Evie Watkins

A2 Media Studies Blog

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Welcome to my blog!

Through out this years Music video production I have put a vast amount of important post on my blog and each has helped me to develop and improve upon my finial media production for A2, as there is a large amount of information on my page, here are the clicks to certain sections to help you find what you are looking for earlier, enjoy!

These are the links to each stage leading up to the final Music video and analytic texts in chronological order: Research, Planning, Production, and Evaluation.

https://eviewatkinsmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/a2-research 

https://eviewatkinsmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/a2-planning  

https://eviewatkinsmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/a2-production

https://eviewatkinsmedia.tumblr.com/tagged/a2-evaluation

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Music video analysis Foundation Kate Nash

Foundations is a performance and narrative based music video because there are shots of her performing, as well as there being an underlying message being shown throughout, through a narrative. The first five seconds of the music video has different shots of stationary objects including socks, two toothbrushes and shoes. This sets the setting as a home and shows the intimacy of the relationship that is going to be shown. There are numerous close ups of Kate performing her song and this shows her talent and the fact that she is the main singer of the song. In addition to this, there is a close up of the couple holding hands and then in the same shot, they begin to release the hold of each others hand. This shows that the couple are obviously going through troubles and their closeness is fading away. Similarly, there is a close up of the couples feet as they are laying side by side in bed and she looks as though she is trying to push him away from her; again as though she is trying to be close to him but she's struggling. 33 seconds into the music video there is a long take of Kate in her kitchen, which is full of flowers and plants. She then walks over to the fridge and opens it up, revealing a load of beers, which is seen to be very manly. 

This shows a contrast between male and female stereotypes, which is recognisable to the audience due to its relation to real life. This shot lasts seven seconds and the length of the shot emphasises the importance of stereotypes to the audience. In addition to this there are cross cuts from the couple laying in bed to close ups of her performing her song. The use of cross cutting shows a gradual separation of the couple laying in bed, which suggests hesitation from the female character and her uncertainty about the relationship. This makes the sequence of shots much more effective and instilled in the audiences mind. The majority of the cuts are neither slow paced nor fast paced, they are all a relatively normal speed and this allows the everyday life of a normal relationship to be portrayed; especially the bits, which annoy those in a relationship. 3:12 minutes there is a focus pull on the male character and this suggests that the male character is on the females mind, there is a shift of importance from the female to the male. 1:09 minutes into the music video, the part of socks laying on the floor tie up together and 2:45 minutes into the video the watched intertwine. Additionally, 3:15 minutes in, the toothbrushes turn around and face each other.

 These different cuts are all metaphorical and are meant to represent the couple but as inanimate objects. This is also effective because it it satirical and suggests that even the individuals belongings are turning against each other and it's a powerful message being portrayed. In addition to the metaphorical watches getting closer, the lyrics which are amplified at this point are "I know I should forget but I can't." This suggests to the audience that she tries to leave and forget but she gets dragged back into the relationship and this is a relate-able message, which many women can relate to; adding the element of personal relationships and surveillance into the music video. The audience want to keep watching until the end to find out what she finally decides to do. Finally at 3:25 minutes the metaphors explain themselves with the watches becomes unattached, the toothbrushes facing away from each other and the socks untangle. This suggests to the audience that what is happening to the inanimate objects is going to happen to the characters too. Throughout the music video natural, high key lighting is used and this is whilst the relationship is still in progress and then at the end of the music video, low key lighting is used and this is the part of the narrative where the female finally leaves the male.

 Even though it is positive for her, there is still an element of sadness and therefore the low key lighting amplifies the overall meaning of the song. However throughout the music video, bright colours are used and Kate wears yellow, which has connotations of happiness and cheerfulness. This suggests to the audience that she doesn't really mind that her relationship is coming to an end because everytime she tries to salvage it, it just gets ruined again. This is reitterated by the lyrics "Everytime that your upset and I smile." On the other hand, whilst they are laying bed and their feet are sticking out of the end of the bed, the artist is wearing red nail polish, which has connotations to danger and passion and this suggests to the audience that she enjoys the danger. Finally, the last shot is a close up of a door with a poster, which reads "don't fall for this" and this suggests to the audience that they shouldn't fall for stupidity or lies. It is an empowering song to women because it exaggerates the fact that holding onto foundations can be pointless if they constantly break.

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My Final Evaluation for questions 4!

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Evaluations Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Here is my Newpaper interview to go into detail about the feedback we got from our audience!

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A2 Evaluation Question 1

Evaluation Question 1- In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop or Challenge Forms and Conventions of real media products? For this question I talk ...

This is my vidoe to Evaluation Questions 1 , in this vidoe i will be talking about how my music video uses, develps and also challenges certain forns and conventions of real media products!

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My Director’s Commentary // Then Me and My Groups Directors Commentary

                      My Own Directors Commentary 

This is my own Directors commentary i made to get my take and ideas about the music.

           Me and My Groups Directors Commentary

This is the Groups Directors Commentary with Me, Izzie and Amy, i thought that having a group one as well as my own would be good as can get ideas from my team members too and they may have a different take on what i have said in mine giving more variety! 

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Group Work and Time Management // How we achieved the shots we wanted

My decision to work in a group of three including myself, Izzie and Amy for this project has been a very good decision and has resulted in a final piece that we all love and enjoy watching ourselves. To work fast and effectively  get tired to split the workload equally between us, but certain tasks like in the panning stage we all did such as the storyboard and we were reflecting feedback to each other  during the production stage of the Music Video. This allowed us to carefully consider each shot and what exactly was in frame and allowing us all to have an input, bouncing off each other if a shot hadn’t turned out the way we wanted it to or someone disliked it we would make sure to change. For example, we had put in show more clips in the police car but as i thought they were too shaky we decided as a team to take them out.

In post production we all work together well when it came down to editing.we work well as we all had similar ideas and wanted the same themes and genetic conventions to be added which meant choosing the shots to put in was fairly easy, this was also the case with choosing location and themes, which really helped us to save time in the planning and post-production stage. 

As we were well organised during the pre-production stage, we were able to maximize the time we had to film but as we wanted a large range of shots time did seem to go very fast on the filming days. Our time management was good due to the fact that Izzie was our main actor and also in our group meaning she was just as edger to get it filmed, our actor Gemma who wasn't in our group also was available too.   

As Izzie was in nearly all shots shes couldn't film as much as me and Amy meaning that was wanted to be more involved with the editing which was handy  as she could edit as me and Amy would do other tasks for the blog and uploaded more of our footage to the computer that we liked from previous filming days but also as i had a clear idea in my head of how i wanted the music video to be like i would as well as Amy have an input and help with the editing. I think that as I had such a clear idea of how i wanted the music video to be i had to compromise some of my ideas and let the others have there inputs as it was a team project, but as i am very happy with our video having the others input there ideas was a good thing and we all really like and could develop each others thoughts.  

How we achieved the shots we wanted

As we had planned to use a wide range of shots from the beginning of the project and wanted bring our ideas to life we made sure we left enough time to fit all the filming we needed to do in and also to help maintain a high standard we use of high-tech equipment such as a tripod, slider and camera shoulder support to made all the shots all more professional. This has meant we have gathered plenty of shots that reveal all emotions of our characters and meant that we can have high speed editing such as fast cuts between each frame. We have managed to use our equipment well, with it really benefiting our results when it comes to producing professional work.

Originally we wanted to film in the ‘Doh Ho Exhibit’ and The pink staircase at ‘Frank’s Café’ in London, but unfortunately we couldn’t film due to the prices etc, but we came up with equally as aesthetically pleasing places that we knew were available. 

 We used an urban location with plenty of movement in the background to create a lot of excitement and to intrigue the audience, however we had also chose an area within our urban locations London called Notting Hill this was good as it had a lot of space to adjust and move the equipment whilst filming each frame. For the use of 180 degree shots we used the path way which was wide enough to be able to move from right to left to right with the camera with an additional pan effect. This would not have been achieved if we had used a smaller space as the crew and actors would need to move around as well as the equipment. 

When creating the tracking shots (as she is running down the stairs) we have been able to use the shoulder support to create a great rough effect. We wanted the audience to see that there was an intention for the shot to be more casual and bumpy, but we still wanted to maintain a professional feel, for example we wanted the shot to be clear and not make the audience feel confused. We tried this technique many times before being able to master it and this meant that we were able to then get the perfect shot to use within our media video.

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FINAL FOCUS GROUP- LORDE TEAM

This is the final focus group for Our music video for Lorde- Team. Due to the location we were forced to film in, there was lots of background noise, so ther...

‘What do you like about our video’

The lighting we used footage was bought up for the first question, they all seem to really like the variety of lighting such as the framed lighting on Izzie’s face in the first few shots as it helped to created a exciting mood to our piece. One said he really like the different lighting in the prison location mean the pink and green lighting as it made he intrigued as mot many music videos had done this. Another said he loved the variety of locations if felt like you didn't know where they would be next making you watch till the end.  Which was very positive and made us feel good as we had put a lot of time in to using the best locations.  Another peer went on to see she really like the custom it was ’very original’ this was good as she would be our ideal target audience so knowing that she liked it meant hopefully more of our target audience will feel the same. She said that the coulors for the clothing  and the mis-en-scene worked very well and complimented each other. This was our goal as we felt that having this would make an all round visually pleasing production. 

‘What could be improved?’

Use more levels, have more high and low levels to add more of a range to keep the music video more entertaining.

‘what was you favourite part of the music video?’

one said they enjoyed the prison location as it was unusual and edgy, this is good as it means our music video will stand out from others. someone else said they liked the pink mise-en-scene with the flowers as it was very pretty and looked effective, he then went on the say he liked the fact that we used a real shop, we wanted to do this has it made our video look more like real media and more professional. Also they though the London shots were very good as they were visually pleasing as the colours were very pretty.

‘What image have we given the Artist?’

the first person said we had given her character and attitude and sass, which is good as more people will like her and want to carry on watching her in the video also she was seen as rebellious, which is part of our narrative as she steals in the shop and ends in prison so its good that they understood that and shows we have a clear narrative. she is also seen as edgy which is good as this relates to the real artist and her style of elector pop music, she is seen as being confront which is very common with in the pop genre music videos making ours similar to real media. 

‘Would you buy our album as a result of the music video?’

they said yes as they liked the story it told and would want to see more, another said he would like the see the other music videos as h liked this one even know its not his taste in music which means we had reached out to a bigger audience.

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My final digipak with and without a CD disk.

I'm am very pleased with my digipak and have followed certain genetic conventions making it fit into real media text. I fell the such of colour thought out links all my products and also helps reflected the Pop genre and also creates an exciting mood linking in with the video. 

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My final digipak advert, the advert really stands out and will help increase my audience as i feel this style will be liked by a large range of people. It has a clear representation of the genre and both my other products helping to build on the brand identity such like real media.

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LORDE- TEAM (Unofficial Music Video) - FINAL CUT

This is Izzie, Evie and Amy's final cut for our music video of Lorde's Team for A level Media

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My Digipak in 3D

To see what my digipak would look like in real lift i decided to print it out and make it 3D,  this helped me to see the digipak like the audience would and to see if it would as effective in 3D and also to see how it compares to other CD digipaks i have in my house and of course to check if it was all composed in the right way, meaning the layout and also if they images looked effective being next to each other or if it was too much. it also helped as now I can understand how an member of the public may perceive it and see how far it would appeal to our target audience. I think it looks good, it’ s very bright as i intended it to be and if i was walking round in a shop it would definitely catch my eye. the layout was good and also the inside panels worked well together and the font and writing was clear and bold enough to read which was one of the things i was worried about. I was like the white colour of my font as it stood out to me and also thought the colour scheme word so over all I'm very happy, one thing i would change would be the positioning of the song names and the back as they weren't in the middle and also next time i may add less flowers and just keep the green plants to make it more simple and to tone it down.

I like how the red and blue work together and also how there is a clear theme with both having the same plants on i think the font for the songs work well with my illustrations and i like the added detail with Lorde name on the side making it clear she’s the artist.

the inside is very bright and full of colour which i like and all the different colours really compliment one another! Also the front cover looks really nice i like the flowers with connect it to the other panels and also the back where the songs are.

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Using Illustrator for my Digipak

At first i wasn't going to use illustrator in my digipak as i had some good photos from my shot day with the main singer, but i thought were wanted enough colour within the photos to link in with the video so i started but just adding some blue colours one to a photo of Izzie, i did like it but it didn't look every professional and though if i was going to used editing on top of photo i should add more and go full so that's when i thought to use illustrator to re create some photos, as you can see the editing of the blue lines wasn't every noticeable. 

  using the latest versions of illustrator is very well set out making it easy to use, I had use it before making my digipak to draw and add designs over photos but had never made some thing just from the pencil tool, lucky i had a Wacom board which allowed me to be very accurate when making the images and also made it earlier to draw making them look more professional and could be seen as real media, it also allowed me to zoom in from the board which meant i could focus on detail and that all the lines were connected so when i added my colour with would be block colours.

Here is an image of the same Wacom I used.

first i clicked on the pencil tool then decided how smooth i wanted the lines to look i changed this by moving the fidelity slider which allows you to easy control the smoothness of your paths moving it to the left will give you more accurate lines which is something i wanted to give my work a polished feel but also moving it to the right would allow the lines to be very smooth with very few point, i went for the smooth path as this looked nicer and worked better with all the curved segments that I needed to use in my pictures such as the flowers etc.

Here is the image i made for Izzie, I took a screen shot of a part in the video of Izzie that i wanted to re create which was the footage of her in my grandmas house with the sun lighting up the room giving a nice frame around Izzie i wanted to use this as there were lots of flowers in the footage so as i was going to ass some anyway it help link in the two pieces. Once my outline was done i experimented with the colours

As i wanted to use blue on this image i used a lot of different shades to make it look more effective and interesting, i tried the colour green as in the clip she has a green top on but it didn't work as well with my other illustrations and didn't look nice with the blue background so then i tried an all green image but i still didn't like it more then the blue so went back to using blue shades i then used a slightly transparent blue on top of the flowers this was really nice as it added more layers to the image and also added different textures to the drawing.

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Digipak Editing

For my digipak pack i wanted to create a piece of work that would reflect the themes with in the music video and show a clear link between both analytic texts and the video   

I wanted to use a lot of colour though out as this would show a clear link to the video, i got inspiration through shots such as the London shots where the there were bright red houses with blue doors etc. I felt that because i have used illustrator for my digipak i have a unique and edgy brand identity that bought in the concept for art in to the pop genre which was unusual and would appeal to more people bringing in a large audience. As i still wanted to follow the conventions for other pop digipaks that all used a different shoot rather then just one music video images and having the artist on the cover using direct address to connect with their audiences, so I did all three of these conventions to make it fit in with real media texts. 

Front Cover 

For this photo i put the artist name in large bold writing and the top similar to other real media texts, and also having the album name at the bottom in the same font. I used the same ‘Old English’ font on both the digipak and advert as i found that many other artist such as Rihanna tend to use the same font too build on their brand identity and also be easily recognised by her fans. I then made the main singer sit in a ‘masculine’ pose with her legs crossed on the bed and hand on her hand, this is different to real media text as they use more appealing poses, close ups or the singers face or making them look elegant relating to the ‘male maze’ theory etc but for me i wanted to carry on from our video to subvert stereotypes, so by making her sit like this helps to support the theme, i also did this by the costume i used, I made her wear a blue track suit as this can been seen as a more manly outfit with is emphasised by using the blue filter on top. To connect this photo with my other images by adding illustrated flowers. 

back cover 

The back cover has a bold block colour of light blue to match with my cover photo were i used a blue filter, but they both still look every different. I have added pink and red flowers as this stands out from the background and connects with the illustrations in the inside panels. To make it fit in with real media i put key information such as the song names on the back in the same font and also added a bar code, the company logo and a copyright message down at the bottom.

Inside panels 

when making these I made them all have the same style for example the flowers are the same and plants and also the characters look the same in each one but with a different colour scheme. i did one of all three girls showing that they are  a team referring back to the title of the song we did, i used different shades of pink in this one as it complimented the green plants and made the black features stand out in comparison. I then did two other images with the two characters separately. The one of the main singer is very bold as all the shades of blue build on top of each other adding different textures within the image. i then used white for her face and body making her stand out from the dark blue used and also enhancing her facial features. The next one i did was myself i used a backing colour of red with a pink outfit with help grab by passers attention as both colours are very vivid and vibrant with is what i wanted to achieve. I made sure they all linked in with one another by adding similar features though out them all, or example i used the green plants in the red one then again in the pink one of all three, then from the blue illustration of the main singer i used the shading affect with transparent colours cutting thought the image.   

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Digipak Advert Editing

I wanted a advert that would stand out and look different for real media texts but also following the same conventions for having quotes or five stars, having information about the data its out and where to find it etc. and also i did use certain aspects for real media when deciding what photo would look best. I used direct address as it would made to audience feel more connected and also add intimacy with in the advert as help as enticing her audience in. Once I chosen what image i wanted to use i import it to Photoshop cropped it to the right size making it longer then my square album cover as it was for a magazine. The image didn’t need a lot of editing as it was already what i wanted but I did change the lighting levels to make it seem brighter but as it was already well lit by the natural lighting for the photoshoot i didn’t increase it too much or it would ruin the effect i wanted my photo the have. As i had a blue filter i felt it help connect to the video as we breaking down certain stereotypes that woman have, and as pink is seen as a ‘girly’ colour and blue is more masculine i thought by using this ‘cool blue’ filter over the top of my already blue image would intensify it and give a deeper meaning to the advert. For the image I placed Izzie centre frame allowing the focus and attraction to be on her and also had her whole body in the image making her look bolder and grabbing the attention for by passers. I also then place my camera lower giving her the power making the audience have to look up at her in the image and also i made sure that you could see the walls of the room behind as this made the audience feel like there are there in the room with her add a 3D affect to the image.

I used an all white room as this linked in with our video with the locations of and all pink room and the block colour houses. As our video had a lot of bright colour to help connect them I used a cool blue filter on Photoshop, it was vital to make all the media context link together not just to create a narrative but also to establish the brand identity. The magazine cover was in the same room as the album cover to keep the continuity they were just in different positions one was a lower angle and had more length to look more like a magazine cover, the other I took in a  straight angle and has the artist centre frame. I also made her wear a coordinated light blue outfit as it helped make her face and hair stand out and become more noticeable.    

Once I was happy with the image after using tools such as blur and re-touch to make izzies face very smooth and pale making it stand out and enhancing the blue colour by adding a filter and then changing the vibrancy level of the photo and then increasing the light, I then had to chose my font. Having chosen the colour and style of my  illustrating and what my real photos of the artist were going to be on my digipack and my magazine advert. I next had to choose a suitable font that would represent the genre and artist but also being one that its clear to read and will stand out to the audience and stand out from the photos themselves. After researching different pop artists I soon saw a pattern with each one and how similar they were, they all had a bold, straight and spaced out font. This is where i thought I would really bring in my brand identity by making the font slightly different. i kept the idea of having a spaced out font covering the whole length of the photo but I chose to use ‘Old English’ as this font was uncommon and had the Gothic twist I wanted to add. It worked well with the block colours of my illustrations and the blue photos I took. Having the same font across all ancillary text creates a continuity that links each one together. Here are some fonts i looked at using on my advert: the first one is  Felix Titling,

Mutant Academy DC BB 

I wasn't so keen on these fonts as they didn't stand out to me and looked to simple and similar to other adverts that had been done so when i found ‘old English’ i knew i wanted it. I also added the key information to make it look like real media such as the iTunes logo and the data it will be released. As well as this i follow real media conventions by placing the artist name at the big in a bold font.

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Digipak Plan and Digipak Advert Plan

After looking at many different digipaks I have a rough idea of how i wanted to do, to organise my ideas i started by making a mind map with all the different colours used in the video, to help me know what mis-en-scene i wanted to use to go with my illustrations. I wanted to made it stand out so i thought of using blod colours such as red and blue, but i also wanted it to connent and link in with one other so i thought that having green plant and flowers though out even on the cover photo on top of the real photograph will help to do this. As i knew what kind of thing i wanted i then did a paln on paper to see how the layout looked and where i such place certain ones such as the inside panels or back panels etc.

I also added what colours I would use so when it came down to doing the illustrations i knew what i was aiming for, or eles i would have been doing them for ages trying out the possible colour choice.

I thought that it was also very important to have a Digipak advert plan too, as this allowed me to place information and see where it looks most effective and also it allowed me to already know what needs to go on my advert in terms of information allowing me more time to edit the image and experiment with different fonts.