Evaluation- Question 1

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

Here is a video describing how I have used Goodwin and Vernallis' theories in my
work...



VIDEO INFLUENCE:

During my researching period I came across three videos that influenced the choices I made when producing my video and ancillary work.


CeeLo Green 'Bright Lights, Bigger City'-

The video views the artist as the narrator and the performer. Although, I feel that the video follows Carol Vernallis' theory of a narrative structure, moreover the events taking place in the video mirror the lyrics of the song "Bright Lights" ..."Bigger City" and CeeLo is literally driving through the city he lives in. However, although the video is set in America I wanted to capture the views of Southbank within my video.

The use of Bokeh Lights is prominent within the video and this is where my original idea sprang from as they follow Goodwin's idea of amplifying an image and having it as a recurring motif throughout the video. Therefore, I felt that this method would be ideal when incorperating synergy within my work. The use of opacity editing is also used in CeeLo Green's video, which is a technique we use within our video. This also helps illustrate the concept of our video, showing the girl in the city she lives in, as well as introducing the artist in terms of her background; living in London, enjoying the night life.

 

For the inside of my Digipak I have used an image where opcaity editing is used within Photoshop. I felt this was important to show aspects of the video within my anciallry work so that they visually link. Which is a convention I have recognised throught the work of artosts such as Olly Mur's and Pink. 

I used bokeh lights to merge with an image of the artist as I felt this simply sums up the video, I chose not to merge the whole of both images as the front cover of my Digipak shows this and I wnated to show some visual distinction between the inside and outside of the Digipak.

Coldplay 'Every Teardrop is a Waterfall' 

 

Within Coldplay's video I found that it was visually interesting. The beginning of the video features a timelapse of the sun coming up over the city and I found this effective as it provides the audience with an insight into the setting of the video, making it either relatable by using recognisable loactions. I thought using a timelapse within our video would help our audience feel involved as they would recognise iconic buildings; the BT tower and Central London. David also found a convenient place to film this, which was high up so we could view the whole city-scape. As opposed to Coldplay filming the sun coming up, we decided to film the city getting dark as our video was set in the evening to view the night-life and lights of London.

<-- Coldplay's timelapse





                                  Our timelapse -->











The other reason I enjoyed this video was due to the number of basetracks they used, there were three in total which is the number that we decided to use. Moreover, in Coldplay's video the location remains the same, however they use different parts of the building to show variation. I feel that this is successful as the audience can recognise that they are in the same place, as opposed to filming in two opposing locations. I wanted the locations in our video to be iconic, also the audience would be able to recognise if we had filmed basetracks outside of London.

 I chose to follow the conventions of music videos in terms of keeping the locations accessible and using them in different parts of the video. We used the Walk between London Bridge and the Millenium Bridge (1st verse/ Chorus) , on the Millenium Bridge (2nd verse/Chorus) and Liverpool Street (Final Verse) to film our video. 

Disclosure 'F For You'                                                    

 

Disclosure are a band who create House music which is the genre I wanted to replicate within my work, as well as form my artist around this genre. The performance of the duo is very stripped back and does not involve any dancing and only minor gestures are shown within this. As our song choice is from Disclosure it was important that we attempt to identify the key conventions which apply to them as artists.

• Costume- The costume that Disclosure wear are shirts and jeans which are casual wear. However, as our artist is female we understood that Costume choice would be different. An artist who we felt helped us style pour artist was Katy B. Our audience being 15-25 year olds put them within the aspirer market, this meant that clothes from the highstreet would be appropriate as they are reasonably priced and easily accessible, so that if the audience chooses to view our artist as an 'idol' they could access what she wears. 
  
   
• Filters- The use of filters can be seen in Disclosures video as the saturation is very low, causing it to be black and white, they then rely on the lights to provide a sense of colour in their video. However, as our aspect of synergy is mainly to accentuate bokeh lights, we wanted to keep our video in colour. We decided to experiment with filters on Final Cut, without finding what we wanted, we then turned to colour corrector to alter and make our video look more professional, as well as highlight the aspects of synergy. 
  
  Moreover, my ancillary work also demonstrates the illustration of bokeh lights. On Photoshop I began to edit the images and used a liduifiying effect to make the bokeh lights more prominent in the background.
  
  The costume used for my ancillary relates to Disclosure wearing shirts/ casual wear as this fits with the audience being aspirers, therefore on the promotional products it is important to show a sense of accessibility to the audience. Moreover, I chose to play with the brightness/colour of my ancillary work as I wanted it to look visually appealing.

Conventions - Have I challenged them?

I feel that I have abided by most of the conventions of the House genre; using disjuncture to form my video, amplifying a certain aspect of the video (lights) and discarding any type of vigorous dance. However, in terms of my video I recognised that House artists rarely identify themselves on their Digipak and Posters.

 

(Chase and Status)                                                          (Disclosure)

I chose to challenge this convention as I wanted to show my artist in her neutral way without using graphics to illustrate the video. This was due to the limited time we had to Produce and Create the media products and I was nbot experienced in making an graphic based video. Moreover, a female house artist is hard to find and bringing a new, up-coming one with images of herself on the covers would immediately state who she is and that she aims to target an audience of aspirers. 

Overall, I feel that my media products have a unique sense about them and I have displayed the various theories of both Goodwin and Vernallis within my work. The researching process allowed me to find out the conventions of the House genre and I could also alter and play about with these.