of the artist above you could easily pick out different influences and codes and conventions that linked together to create this music video. I'm happy with the final outcome I feel like we have improved the work alot to meet the given criteria by making sure that each clip we have filmed or edited ticks all the codes and convention boxes.