2. Q1. In what ways does your media use, develop or
challenge forms of real media products?
During the course of my planning and my development of my music
video, I have researched relevant conventions and products and
decided what I would like to use or challenge within my final
product. My initial research was directed mainly at analysing and
critiquing pop music videos as this was my groups chosen genre.
Additionally, when viewing numerous pop music videos I noticed
• The link between the lyrics and what was being shown,
depending on the genre of music different characteristics were
portrayed.
• The Male Gaze, the theory that more seductive clothing is worn
so it attracts a larger male audience.
Demands of the industry (representation of the artist,
especially women)
• Performance based, Narrative based or Concept based music
videos.
To fit the conventions of a pop video we began to use the things
that I had learnt, when planning our storyboard from this we also
began to get ideas on what our storyboard should be and the
conventions it should produce.
3. Links between the lyrics and what is being shown…
• This was shown in the original music video for Rihanna- we found love, the opening lyrics of
the song are ‘And we're standing side by side’ this immediately tells the audience that song
is about two people who are wrapped up in a relationship. The fast beat of the song
captures the fast moving shots as we see the couple in numerous settings within a short
period of time. The symbolic message that is produced straight away is that whilst the lyrics
are happy and the beat is fast the characters within the music video are together and look
like they are having fun and in love.
• The purpose of the lyrics is to be a narrative within the story as most pop videos are mini
films which produce a message that the artist wants to incorporate within their music.
Without the lyrics there would still be a story and with just the lyrics and no music video
there would still be a story is well, the two aspects compliment each other and help produce
a video that keeps the audience constantly entertained.
4. Links between the lyrics and what is being shown…
• When writing our storyboard we wanted to produce the conventions of a pop video and
connect the audio with the visual, this is why it was vital to produce a story that would fit
the lyrics. One of opening lyrics is ‘as your shadow crosses mine’ so we decided to
create a shot of ‘Jayme-lee’ in a shadow
“ AS YOUR
SHADOW
CROSSES
MINE”
This is so that the audience can understand the lyrics of the song with the help of a visual.
Moreover the spotlight is on our artist to show the importance of her presence in the music video
and because she is a new artist we wanted to straight away show the audience her look (this is why
she has a snapback on).
5. Links between the lyrics and what is being shown…
Throughout the whole of the song the lyrics are connected to the visual another example of this
is ‘Love and life I will divide, turn away cause I need you more’ this lyric is in the chorus
therefore that is why it plays such an important part of the song and is one of the main
meanings of the whole song. Moreover the song is about not knowing if it right to be with a
partner, or if it will be a bad decision in the long run, therefore that is why we decided that for
half of the song our artist ‘Jayme-lee’ should be by herself to show the two sides of the story.
Another side of the story that we wanted to show is the rebellious and disobedient side of our
artist and the stereotypical view that society has on today’s youth, therefore we wanted to add
typical things that teenagers do for example drink and drugs as one of the lyrics is ‘What it takes to
come alive’
6. The pop culture references that Rihanna’s original video portray’s…
• Rihanna’s video to we found love is a whirling, wanton mix of substances, sex and severity that
pushes her bad-girl image to places we never thought possible. Of course, contained within all that
shocking imagery are a whole lot of pop-culture references. Here are a couple of references that I
found interesting whilst researching the video:
• "Everytime": A 2004 video released by Britney Spears, in which she portrays a star hounded by paparazzi and
trapped in a terrible relationship with a fellow star (actor Stephen Dorff). In a memorable -- and controversial --
scene, Spears commits suicide by taking a handful of pills and drowning in a bathtub. The shot of her submerging is
replicated in "We Found Love," with Rihanna doing the drowning.
• Misfits: Iconic, frequently-in-flux American horror-punk act, often considered to be pioneers of the genre. In "We
Found Love," their logo appears on the back of a denim jacket worn by Rihanna's love interest, Dudley
O'Shaughnessy. Logos by legendary punk acts the Exploited and Suicidal Tendencies also show up
• Araki, Gregg directed the video he is best known for his nihilistic "Teenaged Apocalypse Trilogy" -- "Totally F---ed
Up," "The Doom Generation" and "Nowhere" -- a series of films brimming with sex, drugs and violence. Therefore
this is where the experience and detail comes from in the making of "We Found Love."
7. Links between the music and the visual…
• We wanted to make sure that the video was suited to the song, the songs beat is very fast
therefore we wanted fast moving shots in the opening to go with the style of the song. This
fast beat creates a sense of youth, so we started the video off with a confused young girl
walking home from a nigh out! Starting with a close up so you can immediately identify the
main character and the wild style she has.
As you can see from these pictures there is a new shot for each second that goes by of the song, this
represents the fast pace of the song. We wanted our artist to have a different style of clothes on for
each of the shots. I think the rate at which the frames change at the early stage of the video work well
to quickly entice and attract the viewer, they will be intrigued to find out about the three different
stories being presented to them on the screen.
8. Links between the music and the visual…
• Another similarity we noticed in pop videos was although most videos tell a story there is also
a point where the artist sings directly to the audience to create a direct encounter with the
artist and to add another element to the video. When shooting lip syncing shots we found it
extremely difficult to lip sync in time with the music and it looked very unprofessional.
However we decided to film the lip syncing shots over and over therefore when it came to the
time to edit we could choose the best shot that looked the most professional.
As you can see the above shots are the 3 different settings that we decided our artist should be lip
syncing in. We was very pleased with the final editing of all three of the lip syncing shots as we felt
that it flowed and didn’t look out of place or fake.
9. Genre Characteristics
• When creating our artist the characteristics and style was very important. We wanted to create
an artist that was bold and unique so that she would stand out, the first thing we did was
create an name for her. We come up with the name Jayme-Lee as we believed that the double
barrowed name would suggest two Identities. Moreover clothing and location of our video
played a big part in the characteristics of our artist, for example in one of the scenes of our
music video, Jayme-Lee is wearing odd socks this is to represent originality and uniqueness.
The music video is mainly filmed on a deserted field this is to express the eccentricity of our
artist. Moreover we wanted to convey the conventions of a female pop artist and dress her in
stylish but appropriate clothing as when we was researching female pop artists this is what
they represented.
Rihanna
Jayme-Lee
Although we wanted to convey the conventions of a pop video we decided to challenge these
conventions slightly, we wanted to represent Jayme-Lee as stylish however we didn’t want to go
over the top and dress her in minimal clothing where she would feel uncomfortable.
10. Genre Characteristics
• Another thing we used in our music video that relates to genre characteristics is the fact that
we didn’t chose one specific type of music video, such as performance based, concept based
and narrative based we felt that if we used all of them then our video would be more creative
and the audience would be more entertained throughout. This is common in pop videos, as
most pop videos tell a story, we decided to have our artist singing directly to the audience as
this gives an intimate performance however to create the narrative story we created
appropriate scenes in the video. Moreover to give a concept performance we decided to
create a symbolic message by the pills falling in the music video, this was to symbolise the
rebellion in the video without our actors actually having to pretend to take drugs!
Performance Concept
Narrative
11. Special effects…
• To make our music video unique and professional similar to Rihanna's video we needed to add
special effects. We viewed different music videos and found that split screen was a common
feature in music videos!
We liked the idea of using a split screen, however when once we had already started editing our
video on iMovie 0.9 we gathered that there wasn’t a split screen tool and it was too late in the
process of editing our music video that we couldn’t change software and move over to final cut
pro just to add split screens. We decided as a group that there was other special effect’s that we
could use that would be just as affective.
12. Special effects…
• Moreover another special effect that we liked and wanted to use in our own editing was the
double fade over, this is when one shot moves to the next and creates and effect where by
the two shots merge into each other. When researching pop music video’s we found that
this effect was very repetitive, as it made the transitions of shots look neat and allowed
different shots to look clear to the audience.
As you can see from Rihanna’s video on the left the contrast of lighting worked more
effectively then our own video however we wanted to portray a different message then in
Rihanna’s video. In Rihanna’s video the double fade over effect is used when the lightning
fades into the room she’s in, however in our video we wanted the fade to in some ways work
as a split screen as we wanted it to look like our two characters were walking in the direction
of each other to show two stories in one shot.
13. Special effects…
• A big symbolic message that we wanted to run
throughout our music video was rebellion therefore
we wanted to create a shot of fire to give it an
authentic look this was something that took time and
planning, we had to black out a room so that no
other light could be seen as the effect would not look
as professional like. We used a lighter and an aerosol
can to create this effect, however we had to re shoot
a few times as some of the shots didn’t come out
how we expected. Nevertheless we was very pleased
with the final shot!
Another special effect that we used in Imovie was the
fast forward editing tool, this was to fasten the pace
of the some of the shots. When we used this tool we
also used the reverse tool to make the shot plays in
reverse to create a repetitive statement. Both editing
techniques worked well together and also worked
with the music to create a fast and strange shot that
complemented the shot before of drugs falling.
14. Q2. How effective is the combination of your main
product with your ancillary texts?
Album Front
and Back cover!
Home page
of website
Inside of the
album cover!
15. The combination of my three products…
In the initial planning of the music video we focused on the characteristics of our artist and the
unique vibe she would represent, we wanted to create and exclusive product however we
noticed that many conventions followed through in a lot of music videos, websites and digipaks.
We researched Rihanna as this is who sings the original song and took ideas from the style she
represents we also researched into the reasons why Rihanna wrote her albums as this could give
us ideas on the symbolic messages that the album holds.
The album in which ‘we found love’ comes from (Talk that Talk) differs from Rihanna's previous
release, Loud (2010), which featured a prominently up-tempo and pop genres, ranging from
dance-pop to electro-R&B. Talk That Talk marked the return to hip hop, R&B, electro house,
electro, dancehall and dubstep, a genre first incorporated on Rihanna's fourth studio album,
Rated R (2009). Rihanna believed that she suited this type of genre of music better as in the
album Rated R she believed that her fans could relate more to the gritty and dark lyrics presented
in this album and her current one.
16. The combination of my three products…
• We decided to call the album name ‘Addictive’ this suggests an addiction which could be from
love, drugs, money. No addiction is good therefore the album name already symbolises a
darkness. Moreover the colour that represents love and pain ( which is what the album is
about) is red therefore as a group we decided that the main colour scheme should be black
white and red.
We chose a font like this to give an
impression of a signature with a kiss
at the end, the album is a present
from the artist the to audience.
We wanted the album name to be
more plainer writing, we deliberately
chose the album name to be all lower
case as addiction is not something
you should be proud of and the
ellipsis is to show that the story hasn’t
finished!
17. The combination of my three products…
The main colour theme we decided to use was black red and white, this is because each
colour has a symbolic meaning for the artists message, red to show pain and love, black to
show a dark side and finally white to represent purity. Colour adds a subliminal message; we
took numerous photos however the best photo that fitted the criteria for the back of the
digipak was the image of our artist leant against the wall smoking this was because half of the
image was the wall so this space was perfect for the song titles. The font we wanted our
artists name to be was a ‘signature’ like style of writing this was to add a personal element to
the album cover as if it was a present from the artist to her audience the album name was in
capitals and a solid bold style of writing this was symbolise that the entire album is solid and
ready!
18. The combination of my three products…
• We tried to incorporate the black red and white theme throughout our music video too,
however we didn’t want the whole video to be in black and white as we felt that it may be
boring and colour is important.
We tried to create a dark
shot with just a strobe light
and the main thing we
wanted to stand out was
her red lips in this close
up.
As you can see in the
website we followed the
theme through, with a
black background so the
images stand out and bold
red writing.
19. The combination of my three products…
This is the insert to the digipak, we felt that the black and white theme may get a
bit boring therefore we decided to add colour into this bit however we still kept
the bold red writing and added white writing to show contrast, this picture is
taken from one of the scenes in the music video therefore this shows the
audience that music video plays a big part in the new release of Jayme-Lee’s
album!
20. Q3. What have you learnt from your audience
feedback?
• Once we had nearly finished editing we decided to make a YouTube account so our peers could
watch our work and give advice and critique, once the final editing was finished we decided to
post the video to facebook to obtain audience feedback!
21. Audience feedback…
After putting our video on social networking sites we received a lot of positive
feedback, a lot of people were shocked at the standard of work we had produced
and also noticed a huge change from the first video we had edited, in the final
video we added more scenes as we were told that the video became a bit repetitive
and there wasn’t enough special effects, this is when we decided to film more and
think of more creative ideas such as creating a scene with fire!
As you can see from this comment the person suggested that we should have more
dramatic scenes, as there was a lot of ‘high’ (positive scenes) and not enough of
the lows. The whole point of the music video was to create a balance of highs and
lows, and in the final video we tried to incorporate more drugs, arguments and
lows.
22. Audience feedback…
• We showed our video to our class as we felt they would be experienced in editing techniques
and conventions of music videos, therefore they would be the best people to get constructive
criticism from, as well as our teacher who suggested ideas throughout the whole process!
These are the main comments we began to receive…
This is the negative feedback we received however a lot of positive feedback came along too, and
once we heard about the things that needed to be changed we decided to think of strategies of how
we could change all of this!
23. Audience feedback
• We already had a visual idea of what our album front and back cover would look like as this
was planned from the beginning, however we struggled on what pictures to choose for the
back and front, as we took so many! Therefore we decided to ask our class mates as they are
the target audience for the artist.
We liked this picture however, other people suggested
that the writing didn’t fit well on the album cover and
the picture stood out to much and took it away from
the artist's name and the album name… Therefore we
decided to use this picture for the back cover as the
song names would fit better where the picture looks
black and there would be a balance of writing and a
bold picture!
As you can see we used the same
image but used it for the back cover,
where the writing stood out more!
Moreover we used a black and white
image so the text would stand out as
this is the main thing that needs to be
seen to promote the artist and her
album!
24. Audience feedback…
• On the 19th of April we had a showcase to show our work, we invited friends and family and gave
them a questionnaire to fill out here are the results.
The first question that was asked was if the audience felt that the choice of setting in the video
was appropriate a lot of people said yes and that the conventions of the pop genre were all
present, we then asked how successful was the video in satisfying the conventions of the genre a
lot of people said ‘yes there were successful moments but the lip syncing was a bit off’.
We received very good comments for the editing, 'very clean cuts‘ and a lot of people said that
the ‘shots flowed’ we then asked about the cinematography how successful were the choice of
camera angles and movement most people said good and that the fast cuts and flashing went
well with the genre and the shadowing was effective.
We asked if the narrative of the music video suited the theme of the song overall everyone said
yes, moreover we asked if the narrative was easy to follow the response we got was ' reasonably
easy to follow'. We asked if the audience was entertained throughout the video and some people
said 'at times' but most said they were!
A question that is key for our progress is which bit of the video was most successful most people
agreed on the strobe light scene but others said the arguing scene.
The last question we asked was what could we do to improve our music video most people said
the lip syncing and we are going to edit the video more effectively.
The average score we got for our music video was 8.4!
25. Q4. How did you use media technologies in the
construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
• I decided to display my planning and evaluation on a blog rather than through Microsoft word
and PowerPoint. Therefore throughout the course of the project I was constantly updating my
blogs with information on the progress of our music video, the blog also helped keep a clear
location of all our work and an easy way to show and share work with our teacher and
members in our group!
Labels, so my work A video bar to
is clear and easy to show any videos I
view had posted
26. Use of media technologies…
• At first I found it hard to use the blog, if work was created on paper then it was hard to
transfer onto the blog, and it was hard to get into a routine of constantly posting work,
however in the end it was the most effective way to show work!
This is where you
could change the
layout of your blog, as
you can see it says you
can add gadgets, a
gadget that I found
very useful was the
label gadget as this is
how I could organise
my work effectively.
27. Use of media technologies
• An easy way of collecting research is using a PowerPoint however to print screen every slide
would not be time efficient therefore I had to research into ways of getting a PowerPoint onto
my blog. I found a website called slide share that is free to start and account, with an account
you can easy upload your PowerPoint's onto your blog, which takes very little time!
Another benefit of slide
share this that you receive
access to other people’s
PowerPoint’s. Therefore you
can watch relevant
PowerPoint's for research
or ideas!
28. Use of media technologies…
• A website that was constantly used throughout our project was YouTube, we used it to watch
videos and also it was an easy way to show video diaries of the progress of our work! As soon
as we had started filming we created a YouTube account for our group, whereby we all knew
the password so we could all post relevant videos when we wanted to.
A good thing about
YouTube is that you can
see how many views your
video has obtained.
Moreover who can see the gender of what
people are watching your video, this helps
to identify the target audience
29. Use of media technologies…
• Throughout the whole process of filming the music video we took various
photos with the idea that we could use them as part of our ancillary task
however we needed a type of software to edit these photos. A member of my
group had an app called instagram on her iphone, this software allows you to
edit photos and add high-quality effects that made our final pieces more
professional like. Another benefit of this app is that you can add all photos,
straight onto your account for promotion and criticisms. The only weakness of
this app is that it can only be used on apple software, so for the rest of the
group we could edit photo’s unless we was with the group member that had
the app!
As you can see this picture was
edited on instagram, the contrast
has been changed so our artist
stands out more!
30. Use of media technologies…
• As well as using instagram we used Microsoft word and paint to put the final pieces of
our work together. I downloaded the type of text used on the back cover of the album to
create a blurred digital effect.
I decided to add a
parental advisory
sticker to give it
that extra detail
and show that
our artist lyrics
may be dark!
Overall the software we used wasn’t too complicated to use and we had a lot
of previous experience with it from other subjects, however I think that our
final product looked professional and I was very happy with it!
31. Use of media technologies…
• The software we decided to edit our music video on was iMovie 0.9
‘iMovie helps you turn the HD video you shoot on your device into a thrilling trailer or
masterpiece worthy of the red carpet (even if it’s just the one in your living room). And since
iMovie is designed for Multi-Touch, all you have to do is tap, swipe and drag to make some
movie magic.’
The software we used was very easy to use, however if there was things we didn’t
understand all we had to do was type the question in Google or YouTube and explanations
would come up. I personally had used this software last year for my media coursework
therefore that is why I suggested to the group that we should use it!
32. Use of media technologies…
• Lastly, the final bit of technology we used that was extremely
important for the whole project was the video camera that we used.
Just pull the Bloggie camera out of your pocket and you're ready to
capture Full HD video and 12.8-megapixel still shots at a moment's
notice. A benefit of this camera is the simplicity of a single record
button and a large touch screen for watching shots. All filming is
stored on built-in memory, and you can easily upload your movies to
social networking sites like YouTube and Facebook.
To conclude, I thoroughly enjoyed creating a music video, I found it interesting look at
conventions and symbolic messages that were within music videos that I didn’t even
realise were there. I was very pleased with both the final music video and the
ancillary tasks and was proud that they both complimented each other well. If I
could go back I would have maybe organised a more appropriate time schedule
whereby we would have more time at the end of the course to look more in detail to
any missing elements!
A2 MEDIA COURSEWORK BY MARIANNA PICONE
ST MARYS SIXTH FORM
CANDIDATE NUMBER:
