A2 Music Video Analysis

Jayme-

Lee XADDICTIVE

A2 Music Video AnalysisST MARY’S SIXTH FORMCHESHUNT

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

during the production and making of my music video I came across many different aspects that could be challenged or incorporated into my final piece. We researched different conventions of other music videos and researched facts, figures, and products that we could potentially take ideas from. When looking through this research we decided to look at certain aspects to make it easier for us to pick out key ideas and themes. These were:

Certain links between the visual context and the lyrics of the songs Direct links between the music and the visual context Conventions of the pop genre (special effects, Different gazes used within the music video (male / female gaze or other

views) How the artist is portrayed to their target audience? Performance / Narrative / Concept based music videos

Throughout our research we found many examples of these concepts and saw a correlation of the same ideas in different pop music videos. From our research we ensured that we incorporated these into our video to ensure that the product we offer is of the same quality as established artists.

Q1

Certain links between the visual context and the lyrics of the songs Q1

The video that we thought really highlighted the lyrics running parallel to the visual context was Pixie Lott – Its all about tonight. We came across this video during our initial research of pop artists, which we recognised the pattern between certain shots and the lyrics.

Before the lyrics in the song even begin, we see shots of her that suggests she is going on a night out. Images such as her looking into the camera with heavy eye make up and the city mis en scene suggests a party lifestyle.

The song begins with ‘I bought a new pair of shoes’ and the shot is of her walking in heels, her bare leg is showing to suggest that she is on an night out. This shot brings energy as the beat of the song matches up with her walk.

Having a link between the audio and visual not only helps push the narrative forward but also enables the viewers to have a personal invitation into the video, by understanding exactly what the artist means. This is something that is used consistently throughout many pop videos, so it was something that I used within my pop music video; you will see the following examples

Certain links between the visual context and the lyrics of the songs “After acknowledging the clear links between the audio and

visual context, I was adamant that I would fit the conventions of the pop genre, this is made clear within the first few shots. The lyrics of the song are ‘But I gotta let it go’ and during the course of this line the images flick from the young girl walking alone, to them as a couple and then back to her being alone to symbolize her ‘letting’ go. The blink effect used in the video gives the impression of her remembering what happened when they were together and ends when she is alone. The clothing she is wearing when with her boyfriend is different to that when she is alone which suggests that this was a different time.

Here is another example of where we linked the lyrics with the visual, the lyrics of the song were ‘As your shadow crosses mine’. We begun with a shadow in the right and using cross dissolve transitions used three shots to show it crossing over the artist

“But I gotta let it go ”

“As your shadow crosses mine”

Direct links with the music and visual

Throughout the music video I tried to incorporate a lot of shots that are synced with the lyrics of the songs. This is something that is used a lot in our music video as it allows the audience to recognize the narrative using the lyrics of the song.

Here you can see the young girl at a party with a strobe light on her face. The constant flashing images and sunglasses show that she is having a good time and living her life. This shot is shown at two different times. The lyrics of these times are ‘Shine a light on an open door’, having a light on her face during this line really interacts the video with the music, and links with the lyrics. The following lyric it appears with is ‘ What it takes to come alive’. The shot is shown throughout this lyric being sung as it shows a party lifestyle, as if the young girl is coming ‘alive’

The second shot is shown during the words ‘We found love in a hopeless place’ – the arguments symbolize the hopeless place that they are surrounded by,

Direct links with the music and visualsThe link between the music and the visuals is not as apparent as that between the lyrics and the visuals. It was not until I had researched previous artists did I recognize that there it is commonly used throughout the pop genre and this is when I truly understood the effect that it can have. I specifically remember recognizing it in the video Neyo – So sick. Neyo is a conventional pop artist and opens his video with shots of mountains in a split screen, and throughout the video the top and bottom section is continuously travelling through the mountains. Personally I think that the mountains represent the loneliness and isolation that Neyo is feeling during the separation of his girlfriend, the endless mountains symbolize his endless sadness. The cold weather could also represent his cold feelings towards their relationship and Neyo continuously writes songs regarding love so it could show his true feelings.

- Neyo: one in a million - Neyo: Mad - Neyo: Closer - Neyo: Sexy Love

This I found really interesting as I gathered that it is not only important to express the meaning of the song but to also express the meaning of the artist, in doing so people will recognize songs with certain artists. There are contextual meanings behind each shot rather than just imaging lyrics, this really develops the narrative within the music video..

Direct links with the music and the visual

These links are first recognized in our music video when Jayme-Lee and her boyfriend are playing in the park, and they are spinning around, the shots are edited to sync the music and represent the rushing heartbeat. The rushing of her heart is because she is with her boyfriend and in love, the flutter of her stomach and the increased heart rate are all symptoms of Love and this is why the shots are synced to the music.

1 2

3 4

The representation of a heart beat is important to give the message that there is love between them, this recurring beat gives an exciting feel that gives the audience the suspense for the final beat. The music drops and the bass kicks in after this shot and this consistent beat is like a drum roll and leaves the audience excited to move onto the next shots.

However these shots are very fast moving and the audience could find it difficult to keep up with. The link between the music and the visual may not be as direct as hoped and this could have been improved on.

Direct links with music and visual

There are a number of different shots that link with the music being played, it was important that this was recognized in my initial research as this helps the

reader recognize the narrative and really shows what the music is really about.After understanding the links between the music and the visual we really tried to put this into our music video as this is what drives the narrative forward. Shot number one is a shot of her and her boyfriend lying down, cuddling and smiling in the middle of a free. This setting shows that they are both free, representing their love. The next shots are of the young girl running around in the field, representing their freedom and the life that they have between them as a couple. This then is contradicted when we begin to see the arguments between the couple.These shots show the up and down relationship that they have, one shot they are so in love and the next they are fighting and arguing. All of these shots link closely with the music and this is important as it is these shots that develop the narrative. Without the shots of us arguing the audience would never have known that it is a love and hate relationship. By developing this we are giving the audience the chance to relate to the music video.From our initial research I learnt that having a link between the music and the visuals gives a video that easy-to-watch feel and lets the audience understand the narrative. I tried my best to include this into my video however could have developed it a bit more in certain shots i.e. The heartbeat shots.

Conventions of the Pop Genre

When our group begun its research into the different conventions within the pop genre, we came across many similar happenings throughout a wide variety of music videos. We mainly wanted to focus on clothing and appearance as well as looking at the setting of the videos. I had many discussions with my group to discuss the ‘look’ that our pop artist would be going for. Rather than use the idealistic conventions of provocative and edgy clothing, we decided to challenge this convention by using quite simple styles. Wearing jeans, converse and baggy jumpers. We wanted to challenge this convention to observe whether or not we could make it a successful pop music video without the lack of clothing. At some point however we did want to include the

‘typical’ forms and conventions of a pop music video,

we thought by doing so would make it more successful.

The use of provocative and edgy clothing was shot in a

park, small shorts and odd coloured socks were used as

this is something that would not be worn everyday, We

applied thick and heavy makeup to show ‘glam’ even

though she is in a park, something that many pop

artists do.

Conventions of the Pop Genre – Performance, Concept or Narrative based.

I tried to incorporate all three different concepts into our music videos. After watching a number of pop music videos I realized that they are mainly Performance and narrative based, as the artist is trying to tell a story through the acting and performance. In a lot of pop videos the artist sings directly to the camera for example in Pixie Lott’s – All about tonight, roughly 95% of shots are narrative or performance based. We decided to use this in our music video and primarily use narrative and performance shots, Our video is mainly narrative however includes many shots that are performance based. The reason behind the narrative shots was to tell the story to the audience, it was important that we got our narrative across and I do not believe this would have been done by mostly performance and conceptual shots. We did, however, want to include at least one conceptual shot and this was done through the use of tic tacs imaging drugs, we used the ‘drug’ scene, which we found very difficult to film, what we achieved was not as realistic as we had hoped

for and this is something that if given more time, we would re-film and perhaps change the conceptual shot.

Special Effects – Split screen

After looking at a number of videos we saw the regular use of the split screen effect. This is something that I really wanted to incorporate into our video as it had been done by many artists and can deepen the narrative for the audience. An example of a good use of split screen is in Destiny’s Child – Emotions, where each split screen depicts his other life, as the narrative continues we then begin to see the destruction of each life in the different thirds of the screen. This use of split screen really shows the different points of view, which is what we wanted to show.

However we incurred a problem during the editing of our film, out of all our group there was nobody who was familiar to Final Cut Pro, the editing software that enables us to have this effect, although my decision would have been to continue with final cut pro, where eventually we would have familiarize ourselves with the software, a group decision meant that we changed to iMovie 09, this software does not allow ‘split screen’ but instead can only place a shot on to another shot, which ended up looking like a box in the corner of the screen. Due to lack of time we had to continue with iMovie 09 and instead of using this convention we challenged it and put a cross dissolve effect to obtain a close effect as split screen, we lengthened out the shots so that they overlap each other, giving a dream effect.

Special Effects – Reverse and Speed effects

Another effect that I was very keen to use was changing the speed and the reversal of shots. This I thought would be a successful way to sync the beat of the song with the shots being played, we successfully included this into our video in two different places. What I did was copy and past the shot so that the same shot is being played over again. Every other shot was then ‘reversed’ and the speed was fastened. When looking at other pop music videos, we looked at ‘Usher – Climax’ as I had heard that there were a lot of shots where speed had been adjusted.

This effect was used to give the impression that she is picking the leaves off the flower, a typical shot where the young girl says ‘Love me, Love me not’ which links with the narrative of the story

Using this effect not only helped me with the editing and syncing the shots with the music but it also creates an energy that interacts with the audience and keeps them entertained. The shot was made to represent a heartbeat as it is synced with the music. When shown, a number of people have said that this was very successful and they enjoyed it. Therefore by including these effects we have successfully used this particular convention of a pop music video.

This shot is of Usher and a female kissing, it is shown during the lyrics ‘Going nowhere fast’. The speed of this shot has been adjusted to give the song a build up and to match with the lyrics, The audience can instantly tell that the speed has been adjusted as the movements that they make are not possible, it gives the effect of a complete build up and adds energy to the other shots.

“Going nowhere fast”

Special Effects – Point of view

Another technique that is regularly used throughout a lot of pop videos, is to regularly change the point of view. The camera is wobbly and gives the effect of a handheld camera, this is used to show another persons point of view and the environment around them using a handheld camera. One music that I particularly noticed this effect is One direction – You don’t know your beautiful. Having shots like this in a pop video help tell the narrative, and make the video more personal by interacting with the audience.

Here we used similar shots however have also developed them by adding a reverse effect. By doing this we are interacting with the audience and giving them an insight to the actual song and the point of view of the person holding the camera. As there are only ever 2 characters in the music video we assume that it is her boyfriend filming, this gives the effect of a ‘home video’ and a more personal touch compared to an ordinary acting shot.

I think that we successfully managed to incorporate this into our video as it definitely gave the effect of a home video, and in doing so we made this more interactive and put across the boyfriends point of view.

Special effects- Cross dissolve

After researching cross dissolve effects in popular music videos, I recognized that this was a popular convention used within the Pop genre, Here are a few examples of pop artists that use cross dissolve.

Cheryl Cole – Fight for This Love

Rihanna – Where have you been

Justin Bieber ft Chris Brown – Next to You

Special effects – Cross dissolve

During our research we encountered many pop videos that use a cross dissolve effect that allows the audience to see two shots at once, this evidence is shown on my blog. These shots give the impression of 2 points of view, they can see the transition clearly and this makes it aesthetically pleasing. We included a fire shot that cross dissolved into a shadow. This special effect was done using a deodorant canister and a lighter.

We tried to include a lot of these effects as we only had the iMovie 09 software to use that limited our use of special effects. By including many of these I thought that it may look better even without the use of Final Cut Pro. Successfully we managed to include many cross dissolve effects by layering the transition onto the shot and lengthening the transition to make it last longer. We cross dissolved three continuous shots to make it seem as she is looking back on a bad memory, we then added an effect on the shot to further imprint the memory effect. You can see from the images that the transition rolls over 3 different shots, the lighting is dark to represent a ‘dark’ time however I think that it could have been improved with better camera quality and lighting.

Different gazes and how they are represented to their target audience

There are many examples that show the different gazes, both the male gaze and the female gaze. The likes of Justin Bieber use the female gaze to his advantage and sell records. He knows his target audience is young women who adore him and therefore plays on this by making videos of him looking into the camera, holding eye contact with the person watching the video. Other Artists such as Rihanna use their body and image to sell records, the male and female gaze is used in many of Rihanna videos as ‘Men want her and Women want to be her’. She uses explicit scenes and dresses provocatively to catch the audiences attention.

Here we tried to change her image compared to the rest of the video to make her seem more ‘sexy’. We wanted to attract the male gaze within the video as well as the digipak. I believe we achieved this as she is wearing little shorts and a small top which is similar to that of Rihanna. We used this particular convention of her videos, as Rihanna is a sex symbol and obviously works well.

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

Front and back cover including list of

tracks

Photo insert (folds in and out)

Competition ticket

Freepost envelope

Combination of my main product and ancillary textsFrom the initial stage of being told what our task was for the year, our first reactions were what song are we going to choose? What genre? What themes shall we portray, once we had chosen on a certain genre we then narrowed down different songs that we thought would work well with a video of our own. We decided that love would be the best thing to depict through a narrative, and therefore came to our decision of We Found Love by Rihanna as this was in the charts at the time . When we first looked at the song we thought that the song was purely made to show a narrative, we thought that Rihanna may have just made up a story to fit with the lyrics of the song.

After researching potential reasons behind, I came across an interview which I posted on my blog, this interview is Rihanna revealing that the reasons behind the video was in fact to teach young women of life lessons. As the video focuses on substance abuse and the young couple spiralling out of control, She quoted in this interview "One of the big things for me, I always want to help young women and give them insight into life experiences” she goes on to mention her abusive relationship with singer Chris Brown, she wants to give something back and try and prevent others from being in the same situation.

I t seemed as though according to our research, that we had judged Rihanna’s intentions when creating this video, and rather creating something that is seen as sexually explicit and inappropriate she had touched on a much greater subject. We therefore decided that we wanted to continue with this aspect and include the themes that she wanted to target in the original

“One of the big things for me, I always want to help young women and give them insight into life experiences”

Combination of my main product and ancillaryAfter we came to the conclusion that we were going to continue the idea of focusing on substance abuse and an up and down relationship we looked at a lot of Rihanna's other videos, I recognized that there is a large involvement of love and hate with –take a bow – unfaithful – hate that I love you. This would match perfectly with our love and hate theme, therefore we decided to change Rihanna's album name from ‘LOUD’ to ‘Addictive’ to further imprint the idea of substance abuse and an addictive love. This ‘Addictive’ love is what the single is about, we run through topics of abuse, happiness, substances and really show the relationship go from being good to being bad. First of all we looked at different digipak of pop

artists and all noticed that they included a colour scheme, we then decided to continue our colour scheme that sprung from our research, the idea of black white and red. We wanted the digipak to include both sides to Jayme-Lee, the pop star side and the edgy side – just like Rihanna, by including a simplistic front cover and back cover of her smoking. According to YouTube statistics the most popular target audience is ages13-17 in females and ages 18-24 in both men and women. We wanted to use this convention and develop it into re branding Rihanna's song so that it appeals for just the older audience, rather than the young. This then rebrands Jayme-Lee’s image into an older and more ‘edgy’ artist that can dive into more serious topics without having to be aware of her younger audience. From the statistics below you can see that the younger generation are still interested however the large decrease in numbers suggests that we have developed the convention successfully.

Combination of main product and ancillary texts

From our research we finalized on the decision to include red throughout the video and the digipak. There are a lot of similarities between each ancillary text.

• All sections of the Digipak include red e.g. On the back cover Jayme-Lee has red lipstick on and the track titles are in red. On the front cover Photoshop was used to highlight Jayme-Lee’s lips against a black and white background, as well as the name of the album in red. The ticket to enter the competition also had a red, black and white theme which was run throughout the ancillary.•Both on the back and front the writing is red•Pictures throughout have been edited to brighten the picture and make the colours look more dramatic. •Pictures have not been repeated and

the outfits in each picture are different•Casual theme throughout, as if she has signed the album. Jayme-Lee on the front cover is put with a kiss to make it more personal and the ticket entry says ‘Lots of Love’ as if it is a personal greeting from the artist directly

•From our research we recognized that the majority of pop digipaks that we analysed were close up shots that really show the detail. Therefore we took a close up picture of the young girl, and used a similar picture in the insert.

Combination of main product and ancillary task

Something which could have been linked more effectively was the Single name and the album cover, many album covers mention the most popular single on the album and we could have put ‘featuring the hit single We Found Love’ however we looked at a number of different pop album covers and found this not to be a convention of the pop genre and so therefore did not put this forward. By following the conventions of the pop genre we were making our product as successful as possible and ensured that we fit our genre.

We linked the competition entry to the album cover as we thought that this could potentially entice fans into buying the album. Something which we did however fail to mention was the freepost envelope, we also did not arrange other methods of entry as many people would ignore the ticket if it means sending it off. In today’s generation with the online age many people prefer to enter competitions over the internet as they cannot incur charges and find it a lot less hassle doing this with the click of a button.

Combination of main product and ancillary texts

I wanted to include the themes of our video into our digipak, and so therefore continued the colour scheme of dark blacks and browns mixed with red. There are scenes within the video that have a lot of colourful visual, a lot of red is used throughout the video and this was put into the digipak to link the two together.

The red scenes are always during the performance based aspects of the video and this is to really highlight the link between our main product and our ancillary texts.

Red is a very seductive colour and is normally associated with lust and fire, its important to understand this when we consider the idea of increasing the age of Jayme-Lee’s target audience. We wanted to link this adult and seductive look with the branding of her album and album cover, we included red and dark colours throughout the music video and then further onto the digipak. It gives the idea of a more adult feel and pushes it away from the younger target audience.

We tried to include dark scenes during the down times within the relationship however the colour scheme did not always match because certain things were not red. E.g. Pink dressing gown. This link could have been initiated within the music video a bit more to really link the two.

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

5 others like this

After we had the final version of our video we posted it to facebook to get as many peoples opinions on it as possible, we posted it and received 19 likes altogether, thus being very proud of this and we received good feedback overall even though we had specifically asked for a critical analysis. Comments that we received were positive and gave us some good feedback. We posted it to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter in order to get a lot of different opinions.

‘Bath and pushing scene could be bit longer’

‘I like how you used the flash light’‘this is so good’


The feedback we received from twitter was astonishing, after posting the video we received a retweet and a reply within 5 minutes. It is important to link every media platform with our product as this is how things get recognized. Twitter is the fastest way of communication with over 140 million ‘tweeters’. The vast amount of users and fast interaction levels allow a lot of things to be spread very quickly which is why my video was noticed in such a short space of time. It was pleasing to see that people were retweeting it for their followers to see, this means that they enjoyed it enough to showcase the video themselves

From our audience feedback through twitter and facebook we learnt that there wasn't much we needed to change as they said they enjoyed it, however little shots such as the bath shot and the fighting shot will be lengthened and tweaked to ensure everybody is kept happy and that we listen to our audience. If we ignored our feedback then we would not know whether or not our final product would be a success, having the opportunity to broadcast a lengthy video with such ease makes it a lot easier for more people to view it. Our YouTube channel to date has one follower from Sweden and our video has an amazing

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On the 19th April our media group attended a showcase that involved different media students, and their families. As a class we put together a group of questions which were asked to the audience (including friends and family). We then evaluated the answers and put together a table that listed the answers, overall we received some really good feedback and took comments on board to improve on our video.

1) Did you think the choice of settings in the video were appropriate?On this question we received different feedback, one audience member stated 'Sort of need more repetition' however another person stated that it was 'too' repetitive. Its difficult to analyse when you have comments that contradict each other. Other people said 'yes', 'yes it worked good', 'yes because they are varied'. Overall a positive view for this question.

2) How successful was the video in satisfying the conventions of

the genre?There was a lot of positive feedback from this question, as you can see from the table below. We had to make sure that every part of our video matched the conventions of the pop genre, our digipak follows the conventions and to make our video follow we looked at different artists that are involved in the pop industry, we particularly looked at Rihanna's other pop videos in order to develop a sense of her pop 'style'. We got comments such as 'very typical pop video' 'very successful in showing the genre’ and ‘the pop genre would be lucky to have this video'. In terms of the editing we had different views one viewer stated 'lip syncing was great' however another person said that the timing of the lip syncing could be improved, however after going through the video on a high speed computer it matched will and was synced in time with the song. We believe that the reason behind the poor lip syncing during the showcase was the slow speed cables and the connection. Our video kept buffering and took some time to load. Viewers particularly enjoyed the spotlight shot and stated that these really satisfied the conventions of a pop video.


3)|Editing - how successful is the editing?again this question linked with the above so the feedback that we recieved was very similar, stating 'good shots / sound linked with lip syncing' and 'very good'.

4)Cinematography - How successful were the choice of camera angles and movement?The camera angles we used were very similar to those used in other pop videos, we took ideas from some and put them all together to create our video. We recieved some positive feedback for this question, 100% of people thought that the camera angles matched the music video however, one responder quoted 'some repetitive shots'. However from our research on previous pop music videos, they incur a lot of recurring shots here is an example

1.58

2.14

Here you can see that at two different times, one at 1.51 and the other at 2.14, they both use the same shot, I found it a bit of trouble to get the exact shot however this was as close as possible. If Justin Bieber a Known pop artist can use the same shots then I am sure Jayme-Lee can. However maybe we could have varied the shots a bit more

5) Did the narrative of the music video suit the themes of the song overall? Some people decided that the narrative of the music video did suit the song, however others thought that some ideas crossed over, other people thought of it as a replica of Rihanna's previous video, even though the only similar shot was in the skate park, this was to remain contextual to the music video. Altogether most of the feedback received was positive.

What did you learn from your audience feedback?

After our showcase we didnt have a lot of time to drastically change any of the editing, therefore using our audience feedback we came up with a list of scenes that were mentioned in the feedback. We looked at the feedback and analysed what could be tweaked or improved without drastically changing the video.

It was a very typical pop

video

Some shots were slightly too repetitive

Could improve on lip syncing

From our showcase we learnt that the majority of people did enjoy our video and did not give us any criticism however we also acknowledged the comments that did advise us on what needs to be changed: Because of the timescale involved we decided that we would not make any drastic changes but try to tweak bits here and there to make our video more appealing and more successful.

What we will change?-Make the bath scene longer- Improve the lip syncing-Try and delete repetitive shots- Shot where she is banging on the door needs to be one shot as you can see the difference in lighting.


During the production of our digipak we begun researching different fonts and styles and considering different pictures we could potentially use, we thought it was important to get the right picture as this is what would depict the entire album and the song choice. The video is hidden behind this album cover so we thought it would be important to listen to the feedback that we received from family/friends and our A2 media class.

“The picture doesn’t really

fit your black, white and red

theme”“The background is not one you would expect on an album cover”

Our target audience suggested that the first image that we thought of would not be suitable as this does not suit the black, white and red theme and they said although it is a good picture because the lighting is good that we should reconsider our album cover. We then sat and took more pictures with a basic background. We then edited the lips so that it does fit the colour scheme, and we then chose image number 2 as out final picture.


I have run through the post production feedback that was carried out however we also conducted pre production research, which came in the form of a questionnaire. We conducted a questionnaire to first back up our initial thoughts on our genre of music and our decisionsThis is the questionnaire that I initially created before

producing our video we found out that

80% of people asked were aged 18-24 and a further 20% were aged 25-34, this gives us the idea to push Jayme-Lee's image away from one that is appealing to those under 18's. We could consider re branding her image to use the female and male gaze.50% of people said that they preferred pop music, 30% indie and 20% rock. So therefore by looking at this we are certain that creating a pop music video was the best decision. ‘What do you think makes a music video appealing’ was one of the most interesting questions to use, a lot of people said that bright colours, flashing lights and appealing people all make a music video appealing. It is important to remember your target audience and include things that people want.100% of people said that colours were important and they also said that it is important to get the right colours, to use colours that stand out rather than ones that dissolve into the background.nearly 80% of people asked said that Love was the most popular topic of a pop music video, considering the likes of Justin Bieber and Rihanna. 20 % also said that fun and partying was the next best narrative for a pop music video.

From our pre production research we were confident of our choice of genre and decided that during the production of our video we were going to include different lighting and colours to appeal to our target audience.

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

BloggerThroughout the process of our final A Level year we used a blog to track and keep up to date with work. In our previous year we simply printed out our research on A4 pages, very few pieces of research were done and compared to this year I found it quite daunting. When the year began it was hard to grasp the layout and format of the blog, which is why not many posts were posted in the early stages of the year. However as the year went on I got the hang of it and ended up using embed codes, html formats and different layouts to depict the format that I wanted. The best thing that i found with the blogger was-Interaction with people that are not bias towards you-Have access to other peoples pages all over the world- My blog has so far had audiences from all over the world from Russia to the United StatesHaving a blog makes life a lot simpler as it allows all our

research and planning and evaluation stages to all be complete at one place. On the blog you can label everything which groups it together and makes it a lot easier to view and navigate around. The layout of your blog can be adapted according to the look that you want to go for.

I used the blog to not only put my research on but to also embed YouTube videos that allowed my whole group to access, this interactivity is what helped me with lots of different and varied posts.


Number of page views I currently have on my blog, shows my interaction and the interest of other people.

This is the video bar that shows recent and popular YouTube videos.

The labels allow easy navigation around my blog


I have also used an online presentation software prezzi.com to create my presentation for web 2.0, I think this is a great way to show Web 2.0, the interaction with this website is all because of Web 2.0. I also embedded a YouTube video into the presentation which further imprints the idea of interaction within websites. Using the website helped me create presentations online, it makes it a lot easier and already has set formats. The disadvantage to this website is that it makes you develop a full and detailed presentation, for one that is simple it is near impossible to use. You are unable to embed the presentation without completing all the stages. This makes it very time consuming, and unable to use if you only have a simple presentation.

I was however impressed on the level of interaction compared to Microsoft presentation software, it enabled me to upload a YouTube video which enhanced the interaction even more.

Here is an embedded YouTube video, the video is of Michael Wesch’s Web 2.0


During our research we used YouTube to look at a variety of different music videos that helped us to decide on a certain genre. Once we had begun the construction of our video we looked at the original and thought what we could do differently. YouTube statistics allowed us to conduct secondary research about the target audience of the original Rihanna video. The statistics showed that

At the beginning of the year I did not know the extent that YouTube could do., the statistics channel of each YouTube video enable the viewer to see the amount of views and the whereabouts of this view, this was used during the production as this is something that we used to challenge the conventions of Jayme-Lee’s image. We used YouTube statistics to back up our idea of pushing Jayme-Lee’s image away from the younger generation.

YouTube also helped during our initial research as it linked similar videos with others, which gave us a much wider range to look at and potentially use.


Another technology that I used throughout the development of our Digipak was an app called Instagram. Instagram is an app that edits photos by clicking a button. It gives you different effects that you can wash the photo with, you can crop, flip, rotate or edit the contrast and saturation.

Instagram is similar to twitter however rather than ‘tweeting’ you upload pictures and can follow people all over the world, the more likes you get on your photos the more popular you profile will be. Instagram encourages a ‘citizen photographer’ nowadays you do not have to own an amazing camera to take amazing photos, an iphone camera and a good app will give you some of the highest quality pictures.

This picture was edited using Instagram, many of the pictures in our digipak were edited using Instagram


Throughout the development and the production of my music video we used the software iMovie 09 rather than final cut pro as my group found this a lot easier to use. The downfall to this software was the limited effects that we could use and I personally would have preferred to have edited on Final Cut Pro as it ended up being me that edited anyway. This is an example of iMovie 09, we

used this software to include effects such as ‘cross dissolve’ and added transitions to create a blink effect. This is shown when she is walking on her own and the effect is used to show her moving further away from the camera

Sony BloggieWe also used a digital camera and video camera to put together all our shots, the sony bloggie I will list the advantages and disadvantages to the camera that we used

Advantages-Lightweight and therefore is portable, and easy when travelling to different locations-Uncomplicated and easy to use even without reading the manual, this is good as I am not very literate with manuals.

-Negatives- Image quality was quite poor and was quite blurry at times-The lightweight camera did not give it stability and therefore maintaining a still shot was quite difficult

Even though we changed the settings to the highest quality and 24 optical zoom we still found the images grainy and unclear, in certain lights the camera would not function and we found this quite difficult to work with.

All in all my media experience was a good one, I learnt so much about new and different ways to publish texts, I learnt about how to embed codes using html which was something very alien to me at first. Regarding the filming, we learnt how to stabilize an image and understood which lighting is best to use.

If I could change certain aspects of my production then it would be • Edit on Final Cut Pro to include effects that make the video look more professional•Re film certain scenes•Put me behind the camera rather than in front

Education

A2 Music Video Analysis