A2 Media Studies Music Video: Evaluation

Evaluation:

Transcript:

Hello, we are James and Rich and this is our evaluation for our Media music video project. The song we had used for the video was Darling by a Metalcore band called Eyes Set To Kill.

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

The genre we’re working in is Metalcore, which is a subgenre of Metal, that focuses on the heavier side of the genre. Metalcore is made up of  various elements from hardcore punk and extreme metal. Bands in Metalcore include Killswitch Engage; Bullet For My Valentine; Bleeding Through; and Trivium.

Metalcore, or Metallic Hardcore, emphasizes on certain hardcore elements such as the heavy guitar riffs, and a punk established base of musical variety through the genre. Highlights of this music genre include various sounds such as ‘Breakdowns’, on which tends to be a similar sound followed by a burst of instrumental heaviness using guitars, bass guitars, drums and sometimes techno symphony’s, on which the audience tend to show their enjoyment by ‘moshing’, which is a form of ‘dance’, in their own way, allowing the participants to push and shove each other in aggression to the musical genre.

Our video of Darling, by Eyes Set To Kill, has a wide variety of characteristics, which is common in the Metalcore genre. We’ve kept to the dark surroundings, making the video stand out by highlighting the key features, such as the silhouette of the male vocalist which is in the dark, but the bright backlight to emphasize loneliness, along with the corded telephone which is used in a variety of music, such as ‘Silverstein – Apologize’, which we thought was a nice touch overall, which adds a sense of loneliness.

Finding the female vocalist was difficult, but we managed to persuade an individual that would perform the song, as she fit the basic characteristics of the dress sense for the lead singer of ‘Eyes Set To Kill’, and would fit into the genre of metalcore nicely. We used a diverse range of effects for the video, some Video Transitions we used included ‘Dip to Colour Dissolve’, and ‘Fade In and Fade Out Dissolve,’ other than that we tried some Video Filters such a ‘Earthquake,’ ‘Overdrive,’ ‘Fresh hold’ and ‘Black and White.’ Therefore, we attached some Text Generators onto the video, displaying various emphasis on the profiled words, for the Female, we used Edwardian Script ITC, and for the Male text we used Cracked, which fit into the genre perfectly.

Eyes Set To Kill tend to use various effects, such as a hand held camera in some of their footage, which displays the raw effect of their music, whilst implementing editing features to darken areas, aswel as overlaying images with text which shows the lyrics, bringing a lot of emphasis on certain feelings or drama within the music.

For the casting, we’ve managed to film a female for the female vocals and a male for the male vocals, which keeps in context towards the video and making it as real as possible. We’ve aimed this as the metal/punk/rock audiences, ages 18 to 25, in which the music fits, and in our opinion, so does the music video for the genre. Using darkening techniques and locations, we’ve managed to reenact the typical surrounds in this genre, using spotlights and plain back drops to allow focus on certain areas during the video, such as outlines, text and the vocalists.

A theorist we looking at was Richard Dyer, whom bought in the Four Notions of Representation, he talks about ideology, conventions, gender, the audience and the individuals within the music genre. Looking deeper into this, we came to the conclusion that we’ve addressed the majority of these in various ways. An over and covert message within our video shows the basic display of heartbreak to certain individuals, and how they react. The idea of items breaking show represent a breaking heart came across perfectly whilst maintaining the focus on the genre. Furthermore, showing the gender, usually the male is the more dominant sex, where as in the video it displays the male being the inferior due to the heartbreak. We also stereotype the metalcore genre, showing dark clothing, and emotions that usual sexes tend to hide.

We kept the parts of the male and female vocalists to show realism in the everyday world, that females and males are equals, with no superior or inferior sex, however the video displays the male as being the more inferior sex, with the female being the more superior sex.

Question 2: How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Our overall products, such as the digipack, poster and the music video, all have various items implemented within them, such as dark surroundings, red throughout but not over the top, and sections of white. Surrounding the focus points, including the title, text and logos. The fonts used were as close to Eyes Set To Kill’s fonts as possible, but in which we slightly improved for the better result, for the music video, we used Edwardian Script ICT or the female vocals which followed through onto the digipack on the from cover showing a delicate side to the music genre. Alternative fonts we used included Cracked, which was used during the male vocals of the music video. These fonts make a real impact on the band, showing their softer side along with maintaining the fierce genre stereotype of the music.

Question 3: What have you learned from your audience feedback?

To gain audience feedback on our final product of the music video, we sat down amongst 15 to 20 people, whom watched the final outcome, and presented us with an open and honest opinion of the video, this included what was good, bad and improvements which could be taken out to enhance the final outcome of the video.

Various Good points that were implied starting with:

·      Shadow/silhouette – fits with music.

·      Split screen/looking at each other, separate clips mirrored.

·      Screaming at end = stronger screaming, effects.

·      Smashing items – fits with music.

·      Guitar angles – fade in / fade out.

After the positive feedback, we moved on to the negative feedback, which we tended to agree with. These points were:

·      Female Costume – Needs to fit the genre, darker clothing, fit appearance of genre.

·      Lighting – More consistency, female lighting, effects?

A final overall view of what improvements could be taken out include:

·      Guitars – Fill more of the screen

·      Darker Lighting – more consistency

·      Fit text onto screen

·      Female – effects, costume, various angles,

·      Smoother transitions between effects and overlays

Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? 

·      YouTube(research, ideas, effects, improvements)

·      Blogger(documentation, display, influences)

·      SLR (Nikon d3100, Photoshop - digipack)

·      Photoshop (digipack, logos, editing, final production)

·      Final Cut Express (clips, editing, sync, colour filters, transitions, colour scheme)

·      Phone (communicate, play song for recording, share ideas, feedback – text others on opinion)

·      Google – Search engine, which allowed us to search for items, products and research quickly and easily.

What I learned from this production?

·      Photoshop – first time using properly, overlay, opacity, layers, cropping, blending/smudging, effects.

·      Final cut express – cropping, editing, zoomed, effects, layers(opacity)

·      Filming – tripod(first time), angles, day light filming.

·      Lighting – during filming(dark room, spotlight), outside(natural)

·      Editing – Experiment with effects (V Trans – Dip To Colour Dissolve, Fade In/Out Dissolve) (V Filt – Earthquake, Overdrive, Fresh hold, B/W) (Text Gen – Female = Edwardian Script, fit to screen. Male = Cracked, conveniently placed)

·      Layouts – Music Video, YouTube, Screen Fillers.

·      Crop/zooming – Close Ups, Crop scenes, etc.

·      Speed of clips – Sped up Phone Throw sped up. Slowed down phone break.

·      Missing scene section – Reenacted original video, flickered effects, colour distortion, off-centre.

·      Split screen – Fills screen, 2 sides to the story, multiple instruments.

·      Opacity – Text (slightly faded, fit into background image) Clips (overlay, opacity ontop image lowered)

·      Fade in/Fade out – smooth’s transitions between clips.