Our music video stuck to the normal conventions of pop videos, switching between performance clips of the singer and shots displaying the narrative of the video. We were mostly inspired by the original video for Smile, which has a similar style (performance and narrative clips together). It also gave us ideas for the narrative of our video- in the original, Lily Allen is getting her own back on her cheating ex-lover, while in ours the singer has just broken up with her boyfriend and is getting over him.
Our video
Original video
Our video
Original video
We liked the bright visual style of the original video, and thought that it went well with the upbeat and happy tone of the song, so we did our best to film as many of our shots during the day as we could. For the studio shots, we arranged the lighting in a way that would highlight the singer, so that all the audience's attention was focused on her.
The digipak cover was also conventional, as the front cover is simply a picture of the singer's face with their name and the album title in front of them, a technique that many female pop singers such as Duffy, Rihanna and Beyonce have used over the years. The adveritsment is similar to the digipak, with the same colour background and another photo (this one a medium shot) of the singer.
The digipak cover was also conventional, as the front cover is simply a picture of the singer's face with their name and the album title in front of them, a technique that many female pop singers such as Duffy, Rihanna and Beyonce have used over the years. The adveritsment is similar to the digipak, with the same colour background and another photo (this one a medium shot) of the singer.
My album cover
Cover of Duffy's album Rockferry
Cover of Rihanna's album Loud
Cover of Beyonce's album I Am... Sasha Fierce
Question 2 - How effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and advertisement)?
Personally, I don't think there is a very strong link between the video and the ancillary texts I produced. The video itself doesn't contain many strong images besides the singer herself, so finding something to use on the digipak and advertisement was challenging. I also don't think the target audience would be likely to be attracted to them, as they are both quite plain and boring. The only way the audience would be able to recognise that the video and ancillary texts are linked is the presence of the singer in both. Otherwise, there is no clear visual link between them.
Question 3 - How did you use media technologies in the construction & research, planning and evaluation stages?
When we were researching music videos, we used Youtube to find music videos to watch for inpsiration for our own video, and used Google and Wikipedia to research the codes & conventions of music videos. We also found research about narrative, such as the theories that both Vladimir Propp and Andrew Goodwin made, on various websites. When planning our video, we researched on the internet a bit more, and also created an animatic storyboard on Powerpoint which we then converted to a video using Quicktime.
Question 4 - What have you learned from your audience feedback?
In class, each group gave feedback to the other groups. Here is some of the feedback we received about our video:
"Lighting was good throughout the video"
"Mis en scene kept with the codes and conventions"
"The ending was really good with the fading effect"
"Locations are varied, but too much time is spent in front of the black background"
"[the singer's] performance could be stronger"
"Good narrative"
"Keeps the audience engaged"
Overall the video was quite well received. Compliments centred mainly on the narrative of the video, as well as our wide range of shots. Criticisms many people had in common were the number of shots in front of the black background (although the variety of other locations was praised) and the performer's "robotic" performance and lack confidence.
After receiving this feedback, I have decided that if we were to do this task again I would plan further in advance, so that we could think of more locations and perhaps find someone else who was willing to be the singer. I've also learned that narrative can play a bigger part in videos than I thought, and I would find a way to include a bit more if we were given the chance to.
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