1) The document analyzes the forms and conventions used in music videos, album covers, and magazine advertisements for indie/acoustic artists. It discusses common techniques like a focus on the artist, natural lighting, and casual clothing. 2) It then describes the creation of media products for an indie artist, including a music video featuring parkour artists, a album cover, and magazine ad. Similar techniques were used across products like an emphasis on the artist through lighting and blurred backgrounds. 3) Audience feedback found that the products successfully portrayed the intended genre and theme of "City Life" through the narrative and locations used. Photoshop and video editing software allowed the manipulation of images and addition of music to complete the

1. Evaluation ADVANCED PORTFOLIO BILLI HATFIELD

2. The forms and conventions of a music promotion package Range of camera shots/angles used in order to present emotions, locations and artist emphasis. Mise-en-scene is used to reflect the emotion and meaning behind the song, for example in the Sinead O’Conner video, there is relatively dark artificial lighting as well as her being on her own, which suggests depression and isolation. This has also been transferred to empty city scenes, however these used far more natural lighting.

3. ... Straight cuts as well as fades and dissolves are most commonly found in music videos as different forms are used depending upon the mood/genre of the song/artist The lyrics of the song often match what is shown in the video or reflect a message The costume/ dress of the artists often reflect the genre of the music The artist is often shown performing within the video Visuals match the beat and tempo of the music CD cover is often simplistic with very little text present A similar or the same font as well as image is used to connect the two media products The magazine has the release date of the album release

5. Uses close ups of the artist singing and sometimes playing a musical instrument such as a guitar

6. The artist and people within the video are usually wearing casual/informal clothing- this clothing reflects their musical style

7. Camera largely uses close ups and long shots to capture close-ups of the artist singing and to place them in a setting. Straight cuts and dissolves are largely used in editing to create a softer tone and effect to the images that smoothly transfer from one to the next

8. Examples:Jason Mraz- ‘I’m Yours’ James Morrison- ‘You give me some something’

9. The forms and conventions of indie/acoustic album covers Soft Lighting Text that links to and reflects the style of the artist Main focus upon the artist Title often used to link to the theme of the album Sometimes cartoon style drawing used Artist appears looking thoughtful in photographed shots

10. The forms and conventions of indie/acoustic magazine advertisements Soft lighting Main focus upon the artist Album cover itself not always present on the advert Anime sometimes used as a representation of the artist (more creative) Has a relatively calming portrayal

11. Using forms and conventions Transitions between each scene is soft by using a cross fade which links each scene smoothly into one another The setting where the free-running artists perform is throughout the city centre of Birmingham Large focus upon the artist when she appears, sole focus Close-ups and long shots alternate between the individuals doing free-running and the artist Natural lighting used nearly all the way through as set outdoors

12. … Sepia tones used on the digi-pack and magazine advertisement Casual, informal, but trendy clothing worn by the artist links to the indie genre Text links the two print items together as well as using the same effects Sepia/saturated tones in the background Casual, yet fashionable dress

13. Developing forms and conventions Focusing upon the artist, but not in an outdoor space Although soft transitions are used, cross fades are not as common in music videos, however it allowed us to create a subliminal relationship between the artist and those doing free-running Although the artist is shown through both the digi-pack and magazine advertisement, the people with the background are out of focus, further emphasising attention to the artist while being surrounded by others Artist focus

14. Challenging forms and conventions Slow motion used throughout in order to give a more ‘arty’ appearance The artist is withdrawn from the relationship by being against a black background, more like telling the story The contrast of the artist has been enhanced on both the digi-pack and magazine advertisement which draws further attention to them as well as separating them from the rest of the city around- linking to the use of artificial lighting and a black background in the music video

15. The final digi-pack Artist focus City scenes link to the song about ‘City Life’ Enhanced contrast leads to even more focus upon the artist Saturated background shows further detachment and could be seen to be at a different time Blurred people emphasise focus upon the artist and separates her from the rest of the world- detachment

16. The final magazine advertisement Saturated background allows for further focus upon the artist as well as relating to the theme of the song with it being a city background Blurred people Enhanced contrast makes the artist stand out and become the focal point of the image Linking text allows the products to be connected to one another so they audience can identify them and associate them with each other

17. How effectively do the media products work together The media products work very well together by being interlinked in both obvious and far more subtle ways The artist is constantly focused upon with artificial lighting in all three of the media products Natural/softer lighting has been used in the background of all three media products The artist appears on all three products The use of the camera to create blurred people in the background has been used on both the digi-pack and the magazine advertisement- this has to some extent also been created by the free runners being in slow motion in the music promotion video The theme of the city is used and created throughout all three products while still keeping artist focus

18. Audience feedback For our audience feedback we surveyed students our own age to see their reaction as this was our target audience for the music promotion package Suited the genre well and engaged the audience, able to see free running as an art and presented in a positive light The target audience is easily identified as young people and the signifiers which lead the audience to believe this are successful The genre of the products are identified easily by the mise-en-scene, such as how the artist is dressed The theme of ‘City Life’ is in the narrative of the products – This is shown by the location of the free running artists and also the subliminal story/relationship between the artist and one of the free runners. This association has been largely created through the fast cross fades at the beginning of the promotion video

19. The use of media technologies For the filming of our music promotion video I used a video camera, which allowed me to develop my filming skills as I have had very little practice with using a camera before For the photos we took for locations and general snapshots, a basic samsung digital camera was used with the setting on auto which allowed us to quickly capture the images we needed in order to plan and storyboard all three of our media products For the final photographs I used a Nikon D80 camera that allowed me to change the shutter settings to stay open for 1/3 of a second as well as adapt the ISO and white balance so the correct lighting could be achieved while blurring the people walking past in the background Once our raw images had been captured and filmed we then moved on to editing in order to get them looking exactly the way we needed them too and ordering them in the correct way

20. ... Using Photoshop enabled me to put my editing skills into practice, I am a fairly confident user of Photoshop so found this to be one of the least challenging parts of the coursework. I used the magnetic lasso tool in order to select the artist exactly and then change the contrast and brightness of her so that she stood out against the background, which I slightly saturated in order to enhance the effect. I order to give the background a greater amount of sepia tones I also changed the colour balance by adding more red tones into the image while reducing blue tones by a very small amount. After this I was able to add text onto the images in Photoshop which used relatively ‘fancy’ font in order to create a slightly flirty look, relating it to being a female artist.

21. ... In order to edit the music video we used adobe premier elements, this enabled us to capture our filming from the camera and very quickly cut out the film we did no longer wish to use. After doing this we re-ordered the film so that we were happy with the ‘journey’ that the free runners were going on through the city centre. I was then focusing on the image while my partner focused on the faster paced editing cuts at the beginning of the music video. After we had cut in all the free running scenes in the right order we then slowed them down to between 40-50% which is the effect we wanted to create in order for the audience to perceive free running as a far more artistic and skillful sport. After doing this we then came on to the most challenging part of matching our artist miming in time to the music, this was very difficult to do and involved moving her by milliseconds in order to get the lips in exact time.

22. ... Using adobe premier elements we also added the music to our track, we imported the mp3 file from the computer and unlinked the sound that was previously on the sections of film. This then allowed us to place the music alongside the film which we could then make further editing changes to in terms of timing so that the tempo of the music matched the moving image. In order to evaluate my music promotion package I have used PowerPoint which allows me to evaluate my products while being able to import images and use screen grabs as examples of my work. PowerPoint has enabled me to create a more visually appealing evaluation that is easy to read as it has been broken down between slides that are relevant to one another.