Evaluation

For my A2 media coursework, I chose to produce a music video. The genre of the music I chose for the video was R&B/hip-hop, with the song being upbeat and featuring contemporary aspects of rap. I felt that taking on a livelier soundtrack for my video would be more challenging than that of a ballad of other similar 'slow' songs; this is due to the song having more beats per minute and therefore requiring far more cuts within the video. The song I used for my production work was featured within Rihanna's fifth studio album 'Loud', and is currently previously unreleased as a single; this influenced my decision into picking this track as it allowed me to create my own unique ideas about how the video should look, without being influenced by a professional music video for the song. The song 'Raining Men' also features female rap artist Nicki Minaj, and therefore within my music video I had to include two females within the video. When it came to the digipak and the magazine advertisement, however, I only included images of the main artist performing as Rihanna, as I found that this was most conventional of mainstream music marketing.

In terms of conventions, we expect most modern music videos to be either narrative or performance based, or perhaps both. My production is largely based around performance, as I felt that this particular style was best suited to my upbeat track. Typically, we associate rap music with, largely, black males. However, into today’s postmodern era, these conventions and stereotypes are being broken. For example, rap artist Eminem broke these conventions when he became one of the most successful rappers of the past ten years; he himself being a white American who played upon his appearance by dying his hair bleach blonde. Therefore, it is not unusual that both artists within my music video are white. The type of music that I have chosen is largely mainstream and released from major record labels. ‘Raining Men’ was released on the ‘Loud’ album by Rihanna’s record label ‘Def Jam Recordings’.

Each of my texts follows the same general theme, featuring the same, or similar, colours. The colours which I have chosen are bright and contrasting, largely consisting of the predominant pink colour, and the colour yellow. These colours are bright, feminine colours which reflect the attitudes of the song, which are mainly feminist ideas. As the song is upbeat and playful, I felt that bright colours would reflect this better than dark colours such as black and red would, as these types of colours are usually associated with conventional rock music videos. I have also applied a continuous theme when it comes to the clothing and styling of my two performers. As the backgrounds of my music video (and subsidiary texts) are colourful and bright, I dressed my performers in mostly black and white. This allows them to stand out and contrast with the background. They are also wearing fashionable clothing, such as denim jackets and blazers, in order to set a trend for their audiences, as most popular artists seem to do.

I originally had two performers who would star within my video. However, after filming my chosen performers for the first time, one of them did not perform well in front of the camera. And so, I felt it best to use somebody who is familiar with the lyrics. Unfortunately, this disrupted the timing of my filming and the schedule that I had applied to my filming. After struggling to find someone willing, I decided to feature myself within the video. This made filming somewhat more difficult, as I had to frame my own face and stop and start the recording, as well as the music, alongside this filming. However, this also proved beneficial as I knew what I wanted the video to look like, and could utilise my time more. I also felt that my image somewhat worked better with my other performer.

This particular project was the first in which I have had to use a video camera, and therefore it was important that before filming I became familiar with how the camera worked. However, during filming I made a fairly big mistake with the camera. When trying to obtain a long shot, I couldn't seem to get the camera far away enough to get the whole length of my performers' body into the shot. Therefore, I turned the camera around. It wasn't then until I transferred my footage onto the editing software that I realised that my shots needed rotating, but after rotating would be more 'portrait' than 'landscape', such as the rest of my shots. Therefore, in order to make my video feature continuity throughout, I had to scale these shots so that they became medium close-up shots. However, this wasn't the only problem that arose when editing my shots. Within my storyboard, several of my shots featured the performer singing in front of a coloured background, which is why I filmed most of my video in front of a plain, solid coloured wall. I also ensured that there was plenty of lighting in my shots by situating my locations in areas of bright natural lighting. However, the face of my performers did not contrast enough with the background, and so when attempting to add colour to the backgrounds only, it merged onto the faces of my performers. I filmed one aspect of my video within the green room at college, making use of the lights and the plain background. When experimenting with this shot, I could easily apply a different colour to the green background, without it affecting my performer. However, as the rest of my video would not have the same effect, I chose not to use it within the final draft of my music video.

Also within my storyboard, I featured a dance scene in which a number of girls, including my two performers, would perform a dance routine in the dark, each holding torches in order to illuminate their movement. This idea was inspired by Pixie Lott's video for 'What Do You Take Me For?'

However, when experimenting with filming these shots, I could not get the lighting to illuminate them enough to see their silhouettes, yet still keep the room relatively dark. I therefore chose to to include this idea within my final edit.

When editing my shots, I experimented with various different effects. For example, within the final draft of my music video, I use the close-up shot of a pair of lips miming the words 'oh yeah yeah…' numerous times; however each time I used a different effect. One of these featured my performers dancing to the chorus, with the footage of the lips playing simultaneously over the top. To do this, I had to ensure that both shots were of the same length, and had to decrease the opacity of the shot of the lips in order to make it more transparent. In another part of the video, I merely split the screen into four, each section containing the same shot of the singing lips, again all singing simultaneously with one another. I also applied this idea of a 'split screen' elsewhere within my final draft. During the chorus, I combined both a shot of myself dancing, and of my other performer dancing to create this effect.

Elsewhere within my video, I used three shots of a variety of pound notes. These three shots were used in time with the lyrics 'long, long, long', after the lyrics 'I ain't tripping on your money, money…' were performed. Within each shot, the pile of notes increases. I used this particular idea because not only does it fit in with the lyrics at this specific point within the song, but it also helps to represent the genre of the music. The stereotype surrounding R&B/hip-hop artists is wealth and confidence, largely, and therefore money and/or cars are almost always seen within a typical music video of this sort. In order to also emphasise wealth and riches, I added a plain yellow colour over the top of these video clips, and decreased the opacity, so that the three shots had a somewhat 'golden' hue to them.

Furthermore, another technique that I applied to my video involved the addition of still photographs alongside my moving images. I featured this idea within the what I wanted to be the 'club' scene of my music video, alongside the lyrics 'up in the club'. However, I was unable to take a camera and a tripod into a nightclub in order to create this effect, and so instead took my camera on a night out in The Sugarmill, Hull, and took various photographs throughout the night, ensuring that Leonie, my main performer, was featured within most of them. As my song is very feminist, and focuses on the idea that no woman should worry about any one man, most of these photos feature my main artist with a selection of her girl friends. One or two of these photos show a male attempting to dance with Leonie; however, she shows little interest in his advances. Again, I had to scale each of these photos appropriately as many of them where too large when first imported onto the editing software.

During the pre-production of my music video, YouTube was a very useful part of my research. It enabled me to easily access professional music videos from the likes of Beyonce, who is known for amazing music videos, and to watch them for inspiration for my own production work. I also used YouTube during my postproduction, as I uploaded my own music video onto YouTube for the world to see. It is clear from how easy it is to upload your own material onto the internet by using this website, why many already famous artists, as well as those up and coming, use the site in order to market their own material. Blogger was also an important part of my production work, as I used it to quickly and easily post the progress of my research, planning and creating. As I had used Blogger for a previous piece of coursework, I felt fairly familiar with its features. Blogger allowed me to combine videos from YouTube, by simply copying their html codes into a post, texts and images, which helped me largely in my research when analysing already existing music videos. After familiarising myself further with the features that Blogger offers, I found that I could quickly transfer a word document onto my blog without having to log in. I did this simply by clicking file – publish – blog in my word documents, and then supplying the programme with details of my username and password for Blogger.com. This allowed me to publish items of text such as my evaluation quicker than usual.

Moreover, another important part of my production work came in the form of audience feedback. From my target audience questionnaires, I found that my music video would mostly attract those in the age range of 15 – 24. Therefore, when gaining feedback for my music video and other aspects of production, I asked people within this range. One aspect of feedback that was brought up more than once was that of the clothing and styling of my performers, and that it lacked something. This was largely influenced by the mistakes previously mentioned regarding turning the camera around whilst filming. Because I had to turn the long shots around and make them become medium close-ups, I therefore had to cut out the majority of the outfits that my performers wore. Originally, both my performers wore an aspect of orange. In my outfit, I wore a skirt that consisted on the colours orange, black and white, which matched my black tights and white vest top. Leonie wore black leggings, a white vest top and a navy blazer with orange edgings. We both wore boot heels to finish off the look. However, due to the final editing, it appeared that we were both wearing fairly simple outfits. I originally picked the orange as I felt that it fit in with the style of my music video, which was bright, fun and colourful.

I also applied this approach to my digipak. The photo that I chose for my album cover is an extreme close-up of my artists face. She is looking directly into the camera, therefore engaging with the audience. Her expression is that of a happy one, and her lips wear a slight pout, suggesting that the album is fun and playful. The background is plain so that the artist contrasts and stands out the most within the shot. The artist also wears a nose stud, which I thought fit in well with my chosen genre, which often sports tattoos and piercings. I also believe that this particular shot makes the artists eyes stand out, with the way she is peering out from underneath her fringe adding to the playful nature of the album. I believe that choosing a close-up shot, which ultimately takes up the majority of the front cover to the album, lets the audience know that the album is all about her. Additionally, I chose to name the album 'Evolution' with reference to the development of music, particularly R&B, and how its ideas and stereotypes are slowly changing; for example, the types of people who are beginning to delve into this particular genre.

Originally, I had wanted to use the image to the right as my final front cover. However, after researching further into already released and professional album covers, I found that more simple artwork was often more effective. I also felt that this particular edit drew attention away from the artist slightly, as she no longer contrasted as well with the rest of the cover. With my album cover being fairly simple, I had room to make the rest of the album more imaginative, allowing me to experiment with colours and effects. For the majority, I kept to the typical pink and yellow colours that I originally chose to associate with my artist. I chose to include two discs within my digipak; one for the main album cd, and one for bonus features such as the music video for 'Raining Men'. I then used each of the other sections, apart from the back which focused merely on the album track list, to promote further pictures of the artist herself. I then continued the same colours and styles over onto my album advertisement, including the same font and effects. Also upon my advertisement, I included various marketing techniques. These included the quote from 'Vibe' magazine which stated that Evolution was 'the most anticipated album of the year'. Vibe is a reputable R&B magazine, and therefore readers and fans of this magazine will value their opinions, urging them to purchase this album. I also included text informing the audience that 'Raining Men', the most recently released single, would feature upon the album. Fans of this song may purchase the album in order to view the rest of the album in comparison with this one particular track. I also featured the album artwork so that the audience knew what to look for when browsing the internet or shop shelves when hoping to purchase the album.

If I were to have the opportunity to do this particular project again, there would be many things that I would do differently. The first thing that I would change would be to film my music video within the first or second month of receiving the project, so that I had plenty of time to re-film aspects that I felt did not work or that I was not happy with. This would also give me more time to experiment with editing to find out things that worked and things that didn't; such as applying different coloured backgrounds to several of my shots. I would also make the styling of my performers more extravagant, such as bigger hair and bigger makeup, and more exciting clothing. I would definitely experiment with a larger range of locations in order to make my video more interesting. However, overall, I believe that for my first attempt at using a video camera and using such editing software, my video uses lots of techniques in order to add the aspect of fun that I wished to inject within the video. It involves singing in synch with the lyrics of the song, dancing, which is often conventional of most upbeat music videos, and various conventions of typical R&B music videos, such as money and alcohol.