FINAL MUSIC VIDEO

FINAL DIGIPAK

                                                     FINAL MAGAZINE ADVERT

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

Evaluation Question Four-How Did You Use Media Technologies



Here is our original Prezi media treatment that initially presented our ideas to the class.

Media Treatment on Prezi

In order to gain informtaion from our target audience of 14-25 we created a questionnaire in order to find out what music channels tehy watched as well as other factors such as what they did socially. This enabled us to construct our video around our audiences needs, for example we knew our video would be made to appear amongst music channels 4Music and MTV as it proved the most popular channels.

Evaluation Question Three- What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

From looking back at audience feedback our desired aim has been fulfilled of the audience understanding our concept of the objectification of men, rather than women. We found the audience liked the subversion of stereotypes and liked the use of Ken to represent the male in a relationship.

We also learnt the variety of locations kept the video interesting and did not get boring to watch and a lot of places added to the quirkiness of the video such as London and the Skate Park.

We also learnt that this new representation of women is accepted by the audience, and they think this representation should be used more often in music videos, rather than the dominance of men.


Here are a few comments we received about our video:

1. Details about what you like about the video?
-Transitions
-Use of Ken doll
-Objectification of man rather than female
-Effect of record player
-Use of egg and toast
-Locations
-Choppy editing


2. What was your favourite part of the video and why?
-Tennis scene- humorous- good shots
-Use of Ken- costumes and props added humour
-Stop animation of toast- quirky
-Split screen- presented two sides to the relationship and made the storyline easier to understand


3.Was the storyline easy to follow?
-Good portrayal of relationship- see both sides- use of split screen effective to portray this
-Contrast of happy and sad relationship portrayed well

4. Was the bright effect on the shots good and was it appropriate for the artist?
-Made it interesting to watch and clear
-Appropriate for genre
-Added to quirkiness of video
-Illustrated the artists' youth

5. Did the locations fit in with the video?
-Variety of locations made it more interesting to watch
-Added to storyline and indicated the changes of their relationship, e.g the pond showed their happiness contrasted with the house scene in which they argue


6. Did you feel that our video subverted stereotypes in any way?
-Did not objectify women like similar videos of the genre
-Use of Ken doll gave a new perspective of relationships- men dominated by women


We also learnt online audience feedback is very useful as it allowed us to get opinion from fans rather than asking people their opinion verbally by using written questionanires.  Also our target audience of girls aged 14-23 use social networking sites which therefore indicates we are able to receive their opinions through their favourite mediums.

Evaluation Question Two- How effective is the combination of your music video, advert and your digipak?

When creating my digipak I wanted to create a consistent image to the music video as well as making the digipak personal in order for Ruby to appeal to her fans. For example when creating a brand logo I chose a font using dafont.com that resembled a handwritten style, this was in order to make it appear as if Ruby had personally written this. This was to illustrate the album was personal and Ruby was sharing her music with her fans.

I continued this theme throughout onto my advert and digipak, using it as a logo as well as for the album name and tracklist. This created a consistent artist brand and makes it all appear personal, particularly the tracklist on the back of the digipak in which the notepad image indicates the album is like a diary and the songs are personal memoirs of the artist.

The music video combines well with my advert and digipak due to the similar colours scheme of blue, red, yellow and also the brick work. Throughout the video bright and bold colours are used in order to fit in with the playfulness of the song, particularly red and yellow.

The brickwork used throughout my digipak and advert was purposely used in order to fit in with the brick we featured when using the scrabble pieces. I used this consistently as it fit in well with the playfulness of the song and was a bold feature in the video that could be easily linked to the artist.

In order to combine all three aspects;digipak, advert and video I used many similar aspects. For example at the beginning of the video Ruby is wearing the same dress as the promotional images on the advert as well as the front cover of the album. Also as she is holding a handwritten sign, this ties in well with the handwriting style I have used throughout the digipak and advert.

Another aspect I combined was the use of lips. In the video we used a close up of Rubys lips in bold red lipstick, I decided to continue this theme in my digipak by using an image of Rubys mouth for the CD. I did this as Rubys lips prove a significant factor due to her miming the lyrics as well as fans being able to identify her by her lips.

Another effective combination I used was the repetition of the same images of my artist, this enables the audience to understand the correlation between the digipak and advert, which relates the two together as the album is being advertised. This also gives the artist an identifiable image that they can be associated with. This also allows the image to be used for merchandising purposes in the future. 

Evaluation Question One- In what ways does your music video and digipak use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Conventions of relationships

Our music video directly challenges the usual conventions of a pop music video in which you usually see a typical boy girl relationship where the girl is often seen as fighting for the male affections and being controlled by the male character.

Here is an example of the usual conventions where the leading female is trying to impress the male character by using their body and sexuality to do so, which supports Laura Mulveys theory of the Male Gaze.


We decided to directly challenge this by using a Ken doll to represent the male in a relationship, this was to empower our female character and illustrate how the convention can be challenged by the male character not being in control, and having to rely on the female character. We also showed Ken to try and win the females characters affections with flowers, which although is a convention and cliche our video challenges this as the female character is shown to make Ken look weak by knocking him over and refusing his affections. This illustrates how we challenged Mulvey's theory and instead of objectifying women, we have objectified men.

An aspect of our video that conforms to real media products is the representation of women, although our video challenges the typical stereotypes of women we also conform, For example when Ruby is annoyed with Ken she is presented as a strong woman but when she is shown to be in love she conforms to the stereotypical image of women, which we wanted to illustrate the idea of female empowerment and independence. For example a scene in which Ruby is shown to follow a housewife image/role where she is making Ken a meal, this is to illustrate the effect of the relationship on her life

Voyeurism

A convention we have followed is the use of voyeurism, this is a common feature of a music video as it is a way of introducing the artist. We chose to use a record player in order to fit in with the retro theme of our song and the quirkiness of the video. We also liked the bright colours as it fit with our pop genre.

When discussing what form of voyeurism we would use we looked at examples of other music videos, for example Rizzle Kicks feature their album on a table whilst Olly Murs uses a similar use to ours, using a record player to present the song.

Styling 

Styling was a key factor in our music video, typically female artists are often dressed provocatively due to being aimed towards a male market particularly in the R&B genre with artists such as Rihanna and Ciara. We decided to challenge this usual styling for female artists and dress Ruby as a classy and cute with an urban edge. We contrasted her outfits with her surroundings, for example we put her in a teadress when in Brixton, rather than an edgy outfit. This was to represent her individuality as an artist.  

Originally, we researched clothing ideas for Ruby on fashion blogs such as weheartit and asos look book in order to get inspiration and ideas. As well as this we looked into styles that artists of our genre wore as well as make up styles. We particularly took inspiration from Jessie J who inspired us to use bright lipstick in our video.

As audience is a key factor to our music video we made sure Ruby Reigns was an identifiable artist teenage girls could identify with, we did this by making Ruby an artist that was 'girl next door with an edge' this made her a  good role model girls could aspire to be.

As the Male Gaze is a key factor to female artists in the music industry nowadays we wanted to challenge this by putting Ruby in clothes she could look pretty in, yet not too provocative, making her more appealing for girls rather than boys. We did this to present her as different to other artists in the industry. The only outfit we used that would be conforming to the Male Gaze was the tennis outfit, although this was used for comedy value to add to the humour of the scene and how serious she took it as a character.

Digipak

My digipak proved to both challenge and conform to conventions. For example digipaks often feature a large image of the artists face on the front cover, I challenged this by using a full length shot of my artist amongst surroundings in order for her style to be expressed, as well as not being represented as a serious artist, her colourful surrounding present her and her music as happy and fun. We challenged similar artists in the Indie Pop genre such as Ellie Goulding in which the front of her album Lights features a large image of her face, in order for the main focus to be on her whilst we challenged this in order for our artist to appear less self absorbed and serious.  

My digipak also challenged forms as it featured aspects from my music video, for example scrabble pieces and the brick work. Commonly, other artists from our genre do not feature aspects of their video on their digipak, they usually feature images taken from a photo shoot, for example Rihanna (Image below). I did this in order to create a consistent brand image and allow fans to link these images. Unlike some artists who use one large image for the inside of the digipak such as Rihanna I used two images inside, one being the CD in which I transferred an image of Ruby onto, which commonly other artists do not use either using plain text or an image of other items such as Rihanna who uses a Rose.  

Ideas from other videos

We used the idea of stop animation from other videos such as Kate Nash Foundations in order to add a quirky edge to our video. We also liked the effect this add and liked the way it fit in with the beat of our song. Similarly to Kate Nash we liked the way the stop animation of items represented the relationship of our two characters. We thought Kate Nash was a good example to follow due to her being in our indie-pop genre. 

We used this stop animation using scrabble against a brick pattern to add to our quirky theme and add to the playful message of the video. We also used this as the beginning of the video in order to introduce the character of Ken.

Another idea we gained inspiration from was Olly Murs Busy video. We liked the idea of using a form of doll or toy in order to represent a relationship, at first we had ideas of using a mannequin but soon realised it was inconvenient.We brainstormed and came up with the idea of using a Ken doll as it was humorous and also more convenient to carry when going around London filming. Our concept was slightly different from the Olly Murs video as the video shows the story of Olly being in love with a mannequin figure who becomes real at the end of the song, we challenged this by showing two sides of a relationship with Ruby being both happy and sad in the relationship. We also challenged the ending as at first we toyed with idea of Ruby becoming a doll at the end or Ken becoming human, we decided to leave the characters as they were and have the ending of them going off together happy. We chose this as more of a quirky and less obvious ending and as the audience had watched the evolution of the couples relationship through the song, they should stay as they are.



                                                                 Camera

In regards to camera angles, our video conforms to conventions of music videos of our genre. For example we use a lot of mid shots of our artist, similarly used in Kate Nash Foundations. This shot is commonly used in our genre as it features the artists clearly and closely, which in our genre is important as it is very image/appearance based.

We also use a variety of long shots in order to show a full length shot of the artist, either to show their surroundings or particularly body parts/clothing. An example of this is Pixie Lott in Boys and Girls in which a long shot is used in order to show her image and body that she is well known for. Similarly, we used a long shot but we challenged conventions by not using this to show Ruby's body we used this  in order to show her urban surroundings and add to the variety of locations of the video. Indicating we are not conforming to the Male Gaze.

                                                                       ADVERT

My magazine advert conforms to other media texts as it is features a large central image of the artist, this is in order for the audience to identify the artist and learn about their music and identity. I also conformed to other media texts due to my use of quotes from publications such as 'the future generation of pop' Q magazine. This illustrates a convention of a music advert as the audience are able to see reviews of the album, which encourages them to buy it. 

An example I looked at was Kate Nash's advert to advertise her album 'Made of Bricks', here a full size image is not featured as it focuses on the album title which relates to a house, the fantasy atmosphere allows the audience to identify the fun nature of the artist and the quirky message to her songs.

In order to create a brand for my artist I have used the brickwork image as it ties in with the music video when scrabble is spelt amongst a brick patterned background. I also chose bright colours for the text in order to identify the artist with fun and playfulness, which allow her audience to understand her personality. 

Twitter Feedback

Here is an example of feedback from Ruby Reigns' official twitter, this is an example of how an artist would receive feedback from sharing her video with fans. Feedback included comments on liking the concept and humour of the video which we aimed to do when creating the video. This form of feedback is useful as we are able to see the opinion of those online and gives us a difefrent form of feedback other than doing verbal feedback and questionnaires.

Audience Feedback

In order to gain audience feedback for our video, we will ask a variety of questions in order to see if we have achieved our ambition of  appealing to our target audience. These questions also allow us to see if we have reached our aims of female empowerment and challenging the conventions of a female artist in a music video.


1. Details about what you like about the video?
2. What was your favourite part of the video and why?
3.Was the storyline easy to follow?
4. Was the bright effect on the shots good and was it appropriate for the artist?
5. Did the locations fit in with the video?
6. Did you feel that our video subverted stereotypes in any way?