Final Blog Post

Dear Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms moderator, here is my coursework. This blog is now complete and is ready for assessment.
Below is the order that everything is in and months where you can find particular work:
Draft music video making - June
Music video research - September to October
Music video planning - November to January
Final music video creation - February 
Evaluation - January

Q4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

New technologies is always a developing new media which benefits so many industries. Apple's iPhones, iMacs, iPads, Blackberries, cameras, camcorders and editing software such as Premiere Pro and Final cut are constantly moving forward and technical advances. This especially benefits the media industries concerning the way that they can then develop their marketing packages, media texts and interactivity with their customers and audiences. 
Advances in new technologies help to develop the industry's creative process which in result branches out to create these new technological developments within both industries and conglomerates - making them economically more efficient, as well as more popular as a brand and more revolutionary in the society we live in today which revolves round change and technological developments and advances. This is the main relationship between creativity and new technologies.


How I used Media 2.0 technologies to complete this marketing package:

I found that my creativity was enabled greatly by the new technologies which I was using. 

For example: 

• This is because the Panasonic HD DV camera we used had a great depth of field use and was a good portable weight so that I could use it easily to film different angles and at different shot lengths, etc. 
• Adobe Premiere Pro was also extremely useful to branch out creatively, as it enabled me to use the different editing options to split, lengthen and add effects to our footage.
•  Adobe Photoshop was also beneficial creatively for the same reasons, with my digipak. 
• This is because I was able to use items such as the Eye-drop tool to change/copy the hue onto different parts of my digipak's pallets, manipulate the size of the images, add text and change the font and sizing of it, etc. 
• Using the website DaFont also greatly helped my creativity regarding the letting for titles on my digipak and magazine adverts, etc.
• Getting audience responses on YouTube and Facebook enabled interaction with the audiences, making them be actively respond because they are taking control of the new technologies.

The way that these new technologies massively benefited me was due to these creative outlets which it enabled, deeming them very useful as part of the production process. 


This my director's commentary on the creative decisions behind the music video, and how we filmed and edited it overall:



Media 2.0 technologies not only benefited me during the marketing package process, but also whilst writing about my work and blogging on 'Blogger.' This is because:

• I was able to change the colour (hue) of the text, as well as the size, and adding bold, italics and underline options at preference. 
• I could embed SlideShare to demonstrate images and diagrams easily (as it is a smaller development of PowerPoint to post easily around the internet). 
• I could embed YouTube clips which I had previously edited on Premiere Pro or Photoshop.
• I could upload an image around my text, and change the size and position of it so that it could illustrate what my text was explaining in a visual way. 

The theory of technical determinism is something which applies greatly to the making of my marketing package. This theory is based around the idea that the technology of society is the back bone of today's cultural values, beliefs, opinions and most importantly - the social structure. As I come to evaluate the technical determinism against my own work, I do not believe that Media 2.0 (new technologies) influenced the entirety of my work, even though I believe that it greatly benefited it. 

I feel that I kept a certain amount of control over the technology I was using. As example - I was editing on Adobe Premiere Pro and I was using the advances in technology which it gave me, but I used to the extent of it helping my work creatively 'grow' and 'branch out,' because I am aware that there is a line otherwise in danger of being crossed where I could have relied on new technologies too much. 

Do develop on this, an further example would be putting a tremendous amount of effects on my footage to make it have the right lighting/atmosphere, instead of properly setting up studio lights and adjusting the Canon HD DV camera in accordance to them when filming on set. 

In conclusion, we controlled the new technologies skillfully so that there was a great influence of creativity on our part, without letting the new technologies control us, which would have ended up in a great lack of original creativity. Therefore, I am being active instead of passive because I am being in control of the new technologies. However I was being passive when looking for influences on YouTube and Google, because I was 'soaking up' what the media was feeding me - however I made conscious decisions to use my inspirations and influences cleverly so that my final work would use different ideas I found and  developed from it. 

Q3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback is a vital part of finding out if the overall marketing package was successful or not. This is because the target audience for this marketing package was the whole reason it was made. 


The hypodermic needle effect theory proves this, as I discovered before I started the planning process of this marketing package. The hypodermic needle effect is based on the idea that:

• The audience are passive
• Therefore we can instantly:
• change their views
• change their behavior
• change their interests 
• change their likes or dislikes
• This is from an "injection" which the media text gives us.

In this case, my marketing package would be giving audiences a message theoretically with 'hope' for life, they would have this 'injected' into them, and come out of viewing my marketing package with a more positive mind.


When undertaking my audience research, I made sure that I kept in mind that my priority for getting decent and reliable results from my audience relied on quality not quantity. In other words, 'Quantitative not Qualitative feedback.' Therefore, I asked my target audience (between 28 to 48) many questions based on th marketing package, so that I got some really in-depth answers, I even kept prompting them if needed be. This showed me what the overall direct effect was, in the audience's reaction to my text.


Firstly, we showed our music video to our class in order to get their feedback on:
If our genre was clearly identified within the music video?
This is what people wrote:

Class Feedback

The overall class feedback that we had was very positive and successful. People responded to our music video the way that we anticipated, and they believed that the style of genre did match the way our music video was presented. 


Below I have calculated some statistics from what the class wrote:
Definite YES to it suiting genre: 11 people agreed.
Definite NO to it suiting genre: 0 people agreed.
BETWEEN YES/NO to it suiting genre: 2 people agreed.


POSITIVE comments (from YES category of people):

• "Cheesy, fits with Christian song."
• "Fits type of music, light hearted, interesting shot angles, lip sync is fine.
• "Choice of ballet suited genre, ending is the favourite"
• "Really good lighting, good story, shots, good mise on scene."
• "Fun, light hearted, lip sync is good."
• "Made me look like this :D"
• "Location is very good, professional video, lip sync is good, fit genre, happy and positive."
• "Dancers are good touch, piano looks good with music, lighting is effective, very smiley."
• "Piano good and lighting."
• "Happy, shots cut well with music, good lighting around piano, good location choices."
• "Good video overall, fit genre, good how some shots match [continuous], glow into sky and start sky lanterns."

NEGATIVE comments (from NO category of people):

This acts as constructive criticism.

• "Actor slightly overly happy."
• "Actor is overly happy."
• "Not sure some of shots needed in some areas."
• "Lip sync could have been slightly better towards in some places."

From this I can conclude that:

• 40% commented on how they liked the lighting.
• 40 commented on how they liked the shots (ie, angles) and how they were cut.
• 30% of the group commented on how they thought the lip sync was right.
• 20% commented on how they thought the locations were good.
• 20% commented on how they liked the contemporary dancing.
• 20% commented on how they liked the piano section.
• 20 % commented on how they thought the actor was overly happy.
• 10% commented that some shots weren't needed in some areas.
• 10% said that the lip sync could have been better towards the end.

It is evident here that the type of pleasure this media text offers to the audience is happiness, this is clearly also how this class was affected by the text, in the way that it changed their mood. This type of cultural capital is reading the text still in a positive way, even though it is not specifically aimed at this age range.

Questionnaire Answers

Here are print outs of the questionnaires. (They are the same ones as in the slideshow).

Click to enlarge. Double click to zoom in.

The overall feedback from my actual target audience was rather successful. However this audience which I questioned had more constructive criticism to say about the music video. This would most likely have been because it was with an audience which had an different social class and Cultural Capital. This audience were mostly from middle class to higher class backgrounds, the would most likely be between C1/2 to A on the Jicnars scale. They may also have a Chrisitan faith.

Below I have written some quotes which stood out to me from these questionnaires:

• "Accompanies music well, gives it interest visually."
• "If for the target audience and older, in some ways old fashioned."
• "Enjoyable but not my style."
• "Made me smile."
• "Could have been a more clear story between the boy and girl, and bigger dancing - or make the camera be more zoomed into them?"
• "It did not have mainstream 'sexy' concepts as most music videos do these days."
• "I was not bored because the shot lengths were quick."
• "Lip sync in some parts [could be improved]."
• "I like short shots and dancing."
• "I guessed genre was Christian related, but wasn't sure what else."
• "Changed my mood - made me happier."
• "Kept me interested and occupied."
• "Short, snappy."
• "Interesting, lots happening."
• "Need more shots of boy miming."
• "More narrative between singer and girl."
• "Young in spirit."
• "Not powerful enough, just happy."

Target Audience Questionnaire - Evaluation:

I felt that I was rather successful with the feedback which I received back from my target audience in these questionnaires. Over the half term (a week previous to my deadline), I showed a group of 8 people who were in my target audience, the final music video which my media partner and I made. Their response and reactions were positive, and this was proved in the way that my audience said the media text affected them, and how it changed their emotional response in the questionnaire - with the majority of the 8 people saying that they felt happier from it, and it made them smile. The majority also confirmed that it was easy to see what the genre was in the music video, and that the music video related to it. As with the class audience response, this target audience also stated in the questionnaires that they liked the dancing. However, unlike the class responses, I got more constructive criticism from my target audience's questionnaires, as discussed earlier; over 20% of my target audience suggested that I could have improved the narrative between the actor (who mimed the lyrics), and the girl. This was also commented on in the class feedback. Less than 10% of my target audience suggested that I was to correct the lip sync, but YouTube may have slowed down the syncing because when we checked it in the Adobe Premiere Pro editing suite, it seemed correct. However, I do agree that, as stated in the class feedback, we could have added more shots of the actor 'singing.' Overall, I feel that the target audience's response in these questionnaires are positive, which shows that we were successful creating the audience response we anticipated for the age range and cultural capital of our target audience.

Facebook Feedback:

We also made a group on Facebook based for audience feedback. We added as many people as we could who were in the age range, and then posted our finished music video on the wall - asking these people to comment on it. Even though only two people commented back, the quality in their answers were very good, and provided decent constructive criticism which we would look at and reflect on. Abbey Scott and Chris Eaton himself commented on the video in this Facebook group, and discussed how they liked the 'collage' of ideas. Her constructive criticism was that we should have thought about how to create the 'sheer excitement of the song,' however, I felt that our very fast pace in editing which we used at the end and start of the music video did this. I also felt that it was hard to capture the said, 'excitement' of this song because it is a very different genre which holds only a certain target audience. 


Someone named 'Leon Evans' also commented underneath our video, saying that he loved the lantern idea, and the energy of the end section. However, as agreed, he stated that we should perhaps have captured some different angles of the singer. I will keep this in mind for future productions because I feel that it is a very useful piece of advice. As Andrew Goodwin's theory stated, music videos mostly have a very close-up relationship between the camera and the singer's face, which is what I did, but I did not use close ups from enough angles.


Here are is more target audience research: 

The audience feedback research evaluation:

From the Interviews, Questionnaires and Facebook Group

I found that overall, my audience's response in every field of the feedback which I created was successful. The audiences reacted in the way which we anticipated, and the way in which we wanted them to respond emotively, as the majority of people said that they felt happier after watching it - this also goes as the audience's 'pleasure' from the media text. I felt that they all understood the genre well, and from what I questioned, most people wanted to carry on watching the music video after the first minute. This is inevitably good. The way that my audiences picked up on the fact that they liked the lighting and cut pace of the music video interested me, because it showed that the editing behind the whole production was seen as successful too. I have learnt how the editing brings alive the 'skeleton structure' of the footage. 


The constructive criticism which was put forward helped me realise what we could do if we had a second chance; but regardless, I shall take on the constructive criticism given and put it into practice in future productions. The lip syncing shall be the first priority next time I ever make a music video, because I feel we could have put more attention towards it. I also agree with what my audiences said, by stating that the narrative storyline between the boy and girl could have been improved, and made more of a feature. I completely agree with this. 

I then had to take the Cultural Studies Approach, decided whether my media texts came under a preferred, oppositional or negotiated reading. I found that the media texts I had produced had no choice but to be preferred text, because my target audience was for an older generation who generally expect to see the conventions which make up a certain style of media text be set in that certain form and style, with no surprises! With the genre of my artist being Christian pop, I knew that I had to make sure that I kept my marketing package specific to that, because this is how I knew that I would make my marketing package coherent and successful to what the audience expected. 


Therefore, my media texts fall into the preferred reading because I designed it so that they would accept the text in a way I intendended which would not challenge their values or beliefs. I can be sure of this after my research, because I know that my media texts do not fall into the 'oppositional reading' category, where the audiences would reject the messages and values of the text; or into the 'aberrant reading' where the audience completely fail to understand the text. However, it is still possible for it to give off an oppositional reading - for example, if it were on MTV, a teenage audience who were not completely under the target audience would take an oppositional reading, because it would mainly not be either music genre choice.


Furthermore, I find that Theodor Adorno's theory comes into place here, as he believed that:

Nothing is from the heart in music - it is all about selling a product. 

This related to stereotyping, such as the format that girl bands are in under almost every record label, no matter what genre. I find that this is also evident for the music video (and overall marketing package), which my media partner and I created. This is because our music video had to come under the stereotype of 'cheesiness' in the music video especially, so that it would sell its genre of Christian pop successfully at the aimed target audience of 28 to 48 year olds. 


The stereotyping of this 'cheesiness' and 'optimism' in our music video in particular, came from the actions of the actor who was miming the main lyrics, as we captured his smile and made him mime with a happy expression. The dancers and pianist were also conventional things which would most likely be expected in a music video with a genre of Christian pop; the way that we dressed the dancers and pianist in formal clothing relates to this also. 


The ideology of Raymond Williams also interlinks with this raised issue, as his theory revolves around the idea of dominant, residual and emergent relations to the audience.

• My music video was dominant because it expressed dominant values, which are current believes and expectations which the society of today has - making the audience respond in an ordinary way to the media text, because it is 'safe' to their expectations and does not challenge them.
• If the music video were residual, it would raise issues and cultural values which are recently being brought into society. 
• If the music video were emergent, it would raise issues which are not accepted by society and its cultural values. 

This all also links to the Cultural Capital, which is how audiences perceive media texts depending on their age and social class. 

• This proved very relevant for my media texts, because my social class was for middle to higher class, who could interpret the text with their Christian beliefs. 
• My target audience's age was also relevant to this, as it was aimed for 28 to 48 year olds, which made it certain that my media texts would have had to be dominant and preferred readings, so that they would be a success with the audience that I anticipated would react to it.

Q2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Right from when I started planning my digipak, magazine advert and music video, I knew that they all had to be coherent with each other - adding up as a package that had a house style and 'co-ordinated' with each other, adding to the overall promotional benefits and success.
This was made clear by the original brief:

A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo together with: 

• a cover for its release as part of a digipak (CD/DVD package);
• a magazine advertisement for the digipak (C/DVD package).

This design brief basically insinuated that I had to make a media package which 'complimented' each other and linked overall with each other. This added up to us needed to make a marketing package. 


When developing the idea of these three media products, I had to keep in mind that they all had to add up as a marketing package as part of the result. 
To make this simpler, I had to use the 4 P's:
Price - is it costing a decent amount which the audience can afford?
Product - are the products of good quality? 
Place - is the place convenient? 
Promotion - is the promotion campaign well thought out? Is it effective?


I researched into the averaging pricing of digipaks, so that my own price stayed within reason too. All of the different products had to be made with having a house style. 

Regarding the intertextuality, I feel that the same overall theme of 'light' was used throughout each different media product which I created. I.e.... 

• I used sparklers and candles for my digipak. 
• I used a sparkler for my magazine advert.
• I used sky lanterns in my music video many times, and ended it with that concept.
• I also feel that this all conveyed the right message for my target audience, as the title was 'Dare to Dream' and I feel that this corresponds correctly with the theme of 'light,' as it symbolizes hope and is also a symbol for Christianity. This is therefore also suited towards the Christian audiences - due to the genre of the artist being 'Christian Pop.'

Regarding the rest of the intertextuality, the fonts were also the same throughout each of the three media products and the 'atmosphere' I feel was too. The target audience was kept strongly in mind throughout the creation of each project, and I feel that this was paid off strongly at the end. 

Furthermore, I made sure that I kept the same: 
Contextual language, linguistic style and mode of address.

Using the same overall theme I feel really helped to put the 4 P's and all these other necessary conventions together in order to make a successful media package.

I kept the linguistic style rather formal, because my target audience was aimed for middle class people, between 28-48. 

The images referenced to Chris Eaton's song message - about 'daring to dream.' (This being the use of light in the majority of the pictures).

The font was also something which I tried to co-ordinate with the images and style - making the font be in a light yellow colour, and having a 'scripture' style font which coincided with the idea of scripture writing.

The use of media language overall here was something kept necessary to be in coherence with each other, so that the three media products overall related and promoted each other beneficially. 

This is because the idea of selling the digipak, magazine advert and music video as a package all comes together by branding. Keeping the niche and style consistent to the expectations of the target audience was the key behind selling the three items together as a package. The brand came from this consistency.

Here I did some audience researching how coherent they thought my marketing package was:

My audience agree with the evaluation below:


In my opinion, the branding of my marketing package is coherent because they link together for different reasons:

• I used the colour white, which is M=0% M=0% Y=0% HTML code - FFFF
• I used white in contrast with black, which is C=10% M=100% Y=100% K=100% HTML code - 000000
• I also contrasted the black and white with bright yellow in all three media texts, which is C=0% M=4% Y=44% K=0% HTML code - FFFF7F
• The advantage of using colour codes are so that you can get the same colour tone used across all texts. 
• I used CMYK instead of RGB because CMYK is the colour coding for printers, and the RGB colour coding is for computer screens. I needed the quality in the print. 
• These colours came very useful in linking the media texts together, as it gave an instant link from first appearance. 
• The font type also plays a part in this, as the fonts in my digipak and magazine adverts are sans serif fonts. I did this to break the informality of the media text.
• My posture and proxemics stood up right across my media texts.
• The lighting was the same throughout the texts, morealess, because of the naturalistic lighting which occurred from the high contrast in lightening objects against dark, such as candles, sparklers and sky lanterns. These light objects appear in my digipak, magazine advert and music video. 
• This makes the ultimate theme which gives coherence to this marketing package; being the authenticity of the theme of light relating all the media texts.

Coherence

Q1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

This evaluation shall be addressing three areas:

• Digipak
• Digipak Magazine Advert 
• Music Video

Digipak [and some aspects of digipak magazine advert and music video production]
The early research for this digipak came from my research which I did on the internet regarding the design specifics and creation needed to make a successful digipak which looks professional. Firstly, I looked over sheets which my teacher provided specifying the width and length of the digipak pallets. 
I found out  that:
The measurements for typical CD digipaks:
12 cm X 12 cm          = print size, with a spine.


After finding the specific measurements which most digipak creators go by, I then decided it best to stick to these measurements during my influence and research finding process, so that I had a clear idea of the overall design and pallet specifications. Whilst researching during the next steps of the process, I made sure that I found a pattern in the design measurements - which I did. All I then needed to address was the design which would creatively have to look appealing to the eye (mostly concerning its target audience), and also how the creative design would relate well to the genre given to the artist's album I was creating the digipak for - for my case, Chris Eaton. This was my next step regarding digipak research: making sure that I used a lot of resources. This involved finding digipaks in HMV stores in order to see what they look in real life, as well as researching on many sites on the internet. 


Further digipak influences came from scouting digipak variations which are out there at the moment, older and modern; but always staying close to the genre or style type which I planned to use (involving the target audience which I would create my digipak for, also). The specific digipaks which I looked at were: Shakira - Donde Estan Los Ladrones, Stereophonics - Just Enough Education to Perform and Inside Again - End of The Beginning.


I then went onto looking at further questions which involved the creation of my digipak in relation to the concerns which were raised when researching. I.e... 

• How will my audience recognize the genre of the music from viewing my digipak?
• How will the 'house style' be linked to the brand image of my band?
• How will I link the styles of the video, cover and advert all together, so it all matches?
• What is the digipak cover for?

Through the useful task of asking myself these questions, I realized that:

• The colour type, font and size needed to be consistent throughout all of the three production tasks I needed to create in relation to this artist. 
• How illustrative/amplifying/disjunctive it is in regard to the messages and themes of the music on the "CD."
• The overall theme needed to stay the same. 
• Any clothing or specific locations needed to relate well. 
• The title needed to relate to the genre and the background.
• The target audience was to be kept in mind that that was the most important thing to base all three production tasks around. 
• Needed to be suitable for the target audience's age/beliefs/advertising places (such as on shelves or on iTunes).

Through this research, I realized that for my genre style of music which I had to make media products for, (being Christian Pop), it was best to keep to the redundant structure. Therefore by the end of the digipak process, I realized that I kept my final digipak redundant by following the typical measurements which I found were used consistently behind the overall design of the digipaks I researched. I also used typical digipak conventions [listed above]. This also went for the two further production media tasks I had to do, being the music video and magazine advert.


However, following these forms and conventions were still potentially dangerous because I did not want too much predictability behind the creation (otherwise known as being too 'safe'), because it could then lead into being potentially too boring to the audience, and not catch the eye of the target audience on shop shelves, or on iTunes, etc. Thus I needed to have some sort of entropic concepts incorporated into my digipak design (as well as with my other two media production tasks, being the music video and magazine advert). 
     On the other side of the entropic - redundant scale, I also realized that it was important to appreciate that it could be dangerous to go into the entropic style too heavily, which would ultimately become a problem for attracting my target audience. This is because my target audience is for the older generation who are 28-48yrs old, and who most likely have a Christian belief. 


My entropic boundaries I therefore decided, went into making the background images for each pallet of my digipak match but look original - yet still in reference to the genre (Christian Pop). This was when I came up with the idea of 'light' as a concept to work with and develop for my magazine advert and digipak. 
     To the left is part of the creative research which went behind making the audience research. The picture is where a slideshow of different images were placed based behind the theme of light. I also found creative research, influences and inspiration through different types of adverts, artwork and photographers which I looked at - mostly on the bloggers site, "Tumblr." My audience research directed me into similar texts, because of the genre style and also age which my target audience were at. I followed what styles and conventions suited these aspects which needed detail to attention for, in order to make it work. One photographer which I found in particular that was extremely influential to me was Seb Janic as mentioned in previous blog posts. His work had a variety of original work which had an auteur niche. I liked the way he played with light in many of his digipak designs also. 


Final Digipak Design:

For my final digipak design, I ended up using light bulbs which were in and out of focus - deliberately, and taken by a Cannon D500. With the same camera, I also took photos of sparklers and candles in close-ups/extreme close-ups. This was to ensure that my pallet images followed on from my inspiration and research, but also so that it would have entropic elements, where I match the overall theme and concept throughout my digipak (being the 'light'), but I made sure that I did not have the same picture simply at different angles throughout. The quote which I used on a middle pallet was also entropic, because I did not find that in many digipaks previously. However I kept my digipak redundant by keeping the font and size consistent, as well as the conventional technical design behind the process of the digipak.

Magazine Avert
The magazine advert which I had to create was something which had to keep a lot of similarity to both the digipak and the music video, was all for the same song/artist. Therefore it all had to match and co-ordinate. 


The magazine advert had to have more redundant than entropic elements to it, as that was what the target audience (of an older generation) was going to most likely expect. However, I felt that I made this magazine advert slightly entropic by having a huge sparkler in the background with text over it, framed by sepia colored clouds. Blurring this in Photoshop made the framing less harsh. 


The layout of the magazine advert, however, is redundant because of the way that the text and 'other music magazine's opinions' are places at the top of the advert - directly rating the artist himself. It is also redundant because it is not at all controversial towards the message it is trying to send, I found it best to do this because of the genre of the artist and the generation of the audience. 


Also, because I was aware of the magazine advert having the potential to fall dangerously into a very bland image in result of being too safe and redundant, I made sure that I made a big issue about the sparkler in the background, contrasting and basing everything else around it. This is because I knew that from the original image of the sparkler, which I took - it would attract the most attention and would potentially catch the viewer's eye if made the main element to the advert. The framing of the sepia clouds made it have references to Christianity and 'God' because it would most likely be printed in a Christian Music magazine, due to the artist having a Christian pop genre. 


Music Video
My first branch of ideas came from analyzing different music videos which related to the style and genre which I wanted to use for my own work. 
My early influences came from:

• Our idea about having a huge group of people involved in the focus of the music video. 
• The concept of using dancers throughout the whole of our music video.
• The idea of people appearing happy and optimistic.
• Different camera angles of the dancers and people in general. 

Katy Perry - Firework 
Justin Bieber - Somebody to Love
Yves Larock - Rise Up
Leona Lewis - Forgive Me


I then put further research into how these music videos were actually made, by scouting for documentaries on YouTube. Katy Perry's music video for Firework had a very good and detailed video about how the whole production process of the video happened, from day 1 until the end of the shooting. I took on board how the music video director approached the way of telling his musician how to act in front of the camera in accordance to the song, and to also lip-sync correctly. I found ways which also approached the way that the music video director took control of the huge crowd of volunteers which featured in the music video - i.e. how many times the director had to shoot one take, and how he kept them all behaved by making it a professional environment. 


It was also intriguing to see how the crowd handled the situation, and how much input the musician (Katy Perry) had on the whole project. She had creative decisions put forward by her influences of how she wanted the music video of hers to look, and the crowd of volunteers were therefore encouraged by the music video directors and Katy Perry herself on how they were to act in front of the cameras. 


Also, small things such as having the director say, "three, two, one, action!" was important for me to see, because it showed how everyone responded to that command before every shot, and how it set the correct environment. It also occurred to me how important it clearly was to keep a light, positive and happy atmosphere going amongst the crew and actors, because this kept the right energy going on screen, reflecting the important message and genre of the song "Firework." 


Researching other music videos directed our creativity as it showed what we could achieve in order to make a huge scale project look rather professional. 

• From researching Katy Perry's music video documentary, it was significantly clear that we had to keep a happy atmosphere continuously throughout the music video for our target audience to respond to. Katy Perry's song had a happy, upbeat tempo and kept I, as part of the target audience feeling positive and optimistic whilst watching it - Which is exactly what we needed our audience to feel when watching our music video, because it was from a similar genre type, with a similar message.

When creating our music video, I realized that it followed Steve Neale's theory about genre - which is:

"Instances of repetition and difference."

This is because we made our final music video follow a repetitive style of acting/dancing/piano playing, however, the difference is that we used a different angle and shot type to each individual shot which we used. I found that the cutting of each individual small shot was the main key to making this theory of Steve Neale's be successful. 


Our final music video also follows the Nicholas Abercrombie theory. He said:

"Television producers set out to exploit genre conventions... It... makes sound economic sense. Sets, properties and costumes can be used over and over again. Teams of stars, writers, directors and technicians can be built up, giving economies of scale."

With our music video, we kept budgeting and rationalizing... keeping it apparent when planning locations, costumes, etc. This was because we knew that we would have the most success with our music videos this way. Making everything economically beneficial was a big concept to keep in mind. For example: 

• We reused the drama studio twice for the dancers and for the pianist. However, we moved the studio lighting around the room as appropriate so that it created different effects regarding the necessary mood change we were trying to portray.
• We used Sophie (the other director of this music video) as an actor as well as the director, due to our key singer (who would mime to the lyrics) being ill on the days of shooting. 
• Sharing roles in the production of our music video was a hugely beneficial thing which was both good for keeping to a quick-paced schedule and also to make sure that everything got done to a good standard. Altering roles was something which both me and my media partner took part in. 
• I alternated between director, camera operator, studio lighting control and editor. 
• My media partner alternated between director, camera operator, actor and editor.

Following Bordwell and Thompson's theory, which I had found previously, I realized that when editing, I had to make sure that I used all four of his ideological elements to how a music video should be edited. This involved:

• Spatial - The composition of what is being shown on the screen
• Graphic - The images on the screen
• Temporal - The plot of the music video
• Rhythmic - The pace of the image in sync to the beat of the song

Therefore, my media partner and I made sure that we:

• a) We paid a lot of attention to detail in how the music video was shot - making sure that we had many angles, difference in depth of field, difference in close ups/long shots, etc and difference in lighting, location, costume, etc. => But whilst doing this, making sure that the composition was all balanced. 
• b) The images on the screen (in the second 'Graphic' section to the theory) was linked to the first 'Spatial' theory section. We made sure that the images on the screen would be lively and interesting, keeping the target audience in mind. 
• c) The temporal section to the theory, being the plot of the music video, was made sure by my media partner and I, that it was easy to understand and simple. Therefore we simply had a girl follow the 'main singer' in the woods, and then they came 'friends.' We did not need a big story plot because we had so many other aspects to the video, such as the pianist, singer (alone), sky lanterns and dancers.
• d) The last section to Bordwell and Thompson's theory, being the rhythmic section, was to make sure that the music video had each image in sync to the beat of the song. I felt that when editing, we made this a priority because it is the most basic way that a music video works successfully - to make it look professional. Different shots cut in time to the beat, also add different atmospheres and pace. For example, I made sure that we edited the last section of the music video at a faster pace so that it built up to a climax at the end of the song, making the audience feel more enlightened towards the end.

Our editing techniques also apply similarly towards Carol Vernallis' theory who believed that continuity editing was a popular way of editing music videos, yet it was limited by only a certain number of shot types. This is why we only put a small amount of continuity shots into our music video, which would equal up to around 3 shots in total regarding each different continuity section. We use montage editing heavily in the last few seconds of our music video, which as Carol Vernallis explained, makes it hard to express narrative, but allows shots to be consistently abstract. This is the reason why we used montage editing so heavily at the end - because we did not have a huge narrative so we were able to use many 'abstract shots' which added the pace linking to Bordwell and Thompson's theory.

The Auteur Theory was also applied due to the music video clearly representing the directors (being my media partner and I) having our own personal creative vision. Our personalities clearly came through the music video, not necessarily for the Christian context, but for the way that my media partner and I are rather cheerful people, which had a huge influence on the style of music video we ended up creating.

When making this music video we made sure that our video had some originality so that it would not become boring when watching. However, I found this very difficult because it was a song which did not allow a lot of creative outlets, as it had a lot of predictability in the lyrics and was quite bland. Because of this, it also proved to make it very hard to make it have entropic elements; but I did not want to fall into the trap of making it too redundant because that would have left the audience gaining no reaction or satisfaction from our music video to this song. I personally felt that with this genre of song (being Christian pop), it was best to keep it to its expectations for the target audience. Having an older target audience for this music video (being between 28 and 48) also added reason to this problem of creating a lot of entropic concepts, because older generations tend to expect what the contents of the songs or general details of media products in general, bring. 
Entropic Elements included:

• The light lanterns being set off was something which we tried to make as an extra section of the music video, which particularly picked up towards the end of the music video.
• Capturing the people who didn't know they were being filmed. I.e. running around with the sky lanterns, lighting them up, smiling at someone, looking at the sky, a blooper in the dance routine, etc. All of the footage which we captured when people were not aware of it being shot kept an added positive atmosphere to our music video - in my opinion - and also added an entropic element to the overall video because it was not staged, and was simply authentic and original emotion and action coming from the people involved. 

On the other hand, as explained above, we kept many redundant elements because this is what our target audience (of an older generation) would most expect to this song. 
We used a lot of redundancy by: 

• We kept the 'singer' who was miming the song keep it very 'cheesy' in accordance to the song's lyrics. 
• We had dancers in our music video, which is a redundant element in most music videos. 
• We edited in the same style as music videos typically do - this made it easily recognizable as a music video.

My audience research which I carried out was after presenting my pitch to the class. This reaction that my audience research gave was something that influenced me to look into media texts which were either similar to my genre or the message which was being brought out by my artist - Chris Eaton. This was what lead me onto researching into Katy Perry's 'Firework' song, etc, because she had the same message as what Chris Eaton's 'Dare to Dream' song had. However, the other music videos and media texts which I looked into reflected the style of motion we wanted captured in our cameras, i.e. the angles of which dancing looked best, etc.