Final Product

http://vimeo.com/41502812

Evaluation 4: How did you use Media Technologies in the Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

Evaluation 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1) The title of the music video;
 is called video games which was chosen by the artist Lana Del Rey as her boyfriend told her that their relationship is like a 'video game'. We didn't want to change the title because it is obviously something personal to the artist so we wanted to keep it so we could perhaps understand the song better. Furthermore, video games is repeated within the song so it only made sense to us to stick with the song title.
2) Props and Costumes;
 Because the song has a romantic and gentle feel to it we wanted to reflect that with a retro style to the costume. We used red lipstick which we used as colour coding for passion and love and we also used dresses to keep with a girly theme. The other costumes such as the black high waisted leggings and circular sunglasses show a more modern take on the vintage style. The look the we chose was supported by many of our peers as they also thought, like us, that that look was perfect for this type of genre of song. We did play up to the conventions of a romantic song by using girly and pretty costumes and beautiful make-up and hair.

3) Settings and Locations;
 We used mainly locations that were outdoors which do stick to the conventions of a song such as the one that we have chosen. The outdoors provide us with nature which throughout time through music video, novels, poems etc is the one location were you set a romantic theme. We decided to film nearly all of our footage outside as it provided us with brilliant natural lightening and nature such as birds that we have used in our footage. In real media products, the outdoors is used for the same genre as ours so we wanted to do the same to make our music video appear to be a real media product as the audience will have some idea of what to expect.

4) Camera Work and Editing;
 For our music video, camera work and editing are the most important aspect because we couldn't achieve our goal for our music video without editing or our desired camera work. We all have an advantage as we have editing and all used a camera from our previous Thrillers. We all watched several music videos including Lana Del Rey's actual music video for the song we have chosen 'Video Games' this allowed us to see what type of editing and camera work artists/directors use for our genre. This enabled us to see whether we should stick to the conventions or challenge them. One editing effect that is really in our genre of music video's is the 'earthquake' effect. That effect is 'edgey' which could broaden our target audience. However, we did use slow motion effects which are commonly used in the romantic genre. In terms of camera work, we used the conventional mid shot, close up shot which allows the audience to identify who the artist is.

5) Font & Style; For our media poster we used a traditional font that was big but allowed the viewer to see the artist behind. The style was different to our genre because usually the font would be for example Edwardian script but we wanted to challenge the conventions by doing something a little different. This again allows us to broaden our target audience.

 6) Tone of the start of the music video and the story. Do they fit? The start of our music video is of a church with two birds flying across the screen, we chose to do this because in the song at the start there is church bells so we wanted to make the music video more believable to the audience that it is the real music video. The second shot is of the actress, this allows the audience to identify that this is the artist. These shots create a peaceful and romantic atmosphere which is what we wanted our music video to be about. The story is about Sophie (the actress) singing a song for her boyfriend and declaring her love for him. We did use more of Sophie than the boy Jake (actor) because we felt it made it more personal and as if the music video is directly for Jake.

 7) The genre and how opening suggests it. The opening scene is of Sophie outside and with the sun and the church, this is conventional to our genre which enables the audience to identify it. We dressed Sophie is pretty retro clothes and she had red lipstick on which is colour coding for romance. The costume in the opening played a huge part in helping us put across to the audience the genre of our music video.

Ancillary Task- Our Digipak- Analysis

Ancillary Task- Our Digipak

Extending Our Target Audience Through Social Media

Twitter is just a huge on the social networking scene as Facebook. In order to keep up with modern times and to extend our audience that much further, we have made a twitter page in order for people to check out images, our music video and it gives people the opportunity to leave feedback which is important for us to target the right audience. Twitter is used by many music artists and celebrities so we felt it was necessary to include ourselves with this trend. Social networking is very important and a key advertising/marketing tool that is easy, free and very effective.

Above is our twitter page that allows people, if they like what they see, to follow us so they can keep up to date with pictures, comments and videos that we post. The background is of Lana Del Rey herself, this allows viewers to immediately identify that this twitter account is to with Lana Del Rey, also it allows people to tweet us and tell us if they like our music video and if they think it is better than the original video.

Influences for a Digipak

We feel that this type of retro glam style is just the right amount of 'old school' which we can add the 'new school'. That type of look is coming back into style so we want to reflect that in our digipak. Also the 'old school' writing will keep to the retro theme and will also appeal to our target audience of young adults.
Obviously the editing will be better than the editing in the actual picture above, but we will add effects that will make some of the pictures look like they were caught on a old film camera.
Furthermore, the colour scheme is a little bit too girly so we might find a colour scheme that is gender neutral.

Our digipak template.

Here is our design for the digipak. It will have two pictures either side of the CD and where the CD is will be a mid shot portrait of the actress. That will all be inside, the outside however will have at the back, the song name and a little picture, the other spaces will be filled of still shots from the music video.

Advertising, Marketing on Facebook

Advertising is a very important part of marketing in the music industry because it gives people the chance to get exclusive photos, interviews, previews and film paraphernalia. Facebook is a very good way to advertise our music video because basically everyone who is our target audience has a facebook account. It is modern and it is a successful way to market a music video.

Editing

The software that we are using to edit our music video is called pinnacle. Before we started editing the software was updated from the previous version that we all used for our AS Thriller. We had to learn how to use the new software as there were differences since the older version that we had previously used.
We are using the video effects such as changing the speed of a clip, black and white effects, 'earthquake' effects, multiple clip effects (the same clip on the screen four different times all at once) and other transitions between clips.
All of us are using our creativity to inject our own unique thoughts of what we think the music video should look like.
One challenge of the editing is to lip sync all the clips that we will use for the song e.g the chorus. It is hard to adjust the lip syncing when we add new clips that could undo the lip syncing that we've already done. Luckily we have worked out a way to pinpoint the exact time that the lyrics will occur which enables us to put the right clips in the right lip syncing places.

2nd Day Shooting

 This is the second hair style that we are using, we wanted to keep with the retro theme but add a modern twist to it. The make-up again is retro which keeps the theme that we want to use for the music video.

 This is the prop that we used in the music video, this is seen in the shot of Sophie in the bedroom, the phone is retro and also the floral colour sticks to the conventions of a 'girly' 'romantic' music video.

This coat also is a vintage style which we thought would look and stick to the theme of the music video, furthermore, we factored in the colour coding of red which is usually known, conventionally, as the colour of love and romance.  

1st Day Shooting & Options For Digipak

This is the tripod that we are using for our filming at all our locations.

This is an option for the digipak.

This is sophie's dog, marylin, that may be in our music video.

This is the hair style that we will be using throughout our music video. This style has been taken from the 40's era which are known as victory rolls.

This is the lipstick that we will be using. It is the colour red. We have used this particular colour for colour-coding. Red symbolises love which the song is about.

This is a prop that we will be using during filming.

This is also an option for our digipak.

This is an option for our digipak which also shows a change in clothing.

A close up that is an option for our digipak.

Locations

Sophies garden is one of our locations which we have used a framing techinque with a terrace fencing that has an arch with plants over the out line of the arch, we are shooting sophie in the middle of the arch. The garden fits with the tone of the music video that we are hoping to achieve.
Also, there is a tree with a ring of daffodils around it where we will be shooting.

This photo was taken in a park which is rich with fields, wildlife and trees. We wants to keep with a mellow, smooth atmosphere that is in sync with the tone of the song. Fields and nature are often conventionally steretyped with a romantic feeling so we wanted to play on this convention by using one of our locations as a park. Furthermore, because the artist is a woman, we wanted to have a location that would have flowers and nature which are steretypically associated with women.

The last location is a bedroom which has a retro feel to it and also were we can place our props that we want to include into the music video. Additionally, the song is very personal so we wanted to include a space where many people would consider a personal place to them.

Another location is at Rachel's (my) house. This is where I filmed my sister playing PAC MAN which we incorporated into our music video. Also I shot a clip with perfume in my room to match up with a particular part of the song.

We also filmed at Jake's house (the actor) we filmed outside in his garden which again sticks to the nature element of our music video and also we wanted to film him smoking which we had to do outside for health and safety reasons. Also we want to film inside of both actor and actress to create a personal space such as the living room where they both will be sat or interacting with one another like many couples do in a normal environment.

Pitch #3

Story Board

Intended Audience For New Song

Our intended audience for our music video is from young adults to any age above. It is broad but we believe that the song choice has retro qualities mixed the modern ideas. This will enable us to expand our audience as the retro theme is coming back into style which gives us a new generation of audience as well as older people. We had to think logically when identifying our audience, the genre of the song is indie pop and we know that that genre is a predominant young adult audience. We wanted to keep this in mind but also we wanted to target the older people so we added retro element such as props and costumes to our music video that the older generation as well as the younger generation can relate to.

This is the Hilton family, Jenny the youngest 18, Craig 21, Molly 23 and the father Tim 56. They all love the song because its new but has the best elements from the 'old' school.
Tim says, 'I love this record as it reminds me of my youth and her voice is very soft which is refreshing from all the screamo dubstep rubbish you hear today.'
Jenny says, 'I love her! This song is so good, it defiantly is romantic which is so cute! She has a beautiful soft voice and I can't wait to hear more of her album!'

Clearly, our intended audience is very broad but because of the artist and her voice we are able to maintain the wide audience that this artist has.

Inspirations

Florence and the Machine is one of our main inspirations. She is all about nature, when people think about her or ask them what characteristics they would say that best defines Florence is the natural, floral romantic personality that she has. She portrays this image by the way that she dresses, her songs, her music videos, props and locations.
We wanted to use elements of nature in our music video, in the costumes, props and locations too so Florence is a perfect inspiration that we could study to successful execute our intended goal.

Leona Lewis is also a big inspiration to us. She also has a very natural presence when she is on camera and she has a powerful singing voice. In most of her music videos she uses the outdoors, animals and real life narratives that make her music videos and songs more understandable to the audience.
We wanted to use certain aspects that she uses such as narrative as we want our audience to relate to it not to wonder what love could be like but to actually know what it's like to experience it. She also uses close up/mid length shots in her music videos which we thought looked brilliant so we decided to use the same method.

Risk Assessment

The places where we are using to film are; a park, a garden, a bedroom, church and south weald park.

The park has little streams, steep hills, bridges and also rabbit holes. Before we began filming I had to check where Sophie would be acting that there wasn't any rabbit holes in case her foot got caught and injured herself, there were no rabbit holes where we filmed and every new spot were we filmed we both checked to see if there were any glass or sharp objects on the floor as there is a scene were Sophie is laying down. We decided not to film near the streams as the earth around it looked un-steady and we didn't want to risk falling down or damaging our equipment. Lastly, we made sure the steep hills weren't muddy so we could get up without falling and injuring ourselves.

The garden had a dip around the grass line to the soil so we made sure that when Sophie was acting, she wasn't near the edge in case she lost her footing and fell. There wasn't any other risks that were present in the garden so it was a very easy location to film in.

The bedroom didn't have any foreseeable risks however, we made sure that Sophie was sat on the bed not too close to the edge in case she fell or slipped down the side of the bed.

The Church had an uneven pavement, however we didn't use an actor whilst filming but we made sure we watched were we walked in case we tripped up the pavement.

South Weald had a few hills that we needed to climb, one of the hills was covered with stones so we had to take extra care when moving the equipment, furthermore Sophie needed to be wearing heels for the shot that we wanted so we brought a change in shoes so she could walk to the location safely. The stair bridge was quite steep so we had to make sure there were no stones on the stairs whilst Sophie was walking up them. Additionally, she had to lean at the top of the bridge so we made sure she wasn't to close to the edge in case she fell off. We were going to do a shot of her walking down the stairs however, we wanted her to wear heels and we deemed this shot as too dangerous as the stairs were too steep so we decided it was too much of a risk to allow her to walk down them. Whilst walking to the shoot we made sure there was no rabbit holes or hidden tree roots that could result in one of us falling over.

Permission E-mail

Here is the e-mail that we sent to Lana Del Rey's record label, we asked for their permission to use the track for our media production.

Who is our demographic?

Our demographic is young adults but, the song has an 'old school' feel to it which could draw in middle-aged/elderly people that like the nostalgia of the song. The 'retro' feel of songs are coming back into style especially in the indie genre. Many teenagers listen to the pop/indie music which the song 'Video Games' by Lana Del Rey shares the same genre. She is a relatively new artist, but already she has a big young adult following. The song will reach our target audience because it is a new kind of melody that established artists fail to cover. Young people like to discover new things, so therefore our demographic is young adults.