Wednesday 28 April 2010
Friday 23 April 2010
Evaluation - Wahiba
1.In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products.
Our music video used, developed and challenged the forms and conventions of real media products.
When we were brain storming ideas and themes we wanted to create a memorable music video. Although we were inspired and influenced by other music videos we didn’t want our music video to resemble anything else of the similar genre. Also we did not want our music video to be portrayed as a typical type of music video for a female artist which is generally very feminine. We wanted to go for a darker, edgier look. The song we chose is Rihanna ‘G4L’. Rihanna has over the years been branded an RnB artist up until her last album where she has gone for a more rock approach to her songs. ‘G4L’ is a very dark and edgy song so we felt it was the perfect choice.
Our concept was ‘Good versus Evil’. We all loved this idea as a group because we felt that there was so much we could do with it. I took on the role of the main artist, Mariam was acting the character of the angel and Justine was the devil. In one of our scenes we needed two guards. Justine and Mariam played the female guards. We didn’t want to use typical male guards because that’s what people would expect. You rarely ever see female guards in music videos being portrayed as strong characters so we wanted to challenge this.
As well as challenging forms and conventions of music videos we also stood by typical ones. For example the angel and devil scene; we have Mariam as the angel dressed in all white and Justine as the devil dressed in all red. We did this because this is a typical stereotype that everyone is familiar with and just by looking at them you can immediately identify their roles. Another typical thing we did was our constant costume change. Being the artist I changed outfits three times. Each scene I wore a different outfit, generally to fit my mood. When Mariam and Justine play the role of the guards they are playing masculine roles yet they are still wearing revealing outfits. This just goes with the point that female’s sexuality always being explored in music videos even when they play serious and strong roles. All of my scenes are like this. Although I come across as a strong character and my clothes are dark and edgy, I’m still being portrayed as your typical female character with the figure hugging outfits and make-up. Justine who plays the devil constantly appears very sexual and seductive throughout from when she tries to seduce me to her trying to scare Mariam who plays the angel in away in a sexual way.
There were two particular music videos that inspired us when creating ours. The first being Rihanna ‘Disturbia’, we loved everything about it; it was the dark look we wanted to go for and also our vision of the type of elements we wanted our music to consist of, that being the heavy make-up, the dark clothes. The second music video that inspired us was Beyonce’s ‘Ring the alarm’. As the main character I felt that I learnt a lot from this music video. I took a lot of time analysing Beyonce’s facial expressions and her whole body language throughout in each scene off her video. She plays her character so well! And so I took notes and tried to get into character like she did.
Our music video has a narrative; that our artist is a deluded, confused girl who is being tormented by her own thoughts and mind. I think we’ve constructed this very well with a unique approach with our Good v Evil theme.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?
The combination of our music video and digi-pack worked very well as we knew from the start of the planning stage what we wanted to represent. We wanted an edgy, dark and mysterious feel. Our artists name is my real name, ‘Wahiba’. Like most artists the album is self titled. One of the main things you see in our digi-pack is the ‘W’ logo which is a way of the audience identifying with our product. The ‘W’ is our artist logo, so each time they see this they know immediately that it’s linked to ‘Wahiba’ like on the magazine advert and digi-pack. I think this is an important establishing between products. Images of my face have been used throughout the whole digi-pack as I was the most recognisable to the viewers and most importantly I was the artist. The images are all black and white. This is another decision we made as a group, we liked the timeless look black and white photos have and also it links with our main product which is very dark.
In our video my character has two sides. Good and bad. She’s fighting herself and being tormented by her own mind and conscious. We have shown this throughout all of our products. The digi-pack enabled us to illustrate this even further as we put tender, innocent images of the artist to portray Wahiba’s good side in half of the pack and the other half being dark, gloomy images showing her bad side. The two different sides were shown through mainly make-up, lighting and editing. I really enjoyed taking the photos and experimenting with different poses and facial expressions. Also Photoshop enabled me to change the images to highlight certain facial features. This was really good because it put a lot of emphasis on the ‘Good v Bad’ theme.
From the start we wanted our digi-pack to be very similar to the magazine advert but not too similar as to be the same as we didn’t want the buyer to have seen the advert in a magazine and then bought our digi-pack to find that they looked exactly the same, we felt it would be quite monotonous and may have looked lazy. Instead we wanted to have a different but similar product so that the buyer knows they relate to each other. Overall the combination of our main product and ancillary texts worked really well. We managed to portray the fact that they were all supposed to be connected, but we also managed to show that they were very individual to each other aiming to make our buyers feel that they have new product each time
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Before we begun the creation of our video a lot of people whom we asked had said they like seeing the artist appear in their music video and also they would like to see performance shots but they didn’t find the variety of locations that important. Knowing what our audience wanted we felt we had a better vision of what we should aim for when creating our video. We made sure we included lots of performance from the artist which meant that I as the artist appeared throughout.
We first got audience feedback for our video from the rough, incomplete cuts. We continued to ask the same people for feedback throughout the completion of our product. On the feedback there was generally a lot of good feedback but also a lot of constructive criticism so we developed it and made it better. When we finished we asked the same people which were astounded with our final product. Other people who hadn’t seen the progress of our video also liked it a lot and said they thought our creativity showed through our video and that they were impressed with our use of costume, lighting and editing.
Taken as a whole all of the feedback we received was extremely helpful in the completion of our final product.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many new and existing media technologies in the construction, research and evaluation stages of our final product. The technology that became most useful was the cameras and media editing software, ‘Final cut pro’. Firstly the cameras provided us with the technology which enabled us to film exactly what we wanted with as much footage as we wanted. Tripods were very helpful to hold the camera is motionless positions. Without the use of the tripod all of our shots would have turned out very shaky and would have ruined the quality of our video. The tripods were very useful especially as we had loads of close-up shots, for example when I’m singing into the mirror in one of the performance shots, the tripod kept the camera still which allowed me to perform.
Programmes like Photoshop and Illustrator played a huge part in the completion of the magazine advert and digi-pack. Photoshop was very important because we used that to edit all of the photographs. And Illustrator is important because that’s where we created out artist’s logo; the ‘W’ that’s shown on the digi-pack and magazine advert.
The editing software that we used was ‘Final cut pro’. I was the editor of my group and have used editing programmes like ‘Premier’ previously so having basic knowledge of the editing software’s like how to cut and navigate on the timelines, I found this previous experience very obliging. We used lots of effects throughout our video like dips in and out of scenes, super imposing and colour hue to create that image we had created for our artist. Also lighting was very important in our music video as we constantly needed it to look darker in some scenes and lighter in others. We found that red filters helped to create a ‘danger’ sort of look.
The blog was another good way of us developing our work and showing our research. The blog helped to show our influences in the form of images and videos. The blog also gave our audience an insight of us three girls. We were able to show our personality through small videos which we edited and added a bit of humour by mocking ourselves. We used our own initiative to do this as we wanted to do something different from normal essay written introductions.
Lastly the internet was vital and essential because it’s not only where we gathered majority of our research but with websites such as ‘YouTube’ we were able to research music videos like the two previously mentioned; Beyonce and Rihanna.
Our music video used, developed and challenged the forms and conventions of real media products.
When we were brain storming ideas and themes we wanted to create a memorable music video. Although we were inspired and influenced by other music videos we didn’t want our music video to resemble anything else of the similar genre. Also we did not want our music video to be portrayed as a typical type of music video for a female artist which is generally very feminine. We wanted to go for a darker, edgier look. The song we chose is Rihanna ‘G4L’. Rihanna has over the years been branded an RnB artist up until her last album where she has gone for a more rock approach to her songs. ‘G4L’ is a very dark and edgy song so we felt it was the perfect choice.
Our concept was ‘Good versus Evil’. We all loved this idea as a group because we felt that there was so much we could do with it. I took on the role of the main artist, Mariam was acting the character of the angel and Justine was the devil. In one of our scenes we needed two guards. Justine and Mariam played the female guards. We didn’t want to use typical male guards because that’s what people would expect. You rarely ever see female guards in music videos being portrayed as strong characters so we wanted to challenge this.
As well as challenging forms and conventions of music videos we also stood by typical ones. For example the angel and devil scene; we have Mariam as the angel dressed in all white and Justine as the devil dressed in all red. We did this because this is a typical stereotype that everyone is familiar with and just by looking at them you can immediately identify their roles. Another typical thing we did was our constant costume change. Being the artist I changed outfits three times. Each scene I wore a different outfit, generally to fit my mood. When Mariam and Justine play the role of the guards they are playing masculine roles yet they are still wearing revealing outfits. This just goes with the point that female’s sexuality always being explored in music videos even when they play serious and strong roles. All of my scenes are like this. Although I come across as a strong character and my clothes are dark and edgy, I’m still being portrayed as your typical female character with the figure hugging outfits and make-up. Justine who plays the devil constantly appears very sexual and seductive throughout from when she tries to seduce me to her trying to scare Mariam who plays the angel in away in a sexual way.
There were two particular music videos that inspired us when creating ours. The first being Rihanna ‘Disturbia’, we loved everything about it; it was the dark look we wanted to go for and also our vision of the type of elements we wanted our music to consist of, that being the heavy make-up, the dark clothes. The second music video that inspired us was Beyonce’s ‘Ring the alarm’. As the main character I felt that I learnt a lot from this music video. I took a lot of time analysing Beyonce’s facial expressions and her whole body language throughout in each scene off her video. She plays her character so well! And so I took notes and tried to get into character like she did.
Our music video has a narrative; that our artist is a deluded, confused girl who is being tormented by her own thoughts and mind. I think we’ve constructed this very well with a unique approach with our Good v Evil theme.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary text?
The combination of our music video and digi-pack worked very well as we knew from the start of the planning stage what we wanted to represent. We wanted an edgy, dark and mysterious feel. Our artists name is my real name, ‘Wahiba’. Like most artists the album is self titled. One of the main things you see in our digi-pack is the ‘W’ logo which is a way of the audience identifying with our product. The ‘W’ is our artist logo, so each time they see this they know immediately that it’s linked to ‘Wahiba’ like on the magazine advert and digi-pack. I think this is an important establishing between products. Images of my face have been used throughout the whole digi-pack as I was the most recognisable to the viewers and most importantly I was the artist. The images are all black and white. This is another decision we made as a group, we liked the timeless look black and white photos have and also it links with our main product which is very dark.
In our video my character has two sides. Good and bad. She’s fighting herself and being tormented by her own mind and conscious. We have shown this throughout all of our products. The digi-pack enabled us to illustrate this even further as we put tender, innocent images of the artist to portray Wahiba’s good side in half of the pack and the other half being dark, gloomy images showing her bad side. The two different sides were shown through mainly make-up, lighting and editing. I really enjoyed taking the photos and experimenting with different poses and facial expressions. Also Photoshop enabled me to change the images to highlight certain facial features. This was really good because it put a lot of emphasis on the ‘Good v Bad’ theme.
From the start we wanted our digi-pack to be very similar to the magazine advert but not too similar as to be the same as we didn’t want the buyer to have seen the advert in a magazine and then bought our digi-pack to find that they looked exactly the same, we felt it would be quite monotonous and may have looked lazy. Instead we wanted to have a different but similar product so that the buyer knows they relate to each other. Overall the combination of our main product and ancillary texts worked really well. We managed to portray the fact that they were all supposed to be connected, but we also managed to show that they were very individual to each other aiming to make our buyers feel that they have new product each time
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Before we begun the creation of our video a lot of people whom we asked had said they like seeing the artist appear in their music video and also they would like to see performance shots but they didn’t find the variety of locations that important. Knowing what our audience wanted we felt we had a better vision of what we should aim for when creating our video. We made sure we included lots of performance from the artist which meant that I as the artist appeared throughout.
We first got audience feedback for our video from the rough, incomplete cuts. We continued to ask the same people for feedback throughout the completion of our product. On the feedback there was generally a lot of good feedback but also a lot of constructive criticism so we developed it and made it better. When we finished we asked the same people which were astounded with our final product. Other people who hadn’t seen the progress of our video also liked it a lot and said they thought our creativity showed through our video and that they were impressed with our use of costume, lighting and editing.
Taken as a whole all of the feedback we received was extremely helpful in the completion of our final product.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We used many new and existing media technologies in the construction, research and evaluation stages of our final product. The technology that became most useful was the cameras and media editing software, ‘Final cut pro’. Firstly the cameras provided us with the technology which enabled us to film exactly what we wanted with as much footage as we wanted. Tripods were very helpful to hold the camera is motionless positions. Without the use of the tripod all of our shots would have turned out very shaky and would have ruined the quality of our video. The tripods were very useful especially as we had loads of close-up shots, for example when I’m singing into the mirror in one of the performance shots, the tripod kept the camera still which allowed me to perform.
Programmes like Photoshop and Illustrator played a huge part in the completion of the magazine advert and digi-pack. Photoshop was very important because we used that to edit all of the photographs. And Illustrator is important because that’s where we created out artist’s logo; the ‘W’ that’s shown on the digi-pack and magazine advert.
The editing software that we used was ‘Final cut pro’. I was the editor of my group and have used editing programmes like ‘Premier’ previously so having basic knowledge of the editing software’s like how to cut and navigate on the timelines, I found this previous experience very obliging. We used lots of effects throughout our video like dips in and out of scenes, super imposing and colour hue to create that image we had created for our artist. Also lighting was very important in our music video as we constantly needed it to look darker in some scenes and lighter in others. We found that red filters helped to create a ‘danger’ sort of look.
The blog was another good way of us developing our work and showing our research. The blog helped to show our influences in the form of images and videos. The blog also gave our audience an insight of us three girls. We were able to show our personality through small videos which we edited and added a bit of humour by mocking ourselves. We used our own initiative to do this as we wanted to do something different from normal essay written introductions.
Lastly the internet was vital and essential because it’s not only where we gathered majority of our research but with websites such as ‘YouTube’ we were able to research music videos like the two previously mentioned; Beyonce and Rihanna.
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Evaluation- Mariam
A2 Media Evaluation
Mariam Adesanya
1. in what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The music video we created definitely challenged forms of other media products. But also restores stereotypical conventions already used. My group and I wanted our music video to be unique and stand out by giving it a very dark and eerie feeling throughout the video. We also wanted to address the audience directly through the use of camera. There was several medium and extreme close ups of our artist Wahiba where she was pointing, playing around and being very aggressive towards the camera. This was our way of trying to create a sense of involvement with the audience as well as given the impression that they too were trapped in this madhouse. The song that we all agreed upon was “G4L” by the popular and recently edgy artist Rihanna. Our group was very familiar with her music and her sense of style and this particular song had that raw edge that worked well with our idea. The way in which our music video challenged typical conventions was through the genre of music. Rihanna is mostly known for being an RnB artist, however this song lends itself to a more Rock and Grime genre accompanied with hardcore Hip Hop beats. In addition, it made me think about how female artists are perceived in the music industry, which are either as sweet innocent wholesome girls or as sex objects. However we made sure that our artist was conveyed as a very strong, powerful female who does not care about being pretty and soft all time and has a very care free attitude. She does in the video use her femininity and sexuality as a way to attract audiences, however she does it in a way that is empowering and not demoralizing to women.
After playing this song continuously the idea of our main Wahiba being trapped in a mental institution constantly haunted by her good and evil conscience came to mind. There was a definite portrayal of a conflicted character through the use of good and evil, we had both angels persistently appearing and reappearing to show that our main was confused. In one specific scene we have both angels literally pulling Wahiba from one side to another persuading her to follow their way of life.
Costume was another way of developing media conventions that already existed. We used the stereotypical idea of presenting good and bad through colour, white was for the good angel and red for the bad angel. This was our way of showing the audience the clear difference between the two characters. Moreover this also affected the way both angels acted towards each other and the main. As the good angel I had to act very pure and soft which at first I found very difficult, but once I became comfortable with my character I was able to use facial expressions and body language as a way to show this. The bad angel came across very sexual and superior, she is constantly touching Wahiba whispering things in her ears and trying to intimidate the good angel. Our artist had three wardrobe changes to give the audience a variety of costume to look out and also to reflect her different moods. For instance, the opening shot of Wahiba sitting tied up in a chair with guards on opposite sides of her shows her in a leather number with heavy makeup, we wanted her character at that point to be very strong and in your face. As the video develops her vulnerability is revealed with extreme close up shots of her in just a white long shirt and smudged makeup looking very self conscious and distraught. We got this idea from the film Basic instinct. The all black outfit for the guards really complemented the whole idea of being in an institution. I and another member of my group took the role of the guards; this meant that we had to be very still but still assertive.
Another way that my group and I challenged existing media products is by making all the characters female. I believe that this gave a sense of female empowerment. Especially with the song being titled “G4L” which stands for Gangsters for Life, gangsters are stereotypically linked with men and not women. We wanted to show that this was not the case for us and that women could be just as strong and dangerous as men could. We also used lighting and props to enhance our mise-en-scene and to make it look more visually appealing to the audience. Red lighting was used quite a lot as this gave connotations of danger and fear. We replicated this idea from Beyonce’s music video “Ring the Alarm.” We also experimented with strobe lighting and used it to inter-cut into certain scenes. My group and I loved the strobe light and thought it made our media product more exciting and broke up the scenes nicely. Props were used to add atmosphere to the mise-en scene. We wanted to give an impression that the institution had been abandoned by having rubbish all over the ground, broken tables, chairs everywhere and just random items tossed around. Overall this helped to make our final media product more individual and original.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our main product and ancillary texts was very effective and definitely complemented each other. Our initial idea was to show the struggle between good and bad, about knowing the difference between right and wrong. This was running a theme that we kept in our music video, magazine advert and digi-pack. Since Wahiba was our artist in the music video it only made sense that she would be represented in our ancillary texts as she is the face of the brand. We wanted the audience to identify with our artist and every time they saw anything titled Wahiba they could put a face to the name. In terms of the Digi-pack we went with the theme of good vs. evil. On the front cover we showed the good sweet side of our artist and on the back cover we showed that edgy, dark, scary side of her. Inside the Digi-pack we would have two more photos of the artist as either good or evil as well as lyrics for the song “G4L” and the music video to this song and interview with the artist herself. This gives the audience the best of both worlds and allows them to see our artist when she is good and bad. We used medium close up shots from her shoulder upwards as we mainly wanted to capture our artist’s facial expressions. We also used lighting for the images in the digi-pack. The image for the front cover had to be filtered so that the artist and the mise-en-scene looked lighter. All the images were in black and white but we wanted an audience to look at the front cover and immediately think of all things pure and innocent. The back cover was made to look darker through the use of filtering again. Wahiba looked completely different with a lot more makeup and very dark lipstick, she is also pulling a very harsh face and looks as though she is shouting at the audience. Whereas in the front cover she looks very calm and serene, and her makeup is more subtle. The back cover has a pitch black background, the effect of this is that is makes the audience focus primarily on the artist and goes the evil theme.
The magazine advert had the same theme of good against evil but we decided to show only one of these emotions. The audience can see a medium close up shot of our artist Wahiba in a plain black top and very heavy eye makeup and black lipstick. She does not seem to be looking at anything in particular and looks like she is lost in her own world. This goes with the whole idea of Wahiba character is not entirely sane. Also that she is even in this magazine ad battling between good and evil because the mise- en- scene and costume say one thing and her facial expression says another. All of our media products relate back to the idea of good vs. evil. I think that my group and I made a good choice in linking them together. And even though there is the same theme in the main product and the ancillary texts we brought something new and fresh to every product.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
My group and I gained a lot from the audience feedback. We received some constructive criticism about possibly adding more variety to our shots. For example having more extreme close ups, medium close ups, long shots etc, this would show that we were versatile. We took this into consideration and immediately began adding various shots and saw that it did in fact make a difference and made our music video look of a higher quality. In general the comments were really positive and people felt entertained and intrigued. We also realized that our music video appealed to both sexes, we thought that mainly females would be attracted because all the characters were female and it is almost like a female anthem. However our male audiences were just as interested and thought that the video was very exciting and unpredictable. Other comments we received was that our costumes were very effective and helped to show our different characters. Other feedback we got back was that some scenes needed to be longer especially the ones with the angel and devil. People suggested that even having both characters on screen for a couple of minutes would help to establish character and develop the narrative.
Overall all the feedback was very helpful and positive. People understood our theme of good vs. evil which was very important and enjoyed our music video.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We did use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. One piece of technology we used the most was obviously the cameras. The cameras were very simple to use and allowed us to film our work to a very good standard. We also used a tripod to keep our shots as still as possible, for example when we did extreme close up shots of the scene where Wahiba is sitting in big white t-shirt it was important that the camera did not shake at any moment all the entire scene would have been ruined. The software that we used was “Final Cut pro”. Editing is definitely not one of my strong points but I felt that I learnt a lot from this software and was able to do a little bit of editing. Even though I was not the editor in my group I observed and saw how editing is done which was a great opportunity for me. It is incredible what certain effects did to our music video in terms of making our themes and ideas a reality. One of the effects we used in our music video was playing around with pace. At times we speed it up or really slowed it down depending on what we were going for. We mostly used slow motion as a way of enhancing our artist’s emotions. We speed up our characters actions to make them look more exaggerated and exciting to watch.
We also experimented with colour a lot in our music video. In one scene we have our main doing all of her actions directly into the camera; we added a red/yellow hue to this scene in order to make it more dramatic. I think it worked well because it made that scene more colourful; as most of our other scenes are in black and white. It made our music video look surreal and very animated. Another effect we used was super imposing. We used this quite a lot in our music video because it was a good way of putting two scenes together. It added creativity to our video and made our shots more attractive to watch.
My group and I used Photoshop to create our Digi-Pak and magazine advert. We used black and white filters to go with our good vs. evil theme. We liked the idea of both media products being in black and white and thought it went well with our theme. We also played with various fonts on different websites, it was vital that we found a font style that really represented our artist. We did some research into artists with albums out and looked at the font style they used. Certain artists had a particular font that represented them; wherever you saw their face you saw this font style. This was what we decided to do with our artist Wahiba, we ended up using simple a font style in bold. The “W” of our artist’s name Wahiba was big and bold and coloured pink, the rest of her name was written smaller in black for the magazine advert. The “W” is our trademark for our artist; you can also see it on our Digi-pak. Whatever product we put out for our artist would have the “W” on it.
Other technology we used was in form of a blog. This was our way of noting all our ideas whether we used them or not. I think it was very helpful and a good way of showing the progress that made since the beginning of the project. This was also chance give background information on our artist and what she represents. We also showed other artists that influenced us and how we incorporated certain things into our final media product. Lastly it was an opportunity for our audience to get to know us as group members. Our blog has a lot of personality and is a reflection of my group and me.
Mariam Adesanya
1. in what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The music video we created definitely challenged forms of other media products. But also restores stereotypical conventions already used. My group and I wanted our music video to be unique and stand out by giving it a very dark and eerie feeling throughout the video. We also wanted to address the audience directly through the use of camera. There was several medium and extreme close ups of our artist Wahiba where she was pointing, playing around and being very aggressive towards the camera. This was our way of trying to create a sense of involvement with the audience as well as given the impression that they too were trapped in this madhouse. The song that we all agreed upon was “G4L” by the popular and recently edgy artist Rihanna. Our group was very familiar with her music and her sense of style and this particular song had that raw edge that worked well with our idea. The way in which our music video challenged typical conventions was through the genre of music. Rihanna is mostly known for being an RnB artist, however this song lends itself to a more Rock and Grime genre accompanied with hardcore Hip Hop beats. In addition, it made me think about how female artists are perceived in the music industry, which are either as sweet innocent wholesome girls or as sex objects. However we made sure that our artist was conveyed as a very strong, powerful female who does not care about being pretty and soft all time and has a very care free attitude. She does in the video use her femininity and sexuality as a way to attract audiences, however she does it in a way that is empowering and not demoralizing to women.
After playing this song continuously the idea of our main Wahiba being trapped in a mental institution constantly haunted by her good and evil conscience came to mind. There was a definite portrayal of a conflicted character through the use of good and evil, we had both angels persistently appearing and reappearing to show that our main was confused. In one specific scene we have both angels literally pulling Wahiba from one side to another persuading her to follow their way of life.
Costume was another way of developing media conventions that already existed. We used the stereotypical idea of presenting good and bad through colour, white was for the good angel and red for the bad angel. This was our way of showing the audience the clear difference between the two characters. Moreover this also affected the way both angels acted towards each other and the main. As the good angel I had to act very pure and soft which at first I found very difficult, but once I became comfortable with my character I was able to use facial expressions and body language as a way to show this. The bad angel came across very sexual and superior, she is constantly touching Wahiba whispering things in her ears and trying to intimidate the good angel. Our artist had three wardrobe changes to give the audience a variety of costume to look out and also to reflect her different moods. For instance, the opening shot of Wahiba sitting tied up in a chair with guards on opposite sides of her shows her in a leather number with heavy makeup, we wanted her character at that point to be very strong and in your face. As the video develops her vulnerability is revealed with extreme close up shots of her in just a white long shirt and smudged makeup looking very self conscious and distraught. We got this idea from the film Basic instinct. The all black outfit for the guards really complemented the whole idea of being in an institution. I and another member of my group took the role of the guards; this meant that we had to be very still but still assertive.
Another way that my group and I challenged existing media products is by making all the characters female. I believe that this gave a sense of female empowerment. Especially with the song being titled “G4L” which stands for Gangsters for Life, gangsters are stereotypically linked with men and not women. We wanted to show that this was not the case for us and that women could be just as strong and dangerous as men could. We also used lighting and props to enhance our mise-en-scene and to make it look more visually appealing to the audience. Red lighting was used quite a lot as this gave connotations of danger and fear. We replicated this idea from Beyonce’s music video “Ring the Alarm.” We also experimented with strobe lighting and used it to inter-cut into certain scenes. My group and I loved the strobe light and thought it made our media product more exciting and broke up the scenes nicely. Props were used to add atmosphere to the mise-en scene. We wanted to give an impression that the institution had been abandoned by having rubbish all over the ground, broken tables, chairs everywhere and just random items tossed around. Overall this helped to make our final media product more individual and original.
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
Our main product and ancillary texts was very effective and definitely complemented each other. Our initial idea was to show the struggle between good and bad, about knowing the difference between right and wrong. This was running a theme that we kept in our music video, magazine advert and digi-pack. Since Wahiba was our artist in the music video it only made sense that she would be represented in our ancillary texts as she is the face of the brand. We wanted the audience to identify with our artist and every time they saw anything titled Wahiba they could put a face to the name. In terms of the Digi-pack we went with the theme of good vs. evil. On the front cover we showed the good sweet side of our artist and on the back cover we showed that edgy, dark, scary side of her. Inside the Digi-pack we would have two more photos of the artist as either good or evil as well as lyrics for the song “G4L” and the music video to this song and interview with the artist herself. This gives the audience the best of both worlds and allows them to see our artist when she is good and bad. We used medium close up shots from her shoulder upwards as we mainly wanted to capture our artist’s facial expressions. We also used lighting for the images in the digi-pack. The image for the front cover had to be filtered so that the artist and the mise-en-scene looked lighter. All the images were in black and white but we wanted an audience to look at the front cover and immediately think of all things pure and innocent. The back cover was made to look darker through the use of filtering again. Wahiba looked completely different with a lot more makeup and very dark lipstick, she is also pulling a very harsh face and looks as though she is shouting at the audience. Whereas in the front cover she looks very calm and serene, and her makeup is more subtle. The back cover has a pitch black background, the effect of this is that is makes the audience focus primarily on the artist and goes the evil theme.
The magazine advert had the same theme of good against evil but we decided to show only one of these emotions. The audience can see a medium close up shot of our artist Wahiba in a plain black top and very heavy eye makeup and black lipstick. She does not seem to be looking at anything in particular and looks like she is lost in her own world. This goes with the whole idea of Wahiba character is not entirely sane. Also that she is even in this magazine ad battling between good and evil because the mise- en- scene and costume say one thing and her facial expression says another. All of our media products relate back to the idea of good vs. evil. I think that my group and I made a good choice in linking them together. And even though there is the same theme in the main product and the ancillary texts we brought something new and fresh to every product.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
My group and I gained a lot from the audience feedback. We received some constructive criticism about possibly adding more variety to our shots. For example having more extreme close ups, medium close ups, long shots etc, this would show that we were versatile. We took this into consideration and immediately began adding various shots and saw that it did in fact make a difference and made our music video look of a higher quality. In general the comments were really positive and people felt entertained and intrigued. We also realized that our music video appealed to both sexes, we thought that mainly females would be attracted because all the characters were female and it is almost like a female anthem. However our male audiences were just as interested and thought that the video was very exciting and unpredictable. Other comments we received was that our costumes were very effective and helped to show our different characters. Other feedback we got back was that some scenes needed to be longer especially the ones with the angel and devil. People suggested that even having both characters on screen for a couple of minutes would help to establish character and develop the narrative.
Overall all the feedback was very helpful and positive. People understood our theme of good vs. evil which was very important and enjoyed our music video.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
We did use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages. One piece of technology we used the most was obviously the cameras. The cameras were very simple to use and allowed us to film our work to a very good standard. We also used a tripod to keep our shots as still as possible, for example when we did extreme close up shots of the scene where Wahiba is sitting in big white t-shirt it was important that the camera did not shake at any moment all the entire scene would have been ruined. The software that we used was “Final Cut pro”. Editing is definitely not one of my strong points but I felt that I learnt a lot from this software and was able to do a little bit of editing. Even though I was not the editor in my group I observed and saw how editing is done which was a great opportunity for me. It is incredible what certain effects did to our music video in terms of making our themes and ideas a reality. One of the effects we used in our music video was playing around with pace. At times we speed it up or really slowed it down depending on what we were going for. We mostly used slow motion as a way of enhancing our artist’s emotions. We speed up our characters actions to make them look more exaggerated and exciting to watch.
We also experimented with colour a lot in our music video. In one scene we have our main doing all of her actions directly into the camera; we added a red/yellow hue to this scene in order to make it more dramatic. I think it worked well because it made that scene more colourful; as most of our other scenes are in black and white. It made our music video look surreal and very animated. Another effect we used was super imposing. We used this quite a lot in our music video because it was a good way of putting two scenes together. It added creativity to our video and made our shots more attractive to watch.
My group and I used Photoshop to create our Digi-Pak and magazine advert. We used black and white filters to go with our good vs. evil theme. We liked the idea of both media products being in black and white and thought it went well with our theme. We also played with various fonts on different websites, it was vital that we found a font style that really represented our artist. We did some research into artists with albums out and looked at the font style they used. Certain artists had a particular font that represented them; wherever you saw their face you saw this font style. This was what we decided to do with our artist Wahiba, we ended up using simple a font style in bold. The “W” of our artist’s name Wahiba was big and bold and coloured pink, the rest of her name was written smaller in black for the magazine advert. The “W” is our trademark for our artist; you can also see it on our Digi-pak. Whatever product we put out for our artist would have the “W” on it.
Other technology we used was in form of a blog. This was our way of noting all our ideas whether we used them or not. I think it was very helpful and a good way of showing the progress that made since the beginning of the project. This was also chance give background information on our artist and what she represents. We also showed other artists that influenced us and how we incorporated certain things into our final media product. Lastly it was an opportunity for our audience to get to know us as group members. Our blog has a lot of personality and is a reflection of my group and me.
Evaluation- Justine
Evaluation.
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video both challenges and uses forms and conventions of real media products.
Firstly, when deciding on a theme and concept we branched out from what can be seen as the stereotypical choice for teenage girls. We didn’t go for something happy, pretty and preferably with some sort of love story, it could be said we looked to the dark side, in the same way of our artist. We chose a Rihanna song ‘G4L’ although we were influenced by a number of other artists, some similar and some diverse. Rihanna is typically known as an RnB artist, however we instinctively decided on a song that was not typical. The song we used was more dark and rock rather than RnB.
When deciding on our concept we came up with the idea of ‘good V evil’. As a group we all liked this and could see opportunity to develop it and really make a good music video including this theme. Wahiba was going to play the artist, Mariam was to play the character of the angel and I was going to play the devil. We also included a scene where two guards, who are women, are standing tall and strong beside a chained up Wahiba. We instinctively chose not to have the guards as men because that would be expected. Our video consists of only these characters and all of which are girls. No men are present in this video which could be seen as unusual. At the present time women are proving to be more empowered and in charge of themselves, rather than relying on men. However within music videos they are portrayed as merely sex objects. We wanted to challenge this and as a result this is one way in which we challenged forms and conventions.
A music video that really influenced us was Beyonce’s ‘Ring the alarm’. The video is based on the film ‘Basic Instinct’ and shows the strong female woman. It features guards and an almost hysterical woman, which we wanted to include in our video. Although Rihanna was our main influence, as the song we used belonged to her, Beyonce also played a big part. Watching ‘Ring the alarm’ helped our artist ‘Wahiba’ get into character. Beyonce’s expressions and body language is very extreme which works really well to portray a woman sort of going mad, which we needed to show in our video also.
However, although some aspects of our video challenge forms and conventions, others stick to them. While some of the characters we created are playing more masculine, strong roles, their sexuality is still highlighted and apparent. For example, our female guards aren’t wearing costumes that could disguise them as men, it is clear they are women with figure revealing outfits. The ‘Devil’, who I played, was to appear seductive both physically and through my behaviour. This is seen when I interact with ‘Wahiba’ and I am tempting to her come to the bad side.
Overall, our aim was to create a music video that was contemporary and somewhat conventional however with a unique appeal. We wanted to construct a dark and sinister world where a girl was trapped between the activities playing out in her mind. Her own conscience fighting over her. Good versus evil. Who will win?
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that the combination of our main product and also the ancillary texts work well and complement each other. We wanted the music video; digi-pack and advertising poster to all share the same sort of feel and co-ordinate with each other. As we knew what we wanted to represent, we made sure to keep to this throughout all of our products. We took the edgy, dark feeling from our music video and transformed our ancillary texts into products of this. My group member Wahiba is playing the Artist, the ‘Star’. We simply decided to name her ‘Wahiba’, sticking to her original name. We researched and found a lot of first albums to be self titled which we liked the idea of. As ‘Wahiba’ was the artist we chose to use a variety of black and white pictures of her for the digi-pack cover, inside, and also on the back. A similar black and white picture, yet not the exact replica, was used for our poster.
Within our music video, ‘Wahiba’ is being tormented by her conscience. Her bad side, the ‘devil’ is tempting her to transform into an evil version of herself, and the ‘angel’ who represents good, is trying to keep her from turning bad. This concept plays throughout our video and creates a mysterious and dark ambience. With our ancillary texts we felt that they should also hold this feeling and it should be clear to see that they are all coinciding with each other. The front cover of our digi-pack simply has ‘Wahiba’ vertically on the left hand side. The ‘W’ is emphasised in pink and is our logo for the artist. The picture on the cover is the ‘good’ Wahiba, angelic, calm and gentle. As you turn over, you are faced with the picture of evil. An obvious transformation has occurred, which we portrayed through use of hair, make-up, clothes and lighting. All of which were essential throughout the entire process.
While creating our ancillary texts we wanted to ensure that although they all looked similar, you could also see that each picture and each item was not identical. We wanted the buyer to feel as though they were being given something new each time, also a different ‘Wahiba’ to discover.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback was extremely essential in the creation of our music video, from the very beginning until the end. Before we began filming, questionnaires gave us valuable information on people’s likes and dislikes. We wanted to know whether people preferred conventional or unconventional music videos, whether they liked to see the artist, if they liked to see shots of the artist singing to the song and other questions. Feedback from our questionnaire helped a great deal in giving us a clearer idea of what we should aim to achieve. We found that the majority of those who answered the questionnaire would like to see the artist appear in the video, they also like to see performance shots and didn’t find a variety of locations that important. Taking all the results into account, we felt we had a better insight into what we should create and a greater direction for our music video.
During the process of editing, we played our incomplete video to a number of people. We received positive comments and also constructive criticism. People really liked the concept of ‘good and evil’, and found that the characters of ‘devil’ and ‘angel’ were obvious and they did not struggle to work out what was going on. We were really pleased with this as one of the things we wanted to avoid was the audience to feel confused with the story being played out. Some more encouraging feedback was that the chaotic, crazy atmosphere we aimed to portray had come across well. As our music video was yet to be completed, there were also constructive remarks which helped us. Some of these included that we should have a ‘wider contrast of shots’, for example some more close ups in certain areas to really show the audience detail. Also, some cuts from scene to scene seemed slightly too quick and wasn’t giving the audience enough time to digest what they were seeing. It was gone almost before they could register the image. These comments really aided us in altering such things and improving our video so that it could be a result of our very best efforts.
When we had fully completed our video, we had another set of people to view the finished piece and also those who had seen it half way through the making process. Those who had already commented previously were really impressed with the final product. They could see that we had changed anything that had been negatively remarked on and it had ‘really improved the overall quality of the music video’. Other viewers commented on aspects such as the lip-syncing which they thought was very good and were also impressed with costume and lighting.
Overall, our feedback was enormously helpful in the process of creating our video.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
From the very beginning of our exciting task to create our own music video and ancillary texts, new media technologies played not only an essential role in assisting us, but also a vital one.
As we decided on the concept for our video, research on similar artists and also diverse ones was very helpful. Youtube aided us a great amount. We were able to view many other music videos and this gave us some great ideas to extend and develop. As we wanted to create a sort of miniature world that ‘Wahiba’ was trapped in, the surroundings and devil/angel being the contents of her mind, we needed to produce a crazy and frenzied impression. Youtube enabled us to take a close and repetitive look at videos such as Beyonce’s ‘Ring the Alarm’. This video influenced us quite a lot in regards to the attitude of the artist and also the concept.
During the filming process, cameras made it possible for us to capture the footage we needed. The quality of them was great and added to the extent to which we could aim to make our music video look and feel as real as possible. Throughout my media course I have become more accustomed to using equipment such as the cameras and so have my group members. Therefore by the time of filming we all felt confident with using them and knowing how to use them to their full extent and gain the best from them. Tripods assisted the cameras in holding still shots which we used quite a lot. Lighting was additionally very significant in our music video. Ours specifically needed to look dark and ominous and red filters over the lights helped in creating this. We used this for a few scenes within our video and were happy with the outcome.
At the editing stage we were fortunate to have access to ‘final cut pro’ which offered us all the features and effects to really complete our music video to its full potential. We were able to cut footage and dip in and out of scenes to create the fast paced, frantic tone. This program helped us to use super imposing in our video and play with colour, pace and a lot more.
Our digi-pack was created with the use of Photoshop. This allowed us to play around with pictures of the artist. We created a font and logo for ‘Wahiba’ and wanted our end result to be a digi-pack that was as credible as it could be.
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Our music video both challenges and uses forms and conventions of real media products.
Firstly, when deciding on a theme and concept we branched out from what can be seen as the stereotypical choice for teenage girls. We didn’t go for something happy, pretty and preferably with some sort of love story, it could be said we looked to the dark side, in the same way of our artist. We chose a Rihanna song ‘G4L’ although we were influenced by a number of other artists, some similar and some diverse. Rihanna is typically known as an RnB artist, however we instinctively decided on a song that was not typical. The song we used was more dark and rock rather than RnB.
When deciding on our concept we came up with the idea of ‘good V evil’. As a group we all liked this and could see opportunity to develop it and really make a good music video including this theme. Wahiba was going to play the artist, Mariam was to play the character of the angel and I was going to play the devil. We also included a scene where two guards, who are women, are standing tall and strong beside a chained up Wahiba. We instinctively chose not to have the guards as men because that would be expected. Our video consists of only these characters and all of which are girls. No men are present in this video which could be seen as unusual. At the present time women are proving to be more empowered and in charge of themselves, rather than relying on men. However within music videos they are portrayed as merely sex objects. We wanted to challenge this and as a result this is one way in which we challenged forms and conventions.
A music video that really influenced us was Beyonce’s ‘Ring the alarm’. The video is based on the film ‘Basic Instinct’ and shows the strong female woman. It features guards and an almost hysterical woman, which we wanted to include in our video. Although Rihanna was our main influence, as the song we used belonged to her, Beyonce also played a big part. Watching ‘Ring the alarm’ helped our artist ‘Wahiba’ get into character. Beyonce’s expressions and body language is very extreme which works really well to portray a woman sort of going mad, which we needed to show in our video also.
However, although some aspects of our video challenge forms and conventions, others stick to them. While some of the characters we created are playing more masculine, strong roles, their sexuality is still highlighted and apparent. For example, our female guards aren’t wearing costumes that could disguise them as men, it is clear they are women with figure revealing outfits. The ‘Devil’, who I played, was to appear seductive both physically and through my behaviour. This is seen when I interact with ‘Wahiba’ and I am tempting to her come to the bad side.
Overall, our aim was to create a music video that was contemporary and somewhat conventional however with a unique appeal. We wanted to construct a dark and sinister world where a girl was trapped between the activities playing out in her mind. Her own conscience fighting over her. Good versus evil. Who will win?
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
I feel that the combination of our main product and also the ancillary texts work well and complement each other. We wanted the music video; digi-pack and advertising poster to all share the same sort of feel and co-ordinate with each other. As we knew what we wanted to represent, we made sure to keep to this throughout all of our products. We took the edgy, dark feeling from our music video and transformed our ancillary texts into products of this. My group member Wahiba is playing the Artist, the ‘Star’. We simply decided to name her ‘Wahiba’, sticking to her original name. We researched and found a lot of first albums to be self titled which we liked the idea of. As ‘Wahiba’ was the artist we chose to use a variety of black and white pictures of her for the digi-pack cover, inside, and also on the back. A similar black and white picture, yet not the exact replica, was used for our poster.
Within our music video, ‘Wahiba’ is being tormented by her conscience. Her bad side, the ‘devil’ is tempting her to transform into an evil version of herself, and the ‘angel’ who represents good, is trying to keep her from turning bad. This concept plays throughout our video and creates a mysterious and dark ambience. With our ancillary texts we felt that they should also hold this feeling and it should be clear to see that they are all coinciding with each other. The front cover of our digi-pack simply has ‘Wahiba’ vertically on the left hand side. The ‘W’ is emphasised in pink and is our logo for the artist. The picture on the cover is the ‘good’ Wahiba, angelic, calm and gentle. As you turn over, you are faced with the picture of evil. An obvious transformation has occurred, which we portrayed through use of hair, make-up, clothes and lighting. All of which were essential throughout the entire process.
While creating our ancillary texts we wanted to ensure that although they all looked similar, you could also see that each picture and each item was not identical. We wanted the buyer to feel as though they were being given something new each time, also a different ‘Wahiba’ to discover.
3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback was extremely essential in the creation of our music video, from the very beginning until the end. Before we began filming, questionnaires gave us valuable information on people’s likes and dislikes. We wanted to know whether people preferred conventional or unconventional music videos, whether they liked to see the artist, if they liked to see shots of the artist singing to the song and other questions. Feedback from our questionnaire helped a great deal in giving us a clearer idea of what we should aim to achieve. We found that the majority of those who answered the questionnaire would like to see the artist appear in the video, they also like to see performance shots and didn’t find a variety of locations that important. Taking all the results into account, we felt we had a better insight into what we should create and a greater direction for our music video.
During the process of editing, we played our incomplete video to a number of people. We received positive comments and also constructive criticism. People really liked the concept of ‘good and evil’, and found that the characters of ‘devil’ and ‘angel’ were obvious and they did not struggle to work out what was going on. We were really pleased with this as one of the things we wanted to avoid was the audience to feel confused with the story being played out. Some more encouraging feedback was that the chaotic, crazy atmosphere we aimed to portray had come across well. As our music video was yet to be completed, there were also constructive remarks which helped us. Some of these included that we should have a ‘wider contrast of shots’, for example some more close ups in certain areas to really show the audience detail. Also, some cuts from scene to scene seemed slightly too quick and wasn’t giving the audience enough time to digest what they were seeing. It was gone almost before they could register the image. These comments really aided us in altering such things and improving our video so that it could be a result of our very best efforts.
When we had fully completed our video, we had another set of people to view the finished piece and also those who had seen it half way through the making process. Those who had already commented previously were really impressed with the final product. They could see that we had changed anything that had been negatively remarked on and it had ‘really improved the overall quality of the music video’. Other viewers commented on aspects such as the lip-syncing which they thought was very good and were also impressed with costume and lighting.
Overall, our feedback was enormously helpful in the process of creating our video.
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
From the very beginning of our exciting task to create our own music video and ancillary texts, new media technologies played not only an essential role in assisting us, but also a vital one.
As we decided on the concept for our video, research on similar artists and also diverse ones was very helpful. Youtube aided us a great amount. We were able to view many other music videos and this gave us some great ideas to extend and develop. As we wanted to create a sort of miniature world that ‘Wahiba’ was trapped in, the surroundings and devil/angel being the contents of her mind, we needed to produce a crazy and frenzied impression. Youtube enabled us to take a close and repetitive look at videos such as Beyonce’s ‘Ring the Alarm’. This video influenced us quite a lot in regards to the attitude of the artist and also the concept.
During the filming process, cameras made it possible for us to capture the footage we needed. The quality of them was great and added to the extent to which we could aim to make our music video look and feel as real as possible. Throughout my media course I have become more accustomed to using equipment such as the cameras and so have my group members. Therefore by the time of filming we all felt confident with using them and knowing how to use them to their full extent and gain the best from them. Tripods assisted the cameras in holding still shots which we used quite a lot. Lighting was additionally very significant in our music video. Ours specifically needed to look dark and ominous and red filters over the lights helped in creating this. We used this for a few scenes within our video and were happy with the outcome.
At the editing stage we were fortunate to have access to ‘final cut pro’ which offered us all the features and effects to really complete our music video to its full potential. We were able to cut footage and dip in and out of scenes to create the fast paced, frantic tone. This program helped us to use super imposing in our video and play with colour, pace and a lot more.
Our digi-pack was created with the use of Photoshop. This allowed us to play around with pictures of the artist. We created a font and logo for ‘Wahiba’ and wanted our end result to be a digi-pack that was as credible as it could be.
Monday 12 April 2010
Record label for our artist
The record label that our artist Wahiba would be on is universal records and Def Jam records. we chose these labels because we felt that our artist would be best represented by these labels and there would have her best interests. These are very well known respected labels with a lot of credibility and therefore would promote our artist well. I did some research into the artists in both labels and i think that Wahiba would fit in well with them. We also wanted our artist to be signed to her own independent label, RockStar Productions to show that she is business minded and a very unique artist with her own vision. The audience can see the logo of all three record labels on the back cover of our Digi-Pak.
Friday 9 April 2010
Thursday 1 April 2010
Wednesday 31 March 2010
DIGI-PACK AND MAGAZINE POSTER INSPIRATIONS
Here are a few examples of previous album and magazine covers that inspired us when putting together our digi-pack and magazine cover.
Tuesday 23 March 2010
Music Posters
Here are examples of music posters.My group and i will be creating a magazine advert to promote our Digi-Pak.We would want to keep that dark,edgy tone we had in our music video by using costume, make up and lighting. The music posters above shows that the background is just as important as the foreground. Everything has to be well thought out, nothing can be randomly placed as the whole mise-en scene reflects the artist.
.Questionnaire and Bar graphs showing results from Questionnaire.
This is the Questionnaire I created as part of our audience research. Before we created our music video, we wanted to have a clearer idea of what people liked and disliked. Also, what was important to them within a music video and the things that were not really seen as relevant.
After conducting the research, we had a better insight into what an audience wanted from a music video.
We used the results to ensure we tried to incorporate all of these aspects into our creation.
Cd covers
These are examples of different album covers. The first two which are quite conventional have the artist's name and the name of the single/album. The fonts are often written in bold across the cover or right at the top so that people will notice it. At times the fonts can be quite fancy or relate to the song. The last cover is quite unconventional and has the font surrounding the artist.The cover is quite colourful and looks more like a book or a diary, almost as if the artist wrote it herself, i believe this creates more of a personal feeling.
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