NOTE: Due to the way it was rendered, the lip syncing is a bit out in places. But if you watch in 480p quality, it is much better.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
1. Setting/Location
The locations we have used in our music video all link well with the themes within our chosen song. The song being called 'Wonderland' and our idea of following a teenage girl through her troubles at home at how she takes drugs to take her out of reality and into her own world. The lyrics in the song contain fairytale characters which we where we initially came up with our first location which wa the forest. We thought a forest would be a good location to use in certain sections of the song as forests are often seen in fairytales and also can give an eerie effect which is what we wanted in our video. We filmed in the first forest we went to look at which was in Shenfield, we didn't take the time to look at any others as we thought this one was perfect and had everything we wanted to use in it. The forest had long, narrow pathways which is what we were looking for when writing down our initial ideas. We didn't have any problems filming here as we all knew exactly what we wanted to film and where as we made sure we went to look at the forest before deciding to film there.
Another location we used was in Anna's house where we filmed scenes which show the audience how her mother tries to make her 'perfect' where we do the puppet scene which symbolises how controlling she is towards Anna's character. This is also where we filmed Anna going in the dark cupboard and taking the drugs. We wanted to make sure we filmed these scenes inside as we wanted to show the contrast between her feeling trapped
The costumes we used in our music video were very important as we wanted to make Wonderland as colourful and fairytale-like as possible. We used costumes for three of the characters that are mentioned in the song, which are Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Snow White which were costumes we bought for our video. Although it was obviously easy thinking of the costumes that were needed as we just used the ones that were mentioned in the lyrics, but actually finding these costumes was quite difficult. We wanted to make sure we followed the stereotypical codes and conventions of a pop video by having a vairety of costumes, therefore Anna had many costume changes from where she is wearing formal clothes when in the scenes filmed at her house to where she is in Wonderland where her costumes are a lot brigher in colour as well as wearing a lot less clothing which we wanted to use to symbloise how she is escaping and how she fits in well with the other characters in the video. We wanted to stick to simple yet effective costumes in order to keep the storyline easy to understand.
We also made props to show the contrast between reality and Wonderland, to put in the forest we made toadstool mushrooms and even though they were shown in a very short clip we wanted to make sure we added a lot of detail to them. We also painted pills using bright and colourful Acrylic paint as bright colours are used a lot in pop videos. We also wanted to do this to show how the pills are an important part of the music video as they are what take her to her Wonderland. We were influenced a lot by existing pop videos such as Katy Perry's California girls where there are many oversized, colourful props which create this fantasy world.
We also took simple props, such as the poisoned apple which could had been simply shown as just an apple, however we wanted to show imagination therefore it was painted blue and covered in glitter to show it was tainted however still fits in well with the codes and conventions of pop being colourful.
We also used the camera work and editing to set the mood at atmosphere of the shots. When we wanted Anna to look vulnerable, we often used high angle shots to display this. When we wanted Anna to look in a more powerful state, we often used low angle shots to portray this. Likewise with editing, we used fast editing throughout most of the video in order to make it interesting and to add to the effects of her fantasy world. We also changed the pace of the editing to fit the song, when the song slows down, we also reduced the speed of the editing to create more of an atmosphere. We also used editing to edit the colour of some shots to make it look weird and to represent the fact that she’s taking drugs.
We used effects whilst editing such as replicate to make our music video more interesting to watch, we noticed when watching and analysing other pop genre music videos that there was a lot of editing used and obvious effects were added to make the music video more eye catching.
5. Story/tone of the music video and how the opening suggests it
Our video starts with a mid shot which follows our Protagonist (Anna) walking over to a tree which has a note attached to it, this immediatley shows the audience who the main character is. This shot is playing in the opening of our music video where it is instrumental, the music playing at this point has quite a 'chilled' tone to it which builds up adding tension to the song and the video itself. We wanted the opening to our video to seem quite mysterious which is why we filmed the opening in the Wonderland we created. We used the note on the tree with the Alice In Wonderland quote as this straight away helps the audience understand that it is to do with fairytales and how the protagonist is in her own fantasy world. Anna's costume in the opening of the music video shows how she seems innocent in the beginning by wearing a white dress, this however changes throughout as the costumes she wears towards the end are darker in colour and show her rebellious side.
The locations we have used in our music video all link well with the themes within our chosen song. The song being called 'Wonderland' and our idea of following a teenage girl through her troubles at home at how she takes drugs to take her out of reality and into her own world. The lyrics in the song contain fairytale characters which we where we initially came up with our first location which wa the forest. We thought a forest would be a good location to use in certain sections of the song as forests are often seen in fairytales and also can give an eerie effect which is what we wanted in our video. We filmed in the first forest we went to look at which was in Shenfield, we didn't take the time to look at any others as we thought this one was perfect and had everything we wanted to use in it. The forest had long, narrow pathways which is what we were looking for when writing down our initial ideas. We didn't have any problems filming here as we all knew exactly what we wanted to film and where as we made sure we went to look at the forest before deciding to film there.
Another location we used was in Anna's house where we filmed scenes which show the audience how her mother tries to make her 'perfect' where we do the puppet scene which symbolises how controlling she is towards Anna's character. This is also where we filmed Anna going in the dark cupboard and taking the drugs. We wanted to make sure we filmed these scenes inside as we wanted to show the contrast between her feeling trapped within her house compared to her 'Wonderland' all being outside where she feels free. We had very little problems filming here however, the only problem was getting to this location from school when we wanted to film in Media lessons or free periods. As a group we decided that this would be a good location to use as the colours are very neutral in contrast to the colours used in Wonderland which we all noticed is a code and convention of the pop genre. The image that is on the wall we made sure was in the shot as Anna looks at it to remind her of Wonderland in the forest which is where her journey begins.
The final location we used was the sea, the group went to Southend to film for the day as we wanted to shoot Anna waking up there, the weather on the day we were filming here created the perfect atmosphere to this particular shot as it was quite misty and gives the illusion of a 'dream world'. The only difficulty we had with filming here was trying to get a space on the beach that wasn't busy therefore we had to wait a bit for people to leave. However, the group enjoyed filming here and think it looks effective in our music video. We were originally planning on also filming on the pier while we were in Southend however again, there were too many people surrounding the area we wanted to film.
2. Props and costumes
We also took simple props, such as the poisoned apple which could had been simply shown as just an apple, however we wanted to show imagination therefore it was painted blue and covered in glitter to show it was tainted however still fits in well with the codes and conventions of pop being colourful.
3.Camera work and editing
Camera work and editing were extremely important for the making of our music video. We got loads of different angles of everything we filmed in order to make the final product very interesting. Having lots of different angles made the footage look a lot more professional and diverse.
We also used the camera work and editing to set the mood at atmosphere of the shots. When we wanted Anna to look vulnerable, we often used high angle shots to display this. When we wanted Anna to look in a more powerful state, we often used low angle shots to portray this. Likewise with editing, we used fast editing throughout most of the video in order to make it interesting and to add to the effects of her fantasy world. We also changed the pace of the editing to fit the song, when the song slows down, we also reduced the speed of the editing to create more of an atmosphere. We also used editing to edit the colour of some shots to make it look weird and to represent the fact that she’s taking drugs.
We also used fast forward and slow motion on some shots. We used slow motion because on some shots it creates a lot more of an impact and the audience can really take in what’s going on. Fast motion makes the shots more upbeat and makes them fit into the beat of the song.
The genre of our song is pop. This is clear from the very first scene which is Anna in a dress in the middle of a woods. Her dress and hair suggest the pop genre of the music video because it is quite girly and bright. Furthermore, there is tinsel on the trees and bright decorations. This also makes it appear part of the pop genre because pop music videos are expected to be bright and colourful. The intro of the song is also quite upbeat and we edited the shots to enhance this.
5. Story/tone of the music video and how the opening suggests it
Social Media - Facebook
The role of social networking is becoming increasingly popular. With the proliferation it is taking, it brings great marketing techniques. Facebook is one example of this. Viral advertisements is one of the great features Facebook brings. With this in mind, we've created a Facebook page primarily for friends and family to share with each other and hopefully grow. But also, we hope to gain the option of advertising in correlation with Facebook.
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